In the prosecution of this task, it soon appeared that there was room for much more than a mere reprint and access has been obtained to important materials, unknown to Mr Marsden, or any former British edi tor. The two versions recently edited by the French Society of Geography, and the early Italian ones by Count Baldelli Boni, are undoubtedly at once more copious and genuine than any before published. They prove that various difficulties, which embarrassed Mr Marsden, and shook the traveller's authority, arose only from the corrupted state of later copies. They contain also a considerable number of additional chapters and passages. By carefully collating them with early editions, and accredited manuscripts in the British Museum, it is hoped that a purer and more complete text has now been produced than any that has hitherto appeared in our language.