The nucleus of this small volume is, in respect of quantity, remarkably small; but the material which envelopes it and which supplies it with bulk enough to constitute a volume, is devoted to the purpose of showing that, if small in quantity, it is far from being insignificant in quality.

The very object of our Society being to deal with the Geography of the Past, by printing rare or unpublished ancient texts of travels, it is clearly a duty in Editors to supply their readers with full information as to the position, in regard both of time and importance, which the documents that they produce occupy, or ought to occupy, in the history of Geography. But it is equally clear that the proportion which the illustrative matter may bear to the extent of the original text, must vary very much according to the circumstances of each case. In the present instance, we have the peculiar phenomenon of a most true and authentic narrative, which must henceforth, it is hoped, hold a high position among ancient historical records of travel, having been, in conjunction with the map that accompanies it, the cause of a vast amount of error and misconception, and the subject of so much discredit as to have been finally condemned as “false” and “a tissue of fiction.” To track the causes of such misconceptions and to free the document, if possible, from the discredit under which it laboured, became my duty as Editor. That I have succeeded in so doing will, I trust, be acknowledged not as a matter of opinion only, but of unanswerable fact.