PREFACE.



A few pages by way of "Forespeache."

The plain unvarnished tale of the travel in Midian, undertaken by
the second Expedition, which, like the first, owes all to the
liberality and the foresight of his Highness Ismail I., Khediv of
Egypt, forms the subject of these volumes. During the four months
between December 19, 1877, and April 20, 1878, the officers
employed covered some 2500 miles by sea and land, of which 600,
not including by-paths, were mapped and planned; and we brought
back details of an old-new land which the civilized world had
clean forgotten.

The public will now understand that one and the same subject has
not given rise to two books. I have to acknowledge with gratitude
the many able and kindly notices by the Press of my first volume
("The Gold Mines of Midian," etc. Messrs. C. Kegan Paul & Co.,
1878). But some reviewers succeeded in completely
misunderstanding the drift of that avant courier. It was an
introduction intended to serve as a base for the present more
extensive work, and--foundations intended to bear weight must be
solid. Its object was to place before the reader the broad
outlines of a country whose name was known to "every schoolboy,"