Desert Travellers

Book excerpt: From the time of the earliest Greek historians, the deserts of Egypt and the Near East have exerted a fascination on travellers. For Herodotus it was the zoological marvels that fascinated him while later explorers found the desert a place to consider their own identities, seeing their reflections in the shifting sands. This book studies the writings of desert travellers, discussing their backgrounds, their discoveries, and the legacy of early accounts that they have left us. Many of the authors presented their work first at meetings of the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE). Contents: Part 1: Crocodiles, Pilgrims and Isolated Villages: The Zoology of Herodotus and his Greek Descendants (Charles Foster); Egyptian deserts in Early Medieval Arabic travel writing (Okasha El Daly); Two pilgrims at Saint Catherine's Monastery: Niccolo di Poggibonsi and Christopher Harrant (Anne Wolff); Travellers at Tayyibah: the northern desert of Syria 1600-1980 (Norman Lewis). Part 2: Gold, Ruins and Journeys into the Unknown: The Double Voice of James Bruce, Abyssinian Traveller (Carl Thompson); William Easton, a forgotten American voice (Cassandra Vivian); Giovanni Battista Brocchi, an Italian Scientist in the Near East (Paolo Branca); A la decouverte des mines d'or du desert nubien: LMA Linant de Bellefonds en Etbaye, 1831-1832 (Marcel Kurz et Pascale Linant de Bellefonds); Gold, emeralds and the unknown Ababda (Janet Starkey); Ancient Egypt and the Gordon Relief Expedition (David Dixon). Part 3: A Search for Identity? 'In a position to fathom the Arabs': Ameen Rihani, traveller to the Arab Near East (Geoffrey Nash); Deraa Revisited (John Rodenbeck).