Finally, I Have Found Proof, To Be Produced In A Future Part
Of This Publication, For Believing In Three Distinct Races.
1.
The
aborigines of the country, driven like the Bhils and other autochthonic
Indians, into the eastern and south-eastern wilds bordering upon the
ocean. 2. A Syrian or Mesopotamian stock, typified by Shem and Joktan,
that drove the Indigenae from the choicest tracts of country; these
invaders still enjoy their conquests, representing the great Arabian
people. And 3. An impure Syro-Egyptian clan-we personify it by Ishmael,
by his son Nabajoth, and by Edom, (Esau, the son of Isaac)-that
populated and still populates the Sinaitic Peninsula. And in most
places, even in the heart of Meccah, I met with debris of heathenry,
proscribed by Mohammed, yet still popular, while the ignorant observers
of the old customs assign to them a modern and a rationalistic origin.
I have entitled this account of my summer's tour through Al-Hijaz, a
Personal Narrative, and I have laboured to make its nature correspond
with its name, simply because "it is the personal that interests
mankind." Many may not follow my example;[FN#5] but some
[p.5]perchance will be curious to see what measures I adopted, in order
to appear suddenly as an Eastern upon the stage of Oriental life; and
as the recital may be found useful by future adventurers, I make no
apology for the egotistical semblance of the narrative. Those who have
felt the want of some "silent friend" to aid them with advice, when it
must not be asked, will appreciate what may appear to the uninterested
critic mere outpourings of a mind full of self.[FN#6]
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