Excerpt from The Penetration of Arabia: A Record of the Development of Western, Knowledge Concerning the Arabian Peninsula HE orthography of geographical place-names in this volume (with the exception of a few too familiar to be changed) follows the system adopted by the Royal Geo graphical Society. It is only necessary to remind readers that there are no mute letters: that j has its English value; and that an is to be sounded ow, as in German. Other Arabic names and words are transliterated for the most part on a scientific system, for which I have to thank my friend, the learned Arabist, Mr. Guy Lestrange. A few, which have passed into the English language under unscientific forms, retain their familiar spelling in special cases, e. G. The names of the Meccan Prophet, his son-in law, and the founder of the present Egyptian dynasty. Thus, among other inconsistencies, Mahomet, Mehemet, and Muhammad; Ali and 'ali, ' Wahabi and Wahhc'zb, will be found in the text. I use Bedawin, Bedawins, rather than the French form Bedouin. Neither one nor the other, of course, is Arabic. When quoting other writers, I always use their or thography, however inconsistent with that of my own text. 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.