Ixviii INTRODUCTION. 



occaflon to regret they have not fearched for information in 

 more ancient fources. 



The work begins with my voyage from Sidon to Alex- 

 andria, and up the Nile to the firft cataract. The reader 

 will not expect that I mould dwell long upon the particular 

 hiftory of Egypt ; every other year has furnifhed us with 

 fome account of it, good or bad ; and the two laft publica- 

 tions of M. Savary and Volney feem to have left the fub- 

 ject thread-bare. This, however, is not the only reafon. 



After Mr Wood and Mr Dawkins had publifhed their 

 Ruins of Palmyra, the late king of Denmark, at his own ex- 

 pence, fent out a number of men, eminent in their feveral 

 profeffions, to make difcoveries in the eaft, of every kind, 

 with thefe very flattering inftructions, that though they 

 might, and ought, to vifit both Baalbec and Palmyra for 

 their own ftudies and improvement, yet he prohibited them 

 to fo far interfere with what the Englifh travellers had done, 

 as to form any plan of another work limilar to theirs. This 

 compliment was gratefully received; and, as I was directly 

 to follow this miffion, Mr Wood defired me to return it, and 

 to abftain as much as poffible from writing on the fame 

 fubjects chofen by M. Niebuhr, at leaft to abftain either 

 from criticiling or differing from him on fuch fubjects. I 

 have therefore parted flightly over Egypt and Arabia ; per- 

 haps, indeed, 1 have faid enough of both : if any fhall be of 

 another opinion, they may have recourfe to M. Niebuhr's- 

 more copious work ; he was the only perfon of fix who 

 lived to come home, the reft having died in different parts 

 of Arabia, without having been able to enter Abyflinia, one 

 of the objects of their miffion. 



'■- • M:i 



