will but enhance, by the contrast, the charm of your finished picture.

Bayard Taylor.




Preface.



This volume comprises the second portion of a series of travels, of which
the "Journey to Central Africa," already published, is the first part. I
left home, intending to spend a winter in Africa, and to return during the
following summer; but circumstances afterwards occurred, which prolonged
my wanderings to nearly two years and a half, and led me to visit many
remote and unexplored portions of the globe. To describe this journey in a
single work, would embrace too many incongruous elements, to say nothing
of its great length, and as it falls naturally into three parts, or
episodes, of very distinct character, I have judged it best to group my
experiences under three separate heads, merely indicating the links which
connect them. This work includes my travels in Palestine, Syria, Asia
Minor, Sicily and Spain, and will be followed by a third and concluding
volume, containing my adventures in India, China, the Loo-Choo Islands,
and Japan. Although many of the letters, contained in this volume,
describe beaten tracks of travel, I have always given my own individual
impressions, and may claim for them the merit of entire sincerity. The
journey from Aleppo to Constantinople, through the heart of Asia Minor,
illustrates regions rarely traversed by tourists, and will, no doubt, be
new to most of my readers. My aim, throughout the work, has been to give