Incidents of Travel in Egypt

I'm so glad that I found this book after having been to Egypt and Jordan/Petra because this book has given me insight into the original means of transportation within the Middle East. Stephens' writing style is pure poetry and is a true joy to read. The English language has evolved, but has not improved since his day. To read this book is a true treat for the mind and adventurer. After having had a private guided tour where we did not have to secure a boat that had been scuttled to save it from indentured service to the Pasha, and we did not have to obtain camels and goods as well as questionable guides that might slit our throats in the desert for our money, I could appreciate our accommodations much more. To have been an adventurer then was much more of a true adventure. While I may have had a massage on the top deck of the cruise ship on the Nile at dusk, which made me feel like Cleopatra, I by no means was an adventurer of Stephens' stature and could appreciate the true effort it was to make the same trip 150+ years ago. The Bedouins of today are not much different than the days of yore. We did not have to sneak into Petra from over the mountains, but did sit down to coffee and tea provided by them. They still live in tents, but many are now driving top end Mercedes instead of camels. :) After reading that he shot a pigeon at Denderah and shot out an eye of Hathor, I had to go back and look at my pictures to see if I could find that statue at the temple! If you go to Egypt or Petra, I recommend reading this book after the trip because it has much more meaning then. This book is a true treasure and I can see why a book written by a man who was born over 200 years ago is still in print! I can only hope that it will stay in print for another 200 years so that "modern" people can appreciate the arduous travails of yore.

At the very beginning of Stephens' travelogue, he explains to the careful reader the methodology he used to validate the legitimacy of his writing. I thought it brazen of him, and since he falsified this "rationalization for writing" under such a guise, at times I did not know whether to believe him or not. He did have a quaint deadpan, tongue-in-cheek demeanor.I thought it funny that just after our returning from Poughkeepsie, (New York) I was reading about his traveling through Poughkeepsie!Little nuances such as "... with all the extravagance of Eastern hyperbole..." (page 233) dot the pages.Throughout the book, there are many wonderful learning experiences such as "...I remember I had a long discourse about the difference between the camel and the dromedary. Buffon gives the camel two humps, and the dromedary one; and this, I believe is the received opinion, as it had always been mine; but, since I had been in the East, I had remarked that it was exceedingly rare to meet a camel with two humps. I had seen together at one time, on the starting of the caravan of pilgrims to Mecca, perhaps twenty thousand camels and dromedaries, and had not seen among them more than half a dozen with two humps. Not satisified with any explanation from European residents or travelers, I had inquired among the Bedouins; and Toualeb, my old guide, brought up among camels, had given such a strange account that I never paid any regard to it. Now, however, the sheik told me the same thing, namely, that they were of different races, the dromedary being to the camel as the blood-horse is to the cart-horse; and that the two humps were peculiar neither to the dromedary nor the camel, or natural to either; but that both are always born with only one hump, which, being a mere mass of flesh, and very tender, almost as soon as the young camel is born a piece is sometimes cut out of the middle for the covenience of better arranging the saddle; and, being cut out of the center, a hump is left on either side of the cavity; and this, according to the account given by Toualeb, is the only way in which two humps ever appear on the back of a camel or dromedary. I should not mention this story if I had heard it only once; but, precisely as I had it from Toualeb, it was confirmed with a great deal of circumstantial detail by another Bedouin, who, like himself, had lived among camels and dromedaries all his life; and his statement was assented to by all his companions. I do not vie this out as a discovery made at this late day in regard to an animal so well known as the camel; indeed, I am told that the Arabs are not ignorant of that elegance of civilized life called "quizzing." I give it merely to show how I wiled away my time in the desert, and for what it is worth.2 In spite of Stephens' information, zoologists still classify camels as Dromedary (one hump) and Bactrian (two humps)." (Pages 241-242).I never quite understood the evacuation and continuous abandonment of Petra

Mr. Sthepens was a great traveler and writer too, he made easy to follow his travels and gave his very personal point of view ot those days. In particular I like his graphic description of the conditions that people lived in the past. I recomend it to everybody all ages.