Beaufort, Emily Anne: Egyptian sepulchres and Syrian shrines: including some stay in the Lebanon, at Palmyra and in Western Turkey ; in 2 vol. (Band 1) (London, 1862)

PREFACE

TO

THE FIRST EDITION.

Circumstances having rendered change of scene and
climate imperatively necessary for my sister and my-
self, we hastily determined, at the close of the year
1858, to leave England for Egypt, believing that we
should find there an endless store of deeply interest-
ing subjects for thought and study, unfatiguing tra-
velling, and no society: our hopes of the two former
were more than realised, but solitude is difficult to
obtain on the now fashionable and crowded Nile. I
bad no presumptuous intention of writing an account
of our travels over such well-trodden ground, but,
when I found that our long residence in the mountains
of the Lebanon and at Jerusalem, as well as the unusual
visit we bad made to Palmyra, had given us opportuni-
ties of observation that did not fall to the lot of every
traveller in those countries, I could not but wish
to share our experiences with the public: since that,
the horrible Syrian war having fixed the attention of
England for some time upon that unfortunate country,