Recommended so strongly, the work of a less eminent traveller would be
entitled to our notice: this presents itself with another claim; for the
manuscript Journal was partly corrected and prepared for publication by
the learned editor of Burckhardts former writings. But some important
literary occupations prevented Colonel Leake from superintending the
progress of this volume through the press. His plan, however, has been
almost invariably adopted by the actual editor; particularly in
expressing with scrupulous fidelity the authors sentiments on all
occasions, and in retaining, without any regard to mere elegance of
style or selection of terms, his original language, wherever an
alteration was not absolutely necessary to reconcile with our system of
phraseology and grammatical construction certain foreign idioms which
had crept into his English writings. [It was thought expedient, from
circumstances of typographical convenience tending to facilitate and
expedite the publication of this volume, that the Arabic characters
which in the original manuscript follow immediately certain words, or
appear between the lines or in the margin, should here be placed
together at the end, as an Index, with references to the pages wherein
they occur.]