Front matter

FROM SKETCH-BOOK AND DIARY

BY THE SAME AUTHOR LETTERS FROM THE HOLY LAND

CONTAINING 16 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR FROM PAINTINGS BY THE AUTHOR

“Charmingly natural and spontaneous travel impressions with sixteen harmonious illustrations. The glow, spaciousness and atmosphere of these Eastern scenes are preserved in a way that eloquently attests the possibilities of the best colour process work.”—Outlook.

“The letters in themselves afford their own justification; the sketches are by Lady Butler, and when we have said that we have said all. Combined, they make a book that is at once a delight to the eye and a pleasure to handle. The coloured illustrations, marvellously well reproduced, provide in a panoramic display faithful representations of the Holy Land as it is seen to-day. They make a singularly attractive collection, worthy of the distinguished artist who painted them.”—St. James’s Gazette.

A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE LONDON

AGENTS

America The Macmillan Company 64 & 66 Fifth Avenue, New York

Australasia The Oxford University Press 205 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

Canada The Macmillan Company of Canada, Ltd. 27 Richmond Street West, Toronto

India Macmillan & Company, Ltd. Macmillan Building, Bombay 309 Bow Bazaar Street, Calcutta

THE HOUR OF PRAYER, A SOUVENIR OF WADY HALFA

FROM SKETCH-BOOK AND DIARY

BY ELIZABETH BUTLER WITH TWENTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR AND TWENTY-ONE SMALL SKETCHES IN THE TEXT BY THE AUTHOR LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, W. BURNS AND OATES, 28 ORCHARD STREET, W. 1909

Dedication

TO MY SISTER, ALICE MEYNELL

I HAVE an idea of writing to you, most sympathetic Reader, of certain days and nights of my travels that have impressed themselves with peculiar force upon my memory, and that have mostly rolled by since you and I set out, at the Parting of the Ways, from the paternal roof-tree, within three months of each other.

First, I want to take you to the Wild West Land of Ireland, to a glen in Kerry, where, so far, the tourist does not come, and then on to remote Clew Bay, in the County Mayo.

After that, come with me up the Nile in the time that saw the close of the Gordon Relief Expedition, when the sailing “Dahabieh,” most fascinating of house-boats, was still the vogue for those who were not in a hurry, and when again the tourist (of that particular year) was away seeking safer picnic grounds elsewhere.

Then to the Cape and the voyage thither, which may not sound alluring, but where you may find something to smile at.

I claim your indulgence, wherever I ask you to accompany me, for my painter’s literary crudities; but nowhere do I need it more than in Italy, for you have trodden that field with me almost foot by foot. The veil to which I trust for softening those asperities elsewhere must fall asunder there.

I have made my Diary, and in the case of the Egyptian chapters, my letters to our mother, the mainsprings from which to draw these reminiscences.

BANSHA CASTLE, July 1909.