Sonnini de Manoncourt, Charles Nicolas Sigisbert: Travels in upper and lower Egypt (Band 1) (London, 1807)

£ author's preface.

lization is going to succeed to gross and ferocious
ignorance ; to describe the wreck of august mo-
numents scattered over a soil rendered proud by
their boldness and their enormous masses; to de-
lineate some traces of the rich attire which ge-
nerous Nature has incessantly displayed before the
eyes of ungrateful men, who never ceased, in their
turn, to requite her kindness with outrage ; in a
word, to present a sketch of this portion of Africa
before it shall have changed its appearance. This
representation will enable the reader to follow
with avidity the progress of an unexpected regene-
ration, and the labours which our compatriots are
gone to deposit in the bosom of immortality.

But for these considerations, the work now sub-
mitted to the public had probably never seen the
light. The Author would have suffered the ma-
terials of it to sleep in his port-folio; but he
deemed himself under an obligation to render an
account to his country of the knowledge which he
had acquired, in the persuasion that, after having
served her with zeal, his duty was not completely
discharged, till he had consecrated to her, besides,

the