The opening of Preface
The present Handbook to the Mediterranean describes the chief routes along the Mediterranean coasts. In his endeavour to unite within a single volume the chief points of interest in so vast a region the Editor has naturally been confronted by peculiar difficulties. These points are so numerous that little space could be afforded for more subordinate matters, so that many details have necessarily been omitted. Again as regards the selection of routes, and of places to be described, opinions frequently differ. The Editor ventures, however, to hope that on the whole he has satisfied the requirements of most of his readers. As many of the regions which are here grouped historically and geographically[1] have already been treated of in several of his other Handbooks, the Editor would respectfully refer the traveller to these for fuller details[2]. The new subjects comprise Madeira and the Canary Islands, the coast of Morocco, and Algeria and Tunisia, the materials for describing which have been collected, in the course of much travel, by several of the Editor’s friends and fellow-workers. The chief Author of the German edition, which appeared in 1909, was _Dr. F.