Volume 1

A description of the East, and some other countries ... / By Richard Pococke.

  • Richard Pococke
Date:
1743-1745
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A description of the East, and some other countries ... / By Richard Pococke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    When he was engaged fo far, he thought it beft to give as ftiort and perfect an account as he could of Egypt, and to add fomething of the government, cuftoms, and natural hi- ftory, as the latter would alfo give a general idea of the Turkifli polity and manners. And he hopes thofe will ex- cufe what they may think trifling, who are pleafed only with antiquities, and to fee an account of architecture in its very firft beginning. And fuch as delight only in reading tra¬ vels, and the hiftory of the feveral little accidents that happen, may pafs over, with a tranfient view, the dry defcription of plans, buildings, and ftatues, which others may efteem as the moil valuable part of this book. There are few things in the plates that have been feen be¬ fore, if two or three drawings are excepted, that he either put in to fill up the plates, or becaufe he found them better in others, than he could give them himfelf. Of the firft kind, are the profpeCf of Jofeph’s well at the entrance, and the head of the fphinx, from Le Brun, (though this is with fome alterations, as to the ornaments of the head;) and of the lat¬ ter are the feCtion of the great pyramid by Mallet, and the views of the convents of St Paul and St. Anthony, from a' manufcript map. And, though the drawings of Jofeph’s well, and the Mikias, have been publifh’d before, yet he thought it proper to have them engraved, according to his own obfer- vations, to make this account more perfect $ and he imagines, at leaft, that they may be fome improvement on the others. He thought it beft to give an account of all the buildings he faw in Egypt, in a regular manner, as if he had feen them all wdien he went up the Nile, in order to prevent any confufion of things in the mind of the reader, and the better to fettle the antient geography, by taking all the pla¬ ces, with their antiquities, in their natural order, although he faw many of them in his return. He hopes no very grofs errors, much lefs inconfiftencies, will be found in this work j but if any fuch fhould have flipped, efpecially with relation to fome conje&'ures and calculations, that may or may not have the foundation of truth to build on, being only offer’d to the confideration of the readers, it is to be hoped that they will impute them only to a wrant of due recollection of the great variety of things that have occurred in fuch a courfe of rambling, or to his having apprehended things in a different manner^
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