With the virtual flood of book digitalization quite a few obscure books are now available online either at archive.org or through Google. I recently came across a gem: a translation of a high school Arabic text used in Aden by the British at the start of the 20th century. The title page was shown in a previous post. The full text can be downloaded as a pdf here. The excerpt above offers some sound political advice, relevant even to leaders today.
Exactly 90 years ago a four-volume set of encyclopedia-like human interest books was published as The Human Interest Library: Visualized Knowledge by Midland Press in Chicago. In a previous post I commented on its thoroughly “Orientalist” flavor. The section on Egypt covers mainly the archaeological history with only a few brief comments on the then contemporary state of Egypt. One of the great mysteries over the years has been an explanation for how the massive pyramids were built. Here is a novel idea, if a picture is worth a thousand scholarly words: ants.
The American man of letters Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) was one of many travelers to the Near East of his time. His tour in 1853 resulted in a travel account above the common lot of Holy Land roller overs. Of particular interest is his frank account of a Turkish bath in Damascus.
“The Bath is the ‘peculiar institution’ of the East. Coffee has become colonized in France and America; the Pipe is a cosmopolite, and his blue, joyous breath congeals under the Arctic Circle, or melts languidly into the soft airs of the Polynesian Isles; but the Bath, that sensuous elysium which cradled the dreams of Plato, and the visions of Zoroaster, and the solemn meditations of Mahomet, is only to be found under an Oriental sky. The naked natives of the Torrid Zone are amphibious; they do not bathe, they live in the water. The European and Anglo-American wash themselves and think they have bathed; they shudder under cold showers and perform laborious antics with coarse towels. As for the Hydropathist, the Genius of the Bath, whose dwelling is in Damascus, would be convulsed with scornful laughter, could he behold that aqueous Diogenes sitting in his tub, or stretched out in his wet wrappings, like a sodden mummy, in a catacomb of blankets and feather beds. As the rose in the East has a rarer perfume than in other lands, so does the Bath bestow a superior purification and impart a more profound enjoyment… Continue reading Tabsir Redux: A Taylor Made Bath in Damascus
“These cafes are picturesque places where one sees the street life of Cairo at its best. Note the more humble style of Turkish pipe smoked by this Arab without being set on the floor.
Exactly 90 years ago a four-volume set of encyclopedia-like human interest books was published as The Human Interest Library: Visualized Knowledge by Midland Press in Chicago. In a previous post I commented on its thoroughly “Orientalist” flavor. The section on Egypt covers mainly the archaeological history with only a few brief comments on the then contemporary state of Egypt. On one plate (volume 4, p. 114) there is a photograph of “An Arab Cafe” (shown above) underneath one of the mummy of Sethi the First. There is also a scene of two water carriers (shown below).
“These men are sometimes negroes, as the seated man in the picture, as well as the boy who has taken water to drink from him. They are usually dervishes of the lowest grade, and are sometimes inclined to be fanatical. They are picturesque as well as a very necessary feature of Egyptian life.”
It is not until the last page of the article that “Egypt today” is uncovered. Not surprisingly, the Pharaonic past is for more than prologue here:
Egypt today, as the case with most of these ancient countries is merely the shadow of its former self; its inhabitants lack the energy and popwer which seem to have belonged to their ancestors. The French some years ago constructed the Suez Canal and on a sandbar which was built up from the the dirt out of the canal the modern city of Port Said was located. It is in some ways the most cosmopolitan city in the world being the gateway between the Occident and the Orient. In visiting Egypt the former usually lands at Port Said or Alexandria, then there is a ninety mile trip by rail to the city of Cairo. It seems quite odd to be riding by street car the six miles out from Cairo to the pyramids. It seems such an awe-inspiring thing to connect these ancient monuments with such a modern achievement. It is, however, typical of Egypt today in that ancient and majestic relics are on the one hand in contrast with the impudent signs of modern native life on the other; the little Bedouin children plan and the burros graze over spots the penetration of the sanctity of which once demanded the penalty of death.
Ah, the sentiments of the Occidental tourist in an antique land where the “impudent signs of modern native life” mar the view of ancient relics. Selah.
A century ago Yemen was still very much a terra incognita for Europeans and Americans. The British controlled the port of Aden, but few individuals were allowed to travel up through the highlands to visit the realm of the Zaydi imam. One of the few was Samuel Zwemer, an American missionary who spent several years in Yemen and other parts of Arabia. His desire to convert Arabs to Christianity seeps through his description, but the photographs published in his Zigzag Journeys in the Camel Country, written with his daughter Amy, are valuable documentation. I attach below a chapter on a trip he made up to Sanaa a century ago. The photographs will follow in a future post. For an earlier post on Zwemer, click here.
With the virtual flood of book digitalization online quite a few obscure books are now available online either at archive.org or through Google. I recently came across a gem: a translation of a high school Arabic text used in Aden by the British at the start of the 20th century. The title page is shown above. The text has translations into English of classical Arabic texts, including fables, anecdotes and travel accounts. The full text can be downloaded as a pdf here. I include an anecdote about Salah al-Din below. Continue reading Gems of Arabic Literature #1: Wise Words
A History of the Church, p. 95
One of the books owned by a great, great aunt of mine in Cleveland was A History of the Church, etc., published in 1833. In a previous post, I offered some excerpts from its coverage of “Mahometanism.” The author is a certain C. A. Goodrich, who is decidedly Protestant and as unfriendly to Roman Catholicism as he is to Islam and Hinduism. Near the end of the book is a section entitled “The Story of the World” by Josiah Conder, originally published in the Missionary Annual for 1833. Its comments on the various religions, including Islam, is quite fascinating, again as a reflection of a time when the United States was barely half a century old. Continue reading On Mahometism, 1833 style: #2
Exactly 90 years ago a four-volume set of encyclopedia-like human interest books was published as The Human Interest Library: Visualized Knowledge by Midland Press in Chicago. In a previous post I commented on its thoroughly “Orientalist” flavor. Not only was the Sahara portrayed as a barren landscape with people who have nothing to do, but the only winds of change are violent storms summed up in the Anglicized “simoon.” Above is an image from the frontispiece to volume 2 in the series and entitled “The Dreaded Simoon – The Scourge of the Desert”. I have not been able to find the name of the artist, which is clearly pre-1921. The caption reads: “The fury of the simoon is like the blast of a furnace. Winged with the whirlwind. and charioted with thunder, it blasts everything in its course. It has the appearance of a train of fire whose murky smoke fills the whole wide expanse of the desert.”
Here is the text describing “The Scourge of the Desert” (Vol. 4, p. 97):
As the color plate shows, the simoon, described by writers, must have presented a majestic and awe-inspiring spectacle. Continue reading Old World Travel 90 years on: #2 The Simoon and Mirage