‘The Oriental geography of Ebn Haukal, an Arabian traveller of the tenth century’ [‎29] (44/388)

PREFACE.
xxix
attention : and I took some trouble in comparing his account
of many natural curiosities with the descriptions given us by
travellers.
I found, however, that these illustrations, whether to he
printed in the form of notes., or as an appendix, would
retard considerably the publication of my book, and render
it doubly expensive by the addition of so much as another
volume of equal size would scarcely contain. I therefore re
solved to content myself with offering to the Publick a mere
translation of Ebn Haukal's work, retaining what the Geo
grapher and Critick will probably esteem the most essential
part of the original, all names of places in the proper cha^
racter; and so exactly have I followed the orthography of
my manuscript, that in many pages the same word will be
found spelt differently, and even erroneously *. Some of the
most obscure, difficult, or doubtful passages, I have remarked
in short notes, or endeavoured to illustrate in the Appendix,
where many are given in Persian.
* Thus we find; in p. 48, Tiberiah and Tiberthah—z/7 several places,
Isfahan, Sfahan, Ispahan, &c. The Pyramids of Egypt (properly written or
Ahram or Elheraman) are styled, in page 33, Houman or
JElhouman.