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PREFACE.

It is now three years since I had the pleasure of laying before the public a volume of Travels in Palestine, through the countries of Bashan and Gilead, and the region of the Decapolis, East of the River Jordan. The flattering reception given to that work by the literary world in general, and the uniform testimony of the principal critics of the day to its merits, occasioned it to pass rapidly into a second edition; when the Quarterly Review, which had been convicted, by certain passages in these Travels, of glaring errors in its criticisms on the works of others, put forth one of the most slanderous articles that ever appeared even in its preeminently slanderous pages, with a view to condemn and destroy (as far as its malignant influence could effect such destruction,) what almost every periodical publication in England had before commended, with the most unequivocal appearance of sincerity and good faith.

Being then in India, I was unable to do more than publish a Reply there to the aspersions of this Review, for criticisms they

could not be called; and this was done without a moment's delay. Circumstances, over which I had no control, prevented the republication of this Reply in England, from which, no doubt, many must have inferred that nothing had appeared elsewhere. Having myself, however, been compelled to leave India, and return to this country, from causes sufficiently well known to the public to render any detail of them in this place quite unnecessary, I have embraced the earliest opportunity, which a suspension of my struggles to obtain redress for the injuries I have received from the East India government, now fortunately admits, to bring before the public the present volume of Travels among the Arab Tribes inhabiting the countries East of Syria and Palestine, in the hope of its being found still more worthy their approbation than the former one, already named.

The calumnies of the Quarterly Review, with the complete refutation by which I was enabled to repel them as soon as they appeared in India; the unfounded aspersions of the late Mr. Burckhardt, with an exposition of their falsehood by the very individual cited by him as an authority for his facts; and the unparalleled conduct of Mr. William John Bankes, Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge, and son of Mr. Henry Bankes, the Member for Corfe Castle; with a complete exposure of the unwarrantable proceedings of the father and son, in an attempt to suppress my work, in which they succeeded for nearly two years, by deterring Mr. Murray, the bookseller, from fulfilling his engagement, after it had been finally made binding on his part; are all included in an Appendix at the end of the present volume.

The reader is, therefore, earnestly requested not to close the book without glancing through the Appendix in question, where he will find, among other attractive pieces, the following choice morceaux to repay his attention:- Some fragments of letters from the late Mr. Burckhardt to myself, sent to me from Egypt and Arabia, full of the most friendly professions and assurances.-Portions of a paper shortly afterwards circulated among others, and without my knowledge, by the same Mr. Burckhardt, full of the most infamous aspersions on my character; citing as his authority for many of the facts, a gentleman who positively denies, in writing, having ever made many of the assertions imputed to him! — Letters of Mr. William John Bankes, addressed to me in Syria, after we had travelled together for a considerable time, acknowledging the superiority of my activity in writing, and the greater accuracy of my judgment in observing, as compared with his own; admitting his having read my notes, and expressing a hope that I should not be ashamed to see my name associated with his in any joint literary undertaking. — A Letter from the same individual, sent from Thebes at a subsequent period, insinuating that I had never written any notes of my own at all; and stating my ignorance to be such that I could not even copy a Greek inscription, and did not know a Turkish building from a Roman one!-A Letter from Mr. Henry Bankes, senior, to Mr. Murray the bookseller, cautioning him against publishing any thing of mine on Syria, as his son was soon expected in England; and desiring that my work should be suppressed, until his son could get his materials on the same country published before me!-A Letter from Mr. William Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly Review, to Mr. Murray, acknowledging that my manuscript was interesting and

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important in some degree, but recommending him to retrench forty or fifty pages of my volume, under the pretence of its containing blasphemy of so powerful and influential a nature, that it would not be safe to put it even into the hands of the printers, as they, he supposed, had souls to be saved as well as other men, and could not read it without being inevitably corrupted, and thus becoming subject to everlasting damnation! adding, however, that with all this, he rather wished the work to be published.—A Letter from the Lord Bishop of Calcutta, acknowledging the perusal of several portions of the work, (the whole of the manuscript being placed in his hands for revision,) without objecting to the use of any expressions, except that of the word "supernatural" instead of "miraculous," in alluding to some scriptural event.—A Letter from the Rev. Dr. Burder, a celebrated author and Christian Divine, characterising the very same volume, which Mr. William Gifford declared to be too full of blasphemy to be trusted even in the hands of the printers, as the very best book of Travels he had ever met with on the country of which it treated, and one that could not fail to stand high in that class of literature to which it belonged. The article from the Quarterly Review itself, in which not a single proof of blasphemy is fairly established against this alleged magazine of "infidelity and obscenity," though the forty or fifty pages that Mr. Gifford had advised to be blotted out, to prevent the eternal perdition of the printers, had neither been obliterated nor retrenched. And lastly, a Reply to the calumnies of Mr. Burckhardt, Mr. Bankes, and the Quarterly Review, as well as to various writers in India who followed in their steps, and whose continued aspersions were no doubt greatly instrumental in provoking that hostile feeling on the part of the

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