I had already collected together a great many observations on the progress of Greek and Roman architecture in different ages, drawn not from books or connected with system, but from the models themselves, which I myself had measured. I had been long of the opinion, in which I am still further confirmed, that taste for ancient architecture, founded upon the examples that Italy alone can furnish, was not giving ancient architects fair play. What was to be learned from the first proportions of their plans and elevations seemed to have remained untouched in Egypt; after having considered these, I proposed to live in retirement on my native patrimony, with a fair stock of unexceptionable materials upon this subject, to serve for a pleasant and useful amusement in my old age. I hope still these will not be lost to the public, unless the encouragement be in proportion to what my labours have already had. I now received, however, a letter very unexpectedly by way of Alexandria, which, if it did not overturn, at least shook these resolutions. The Comte de Buffon Mons. Guys of Marseilles, and several others well known in the literary world, had ventured to state to the minister, and through him to the king of France, Louis XV. how very much it was to be lamented, that after a man had been found who was likely to succeed in removing that opprobrium of travellers and geographers, by discovering the sources of the Nile, one most unlucky accident, at a most unlucky time, should frustrate the most promising endeavours. That prince, distinguished for every good quality of the heart, for benevolence, beneficence, and a desire of promoting and protecting learning, ordered a moveable quadrant of his own military academy at Marseilles, as the nearest and most convenient port of embarkation, to be taken down and sent to me at Alexandria. With this I received a letter from Mr Russel, which informed me that astronomers had begun to cool in the sanguine expectations of discovering the precise quantity of the sun’s parallax by observation of the transit of Venus, from some apprehension that errors of the observers would probably be more than the quantity of the equation sought, and that they now ardently wished for a journey into Abyssinia, rather than an attempt to settle a nicety for which the learned had now begun to think the accuracy of our instruments was not sufficient. A letter from my correspondent at Alexandria also acquainted me, that the quadrant, and all other instruments, were in that city. What followed is the voyage itself, the subject of the present publication. I am happy, by communicating every previous circumstance that occurred to me, to have done all in my power to remove the greatest part of the reasonable doubts and difficulties which might have perplexed the reader’s mind, or biassed his judgment in the perusal of the narrative of the journey, and in this I hope I have succeeded.