Rabbi Benjamin is the first European traveller whom we find taking a wider circuit in his travels than that which would have been restricted by the limits of Christian or Jewish pilgrimage. As Mr. Asher observes, he appears evidently to have been a merchant, and hence, though the object most at his heart seems to have been to note the number and condition of the Jews in the different countries he visited, he has preserved some valuable information relating to their trade and commerce at that period, and, in spite of some credulity, and an evident love of the marvellous, he describes what he saw with more good sense and accuracy than the Christian travellers of the same age. Benjamin, who was a Jew of Spain, began his travels from Saragossa, and proceeded through Italy and Greece to Constantinople, which city he describes at considerable length. He proceeded thence, by the Greek Islands, to Antioch, and thence through Syria, by Acre and Nablous, to Jerusalem. From Jerusalem he went to Damascus, and from thence to Bagdad, but his route here and elsewhere appears to have been far from direct, as we often trace him moving backwards and forwards, to obtain information, or visit districts that lay out of the ordinary road. The actual extent of his wanderings towards the East appears doubtful; but it is certain he remained at Bagdad and in Persia two or three years, and he returned by way of Arabia and Nubia to Egypt. From Egypt he returned to Sicily, and he then made a tour in Germany before his final return home. Mr. Asher observes that there is "one very peculiar feature" in this work, by which its contents are divided into _what he saw_, and _what he heard_. "In many towns, on the route from Saragossa to Bagdad, rabbi Benjamin mentions the names of the principal Jews, elders, and wardens of the congregations he met with. That a great number of the persons enumerated by rabbi Benjamin really were his contemporaries; and that the particulars he incidentally mentions of them are corroborated by other authorities, has been proved in the biographical notes furnished by Dr. Zunz. We therefore do not hesitate to assert that rabbi Benjamin visited all those towns of which he names the elders and principals, and that the first portion of his narrative comprises an account of _what he saw_. But with Gihiagin, the very first stage beyond Bagdad, all such notices cease, and except those of two princes and of two rabbis, we look in vain for any other _names_. So very remarkable a difference between this and the preceding part of the work leads us to assert that rabbi Benjamin's travels did not extend beyond Bagdad, and that he there wrote down the second portion of our work, consisting of _what he heard_. Bagdad, at his time the seat of the prince of the Captivity, must have attracted numerous Jewish pilgrims from all regions, and, beyond doubt, was the fittest place for gathering those notices of the