Arabia, the geographer, curious concerning this portion of the Moslem's
Holy Land, possesses all that has as yet been written upon the subject.

The editor, to whom the author in his absence has intrusted his work,
had hoped to have completed it by the simultaneous publication of the
third volume, containing the pilgrimage to Meccah. The delay, however,
in the arrival from India of this portion of the MS. has been such as
to induce him at once to publish El Misr and El Medinah. The concluding
volume on Meccah is now in the hands of the publisher, and will appear
in the Autumn of the present year. Meanwhile the Public will not lose
sight of the subject of Arabia. Part of El Hejaz has lately been
inspected by M. Charles Didier, an eminent name in French literature,
and by the Abbe Hamilton,-persuaded, it is believed, by our author to

[p.xxvii]visit Taif and Wady Laymum. Though entirely unconnected with
the subjects of Meccah and El Medinah, the account of the Sherif's
Court where these gentlemen were received with distinction, and of the
almost unknown regions about Jebel Kora, will doubtless be welcomed by
the Orientalists and Geographers of Europe.

Mr. Burton is already known by his "History of Sindh." And as if to
mark their sense of the spirit of observation and daring evinced by him
when in that country, and still more during his late journeyings in
Arabia and East Africa, the Geographical Society, through their learned
Secretary, Dr. Norton Shaw, have given valuable aid to this work in its
progress through the press, supplying maps where necessary to complete
the illustrations supplied by the author,-who, it will be perceived, is
himself no mean draughtsman.

It was during a residence of many years in India that Mr. Burton had