Travels in Syria and the Holy Land

Travels in Syria and the Holy
Land

Project Gutenberg's Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, by John
Burckhardt #2 in our series by John Burckhardt
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: Travels in Syria and the Holy Land
Author: John Burckhardt

Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8884] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on August 20,
2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAVELS
IN SYRIA AND THE HOLY LAND ***

Produced by William Thierens and Ann Westfall

TRAVELS
IN
SYRIA AND THE HOLY LAND;
BY THE LATE
JOHN LEWIS BURCKHARDT.

PUBLISHED BY THE ASSOCIATION FOR PROMOTING THE
DISCOVERY OF THE INTERIOR PARTS OF AFRICA.
[1822]

PREFACE OF THE EDITOR.
[p.i]It is hoped that little apology is necessary for the publication of a

volume of Travels in Asia, by a Society, whose sole professed object is
the promotion of discoveries in the African continent.
The Association having had the good fortune to obtain the services of a
person of Mr. Burckhardt's education and talents, resolved to spare
neither time nor expense in enabling him to acquire the language and
manners of an Arabian Musulman in such a degree of perfection, as
should render the detection of his real character in the interior of Africa
extremely difficult.
It was thought that a residence at Aleppo would afford him the most
convenient means of study, while his intercourse with the natives of
that city, together with his occasional tours in Syria, would supply him
with a view of Arabian life and manners in every degree, from the
Bedouin camp to the populous city. While thus preparing himself for
the ultimate object of his mission, he was careful to direct his journeys
through those parts of Syria which had been the least frequented by
European travellers, and thus he had the opportunity of making some
important additions to our knowledge of one of those countries of
which the geography is not less interesting by its connection with
ancient history, than it is imperfect, in consequence of the impediments
which modern barbarism has opposed to scientific researches. After
consuming near three years in Syria, Mr. Burckhardt, on his arrival in
Egypt, found himself prevented from pursuing the execution of his
instructions, by [p.ii] a suspension of the usual commercial intercourse
with the interior of Africa, and was thus, during the ensuing five years,
placed under the necessity of employing his time in Egypt and the
adjacent countries in the same manner as he had done in Syria. After
the journeys in Egypt, Nubia, Arabia, and Mount Sinai, which have
been briefly described in the Memoir prefixed to the former volume of
his travels, his death at Cairo, at the moment when he was preparing for
immediate departure to Fezzan, left the Association in possession of a
large collection of manuscripts concerning the countries visited by their
traveller in these preparatory journeys, but of nothing more than oral
information as to those to which he had been particularly sent. As his
journals in Nubia, and in the regions adjacent to the Astaboras,
although relating only to an incidental part of his mission to Africa,

were descriptive of countries coming strictly within the scope of the
African Association, these, together with all his collected information
on the interior of Africa, were selected for earliest publication. The
present volume contains his observations in Syria and Arabia Petraea;
to which has been added his tour in the Peninsula of Mount Sinai,
although the latest of all his travels in date, because it is immediately
connected, by its subject, with his journey through the adjacent districts
of the Holy Land. There still remain manuscripts sufficient to fill two
volumes; one of these will consist of his travels in Arabia, which were
confined to the Hedjaz, or Holy Land of the Musulmans, the part least
accessible to Christians; the fourth volume