A loud _Amen_ seemed to peal from without, and the awakened reader started
to his feet. And lo! it was the thunder of the winter-storm crashing among
the many-tinted crags of Monte Pellegrino,--with the wind raging as it
knows how to rage here in sight of the Isles of Aeolus, and the rain
dashing on the glass as ruthlessly as it well could have done, if, instead
of Aeolic Isles and many-tinted crags, the window had fronted a dearer
shore beneath a northern sky, and looked across the grey Firth to the
rain-blurred outline of the Lomond Hills.

But I end, saying to Messer Marco's prayer, Amen.

PALERMO, _31st December, 1874_.


[1] It would be ingratitude if this Preface contained no acknowledgment of
the medals awarded to the writer, mainly for this work, by the Royal
Geographical Society, and by the Geographical Society of Italy, the
former under the Presidence of Sir Henry Rawlinson, the latter under
that of the Commendatore C. Negri. Strongly as I feel the too generous
appreciation of these labours implied in such awards, I confess to
have been yet more deeply touched and gratified by practical evidence
of the approval of the two distinguished Travellers mentioned above;
as shown by Baron von Richthofen in his spontaneous proposal to
publish a German version of the book under his own immediate
supervision (a project in abeyance, owing to circumstances beyond his
or my control); by Mr. Ney Elias in the fact of his having carried
these ponderous volumes with him on his solitary journey across the
Mongolian wilds!