PREFACE. 
The following pages are the compressed contents of the Journals of 
nearly six years. Their principal materials are neither the sciences, the 
arts, nor even the political institutions of the countries through which 
we passed, (subjects, each of which would fill a volume); but rather the 
local scenery and manners of Persia, and the observations which they 
suggested at the time, and on the spot. Yet, wherever that scenery has 
before been described, it is but slightly noticed in the following work, 
however full may be the page of the original MS.; and again, where the 
proceedings of the Embassy resembled those of the earlier mission which 
I accompanied, and which I have related in a former work, little more 
is extracted from my Journal than might be sufficient to connect the 
parts which have the interest of novelty : while, on the other hand, 
wherever the coincidence which I observed between the living manners 
of the East, and the descriptions in sacred or profane writers could 
tend to elucidate antient history, and more immediately to illustrate 
the style or the narrative of Scripture, the details of the Journal are 
left unbroken and unaltered, and the references are enlarged and 
explained. 
. The parts of the Journal, indeed, most carefull}" preserved are the 
remarks on these subjects: for the manners of the East, amidst all the 
