Excerpt from Gebel Teir Tun intelligent reader will at once perceive that when it is said in the concise introductory quotation, that all the birds in the universe assemble at Gebel Teir, it is spoken figuratively. A delegation only, a very numerous one indeed, meet in annual council. Were all the birds to assemble, all those that skim the coasts and waves of the Atlantic and Pacific, all which float on the lakes and streams, hover o'er the plains and nestle in the forests of Europe, Asia, Africa and America, the whole surface of both Arabias, were it piled in solid mass, even higher than the lofiiest soarings of the R00 and the Condor, would not contain them the very rustling of their wings would be heard with humming murmur in the remotest vallies of the earth; while their songs and cries would throw the atmosphere into vibrations from the Equator to the polar circles. The feathered commonwealth is too wise to meet en masse for the dispatch of business and they established the system of representative government long before men, who are mere imitators in every thing, had groped their way to this sublime discovery. Should these debates be seen by the very able and meritorious author of the Gazetteer, he will doubtless feel that it is speaking loosely to call this assemblage a conceit of the Arabs, or at least he will not consider it purely as such. I allude to this circumstance, because it is the only error I have discovered in his most accurate and useful work. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.