The Text Has Been Carefully Revised, And The "Baggage Of Notes" Has
Been Materially Lightened.[FN#1] From The Appendix I Have Removed
Matter Which, Though Useful To The Student, Is Of Scant General
Interest.
The quaint and interesting "Narrative and Voyages of
Ludovicus Vertomannus, Gentleman of Rome," need no longer be read in
extracts, when the whole has been printed by the Hakluyt Society.
(The
Travels of Ludovico di Varthema in Egypt, Syria, Arabia Deserta and
Arabia Felix, in Persia, India, and Ethiopia, A.D. 1503 to 1508.
Translated from the original Italian edition of 1510, with a Preface by
John Winter Jones, Esq., F.S.A., and edited,
[p.xx]with notes and an Introduction, by George Percy Badger, late
Government Chaplain in the Presidency of Bombay. London.) On the other
hand, I have inserted after the Appendix, with the permission of the
author, two highly interesting communications from Dr. Aloys Sprenger,
the well-known Orientalist and Arabist, concerning the routes of the
Great Caravans. My friend supports his suspicions that an error of
direction has been made, and geographers will enjoy the benefit of his
conscientious studies, topographical and linguistic.
The truculent attacks made upon pilgrims and Darwayshes call for a few
words of notice. Even that learned and amiable philanthropist, the late
Dr. John Wilson of Bombay ("Lands of the Bible," vol. ii., p. 302)
alludes, in the case of the Spaniard Badia, alias Ali Bey al-Abbasi, to
the "unjustifiable fanciful disguise of a Mohammedan Pilgrim." The
author of the Ruddy Goose Theory ("Voice of Israel from Mount Sinai")
and compiler of the "Historical Geography of Arabia" has dealt a foul
blow to the memory of Burckhardt, the energetic and inoffensive Swiss
traveller, whose name has ever been held in the highest repute.
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