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The Mediterranean

PREFACE.

The present Handbook to the Mediterranean describes the chief routes along the Mediterranean coasts. In his endeavour to unite within a single volume the chief points of interest in so vast a region the Editor has naturally been confronted by peculiar difficulties. These points are so numerous that little space could be afforded for more subordinate matters, so that many details have necessarily been omitted. Again as regards the selection of routes, and of places to be described, opinions frequently differ. The Editor ventures, however, to hope that on the whole he has satisfied the requirements of most of his readers. As many of the regions which are here grouped historically and geographically[1] have already been treated of in several of his other Handbooks, the Editor would respectfully refer the traveller to these for fuller details[2]. The new subjects comprise Madeira and the Canary Islands, the coast of Morocco, and Algeria and Tunisia, the materials for describing which have been collected, in the course of much travel, by several of the Editor’s friends and fellow-workers. The chief Author of the German edition, which appeared in 1909, was Dr. F. Propping, of Godesberg on the Rhine, who personally visited most of the places described. The present English edition has been prepared by the Editor’s old friend, emeritus Professor John Kirkpatrick, formerly of Edinburgh University, who fifty years ago (1861) translated the Handbook for the Rhine, and thus introduced ‘Baedeker’s guidebooks’ to the English public. In bringing the information contained in the new Mediterranean volume up to date the Editor has received valuable aid from British and United States consuls and ministers, and from other authorities, who have shown the utmost courtesy and willingness to assist. To all of these the Editor expresses his grateful acknowledgments. Many readers will be interested also in the geographical sketch by the late Professor Theobald Fischer (d. 1910), one of the great authorities on the Mediterranean coast-lands.

1. The volume contains six separable Sections. First: Introduction; From England to the Mediterranean by the Portuguese Coast; Madeira and the Canary Islands (pp. i-xxxvi and 1–48).—Second: Andalusia; Morocco (pp. 49–110).—Third: Sea Routes in the W. Mediterranean (pp. 111–166).—Fourth: Algeria (pp. 167–318).—Fifth: Tunisia (pp. 319–394).—Sixth: Sea Routes in the E. Mediterranean; the Black Sea (p. 395 to the end of the volume).

2. Comp. for the W. Mediterranean Baedeker’s ‘Southern France’, ‘Northern Italy’, ‘Central Italy and Rome’, ‘Southern Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia’, ‘Italy from the Alps to Naples’, and ‘Spain and Portugal’; for Trieste and Dalmatia, ‘Austria-Hungary’; for the E. Mediterranean, ‘Egypt’, ‘Palestine and Syria’, ‘Greece’, and ‘Konstantinopel und Kleinasien’ (at present in German only); for the Black Sea, ‘Russland’ or ‘Russie’.

Special care has been bestowed on the Maps and Plans with which the Handbook is furnished. Several of these are based on materials hitherto unpublished, and others have been locally revised and improved for the special benefit of the Handbook. In the case of Algeria and Tunisia the French spelling has been adopted in the letter-press as well as in the maps[3].

3. Note, however, that in the letter-press the English j is used in preference to the French dj (as in jebel, mountain), and that the German or Italian u is preferred to the French ou or the English oo (as in sûk, market). So too, as a general rule, all the other vowel-sounds in the proper names follow the Italian pronunciation.

Hotels. As in all his Handbooks the Editor has taken the utmost care to recommend none but comfortable and respectable hotels. From this, as from all his other Handbooks, advertisements, direct and indirect, are absolutely excluded. Persons calling themselves agents for Baedeker’s Handbooks are impostors and should be handed over to the police.

As many matters treated of in the Handbook are liable to frequent change and as, in the Orient particularly, trustworthy sources of information are too often lacking, the Editor will warmly appreciate any communications with which travellers may kindly favour him.