The Desert And The Sown 1907

Blending photographs with descriptions of customs and communities, Bell's volume recounts a portion of her groundbreaking 1905 expedition across Syria.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

First published in 1919, "Syria - The Desert and The Sown" is an extensively-illustrated chronicle of Gertrude Bell's 1905 trip from Jericho to Antioch, which was under the control of warring Turkish tribes at the time. His fascinating and insightful account will appeal to those with an interest in Arabia at the start of the twentieth century and is not to be missed by fans and collectors of Bell's wonderful work. Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, CBE (1868-1926) was an English writer, political officer, traveller, archaeologist, and administrator. She became an important policy-maker in the British Empire as a result of her extensive knowledge and contacts, which she built up through her numerous travels in Mesopotamia, Greater Syria, Asia Minor, and Arabia. T Other notable works by this author include: "Poems from the Divan of Hafiz" (1892), "The Desert and the Sown" (1907), and "Mountains of the Servants of God" (1910). This classic work is being republished now in a new edition with specially curated introductory material.

When I was pursuing along the banks of the Euphrates the leisurely course of oriental travel, I would sometimes wonder, sitting at night before my tent door, whether it would be possible to cast into shape the experiences that assailed me. And in that spacious hour, when the silence of the embracing wilderness was enhanced rather than broken by the murmur of the river, and by the sounds, scarcely less primeval, that wavered round the camp fire of my nomad hosts, the task broadened out into a shape which was in keeping with the surroundings. Not only would I set myself to trace the story that was scored upon the face of the earth by mouldering wall or half-choked dyke, by the thousand vestiges of former culture which were scattered about my path, but I would attempt to record the daily life and speech of those who had inherited the empty ground whereon empires had risen and expired. Even there, where the mind ranged out unhindered over the whole wide desert, and thought flowed as smoothly as the flowing stream—even there I would realize the difficulty of such an undertaking, and it was there that I conceived the desire to invoke your aid by setting your name upon the first page of my book. To you, so I promised myself, I could make clear the intention when accomplishment lagged far behind it. To you the very landscape would be familiar, though you had never set eyes upon it: the river and the waste which determined, as in your country of the Nile, the direction of mortal energies. And you, with your profound experience of the East, have learnt to reckon with the unbroken continuity of its history. Conqueror follows upon the heels of conqueror, nations are overthrown and cities topple down into the dust, but the conditions of existence are unaltered and irresistibly they fashion the new age in the likeness of the old. “Amurath an Amurath succeeds” and the tale is told again. Where past and present are woven so closely together, the habitual appreciation of the divisions of time slips insensibly away. Yesterday’s raid and an expedition of Shalmaneser fall into the same plane; and indeed what essential difference lies between them? But the reverberation of ancient fame sounds more richly in the ears than the voice of modern achievement. The banks of the Euphrates echo with ghostly alarums; the Mesopotamian deserts are full of the rumour of phantom armies; you will not blame me if I passed among them “trattando l’ombre come cosa salda.”

Containing more than 600 entries, this valuable resource presents all aspects of travel writing. There are entries on places and routes (Afghanistan, Black Sea, Egypt, Gobi Desert, Hawaii, Himalayas, Italy, Northwest Passage, Samarkand, Silk Route, Timbuktu), writers (Isabella Bird, Ibn Battuta, Bruce Chatwin, Gustave Flaubert, Mary Kingsley, Walter Ralegh, Wilfrid Thesiger), methods of transport and types of journey (balloon, camel, grand tour, hunting and big game expeditions, pilgrimage, space travel and exploration), genres (buccaneer narratives, guidebooks, New World chronicles, postcards), companies and societies (East India Company, Royal Geographical Society, Society of Dilettanti), and issues and themes (censorship, exile, orientalism, and tourism). For a full list of entries and contributors, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia website.

Gertrude Bell's 1907 work Syria, The Desert and the Sown is travel literature of the highest order. She wanted to tell the stories of the people she met on her tremendous adventure through an often-misunderstood land. She found the inhabitants of Syria diverse and incredibly accepting of such diversity. One man could walk down the street veiled, while another could be almost entirely unclothed, and neither would cause an uproar. Her observations are, perhaps, unbelievable to modern readers, making her book as much a window in time as it is a thrilling adventure. Readers familiar with the history of T.E. Lawrence and his Arabian adventures will find Bell's tales of equal value and interest. Students of history will find her catalog of Syrian life and customs a valuable firsthand account. British writer GERTRUDE LOWTHIAN BELL (1868-1926) was a powerful force in Arabia in the early 20th century. Along with T.E. Lawrence, she helped establish the Hashimite dynasty in Jordan and Iraq. She traveled widely, especially in the Middle East, and spoke a number of languages. During her life she published only a handful of books, including Persian Pictures (1894) and Hafiz Poems (1897).

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ...skilfully. When we returned to Sheikh Hassan's house we related this conversation to the subject of it, and Jerudi pulled a wry face, but expressed himself satisfied. Sheikh Hassan then took me to see his wife--his fifth wife, for he had divorced one of the legal four to marry her. He has the discretion to keep a separate establishment for each, and I do not question that he is repaid by the resulting peace of his hearths. There were three women in the inner room, the wife and another w ho was apparently not of the household, for she hid her face under the bed-clothes when Sheikh Hassan came in, and a Christian, useful in looking after the male guests (there were others besides Jerudi and Sel'm) and in doing commissions in the bazaars, where she can go more freely than her sister Moslems. The harem was shockingly untidy. Except when the women folk expect your visit and have prepared for it, nothing is more forlornly unkempt than the r appearance. The disorder of the rooms in which they live may partly be accounted for by the fact that there are neither cupboards nor drawers in them, and all possessions are kept in large green and gold boxes, which must be unpacked when so much as a pocket-handkerchief is needed, and frequently remain unpacked. Sheikh Hassan's wife was a young and pretty woman, though her hair dropped in wisps about her face and neck, and a dirty dressing-gown clothed a figure which had, alas! already fallen into ruin. But the view from Naksh Pendi's balcony is immortal. The great and splendid city of Damascus, with its" gardens and its domes and its minarets, lies spread out below, and beyond it the desert, the desert reaching almost to its gates. And herein is the heart of the whole matter. This is what I know of...

This is a major re-evaluation of the life and legacy of Gertrude Lowthian Bell (1868-1926), the renowned scholar, explorer, writer, archaeologist, and British civil servant. The book examines Gertrude Bell's role in shaping British policy in the Middle East in the first part of the 20th century, her views of the cultures and peoples of the region, and her unusual position as a woman occupying a senior position in the British imperial administration. It focuses particularly on her involvement in Iraq and the part she played in the establishment of the Iraqi monarchy and the Iraqi state. In addition, the book examines her interests in Iraq's ancient past. She was instrumental in drawing up Iraq's first Antiquities Law in 1922 and in the foundation of the Iraq Museum in 1923. Gertrude Bell refused to be constrained by the expectations of the day, and was able to succeed in a man's world of high politics and diplomacy. She remains a controversial figure, however, especially in the context of the founding of the modern state of Iraq. Does she represent a more innocent age when the country was born out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, or does she personify the attitudes and decisions that have created today's divided Middle East? The volume's authors bring new insights to these questions.