The American missionaries Eli Smith (1801-57) and Harrison Dwight (1803-62) travelled from Malta in 1830 to ascertain what could be done to further 'the revival and reformation of the Oriental churches in Armenia, Georgia, and Persia'. This account of their experience was published in 1834. (Smith was co-author of the three-volume Biblical Researches in Palestine and the Adjacent Regions, also reissued in this series.) Their particular aim was to communicate with such ancient Christian sects as the Armenian Orthodox Church, and the Nestorians and Chaldeans of Asia Minor and Syria. The book gives lively descriptions of the territories they travelled through, the people they encountered, and the vicissitudes of the journey. They were notably dismayed at the state of the Christian communities: however sincere, 'they are all out of the way, and dangerously so'. The proposed solution was to 'restore them to their primitive purity' through greater missionary endeavours.