Preserve backslash in $1 [duplicate]

I'm trying to write a script that accepts a parameter ($1) with backslashes and I want my script to echo the parameter ($1) exactly with the backslashes entered back.

e.g.

$ ./tst \\abc\def\ghi\jkl\lmn\ \\abc\def\ghi\jkl\lmn\ 

My tst script at present looks like this;

#!/bin/bash echo $1 

When I run my script it returns;

\abcdefghijkllmn 

I want it to return:

\\abc\def\ghi\jkl\lmn\ 

Exactly what I entered. I've even tried echo -E $1 but that made no difference.

Any suggestions I could achieve my desirable returned output from my script would be very much appreciated.