But that scrupulous fidelity which should always distinguish the compilation of travels, and which I consider the principal merit of mine, demanded that I should consecrate to this work the time necessary to ascertain that I have omitted nothing essential, and to arrange the facts in the exact order in which I had observed and noted them. Another not less legitimate cause of delay arose from a long and dangerous illness which seized me some months after my arrival in France, and exhausted the strength which was left me by the long continued fatigues and privations of a seventeen months’ journey over those burning sands so frequently fatal to our European travellers. To these causes must also be added the extent of my materials, my want of initiation into the art of composition in the most difficult and delicate of languages, and the resolution I had formed to avoid having recourse to a more experienced pen, except for the correction of those errors of style which would naturally escape mine; for I was desirous of offering to the public a composition as entirely my own as the observations on which it was founded; a composition which, however deficient in studied elegance, should at least be simple, clear, and frank, describing the exact extent of my travels and exhibiting the traveller under his peculiar traits. With regret I acknowledge that important observations upon the political and religious institutions, and upon the manners and customs of the people amongst whom I have sojourned, will not be found here; even had my prior studies directed my mind to this species of reflections, the scanty resources at my disposal, and the consequent necessity of a rapid passage, did not permit my residence in any place for a sufficient length of time to furnish a solid foundation for such researches. My principal object was to collect carefully and accurately all the facts, of whatsoever nature, which fell under my inspection, and especially to notice whatever appeared conducive to the improvement of geography and of our commerce with Africa.