The work begins with my voyage from Sidon to Alexandria, and up the Nile to the first cataract. The reader will not expect that I should dwell long upon the particular history of Egypt; every other year has furnished us with some account of it, good or bad; and the two last publications of M. Savary and Volney seem to have left the subject thread-bare. This, however, is not the only reason. After Mr Wood and Mr Dawkins had published their Ruins of Palmyra, the late king of Denmark, at his own expence, sent out a number of men, eminent in their several professions, to make discoveries in the east, of every kind, with these very flattering instructions, that though they might, and ought, to visit both Baalbec and Palmyra for their own studies and improvement, yet he prohibited them to so far interfere with what the English travellers had done, as to form any plan of another work similar to theirs. This compliment was gratefully received; and, as I was directly to follow this mission, Mr Wood desired me to return it, and to abstain as much as possible from writing on the same subjects chosen by M. Niebuhr, at least to abstain either from criticising or differing from him on such subjects. I have therefore passed slightly over Egypt and Arabia; perhaps, indeed, I have said enough of both: if any shall be of another opinion, they may have recourse to M. Niebuhr’s more copious work; he was the only person of six who lived to come home, the rest having died in different parts of Arabia, without having been able to enter Abyssinia, one of the objects of their mission. My leaving Egypt is followed by my survey of the Arabian gulf as far as the Indian Ocean--Arrival at Masuah--Some account of the first peopling of Atbara and Abyssinia--Conjectures concerning language--First ages of the Indian trade--Foundation of the Abyssinian monarchy, and various revolutions till the Jewish usurpation about the year 900. These compose the first volume. The second begins with the restoration of the line of Solomon, compiled from their own annals, now first translated from the Ethiopic; the original of which has been lodged in the British Museum, to satisfy the curiosity of the public. The third comprehends my journey from Masuah to Gondar, and the manners and customs of the Abyssinians, also two attempts to arrive at the fountains of the Nile--Description of these sources, and of every thing relating to that river and its inundation. The fourth contains my return from the source of the Nile to Gondar--The campaign of Serbraxos, and revolution that followed--My return through Sennaar and Beja, or the Nubian desert, and my arrival at Marseilles.