[p.xi] On reference to pages 396 and 397, a remark will be found
concerning the different application of this name (Hedjaz) among those
who inhabit the sea-coast and those Bedouins who occupy the interior
country; and it will even appear that doubts have been entertained
whether the sacred city Medina does not belong rather to Nedjed than to
Hedjaz.
From statements so vague as those above quoted, an attempt to trace
exactly the limits of any country must be vain and fallacious: that
region, therefore, which borders on the Red Sea, and which the natives,
we know, entitle unequivocally Hedjaz, is marked in our map, as in
almost every other published hitherto, merely with that name, its first
letter being placed where the editor supposes Arabia Petraea to
terminate, and its last letter where he would separate Hedjaz from
Tehama. [Burckhardt (Syrian Travels p. 511.) quotes Makrizi, the Egyptian
historian, who says, in his chapter on Aila, (Akaba): It is from hence
that the Hedjaz begins: in former times it was the frontier place of the
Greeks, &c.]
To those who seek the most accurate information respecting places but
little known, this work is sufficiently recommended by the name of its
author, and of the country which it describes. The manners of the
Hejazi Arabs have continued, says Sir William Jones, from the time of
Solomon to the present age. [Discourse on the Arabs, Asiat. Researches,
vol. ii.] Our notions of Mecca must be drawn, says Gibbon, from the
Arabians. As no unbeliever is permitted to enter the city, our
travellers are silent; and the short hints of Thevenot are taken from
the suspicious mouth of an African renegado. [Roman Empire, chap. 50.
note 18.]
But the reader of this preface must not be withholden from