XXV i 
PREFACE. 
can be as little reafon for receiving Arabic names 
through the medium of the Italian, as for adopting 
the French way of writing Greek ones, as Denys for 
Dionyfius^ and Tite-hive for Titus Livius. Kahira and 
Rafhid have each of them their proper meaning in 
Arabic. — In Italian they have no meaning. The 
only rule obferved has been, to bring back proper 
names to the original pronunciation, as far as might 
be done without obfcurity. 
Where a circumflex has been put over a vowel it 
is to denote its length, or fomething exotic in the 
enunciation. An approach to fy ftematic regularity 
would have been attempted in expreffing Arabic 
words by Roman letters, but the author freely owns 
that no rule, at once general in its ufe and fimple 
and eafy enough to be remembered, has yet occurred 
to him. He has therefore added the original word, 
wherever it could in any degree tend to illuflration 
or preciflon. 
The word Turk is never applied to fignify a pro- 
felTor of Mohammedifm, an indefinite mode of 
defignation, that occafions perpetual confufion in 
fpeaking 
