Note 4 — INTRODUCTION.

For an account of this valuable author, see the recently published History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, by Don Pascual de Gayangos, p. 324. The excellent MS. in the library of the British Museum (No. 9577) there described, shall be here briefly cited as MS. B.M. A translation of El Bekrí’s Book of Roads and Realms, by M. Quatremère, has appeared in the 12th volume of the Collection entitled ‘Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibliothèque du Roi.’ But the Parisian MS. is so deficient in points, that the translator, notwithstanding his learning and acuteness, has not always been able to divine the true reading. A fragment of the same work, containing what relates to Ghánah, has been translated by M. Jaubert, to whom it was sent from Barbary, and inserted in the 2nd volume of the ‘Recueil des Voyages et Mémoires,’ &c. published by the Société de Géographie in Paris. Wherever this extract, which is taken from a MS. of inferior authority, is quoted alone in the following pages, the reader may understand that the readings so adopted agree in characters with the readings found in the MS. B.M., and have in addition the vowel points.