PREFACE.
There is an old Italian proverb, which says a man has lived to no purpose, unless he has either built a house, begotten a son, or written a book. As I have already complied more than once with the latter of these requisitions, I must seek to justify the present repetition thereof, on other grounds. My reasons for offering this volume to the public are, simply, that there is room for it. It is the record of a journey which led me, for the most part, over fresh fields, by paths which comparatively few had trodden before me. Although I cannot hope to add much to the general stock of information concerning Central Africa, I may serve, at least, as an additional witness, to confirm or illustrate the evidence of others. Hence, the preparation of this work has appeared to me rather in the lightof a duty than a diversion, and I have endeavored to impart as much instruction as amusement to the reader. While seeking to give correct pictures of the rich, adventurous life into which I was thrown, I have resisted the temptation to yield myself up to its more subtle and poetic aspects. My aim has been to furnish a faithful narrative of my own experience, believing that none of those embellishments which the imagination so readily furnishes, can equal the charm of the unadorned truth.
There are a few words of further explanation which I wish to say. The journey was undertaken solely for the purpose of restoring a frame exhausted by severe mental labor. A previous experience of a tropical climate convinced me that I should best accomplish my object by a visit to Egypt, and as I had a whole winter before me, I determined to penetrate as far into the interior of Africa as the time would allow, attracted less by the historical and geographical interest of those regions than by the desire to participate in their free, vigorous, semi-barbaric life. If it had been my intention, as some of my friends supposed, to search for the undiscovered sources of the White Nile, I should not have turned back, until the aim was accomplished or all means had failed.
I am aware that, by including in this work my journey through Egypt, I have gone over much groundwhich is already familiar. Egypt, however, was the vestibule through which I passed to Ethiopia and the kingdoms beyond, and I have not been able to omit my impressions of that country without detracting from the completeness of the narrative. This book is the record of a single journey, which, both in its character and in the circumstances that suggested and accompanied it, occupies a separate place in my memory. Its performance was one uninterrupted enjoyment, for, whatever the privations to which it exposed me, they were neutralized by the physical delight of restored health and by a happy confidence in the successful issue of the journey, which never forsook me. It is therefore but just to say, that the pictures I have drawn may seem over-bright to others who may hereafter follow me; and I should warn all such that they must expect to encounter many troubles and annoyances.
Although I have described somewhat minutely the antiquities of Nubia and Ethiopia which I visited, and have not been insensible to the interest which every traveller in Egypt must feel in the remains of her ancient art, I have aimed at giving representations of the living races which inhabit those countries rather than the old ones which have passed away. I have taken it for granted that the reader will feel more interested—as I was—in a live Arab, than a deadPharaoh. I am indebted wholly to the works of Champollion, Wilkinson and Lepsius for whatever allusions I have made to the age and character of the Egyptian ruins.
B. T.
New York, July, 1854.