Produced by William Thierens and Ann Westfall
[1822]
[p.i]It is hoped that little apology is necessary for the publication ofa volume of Travels in Asia, by a Society, whose sole professed objectis the promotion of discoveries in the African continent.
The Association having had the good fortune to obtain the services of aperson of Mr. Burckhardt's education and talents, resolved to spareneither time nor expense in enabling him to acquire the language andmanners of an Arabian Musulman in such a degree of perfection, as shouldrender the detection of his real character in the interior of Africaextremely difficult.
It was thought that a residence at Aleppo would afford him the mostconvenient means of study, while his intercourse with the natives ofthat city, together with his occasional tours in Syria, would supply himwith a view of Arabian life and manners in every degree, from theBedouin camp to the populous city. While thus preparing himself for theultimate object of his mission, he was careful to direct his journeysthrough those parts of Syria which had been the least frequented byEuropean travellers, and thus he had the opportunity of making someimportant additions to our knowledge of one of those countries of whichthe geography is not less interesting by its connection with ancienthistory, than it is imperfect, in consequence of the impediments whichmodern barbarism has opposed to scientific researches. After consumingnear 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 theinterior of Africa, and was thus, during the ensuing five years, placedunder the necessity of employing his time in Egypt and the adjacentcountries in the same manner as he had done in Syria. After the journeysin Egypt, Nubia, Arabia, and Mount Sinai, which have been brieflydescribed in the Memoir prefixed to the former volume of his travels,his death at Cairo, at the moment when he was preparing for immediatedeparture to Fezzan, left the Association in possession of a largecollection of manuscripts concerning the countries visited by theirtraveller in these preparatory journeys, but of nothing more than oralinformation as to those to which he had been particularly sent. As hisjournals 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 theAfrican Association, these, together with all his collected informationon the interior of Africa, were selected for earliest publication. Thepresent volume contains his observations in Syria and Arabia Petraea; towhich has been added his tour in the Peninsula of Mount Sinai, althoughthe latest of all his travels in date, because it is immediatelyconnected, by its subject, with his journey through the adjacentdistricts of the Holy Land. There still remain manuscripts sufficient tofill two volumes; one of these will consist of his travels in Arabia,which were confined to the Hedjaz, or Holy Land of the Musulmans, thepart least accessible to Christians; the fourth volume will contain verycopious remarks on the Arabs on the Desert, and particularly theWahabys.
The two princi