AMONG the numerous classes of publications which have from time to time appeared in England on the subjects of foreign and distant countries, perhaps those most favourably received and generally read have been of an ornamentally descriptive character, illustrating in interesting forms the antiquities, arts, natural curiosities, and romances belonging to them.
The combinations of stirring incidents, and wayside adventures, or the bygone traditions of ages rescued from the faint and worn prints of time, give an interest to spots met with in far distant countries which otherwise would be scarce marked either by the eye, the pen, or pencil of the subsequent wanderer.
In tracing these few pages, no pretensions are advanced of entering the fields of philosophy or deep