4to. Volume I: xlii, 339 pp., / Volume II: 373 pp., engraved portrait frontispiece, 4 large folding engraved maps, the maps laid on linen, 86 engraved plates and plans (including 9 double-page and/or folding, one is a letterpress plate 'Letter of the Archbishop of Cyprus'), contemporary calf, lacking half-titles, some offsetting, damp staining, browning or spotting, bindings slightly rubbed, rebacked retaining original spines, printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, London, first English edition, 1816.

Synopsis

The first edition was published in French in Paris in 1814.
Badia y Leblich was a Spanish traveller who assumed the name of Ali Bey el Abbassi and disguised himself as an Arab, apparently working as an agent for the Spanish government. He first travelled through North Africa to Egypt where he met de Chateaubriand. From there he went on to Cyprus and made the pilgrimage to Mecca in 1807. He returned to Spain the same year via Jerusalem, Damascus and Constantinople. Ali Bey was the first Christian to describe in some detail Mecca, and the Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem, as well as some less known aspects of Islam. The plates include numerous plans and views of Mecca, Medina and Cyprus.
Bibliographic references: Blackmer 62; Not in Weber; Hilmy I, 30; Palau, 21683; Brunet I, 182-3; Tobler, p. 140; Cobham-Jeffrey, p. 1; Rohricht 1607.