This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler

ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY OF TRAVEL

TRAVELS IN ARABIA

COMPILED ANDARRANGED BY
BAYARD TAYLOR

REVISEDBY
THOMAS STEVENS

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1898

p. iiCopyright1881, 1892, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

TROWDIRECTORY

PRINTING ANDBOOKBINDING COMPANY

NEWYORK

p.iiiREVISER’S NOTE

The continuance of Bayard Taylor’s Library of Travel inthe popular favor is one of the accepted facts of the literaryworld.  So much so, indeed, that a revision of his works onthe part of another is to be permitted only on certain conditionsof reserve, and by reason of events that have transpired sincethe death of the distinguished traveller.

Travellers and authors die; but the tribes, nations, and racesvisited by them continue on, making war or peace, changingfrontiers, setting up or pulling down dynasties.

The whole political complexion of a country may be changed ina decade.  Though the people of Arabia, the genuineBedouins, are believed to have changed little or nothing in theirmode of life since the days of the Shepherd Kings ofAbraham’s time, waves of political and religious agitationhave occasionally rippled over one part or another of the ancientpeninsula.  Seemingly they make as little permanentimpression on the undercurrent of Bedouin life, as do the wavesof the sea on its immutable whole, so that the accounts of theearlier chroniclers of Arabian life and manners agree in asingular manner with the descriptions of contemporaryvisitors.  For this reason, no less than for the respect andadmiration p.iventertained by the reviser for Mr. Taylor’sconscientiousness and judgment as a traveller and compiler, andhis literary excellence as an author, this volume remains,practically, as fully the work of its original editor asbefore.

By way of bringing it up to date, however, Chapter XVII. hasbeen added, and such slight revision of preceding chapters hasbeen made as was found necessary, consistent with the scope andintention of the new edition.

ThomasStevens.

p.vCONTENTS.