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THE CARAVAN FROM MECCA, ENTERING THE FORTRESS OF AKABAH.

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL

IN

EGYPT, ARABIA PETRÆA,

AND

THE HOLY LAND.

BY AN AMERICAN. i.e.

Juc. Lloyd Stephens

WITH A MAP AND ENGRAVINGS.

IN TWO VOLUME S.

VOL. I.

NEW-YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-STREET.

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[Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1837, by HARPER & BROTHERS,

in the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.]

PREFACE.

In the present state of the world it is almost presumptuous to put forth a book of travels. Universal peace and extended commercial relations, the introduction of steamboats, and increased facilities of travelling generally, have brought comparatively close together the most distant parts of the world; and, except within the walls of China, there are few countries which have not been visited and written upon by European travellers. The author's route, however, is comparatively new to the most of his countrymen; part of it-through the land of Edom -is, even at this day, entirely new. The author has compiled these pages from brief notes and recollections, and has probably fallen into errors in facts and impressions, which his occupations since his return have prevented his inquiring into and correcting. He has presented things as they struck his mind, without perplexing himself with any deep speculations upon the rise and fall of empires; nor

has he gone much into detail in regard to ruins. His object has been, principally, as the title of the book imports, to give a narrative of the every-day incidents that occur to a traveller in the East, and to present to his countrymen, in the midst of the hurry, and bustle, and life, and energy, and dailydeveloping strength and resources of the New, a picture of the widely-different scenes that are now passing in the faded and worn-out kingdoms of the Old World. For the plates on Mt. Sinai and Petra he is indebted to the work of Mr. Laborde.

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