Having thus given an outline of the book and its contents for the reader’s guidance, I will proceed to explain why I have thought it advisable to depart from a close imitation throughout of the original, and to present, in fact, a modified version rather than a strict translation.
The style of the original, though simple and unadorned, is frequently slipshod; and the author--contrary to many French travellers, who often make, and perhaps still oftener attempt to make, the subject of their narrative a vehicle for epigram and sparkling and spirited diction--has evidently thought more of conveying a truthful picture to the reader, than of the mode of expression by which this could be most effectively done. In many novel and interesting descriptions, for example, the effect they are capable of producing is almost wholly lost through the want of a more just co-ordination of parts and subordination of minor details, and, occasionally, through the want of sufficient expansion, lest the reader should not have time to contemplate and realize a quick succession of fleeting images.
These, consequently, are some of the chief points I have attempted to correct; though in making the attempt, I hope I may not have exposed myself to an unpleasant suspicion, in the first place, of having assumed too much assurance in undertaking uninvited to revise the writing of another, and, in the next place, in certain _tableaux_, which would be unattractive if obscure or colourless, of having indulged in a taste for fine writing, when the sole object has been to place the matter before the reader as lucidly and vividly as possible.
But it will probably more concern the reader to be assured that the truthfulness of these descriptions, such as represented by the traveller, has not been distorted in this manner of treating them. On this point he may readily satisfy himself on taking the trouble to compare some of them with those in the original edition. He will find, I hope, that my work has not been in vain, and that I have contributed something towards rendering more attractive this interesting narrative, chiefly relating to that land over which Madame Cottin, Xavier de Maistre, and other writers have thrown a glow of romance.