mitted to Professor Sprenger, to Dr. Socin of Bâle, and to Mr. C. Knight Watson, of Burlington House. Finally, Mr. Reginald Stuart Poole, Keeper of the Coins at the British Museum, obligingly transcribed for me the Kufic inscription upon the glass piece bought at Burj Zibá. My many other obligations. have been acknowledged in the following pages; and, if any have been neglected, I would here offer an apology. The matter of the volume may be considered virtually new. After the return of the Expedition to Egypt a few brief and scattered notices appeared in the Press of England and the Continent. The information had been gathered by "interviewing," and nothing appeared under my own name. For this mystery there were reasons which now no longer exist. I therefore place the whole recital before the Public, without reserve or after-thought, merely warning it that my volume begins with the beginning of a subject which will probably go far. When these pages shall be in the reader's hands, I shall once more be examining the "Land of Midian;" attempting, under the auspices of His Highness the Viceroy of Egypt, to investigate the particulars of which the generals are here described; to trace the streams of wealth to their hidden sources; and to begin the scrutiny to which all such exploring feats should lead. I have therefore left the MS. in the hands of my wife, who has undertaken to see it through the Press. PREFACE. DEAR READER, Captain Burton is in Arabia, in the Land of Midian, once more, and I am left behind—much against the grain-in order to bring this book through the Press, that you may know what was done last year; and besides the hopes of pleasing you, the thought that I am contributing the only service in my power towards his great undertaking makes me bear my disappointment quietly. My task will be finished in a few days, and I shall then take the first steamer from Trieste to Suez, where I hope to be allowed to join the Expedition. The volume you are about to read requires but little explanation. Captain Burton, in his old Arab days, wandering about with his Koran, came upon this "Gold Land," though I remark that in his recital he modestly gives the credit to others. He was a romantic youth, with a chivalrous contempt for "filthy lucre," and only thought of winning his spurs." So, setting a mark upon the spot, he turned away and passed on. A foreigner will exclaim, "How English!" when he reads that he kept his secret for twenty-five years, and that when he saw Egypt in distress for gold, the same chivalry which made him disdain it before, made him ask leave to go to Egypt, seek H.H. the Khediv, and impart the secret to him, and thus act like a second Joseph to the land of Pharaoh. Highness equipped an Expedition forthwith to send` him in search of the spot; and this year he has again obtained leave, and has gone to finish what he began last year. I pray you now to read the account of his labours in 1877; and you may probably hear more of them, as he tells me that the discoveries of metals have thoroughly satisfied him. Trieste, January, 1878. ISABEL BURTON. His |