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Excerpt from The Eastern Libyans: An Essay The present volume needs hut few words by way of preface. The materials here presented were first collected as part of the evidence relating to the history of Cyrenaica, to the study of which I have devoted already a member of years, and to which I hope to give more. As my Libyan notes grew in volume, and suggested the various questions which are discussed in the following pages, it became clear that in mere mass alone they would be a teature disproportionately large if introduced without abridgment into the work I hope ultimately to publish. Such an abridgment would, unless the way were first prepared by a series of articles in the journals, necessitate my making in many parts of my treatment of Cyrenaic history a number of statements which, without explanation, would appear dogmatic. That I have chosen to set forth the Libyan material in the present form instead of in the journals, is due to a conviction that the subject is of such importance as to warrant its treatment in book form; so a desire to have the evidence easily accessible to others; and to a wish to provide, as far as I may, a scientific basis for further study of the Libyans east of Africa Minor. The importance of the Hamites in the eastern Mediterranean in Minoan times will not be underrated to-day by any thoughtful student of that sphere and period. Equally, to the Egyptologist, any systematic treatment of the people whose contribution to the civilization of the Nile Valley has, for over a decade, been the source of so much and such reckless controversy, should be welcome. This essay both suffers and derives advantages from the fact that it has been written in the field. The disadvantages of being often cut off from all libraries are too obvious to be dwelt upon; I am much to be blamed, however, it there do not appear in the following pages some traces of the opportunities of which, by being in the Levant, I have been able to avail myse