PREFACE. 
thinking all the reft of mankind dogs and ac- 
curfed. 
The general defign of the Writer, as will be feen 
in the fequel, was of fuch a nature, that, without 
being extremely fanguine, he might have hoped to 
execute a confiderable part of it. His profpe<Sts 
the firft year were darkened by an unexpeded dif- 
appointment on his arrival at AfTuan ; concerning 
which he may fay, without any difpofition to com- 
plaint, that he felt it feverely. Another winter 
furnifhed him with a little more information and 
more experience : but ftill, as he afterwards un- 
fortunately difcovered, by no means all that was 
neceffary to his purpofe. 
He might have appeared in Dar-Fur as a Mo- 
hammedan, if he had known that the charader was 
neceffary to his perfonal fecurity, or to his unre- 
ftrained paffage; but, from the accounts he received 
in Kahira, among the people of Soudan no violent 
animofity was exhibited againft Chriftians. The 
charader of the converts to Mohammedifm, among 
b the 
