A Tour Through the Southern Provinces of the Kingdom of Naples #226398

It appears to be absolutely necessary that a writer should prefix to his work, if not an apology for its appearance, at least some explanation of the motives that may have prompted him to subject it to the severe ordeal of public opinion.<br><br>I undertook the journey related in the following pages actuated, as I believe most travellers are, by views of curiosity and enjoyment rather than by any particular object of interest. The access to Sicily by means of a land journey was to my inclinations preferable to the more immediate and generally practised mode of a sea voyage; and my choice was also influenced by the offered local assistance of those whose repeated acts of kindness, during a continued residence in their country, made me consider them as sincere friends.