From his earliest youth, he devoted himself to the search after truth,
without being disheartened by the serious studies which alone can
initiate us into her secrets. After having become acquainted with the
ancient languages, the natural sciences and history, and being admitted
into the society of the most eminent literary characters, he submitted,
at the age of twenty, to an illustrious academy, the solution of one of
the most difficult problems that the history of antiquity has left open
for discussion. This attempt received no encouragement from the learned
men who were appointed his judges; and the author's only appeal from
their sentence was to his courage and his efforts.

Soon after, a small inheritance having fallen to his lot, the difficulty
was how to spend it (these are his own words.) He resolved to employ
it in acquiring, by a long voyage, a new fund of information, and
determined to visit Egypt and Syria. But these countries could not be
explored to advantage without a knowledge of the language. Our young
traveller was not to be discouraged by this difficulty. Instead of
learning Arabic in Europe, he withdrew to a convent of Copts, until he
had made himself master of an idiom that is spoken by so many nations
of the East. This resolution showed one of those undaunted spirits that
remain unshaken amid the trials of life.

Although, like other travellers, he might have amused us with an account
of his hardships and the perils surmounted by his courage, he overcame
the temptation of interrupting his narrative by personal adventures. He
disdained the beaten track. He does not tell us the road he took, the
accidents he met with, or the impressions he received. He carefully
avoids appearing upon the stage; he is an inhabitant of the country,
who has long and well observed it, and who describes its physical,