The following pages are the result of a peaceful crusade to the East, undertaken for purposes of pleasure and profit. The author has endeavored to combine the humorous features of the journey with the store of useful knowledge that should be the result of a tour through the Orient. He trusts that he has so combined them that both will be satisfactory, and that the reader will be amused while seeking instruction and instructed while seeking amusement.

There is a story of an honest old Quaker resident of Philadelphia, who sent his son to make the tour of Europe. The young man determined to see all that could be seen, and gave his whole mind to the search for enjoyment. When he returned from his travels his father said:

“John, thou hast been absent a twelvemonth and past, and thou hast drawn on me for eighteen thousand dollars. John, that is a great deal of money for thee to spend in one year.”

“I know it, father,” was the young man’s response, “but I have had lots of fun for that money.”

In return for the labor and fatigue incident to Oriental travel, the author believes that he found an ample reward in the entertainment and information which the journey afforded.

The author is glad to avail himself of this opportunity to express the gratification he feels at seeing his book so profusely and artistically illustrated. In this department of the work the publishers have displayed their enterprise and liberality in such a creditable manner, as to justly entitle them, not only to the author’s grateful acknowledgments, but to the hearty thanks of all who may read his book.

He would also return his thanks to the artists and engravers, who have so skilfully designed and executed the illustrations, many of which were drawn and engraved in London and Paris, expressly for this volume.

Finally he would thank most cordially the many gentlemen in the various countries he visited who gave him the benefit of their personal experience and observation. Their names are too numerous to be included in this preface, and their nationalities comprise nearly all the civilized countries of the globe. T. W. K.

Principally designed, or reproduced from photographs, by Karl Giradet, Faguet, Frank Beard, James C. Beard, Arthur Lumley, L. Hopkins, and eminent artists, and mostly engraved by Messrs. Holier, Pannemaker, Laptante, Gusmand, Gauchard, and other noted engravers of Paris; by W. J. Palmer, and the London Illustration Company, of London; and by Charles Speigle, of New York.