PREFACE ix
thanks to President Nicholas Murray Butler and the Trustees of Columbia University for granting me leave of absence to travel in the East for the scholarly aims I had in view. Next, a special meed of praise is due to those representatives in high office at Washington, St. Petersburg, and Teheran, for the facilities they so generously offered to further the interests of my travels into the more remote regions that were visited.
And three fellow-workers know best the help they have so freely given. Dr. Abraham Yohannan, my associate in Orien- tal studies at Columbia, has been ready at all times to give assistance in translating passages from the Arab-Persian geographers which might throw light on the history of the cities on the route. To my pupil and aid. Dr. Louis H. Gray, once Fellow in Indo-Iranian Languages at Columbia, I owe all thanks, not only for reading the entire book in manuscript with an eye to detail and for adding valuable suggestions from his well-known store of scholarship, but also for perusing the proof- sheets as they passed through the press. At the same time my constant helper and adviser. Dr. George C. O. Haas, former Fellow in my Department at Columbia and now Instructor at the College of the City of New York, has stood at hand to lend his critical acumen with regard to each page of the proofs and the entire make-up of the book, besides preparing the Index, as in the case of the previous volume.
To each of these friends, and to others who come in for an unnamed share of thanks, I renew my gratitude as before. Time has increased the due that I owe and has enriched the appreciation that I feel, as well as my obligations to the Pub- lishers and their corps of assistants, who have made the appear- ance of the book possible.
A. V. WILLIAMS JACKSON. Columbia University,
October 10, 1911.
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