William J. L. Maxwell, Letters of an Engineer while on Service in Syria in Connection with the Proposed Euphrates Valley Railway and the Beyrout Waterworks (London: Marcus Ward & Co., 1886), Pp. 5–10

[Editor’s Note.—On the 19th of July, 1870, Mr. Maxwell left London for Syria, under instructions from Mr. Telford Macneill, to make a survey of a proposed line of railway through the valley of the Euphrates for the promoters of that scheme. Mr. Maxwell’s letters to his friends at home describe his journey from London and Paris, whence he travelled through France by the most direct route to Brindisi, crossing over Mont Cenis by Mr. Fell’s wonderful mountain railroad. The Letters contain little worth putting in print up to this point, as in these days everybody goes to Paris, and most people are familiar with a still wider radius from home; but Mr. Maxwell’s experience of the journey over the Cenis on the locomotive seems worthy of being printed, as that triumph of engineering adventure—so soon superseded by the more laborious work of tunnelling right through the mountain—is already forgotten. This will account for the abrupt commencement of the Letters. Writing from Brindisi, where an enforced delay took place, Mr. Maxwell gave a more detailed account of his experiences en route and his surroundings than he might otherwise have done. The real interest of the Letters lies in the description of Eastern places, people, and customs, and of the writer’s experience in regions but little known to Europeans; but it has been thought well to print the narrative as connectedly as possible from the point where it is taken up.]