"الجغرافيا الشرقية لابن حوقل، رحّالة عربي من القرن العاشر" [‎١‎٩] (٣٨٨/٣٤)

PREFACE. * xix
These are censures of the original Arabick. I must now
hear testimony against the Persian transcripts which I have
used.
Of the difficulties arising from an irregular combination of
letters, the confusion of one word with another, and the total
omission, in some lines, of the diacritical points, I should not
complain, because habit and persevering attention have ena
bled me to surmount them in passages of general description,
or sentences of common construction; but in the names of
persons or of places never before seen or heard of, and which
the context could not assist in deciphering, when the diacriti
cal points were omitted, conjecture alone could supply them,
or collation with a more perfect manuscript. The former I
have seldom indulged, and the latter has enabled me, in se
veral instances, to ascertain the true reading; and even the
few names in which I have supplied the diacritical points from
conjecture, are pointed out to the reader by a note, or other
wise.
Notwi t list an di ng what I have just said, and although the
most learned writers on Hebrew, Arabick, and Persian Litera
ture, have made observations on the same subject, it may