Lendle

This travelogue was published in 1876 and contains notes of a
vacatin tour in the Autumn of 1876.

Summary from the Preface:

The following pages contain a record of impressions received
during a journey in the autumn of 1876 through Russia, the
Caucasian countries and the Turkish empire. They are first
impressions only, for which no value can be claimed except
that which belongs to impressions formed on the spot, and
(as the author trusts) without a prejudice in favour of either
of the states which are now contending in the regions here
described. Yet even first impressions, if honestly formed,
may sometimes atone for their crudity by their freshness.
What most readers desire to know about a country is how
it strikes a new-comer. A book that tries to give this, to
present the general effect, so to speak, of the landscape,
may have its function, even though it cannot satisfy the
scientific student of geography or politics.

The author, however, did not travel with the intention of
writing a book, nor would he, sensible as he is of his imperfect
knowledge, have now thought of sending these notes to the
press but for two reasons. One is the unexpected importance
which the outbreak of war in the countries he visited has given
to them.

The other is the urgency of his friends, whose curiosity regard-
ing Mount Ararat has made him think it worth while to print a
narrative of what he saw, and who assure him that some
account of a mountain which every one has heard of, but
about which comparatively little has been written, would be
more interesting to English and American readers than he had
at first supposed.

Lincoln’s Inn, London
September 12, 1877