Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 1 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
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page 11 of 501 (02%)
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Burckhardt[FN#3] and Lieut. Burton,[FN#4] have been able to send us
back an account of their travels there, it cannot be doubted but that the present work will be hailed as a welcome addition to our knowledge of these hitherto mysterious penetralia of Mohammedan superstition. In fact, El Madinah may be considered almost a virgin theme; for as Burckhardt was prostrated by sickness throughout the period of his stay in the Northern Hejaz, he was not able to describe it as satisfactorily or minutely as he did the Southern country,-he could not send a plan of the Mosque, or correct the popular but erroneous ideas which prevail concerning it and the surrounding city. The reader may question the propriety of introducing [p.xxvi]in a work of description, anecdotes which may appear open to the charge of triviality. The author's object, however, seems to be to illustrate the peculiarities of the people-to dramatise, as it were, the dry journal of a journey,-and to preserve the tone of the adventures, together with that local colouring in which mainly consists "l'education d'un voyage." For the same reason, the prayers of the "Visitation" ceremony have been translated at length, despite the danger of inducing tedium; they are an essential part of the subject, and cannot be omitted, nor be represented by "specimens." The extent of the Appendix requires some explanation. Few but literati are aware of the existence of Lodovico Bartema's naive recital, of the quaint narrative of Jos. Pitts, or of the wild journal of Giovanni Finati. Such extracts have been now made from these writers that the general reader can become acquainted with the adventures and opinions of the different travellers who have visited El Hejaz during a space of 350 years. Thus, with the second volume of Burckhardt's Travels in |
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