PUBLISHED BY THE ASSOCIATION FOR PROMOTING THE DISCOVERY OF THE INTERIOR
PARTS OF AFRICA.
[1822]
PREFACE OF THE EDITOR.
[p.i]It is hoped that little apology is necessary for the publication of
a volume of Travels in Asia, by a Society, whose sole professed object
is the promotion of discoveries in the African continent.
The Association having had the good fortune to obtain the services of a
person of Mr. Burckhardt's education and talents, resolved to spare
neither time nor expense in enabling him to acquire the language and
manners of an Arabian Musulman in such a degree of perfection, as should
render the detection of his real character in the interior of Africa
extremely difficult.
It was thought that a residence at Aleppo would afford him the most
convenient means of study, while his intercourse with the natives of
that city, together with his occasional tours in Syria, would supply him
with a view of Arabian life and manners in every degree, from the
Bedouin camp to the populous city. While thus preparing himself for the
ultimate object of his mission, he was careful to direct his journeys
through those parts of Syria which had been the least frequented by
European travellers, and thus he had the opportunity of making some
important additions to our knowledge of one of those countries of which
the geography is not less interesting by its connection with ancient
history, than it is imperfect, in consequence of the impediments which
modern barbarism has opposed to scientific researches. After consuming
near three years in Syria, Mr. Burckhardt, on his arrival in Egypt,
found himself prevented from pursuing the execution of his instructions,
by [p.ii] a suspension of the usual commercial intercourse with the
interior of Africa, and was thus, during the ensuing five years, placed
under the necessity of employing his time in Egypt and the adjacent
countries in the same manner as he had done in Syria. After the journeys
in Egypt, Nubia, Arabia, and Mount Sinai, which have been briefly
described in the Memoir prefixed to the former volume of his travels,
his death at Cairo, at the moment when he was preparing for immediate
departure to Fezzan, left the Association in possession of a large
collection of manuscripts concerning the countries visited by their
traveller in these preparatory journeys, but of nothing more than oral
information as to those to which he had been particularly sent. As his
journals in Nubia, and in the regions adjacent to the Astaboras,
although relating only to an incidental part of his mission to Africa,
were descriptive of countries coming strictly within the scope of the
African Association, these, together with all his collected information
on the interior of Africa, were selected for earliest publication. The
present volume contains his observations in Syria and Arabia Petraea; to
which has been added his tour in the Peninsula of Mount Sinai, although
the latest of all his travels in date, because it is immediately
connected, by its subject, with his journey through the adjacent
districts of the Holy Land. There still remain manuscripts sufficient to
fill two volumes; one of these will consist of his travels in Arabia,
which were confined to the Hedjaz, or Holy Land of the Musulmans, the
part least accessible to Christians; the fourth volume will contain very
copious remarks on the Arabs on the Desert, and particularly the
Wahabys.
The two principal maps annexed to the present volume have been
constructed under the continued inspection of the Editor, by Mr. John
Walker, junior, by whom they have been delineated and engraved.
[p.iii]In the course of this process, it has been found, that our
traveller's bearings by the compass are not always to be relied on.
Those which were obviously incorrect, and useless for geographical
purposes, have been omitted in the Journal; some instances of the same
kind, which did not occur to the Editor until the sheets were printed,
are noticed in the Errata, and if a few still remain, the reader is
intreated not to consider them as proofs of negligence in the formation
of the maps, which have been carefully constructed from Burckhardt's
materials, occasionally assisted and corrected by other extant
authorities. One cannot easily decide, whether the errors in our
traveller's bearings are chiefly to be attributed to the variable nature
of the instrument, or to the circumstances of haste and concealment
under which he was often obliged to take his observations, though it is
sufficiently evident that be fell into the error, not uncommon with
unexperienced travellers, of multiplying bearings to an excessive
degree, instead of verifying a smaller number, and measuring
intermediate angles with a pocket sextant. However his mistakes may have
arisen, the consequence has been, that some parts of the general map
illustrative of his journeys in Syria and the Holy Land have been
constructed less from his bearings than from his distances in time,
combined with those of other travellers, and checked by some known
points on the coast. Hence also a smaller scale has been chosen for that
map than may be formed from the same materials when a few points in the
interior are determined by celestial observations. In the mean time it
is hoped, that the present sketch will be sufficient to enable the
reader to pursue the narrative without much difficulty, especially as
the part of Syria which the traveller examined with more minuteness than
any other, the Haouran, is illustrated by a map upon a larger scale,
which has been composed from two delineations made by him in his two
journeys in that province.
[p.iv]It appears unnecessary to the Editor to enter into any lengthened
discussion in justification of the ancient names which he has inserted
in the maps; he thinks it sufficient to refer to the copious exposition
of the evidences of Sacred Geography contained in the celebrated work of
Reland.
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