PREFACE. ON the 14th of August, 1816, the Hon. Charles Leonard Irby and James Mangles, Commanders in the Royal Navy, left England, with the intention of making a tour on the continent. This journey they were led to extend far beyond the original design. Curiosity at first, and an increasing admiration of antiquities as they advanced, carried them at length through several parts of the Levant, which have been little visited by modern travellers, and gave them more than years of continued employment. four Soon after their return to England, in the end of the year 1820, they were induced to transcribe a selection of the letters which they had addressed during their absence to their families in England, as the most convenient mode of satisfying the inquiries of numerous friends. Among those, who by expressing themselves interested with the narrative, suggested the step which has now been taken, of printing some copies for private distribution, was a gentleman well acquainted with the Turkish provinces described in the following pages, and who has lately edited the Travels of the lamented Burckhardt through the same countries. He was not only so obliging as to suggest such corrections in the language of the original manuscript as must always be necessary in such circumstances, previously to printing, but more especially in the case of persons quite unexperienced in authorship: but he has further permitted the maps which he published in the two volumes of Burckhardt's Travels, and in the second volume of Mr. Walpole's collection, to be used in |