Captain Richard Burton is _facile princeps_ of modern travellers. There scarcely any part of the world which he has not visited, and wherever he goes he seems to have the history, geography, and ethnology of the country at his fingers' ends. His last important contribution to geographical science is the account of his visit to the Land of Midian, whither he went, commissioned by the ex-Khedive of Egypt, in search of the gold mines of which the ancient Arab geographer and others speak. The results of his expeditions are published in two works: _The Gold-Mines of Midian and the Ruined Midianite Cities_ (London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1878) and _The Land of Midian (Revisited)_, 2 vols., issued by the same publishers during the present year. Having received an invitation from the ex-Viceroy, Captain Burton proceeded to Cairo in March, 1877, where an expedition was organized for the purpose of exploring the auriferous region. The author's comparison of the Cairo of the present time with the city as he knew it in his old pilgrim days, and as it is described in Lane's "Modern Egyptians," forms, although only incidental, a very interesting portion of the book. The chapter on Suez also is a good specimen of Captain Burton's style, and contains at once a topographical sketch, an archæological and historical description, and a chatty and amusing account of the modern city, its society, and surroundings. Midian, called nowadays by its inhabitants, as by the mediæval Arabic geographers, _Arz Maydan_, the Land of Midian, is that part of Arabia which occupies the east coast of the Gulf of Akabah, and extends some two degrees further to the south. The borders are somewhat difficult to ascertain, and it is probable that the ancient Midianites, like some of the larger and more powerful Bedawin tribes of the present day, wandered far and wide, and that their limits shrunk or extended according to their numbers, or the resisting power of their neighbours. The ancient history of the land is told by Captain Burton in a most exhaustive manner, the Biblical accounts being supplemented by copious references to Greek, Latin, Jewish, and Arabic writers of all ages. The quantity of gold, silver, and other metals mentioned in Numbers xxxi. 22, as being produced by Midian, was curiously borne out by the results of the expedition. A lengthy and learned notice is also given of the Nabathæans, whose former rock-cut capital, Petræa, is still one of the marvels of Arabia; whose king, or ethnarch, Aretas (in Arabic, El Hareth), is mentioned in the New Testament; and whose rule embraced so large a portion of Syria and Arabia, and extended late into Christian times.