PUBLISHED BY WHITING AND WATSON, THEOLOGICAL AND CLASSICAL BOOKSELLERS, NO. 96, BROADWAY. 1041 1813. PREFACE TO PART THE SECOND. 1 WHEN the author published the first volume of these Travels, he proposed to divide the work into three portions. The observations made in "Greece, Syria, and Egypt," were reserved for the second part; whether consisting of one volume, or of more than one. This plan is still pursued; but from the very perplexed state of the Geography of the country alluded to by the word Syria, the less exceptionable appellation of Palestine was substituted, in the second edition, for that of Syria. The same perplexity has again induced the author to alter what he had thus written, and to consider the present publication as containing observations made in Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land. The several names of Syria, Palæstine, the Holy Land, the land of Canaan, the land of Judæa, and the land of Promise, have been used indiscriminately with reference to a particular territory, or separately applied to different parts of it. Neither ancient nor modern Geographers are agreed as to the precise limits intended by either of these appellations. According to some authors, Syria, Phonice, and Palæstine, were three distinct regions. Others include, within the Syrian frontier, not only Phoenice and Palæstine, but also Mesopotamia. Strabo describes Syria as comprehending all the country from Mount Amanus and the river Euphrates to Arabia and to Egypta. The word Palæstine occurs only once, incidentally in all his writingsb. Yet the name was in use above four centuries anterior to the Christian Era, as appears by several pas a Strabon. Geog lib. xvi. p. 1063. ed. Oxon. 1807. b Lib. xvi. p. 1103. ed. Oxon. It is found in the following authors, according to the references which I have collected from Reland's Palæestine, c. 7. Dio Cassius. lib. 37. Photius in Biblioth p. 1311. Julian. in lib. contra Christian. Flav. Vopiscus in Vit. Aureliani. Statius Sylv. lib. 3. carm. 2. Silius. Ital. lib. 3. Ovid in Fastis, Idem, lib. 4, et 5. Metam. |