We set but a name upon the ship, that our hands have built (with incessant labour) in a decennium, in what day she is launched forth to the great waters; and few words are needful in this place. The book is not milk for babes: it might be likened to a mirror, wherein is set forth faithfully some parcel of the soil of Arabia smelling of sámn and camels. And such, I trust, for the persons, that if the words [written all-day from their mouths] were rehearsed to them in Arabic, there might every one, whose life is remembered therein, hear, as it were, his proper voice; and many a rude bystander, smiting his thigh, should bear witness and cry ‘Ay Wellah, the sooth indeed!’

Little was known to me, writing apart from books and in foreign countries, of those few old Arabic authors that have treated, more Asiatico, of tribes and towns and itineraries in the vast Peninsula. I was too weary to inquire of aught beside my path, and learned men encouraged me to leave them to scholars. The like must be said of the writings of the two or three Europeans [Wallin, Palgrave, Guarmani] that before my time visited Hâyil and Teyma; and which, when I sojourned in Arabia, were known to me only in A. Zehme's excellent treatise.