A few pages by way of "Forespeache."

The plain unvarnished tale of the travel in Midian, undertaken by

the second Expedition, which, like the first, owes all to the

liberality and the foresight of his Highness Ismail I., Khediv of

Egypt, forms the subject of these volumes. During the four months

between December 19, 1877, and April 20, 1878, the officers

employed covered some 2500 miles by sea and land, of which 600,

not including by-paths, were mapped and planned; and we brought

back details of an old-new land which the civilized world had

clean forgotten.

The public will now understand that one and the same subject has

not given rise to two books. I have to acknowledge with gratitude

the many able and kindly notices by the Press of my first volume

("The Gold Mines of Midian," etc. Messrs. C. Kegan Paul & Co.,

1878). But some reviewers succeeded in completely

misunderstanding the drift of that avant courier. It was an

introduction intended to serve as a base for the present more

extensive work, and--foundations intended to bear weight must be

solid. Its object was to place before the reader the broad

outlines of a country whose name was known to "every schoolboy,"

whilst it was a vox et praeterea nihil, even to the learned,

before the spring of 1877. I had judged advisable to sketch, with

the able assistance of learned friends, its history and

geography; its ethnology and archaeology; its zoology and

malacology; its botany and geology. The drift was to prepare

those who take an interest in Arabia generally, and especially in

wild mysterious Midian, for the present work, which, one foresaw,

would be a tale of discovery and adventure. Thus readers of "The

Land of Midian (Revisited)" may feel that they are not standing

upon ground utterly unknown; and the second publication is

shortened and lightened--perhaps the greatest advantage of

all--by the prolegomena having been presented in the first.

The purpose of the last Expedition was to conclude the labours

begun, during the spring of 1877, in a mining country unknown, or

rather, fallen into oblivion. Hence its primary "objective" was

mineralogical. The twenty-five tons of specimens, brought back to

Cairo, were inspected by good judges from South Africa,

Australia, and California; and all recognized familiar

metalliferous rocks. The collection enabled me to distribute the

mining industry into two great branches--(1) the rich silicates

and carbonates of copper smelted by the Ancients in North Midian;

and (2) the auriferous veins worked, but not worked out, by

comparatively modern races in South Midian, the region lying

below the parallel of El-Muwaylah. It is, indeed, still my

conviction that "tailings" have been washed for gold, even by men

still living. We also brought notices and specimens of three

several deposits of sulphur; of a turquoise-mine behind Ziba; of

salt and saltpetre, and of vast deposits of gypsum. These are

sources of wealth which the nineteenth century is not likely to

leave wasted and unworked.