OCR Rendition - approximate

vi   Preface.

riences of many such persons in various circumstances, collating them, examining into their principles, and deducing from them what might fairly be called an "Art of Travel." To this end, on my return home, I searched through a vast number of geographical works, I sought information from numerous travellers of distinction, and I made a point of re-testing, in every needful case, what I had read or learned by hearsay.

It should be understood that I do not profess to give exhaustive treatises on each of the numerous subjects comprised in this volume, but only such information as is not generally known among travellers. A striking instance of the limited geographical area over which the knowledge of many useful contrivances extends, is that described as a ' Dateram,' p. 164, by which tent ropes may be secured in sand of the loosest description. Though tents are used over an enormous extent of sandy country, in all of which this simple contrivance would be of the utmost value on every stormy night, and though the art of pitching tents is studied by the troops of all civilised and partly civilised nations, yet I believe that the use of the dateram never extended beyond the limits of a comparatively small district in the south of the Sahara, until I had described it in a former Edition ; and further, my knowledge of that contrivance was wholly due to a single traveller, the late Dr. Barth.

The first Edition of the ' Art of Travel' was published in 1854 : it was far less comprehensive than the later ones; for my materials steadily accumulate, and each successive Edition has shown a marked improvement on its predecessor. Hitherto I have adhered to the

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