INTRODUCTION. lxiii 



the fun's parallax by obfervation of the tranfit of Venus, 

 from fome apprehenfion that errors of the obfervers would 

 probably be more than the quantity of the equation fought, 

 and that they now ardently wiflied for a journey into A- 

 byffinia, rather than an attempt to fettle a nicety for which 

 the learned had now begun to think the accuracy of our 

 inftruments was not fufncient. A letter from my correfpon- 

 dent at Alexandria alfo acquainted me, that the quadrant, 

 and all other inftruments, were in that city.- 



What followed is the voyage itfelf, the fubjecY of the 

 prefent publication. I am happy, by communicating every 

 previous circumftance that occurred to me, to have done all 

 in my power to remove the greateft part of the reafonable 

 doubts and difficulties which might have perplexed the rea- 

 der's mind, or biafled his judgment in the perufal of the 

 narrative of the journey, and in this I hope I have fucceed- 

 ed- 



I have now one remaining part of my promife to fulfil, 

 to account for the delay in the publication. It will not be 

 thought furprifing to any that fhall reflect on the diftant, 

 dreary, and defert ways by which all letters were necefla- 

 rily to pafs, or the civil wars then raging in Abyffinia, the 

 robberies and violences infeparable from a total diftblution 1 

 of government, fuch as happened in my time, that no ac- 

 counts for many years, one excepted, ever arrived in Eu- 

 rope. One letter, accompanied by a bill for a fum borrow- 

 ed from a Greek at Gondar, found its way to Cairo; all 

 the reft had mifcarried : my friends at home gave me up 

 for dead ; and, as my death muft have happened in circum- 

 ftances difficult to have been proved, .my property became 



as 



