Eothen by Alexander Kinglake

Eothen was first recommended to me as "a masterpiece of the wry and elliptically self-mocking English travel memoir," and I found it compulsively readable.

It’s a true story in which our hero,Alexander Kinglake, visits famous sites throughout the Middle East, during a pandemic in the 1830s.

If you have a taste for dry English humor mixed with a bit of social commentary and adventure, you'll probably like it.

Our author's preface warns that the book "is quite superficial .... I have endeavoured to discard from it all valuable matter derived from the works of others, and it appears to me that my efforts in this direction have been attended with great success."

He goes on to assure us that his book is "thoroughly free" from any "moral reflections", "political disquisitions", or "useful statistics". Nor, he claims, does it contain any "religious knowledge", "details of geographical discovery, or antiquarian research." His intention is just to describe his experience of the journey, as if he were talking to a friend (and he had a particular friend in mind, to whom the preface is addressed).

He omits all of his European travels, skipping over the whole journey from his home in England across the continent to the Balkans, and begins more or less in media res with his passage into Belgrade, now the capital of Serbia, but then (1830s) a fortified city on the western edge of the Ottoman Empire.

He begins with gusto: "now my eyes would see the Splendour and Havoc of The East," then immediately turns to the omnipresent danger of the plague which hovered like a pestilent cloud in the background of his entire journey. This plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, had been known as the Black Death when it devastated Europe in the 1300s. Kinglake describes the various quarantine restrictions with which the people of his time attempted to contain it.

"If you dare to break the laws of the quarantine, you will be tried with military haste; the court will scream out your sentence to you from a tribunal some fifty yards off; the priest, instead of gently whispering to you the sweet hopes of religion, will console you at dueling distance, and after that you will find yourself carefully shot and carelessly buried".

After Kinglake and his companions ferry across the Danube river between Europe and the Ottoman lands, a group of Turkish porters wearing turbans, pistols and swords comes forth from Belgrade to help his party with their luggage. He speculates these men might "have thought themselves more usefully, more honourably, and more piously employed in cutting our throats than in carrying our portmanteaus."

He mentions an English manservant employed by his group who gazed upon these Turkish porters with considerable astonishment but then, gathering himself together, "marched on with the steps of a man - not frightened exactly, but sternly prepared for death, or the Koran, or even for plural wives."

An audience with the Pasha of Belgrade follows, who arranges for them a guide, horses, and servants for the journey to Istanbul.

Kinglake refers to the new guide as a "Tatar" as if that were a title rather than an ethnic term, which I found slightly puzzling. He specifies that a Tatar's job is to carry government dispatches throughout the realm, and also to accompany respected foreign travelers for their guidance and protection. This Tatar is apparently named Moostapha, and he takes command of the servants, who are known as "Suridgees." The Suridgees are “employed to lead the baggage-horses. They are most of them Gipsies. Their lot is a sad one: they are the last of the human race, and all the sins of their superiors (including the horses) can safely be visited on them.”

I suppose it's necessary to say something about the chasm of differences between Kinglake's era and ours in terms of respectable opinions about class, ethnicity, sex, race, religion - all of those titillating demographic distinctions that people get so worked up about. Where to begin?

How about a favorite quote from the British author C.S. Lewis, on trying not to fall victim to the unexamined prejudices of one's own era:

"The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them."

Eothen is from the era when Queen Victoria was ascending to the British throne, the Industrial Revolution was peaking, and practitioners of "Western culture" were finding that it drove their technological advantage over non-industrial cultures exponentially forward. The warlike, expansionist forces of Europe were gearing up for their most extreme phases, supported by their growing industrial infrastructure of steamships and rail.

European colonies were beginning to grow in Australia and New Zealand, Dutch settlers were fighting the Zulus and the British in South Africa, while in China the run-up to the Opium Wars was well underway.

In America, the Civil War and abolition of slavery were still decades in the future; the Trail of Tears was a current event. Just a few years before Kinglake began his journey, the French author Alexis de Tocqueville had been traveling through the expanding United States. Tocqueville's observations, published as Democracy in America, make an interesting point of comparison to Kinglake's contemporary experiences in a very different part of the world.

Obviously, there was no such thing as "wokeness" back then. At the global level, practically no human societies were even trying to be egalitarian or representatively democratic yet. Judgmental opinions about the relative merits of other races, nationalities, or ethnic groups were considered normal. Even within one's own group, the hierarchical concept of one's "betters" and "inferiors" was a standard part of most people's mental furniture. Modern efforts to transcend these types of prejudice have been generally laudable, yet (so far, at least) less successful than one might hope. Rather than belabor this topic with speculative theories about why, let's continue with Kinglake on his journey and perhaps we'll at least gain some perspective.

As he and his companions prepare to leave Belgrade, their Tatar arrives fresh from the bath "for so is the custom of the Ottomans when they start upon a journey" and it seems like an excellent custom to me. Kinglake notes that the rigors of traveling hundreds of miles on horseback will have worn down this “sleek Moostapha” quite a bit before he "comforts his soul in the marble baths" at Istanbul.

"At first our way was in darkness, but after a while the moon got up, and touched the glittering arms and tawny faces of our men with light so pale and mystic that the watchful Tatar felt bound to look out for Demons, and take proper means for keeping them off: forthwith he determined the the duty of frightening away our ghostly enemies (like every other troublesome work) should fall upon the poor Suridgees; they accordingly lifted up their voices, and burst upon the dreaded stillness of the forest with shrieks and dismal howls. These precautions were kept up incessantly, and were followed by the most complete success, for not one demon came near us."

They spend a night in a small Serbian village, consisting of about “a dozen clay huts” in a clearing in the forest. He notes that the villagers “were careful to conceal their riches, as well as their wives,” but after some threats from Moostapha they provided the party with milk and eggs for dinner.

They did not encounter any brigands along the way, unless you count the skeletons of some robbers who had been impaled on high poles.

Arriving at Istanbul rather the worse for wear, they hunker down to keep a low profile for a time, as they are worried about both the plague and the plague regulations.

He discusses the various and conflicting attitudes and ideas about the plague which were then current, which seem uncomfortably relevant in the wake of our recent modern pandemic.

"It is the firm faith of almost all the Europeans living in the East, that plague is conveyed by the touch of infected substances, and that the deadly atoms especially lurk in all kinds of clothes and furs".

This, of course, led many Europeans to support the Ottoman quarantine restrictions and avoid contact with other people, or other people’s clothes. The average Muslim, however - and more than a few Europeans - often took a more stoic or fatalistic approach, and exhibited little respect for such precautions.

While exploring the city, Kinglake gets bumped by the foot of a plague victim being carried to a hasty funeral, and frankly admits:

“This accident gave me such a strong interest in denying the soundness of the contagion theory that I did in fact deny and repudiate it altogether: and from that time, acting upon my own convenient view of the matter, I went wherever I chose, without taking any serious pains to avoid a touch. It seems to me now very likely that the Europeans are right, and that the plague may be really conveyed by contagion; but during the whole time of my remaining in the East my views on this subject more nearly approached to those of the fatalists”

Apaper by the late Professor LaVerne Kuhnke confirms that, in 1834, there was a "prolonged and devastating plague epidemic which provoked a heated controversy over the etiology of the disease which was not settled until 60 years later, when Yersin discovered the specific causative pathogen in 1894."

Kuhnke also notes: "Opposition to quarantine practices among Europeans had a wide range of motivations. Many reformers' reactions against the archaic, unexamined and sometimes illogical regulations were well-founded and sincere.... Many enlightened Physicians had rejected the so-called 'contagionist' hypothesis on which quarantine practices were based. And many trade representatives resented the restrictions simply as interference with private enterprise."

Speaking of private enterprise, Kinglake spares a page or so to explain why it’s customary, in a Turkish bazaar, to haggle over prices in a way that his fellow countrymen would find distasteful and unseemly:

"In England, or in any other great mercantile country, the bulk of the things bought and sold goes through the hands of a wholesale dealer, and it is he who higgles and bargains with an entire nation of purchasers by entering into treaty with retail sellers. The labour of making a few large contracts is sufficient to give a clue for finding the fair market value of the goods sold throughout the country; but in Turkey ... partly from the absence of great capital and great credit, the importing merchant, the warehouseman, the wholesale dealer, the retail dealer, and the shopman, are all one person."

"He cannot know the intensity of the demand, or the abundance of the supply, otherwise than by the offers which may be made for his little bundle of goods; so he begins by asking a perfectly hopeless price, and then descends the ladder until he meets a purchaser".

Kinglake also mentions his efforts to learn some Turkish, describing it as a tongue "enriched, perhaps overladen, with Persian and Arabic words imported into the language, chiefly for the purpose of representing sentiments, and religious dogmas and terms of art and luxury" for which the ancestral language, originating among the “untamed millions who rove over the plains of Northern Asia,” would have had no need for words.

In that place and time, every man was his own lawyer: there was no generally accepted role for legal counsel. As a result, Kinglake asserts, most speakers of Turkish took some pains to speak eloquently since, in a legal context, “a bad speech may endanger the property of the speaker as well as the soles of his feet, and the free enjoyment of his throat.”

The bastinado - flogging of the soles of the feet - was a standard punishment in the Ottoman Empire, and its results are described later in the book when some scoundrels suspected of stealing Kinglake's camel are brought into court.

"I was shocked when they entered, for I was not prepared to see them come carried into the room upon the shoulders of others. It had not occurred to me that their battered feet would be too sore to bear the contact of the floor. They persisted in asserting their innocence. The Governor wanted to recur to the torture, but that I prevented, and the men were lifted back to their dungeon."

"Thinking at last that nothing was to be gained by keeping the prisoners any longer in confinement, I requested that they might be set free. To this the Governor assented, though only, as he said, out of favor to me, for he had a strong impression that the men were guilty."

From Istanbul, they head south to visit the sites on the west coast of Turkey where the Trojans lived during the legendary Trojan War. Kinglake is especially happy about this part of the trip and waxes rhapsodic on how he read and re-read Homer's Iliad as a young boy (in Alexander Pope's famous translation) which he enjoyed greatly as an adventure story. He thanks and praises his mother for encouraging his younger self in these two things: "to find a home in his saddle, and to love old Homer, and all that Homer sung."

From the land of the Iliad, they travel south along the Turkish coast to the city of Smyrna (modern Izmir) where they embark on a Greek brigantine and set sail for the coast of Syria. Due to inclement weather, they put in at the island of Cyprus, and their party disembarks there, having enjoyed about as much as they could stand of Mediterranean sailing.

Kinglake admits, with a touch of embarrassment, to entertaining some mystical feelings about visiting the ruins of a pagan shrine to Aphrodite at Paphos, on the south shore of Cyprus. This visit, however, does not inspire him. He pokes around, feels a bit silly, and notes "If you have no taste for research, and can't affect to look for inscriptions, there is some awkwardness in coming to the end of a merely sentimental pilgrimage, when the feeling which impelled you has gone".

He sails away from Cyprus to the mainland of western Asia, arriving at Beirut (which he spells "Beyrout") on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

At Beirut, he learned that the quasi-legendary Lady Hester Stanhope lived about one day's journey away. She had gained a reputation over the preceding decades as an English expatriate noblewoman who had taken up adventuring and archaeology in Western Asia, and reputedly now reigned as a "Queen of the Desert" over some wandering Arab tribes. A mysterious and imperious figure, she did not normally receive European visitors. Fortuitously, she had known Kinglake's mother as a girl, so he sent a courier to inform her that he was in the area, and received a rare invitation to visit.

Hiring some horses, he and his group ventured forth to her stronghold in the desert, a former monastery which resembled a "neglected fortress".

After dinner - "The cuisine was of the Oriental kind, -- highly artificial, and, as I thought, very good" - he is personally escorted into the room where the Lady Stanhope received visitors.

"her face was of the most astonishing whiteness; she wore a very large turban made seemingly of pale cashmere shawls, and so disposed as to conceal the hair; her dress ... was a mass of white linen loosely folding -- an ecclesiastical sort of affair".

"The prestige created by the rumours of her high and undefined rank, as well as of her wealth and corresponding magnificence, was well sustained by her imperious character and her dauntless bravery ... I never heard anything satisfactory as to the real extent or duration of her sway, but I understood that, for a time at least, she certainly exercised something like sovereignty amongst the wandering tribes."

Her interests had lately become more spiritual, and as they sat up far into the night, smoking the Turkish pipes known as "chibouks" or "tchibouques," she began to discourse on mysteries sacred and profane, such as:

"announcing that the Messiah was yet to come. She strived to impress me with the vanity and falseness of all European creeds, as well as with a sense of her own spiritual greatness. Throughout her conversation upon these high topics, she carefully insinuated, without actually asserting, her heavenly rank”.

"The Prophetess announced to me that we were upon the eve of a stupendous convulsion which would destroy the then recognised value of all property upon earth; and, declaring that those only who should be in the East at the time of the great change could hope for greatness in the new life that was then close at hand, she advised me, whilst there was yet time, to dispose of my property in poor, frail England, and gain a station in Asia."

"She spoke with great contempt of the frivolity and benighted ignorance of the modern Europeans; and mentioned, in proof of this, that they were not only untaught in astrology, but were unacquainted with the common and every-day phenomena produced by magic art: she spoke as if she would make me understand that all sorcerous spells were completely at her command, but that the exercise of such powers would be derogatory to her high rank in the heavenly kingdom."

After summing up the rest of his stay, Kinglake makes a few incisive observations on matters of belief:

"As for the Lady's faith in Astrology and Magic science, you are not for a moment to suppose that this implied any aberration of intellect. She believed these things in common with those around her".

He observes how, in his experience, even a hard-headed, practical type of man will often, eventually, yield "to the faith of those around him; and this he will do by sympathy, it would seem, rather than from conviction."

"in England we scarcely acknowledge to ourselves how much we owe to the wise and watchful press which presides over the formation of our opinions, and which brings about this splendid result, namely, that in matters of belief the humblest of us are lifted up to the level of the most sagacious, so that really a simple [junior officer] is no more likely to entertain a foolish belief about ghosts, or witchcraft, or any other supernatural topic, than the Lord High Chancellor".

There's some relevance in this line of thought to our own era. If we once did, we sadly no longer have any generally acknowledged "wise and watchful press" to ensure that the least among us are lifted to the level of the most sagacious. On the contrary, the least sagacious among us are now the most gullible adherents of news-and-opinion-mongers who only cater to their prejudices, encourage belief in all manner of superstitious and inaccurate nonsense, and whip up the most predictable emotions with clickbait.

On the other hand, it's telling that Kinglake illustrates his point using the example of a junior military officer: his specific phrase is "so that really a simple Cornet in the Blues is no more likely," which is (not a reference to playing blues music on a brass horn, but rather) an old name for a second lieutenant in the British Army's Blues and Royals cavalry regiment. So if a  junior cavalry officer is considered "the humblest of us," it becomes clear that by "us" he means the more respectable classes of Great Britain. Perhaps the effect of a "wise and watchful press" was less reliably uplifting to the sagacity of the cannon fodder.

Nazareth is the next famous location to which Kinglake travels and he admits, again with a touch of embarrassment, to entertaining some mystical feelings about visiting the Grotto of the Annunciation, a holy site maintained by the Catholic church, which is sacred to Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. He enjoys at least a moment or two of rapturous religious experience here, as compared to his visit to Aphrodite's pagan shrine on Cyprus, but still mentions some conflicted and disenchanted feelings:

"let there but come one chilling breath of the outer world, and all this loving piety would cower, and fly before the sound of my own bitter laugh."

"One moment -- one more, and then -- the fever had left me. I rose from my knees. I felt hopelessly sane. The mere world reappeared."

Aside from his interest in Aphrodite, the Virgin Mary, Lady Hester Stanhope, and his praise of his mother's views on Homer and horsemanship, Kinglake evinces a noteworthy level of interest on the topic of women generally. Unlike some male authors of his era, he is not the type to ignore women and women's issues as unworthy of discussion. It is clear he holds the 'fair sex' in high esteem, though he has a keen and cynical eye for pretension in men or women.

Throughout the book, he maintains a running commentary on the relative charms of the various types of local women he encounters in his travels. He was still in his 20s when he undertook this journey, and some of his remarks reminded me of the Beach Boys' song "California Girls," which extols the virtues of American girls from the East coast, the South, the Midwest, and the North, only to wish that all of them could join the "cutest girls in the world" in California.

These passages very much sound like he's writing to a personal friend, as he shifts reliably from first- to second-person narration.

In Istanbul: "perhaps as you make your difficult way through a steep and narrow alley ... you meet one of those coffin-shaped bundles of white linen that implies an Ottoman lady. Painfully struggling against the obstacles to progression interposed by the many folds of her clumsy drapery ... she works her way on full awkwardly enough, but yet there is something of womanly consciousness in the very labour and effort with which she tugs and lifts the burden of her charms".

"There is fire, though, too -- high courage, and fire enough in the untamed mind, or spirit, or whatever it is which drives the breath of pride through those scarcely parted lips.

You smile at pretty women -- you turn pale before the beauty that is great enough to have dominion over you. She sees, and exults in your giddiness; she sees and smiles".

In Smyrna: "you see ... the large eyes deeply set, and self-relying as the eyes of a conqueror, with all their rich shadows of thought lying darkly around them, -- you see the thin fiery nostril, and the bold line of the chin and throat disclosing all the fierceness, and all the pride, passion, and power that can live along with the rare womanly beauty of those sweetly turned lips."

In Cyprus, sacred to Aphrodite: "The bewitching power attributed at this day to the women of Cyprus is curious in connection with the worship of the sweet goddess who called their isle her own. The Cypriot ... is tall, and slightly formed; there is a high-souled meaning and expression -- a seeming consciousness of gentle empire that speaks in the wavy lines of the shoulder and winds itself ... around the slender waist".

In Bethlehem, where a predominantly Christian population allowed the local young ladies greater freedom than they would have enjoyed under a more strictly Muslim regime, "those romping girls of Bethlehem will gladden your very soul".

"if you will only look virtuous enough to prevent alarm, and vicious enough to avoid looking silly, the blithe maidens will draw nearer and nearer to you".

A wise recommendation, which could double as dating advice for a young man.

Whatever his interested yet ambiguous feelings about religion might be, it's clear enough where Kinglake’s genuine enthusiasms lie when he wraps up his account of the holy city of Bethlehem by calling it a "gushing spring of fresh and joyous girlhood."

He also enjoys a visit to Damascus, though he doesn't mention the ladies there. This ancient city is, in our day, the capital of Syria; during Kinglake’s time it was part of Palestine. He passed through on his way to Egypt, and again on his return. Alcohol is forbidden to Muslims, but during this first visit he stayed with the local Franciscan (Catholic Christian) monks, and warmly recommends their viticultural acumen:

“Christianity merits and sanctions the drinking of wine; and of all the holy brethren in Palestine there are none who hold fast to this gladsome rite so strenuously as the monks of Damascus; not that they are more zealous Christians than the rest of their fellows in the Holy Land, but that they have better wine.”

From Damascus, he ventures down to the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, to the city of Tiberias. Tiberias, despite being founded by Romans and named after one of their emperors, had (sometime in the 16th century) been anointed one of theFour Holy Cities of Judaism, and thus had become a pilgrimage site for Jews of all nations. Various Christian holy sites are also pointed out to him along the way, including the remains of some famous loaves and fishes which had been miraculously turned to stone - he notes drily that “The petrifaction was most complete.”

One of the drawbacks of visiting famous pilgrimage sites becomes unpleasantly clear when he stays overnight in Tiberias: pilgrims from everywhere bring pests from everywhere. “The fleas of all nations were there … and all rejoiced in one great international feast.”

After a poor night’s flea-bitten sleep, he sets out toward the Dead Sea.

He begins the next chapter by caricaturing - and ascribing to his former self - the typical rebellious and self-important tendencies of a certain cynical-emo-outsiderish type of 'angry young man.' This persona appears to be a recurring archetype, or possibly a developmental stage:

“There comes to him a time for loathing the wearisome ways of society — a time for not liking tamed people — a time for not sitting in pews — a time for impugning the foregone opinions of men, and haughtily dividing truth from falsehood — a time, in short, for questioning, scoffing, and railing — for speaking lightly of … all our most cherished institutions. It is from nineteen to two- or three-and-twenty, perhaps, that this war of the man against men is like to be waged most sullenly.”

This may be the key to his whole journey: he brings it up at this point to explain his questionable decision to follow a questionable guide to the wrong side of the Jordan River. Even though he knows they should be sticking to the West Bank as they journey south toward the Dead Sea, he allows his party to be led across to the east bank of the Jordan. He explains that the chance to encounter actual "wandering tribes," and maybe partake of "bread and salt in the tent of an Arab warrior" was part of the appeal.

"There, on the other side of the river ... there reigns the people that will be like to put you to death, for not being a vagrant, for not being a robber, for not being armed and houseless. There is comfort in that -- health, comfort, and strength to one who is aching from very weariness of that poor, dear, middle-aged, deserving, accomplished, pedantic, and pains-taking governess, Europe."

They eventually find their way down to the Dead Sea, where Kinglake takes a dip and finds the water so excessively salty and buoyant that he can't even swim properly.

Not having found any spot where they can ford the Jordan on the way down, they begin retracing their steps back north in hopes of regaining the relative safety of the West Bank before they completely run out of provisions.

On the way, they encounter a hardscrabble group of locals, living in "low black tents," who receive Kinglake's visit cordially enough, according to their customs, and offer him some goat buttermilk, for which he is grateful.

"they did not offer me the bread and salt (the pledges of peace amongst wandering tribes) ... I afterwards found that the poor fellows had no bread to offer ... they had a scanty supply of milk from goats, but they were living almost entirely upon certain grass stems which were just in season at that time of the year. These, if not highly nourishing, are pleasant enough to the taste, and their acid juices come gratefully to thirsty lips."

Seventeen able-bodied men of this group, along with some elders, agree to help Kinglake's party across the river. However, once they reach it, some of them begin to argue with their fellows in favor of robbing the travelers, rather than assisting them.

"they disputed with great vehemence and fury for nearly two hours"

"During the discussion I remained lying in front of my baggage ... the pleasantest toys to play with during this interval were my pistols, and now and then, when I listlessly visited my loaded barrels with the swivel ramrods, or drew a sweet musical click from my English firelocks, it seemed to me that I exercised a slight and gentle influence on the debate."

Eventually, the translator gets a word in edgewise, and proposes that Kinglake write out for the locals a "teskeri, or written certificate of their good conduct, as might avail them hereafter in the hour of their direst need," along with some baksheesh (money given as a tip or bribe). They eagerly accept this offer, seeming to value the teskeri over the baksheesh, and help Kinglake's party ford the river with the aid of several empty wineskins which they repurpose as balloon-like flotation devices.

The world-famous city of Jerusalem is up next, where Kinglake observes and describes crowds of Christian pilgrims, both Orthodox and Catholic, conducting sundry religious exercises in preparation for Easter. He feels no particular religious inspiration himself, but his translator Dthemetri is a (perhaps overly) zealous member of the Greek church, and drags him along through a superabundance of shrines and icons, performing many devotions.

“He was almost distracted by the temptations that surrounded him: there were so many stones absolutely requiring to be kissed, that he rushed about happily puzzled, and sweetly teazed, like ‘Jack among the maidens.’”

Kinglake also happens to observe the perfunctory funeral of a poor, elderly Greek pilgrim who had expired upon reaching the Holy Land. His burial service was being rushed through indifferently by a fat local priest.

"I did not say 'Alas!' - (nobody ever does that I know of, though the word is so frequently written). I thought the old man had got rather well out of the scrape of being alive and poor."

From Jerusalem, they travel to Gaza (between quarantines and Gaza, this book strikes some oddly contemporary notes for a narrative that’s 180 years old.) There they rent camels and prepare for the next leg of their journey, across the desert to Egypt.

Dthemetri the translator was also the ‘travel coordinator’ for this part of the trip.

As such, "he found it necessary to put himself in communication with the Governor. The result of this diplomatic intercourse was that the Governor with his train of attendants came to me one day ... and formally complained that Dthemetri had grossly insulted him."

Kinglake is shocked and, as Dthemetri is present, immediately asks him "what the deuce he meant by it," expecting a denial or excuse.

“to my surprise he very plainly answered that he certainly had insulted the Governor, and that rather grossly, but, he said, it was quite necessary to do this in order to ‘strike terror and inspire respect.’”

And indeed, this tactic apparently worked: the Governor of Gaza "seemed more than ever, and more anxiously, disposed to overwhelm me with assurances of good will and proffers of his best services."

This turns out to be a general principle, a theme to which Kinglake returns with several other examples: “one of the greatest drawbacks to the pleasure of traveling in Asia is the being obliged more or less to make your way by bullying.”

Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Kinglake is comfortable in his own status as an English gentleman and, though he shows a clear interest in learning about the customs of other peoples, has no qualms at all about judging them, sometimes condescendingly. He seems disappointed, and slightly disgusted, when the local traditions frustrate his inclination toward “fair play.”

Hiring the assistance of some local Bedouins, they head for Cairo, which means traveling across the desert of the northern Sinai Peninsula for eight days on camel-back.

He goes into some detail on how to ride a camel:

"your quilt or carpet ... is folded and fastened on to the pack-saddle upon the top of the hump, and on this you ride, or rather sit. You sit as a man sits on a chair when he sits astride. I made an improvement on this plan: I had my English stirrups strapped on to the cross-bars of the pack-saddle; and thus, by gaining rest for my dangling legs, and gaining, too, the power of varying my position more easily … I added very much to my comfort.”

The Bedouins with whom he traveled were fond of “youart" (yogurt) - "a kind of whey, which is the principal delicacy to be found amongst the wandering tribes.”

They stop at an oasis where a caravan is encamped, and Kinglake mentions that the local people normally do not venture across the desert until they have enough parties interested in making the trip to form a proper caravan, for protection. They think it suspicious and strange that British travelers are willing to undertake such a trek with only a few servants, a local guide, and a couple of pistols. There are even widespread rumors that the English travel under the protection of demons.

Kinglake attributes this belief "partly to the strong wilfulness of the English Gentleman (a quality which, not being backed by any visible authority either civil or military, seems perfectly superhuman ... ), but partly too to the magic of the Banking system, by force of which the wealthy traveller will make all his journeys without carrying a handful of coin, and yet, when he arrives at a city, will rain down showers of gold."

I've found from my own experience that if you look like you might be more trouble than you're worth - “vicious enough to avoid looking silly” - yet act polite, you may be able to pass unscathed through places other folks might find hostile or treacherous. In 'strange lands,' the implicit intimidation of one's mere alien presence (which tends to evoke the fear of the unknown) together with a basic acknowledgement of etiquette (which gives the locals an opportunity to be courteous without losing face), is often sufficient to provoke a certain level of deference, or at least diffidence.

Kinglake’s party continues on through the desert, without seeing anyone else for days, but eventually they happen to cross paths with another Englishman who is headed in the opposite direction, accompanied by one servant and two local guides. In quintessentially British fashion "we lifted our hands to our caps, and waved our arms in courtesy" and kept going "as distantly as if we had passed in Pall Mall." Their attendants are more sociable, however, and begin talking, which causes the camels to stop. So Kinglake and the other British gentleman - a military officer heading home from India - resign themselves to turning their camels around and exchanging some pleasantries.

"I thought him manly and intelligent -- a worthy one of the few thousand strong Englishmen to whom the Empire of India is committed."

When at last they reach Cairo, they find it sadly besieged with the plague. Kinglake finds it easy enough to rent rooms, as nearly all other European travelers have fled the city. The man who rents him rooms later dies of the plague.

Kinglake and his companions remain in Cairo for nineteen days; they would have stayed for fewer, if not for the difficulty of procuring camels for the return trip.

He visits a banker, to present a certain document and receive cash, according to the banking system of those days, and is taken aback to discover the banker has quarantined himself behind a fence of iron bars, and receives the banking document with a pair of tongs to purify it with smoke before touching it. The banker later dies of plague.

He hires a donkey to ride around on, and a boy to lead the donkey and shout at pedestrians to get out of its way, and travels fairly comfortably around Cairo this way, though he has to hire a second donkey boy when the first one dies of the plague.

Among other sights, he comes across a slave market where "about fifty" black and brown girls were "exposed for sale." The white women available for sale fetched a higher price and, he learns, were sequestered in private rooms nearby. Distasteful as such scenes are, it's important to remember that Kinglake was writing when slavery was still legal in most nations, including the US, and had only very recently (1833) been abolished throughout the British Empire.

He hires a local magician of some repute, not really expecting to see any genuine magic but hoping to see something interesting. The magician doesn't even manage a convincing show, so Kinglake, curious "to see what sort of mummery my Magician would practise if I called upon him to show me some performances of a higher order than those already attempted," contracts with him to "descend with me into the tombs near the Pyramids, and there evoke the Devil."

After some negotiation through the translator "it was arranged that, after a few days to be allowed for preparation, the Wizard should raise the Devil for two pounds ten." Lamentably, before he has a chance to summon the Devil amidst the tombs by the Pyramids, the magician dies of the plague.

"In Cairo this custom prevails: -- at the instant of a man's death (if his property is sufficient to justify the expense) professional howlers are employed. I believe that these persons are brought near to the dying man, when his end appears to be approaching, and the moment that life is gone, they lift up their voices, and send forth a loud wail from the chamber of Death. Thus I knew when my near neighbours died.... Once I was awakened in the night by the wail of death in the next house, and another time by a like howl from the house opposite; and there were two or three minutes, I recollect, during which the howl seemed to be actually running along the street."

At this point, Kinglake develops a sore throat, and casts about for a doctor to prescribe him something. Most European doctors have already fled the city, but he learns of a young practitioner from Bologna who is still available. He visits the doctor, receives a prescription, and two days later learns that the young Bolognese physician has died of the plague.

Professor Kuhnke confirms that this outbreak "was one of the worst in Egypt's modern history ... at least 75,000 people died in Cairo alone, and perhaps 200,000 in all Egypt."

Kinglake, observing that "my banker, my doctor, my landlord, and my magician, all died of the plague" leaves Cairo as soon as some camels become available, and is glad to breathe the “free, wholesome air of the desert” again.

He does visit the nearby pyramids and Sphinx before leaving Egypt. His reaction to the pyramids is unusual - I was surprised when he described them in terms of an odd nighttime childhood experience I'd almost forgotten.

Apologetically, he begins: "try to endure this homely, sick-nursish illustration of the effect produced upon one's mind by the mere vastness of the great Pyramid." He describes how, when he was around four years old, he was

"often in time of night the victim of a strange kind of mental oppression. I lay in my bed perfectly conscious, and with open eyes, but without power to speak, or to move, and all the while my brain was oppressed to distraction by the presence of a single and abstract idea, - the idea of solid Immensity.

…my aching mind was fixed and riveted down upon the mere quality of vastness, vastness, vastness…

…there was nothing at all abstract about the great Pyramid, - it was a big triangle, sufficiently concrete, easy to see, and rough to the touch; it could not, of course, affect me with the peculiar sensation I have been talking of, but yet there was something akin to that old night-mare agony in the terrible completeness with which a mere mass of masonry could fill and load my mind.

And Time too; the remoteness of its origin, no less than the enormity of its proportions, screens an Egyptian Pyramid from the easy and familiar contact of our modern minds"

Compared to Kinglake’s night terrors, my half-remembered childhood experience was more like a disquieting combination of mesmerism and vertigo on the edge of sleep, as if I were experiencing Immensity as a queasy sort of kinesthetic stimulus. I lumped it into the same category as hypnagogic jerks (starting awake as you doze off, usually because you feel like you're falling). It went away as I grew up, so I haven't thought about that feeling in years, but Kinglake's description gave my memory a jolt: an echo of that old disorienting visceral response to an abstract idea resurfaced, with the thought "Oh yeah - that's a thing!" According to him, it's a thing which the Egyptian pyramids evoke, as they are large enough - and ancient enough - to impress upon one's mind the fearful notion of pure Immensity itself.

Also, he's a little bit in love with the Sphinx.

Although he only devotes two pages to her, he sets them off as a separate chapter. Describing her “big pouting lips” and “sad earnest eyes” as “beautiful in the fashion of the elder world” he notes that there are still fascinating Egyptian girls who resemble her.

On his way back to the Levant, through Suez and the Red Sea, Kinglake spends some effort trying to determine where Moses and the Israelites might have crossed, back in the Old Testament days when they were fleeing Egypt with the assistance of their Red-Sea-parting deity. His investigations prove inconclusive.

In general, Kinglake seems to regard the various ethnic and religious types he encounters from a ‘Natural History’ point of view, describing them almost as one might describe different varieties of wild parrot.

To his credit, he displays no personal animosity toward any particular group, though he does seem to find it unremarkable that some of the lower classes and certain ethnic groups (such as Jews, Romani, and people from Africa) suffer prejudice and mistreatment.

He is not squeamish about reporting the various types of prejudice and discrimination he comes across during his travels, in a way which modern readers may find surprisingly non-judgmental.

He discusses a few occasions where he encountered unfair situations and did what he could to make them less unfair, while regretting his inability to fully rectify them.

For example, on this return trip, he comments on the need to obtain milk, eggs, and bread from the locals:

"The worst of it was that the needful viands were not to be obtained by coin, but only by intimidation. I at first tried the usual agent — money … but [my servant] came back empty-handed. I sent him again, but this time he held different language: he required to see the elders of the place, and, threatening dreadful vengeance, commanded them … that my tent should be immediately and abundantly supplied. He was obeyed at once … the usage of the East in old times, required the people of the village at their own cost to supply the wants of travelers; and the ancient custom is now adhered to — not in favor of travelers generally — but in favor of those who are deemed sufficiently powerful to enforce its observance”

Further north (toward the northernmost point of what is now Israel) he comes to the city of Safed, another of theFour Holy Cities which were particularly esteemed by the Jews of Kinglake's day. Ironically, it features in Eothen as a city where the local Jews were persecuted by an especially self-interested "prophet."

While pausing to camp outside of Safed, our author is visited by a delegation of Jewish elders, who beseech his help (as a presumably powerful grandee from England) and inform him that last year "a highly religious Mussulman called Mohammed Damoor went forth into the market-place, crying with a loud voice, and prophesying that on the fifteenth of the following June the true Believers would rise up in just wrath against the Jews, and despoil them of their gold, and their silver, and their jewels."

"When that day dawned, the whole Mussulman population of the place assembled in the streets, that they might see the result of the prophecy. Suddenly Mohammed Damoor rushed furious into the crowd, and the fierce shout of the prophet soon ensuredthe fulfilment of his prophecy."

So much for self-fulfilling prophecies: Mohammed Damoor may be the first explicitly recorded instance of a self-fulfilling prophet.

The Jewish elders had come to Kinglake, hoping for assistance, because "Mohammed Damoor had again gone forth into the market-place, and lifted up his voice, and prophesied a second spoliation of the Israelites."

Kinglake notes, acidly: "This was grave matter; the words of such a practical and clear-sighted prophet as Mohammed Damoor were not to be despised."

He proposes to help them by making a formal application to the Governor for the arrest of Mohammed Damoor, which he guesses would probably help. At first, his visitors are pleased and thankful, but after thinking it over for a moment they decide that such a course of action would likely anger the entire local Muslim populace, and probably cause another “massacre and robbery of the Israelites.”

“I myself did not think that this would be the case, but I could not of course force my aid upon the people against their will”

“They were unable to suggest any mode in which I could aid them, except, indeed, by mentioning their grievances to the Consul-General at Damascus. This I promised to do, and this I did.”

Besides that small favor, when Kinglake returns to the ancient city where he’d enjoyed the wine of the Damascene Franciscans, he presents a broader overview of the town. Focusing on the lush gardens which abound throughout Damascus, he likens them to the old overgrown forests of his English home, in terms of their casual disarray.

“high above your head, and on every side all down to the ground, the thicket is hemmed in, and choked up by the interlacing boughs that droop with the weight of roses, and load the slow air with their damask breath.”

As he skipped over his journey through Europe at the beginning, so he skips over his journey back home at the end: Eothen’s final pages recount a story about violating the quarantine restrictions at Satalieh (now Antalya, on the southern Turkish coast) which is, by turns, horrifying and hilarious.

So anyway, things have changed a bit since the 1830s, though not as much as one might have hoped, and not always for the better.

Let us persevere in hopes that, if we can combine a mindfulness of the past acquired by reading old books with a genial tolerance born of travel, that the future may actually prove appreciably superior to what's come before.

I've quoted Kinglake's words liberally in this review, but if I quoted every funny bit my review would simply become an abridged version of the book. Eothen runs to 300-some pages, and maintained my rapt attention throughout.

The man only wrote one other book: an eight-volume (!) history of the Crimean War, which sounds unpromising at best. But Kinglake is such an interesting and entertaining writer that I'm actually thinking of looking into it.

One last quote, from near the end of his long journey: he describes catching a glimpse of the Mediterranean as he rides westward through a mountain pass, and reflects that he had grown used to:

"the people and the scenes of forlorn Asia - well used to tombs and ruins, to silent cities and deserted plains, to tranquil men, and women sadly veiled; and now that I saw the even plain of the sea, I leapt with an easy leap to its yonder shores, and saw all the kingdoms of the West in that fair path that could lead me from out of this silent land straight on into shrill Marseilles, or round by the pillars of Hercules, to the crash and roar of London. ... Behind me I left an old and decrepit World - Religions dead and dying - calm tyrannies expiring in silence - women hushed, and swathed, and turned into waxen dolls ... Before me there waited glad bustle and strife ... wheels going - steam buzzing - a mortal race, and a slashing pace, and the Devil taking the hindmost".