Safar Nameh, Persian Pictures: A Book Of Travel

But this was wilful stupidity. If I had listened to the wisdom of Sheikh Hassan, I should have realized that we were in the midst of sublime abstractions, and that the most rigi...

This other palace stood in the midst of a grove of orange-trees; the waters of the Caspian lapped round its walls, and before its balconies stretched the densely-wooded hills of...

THERE is a couplet in an Elizabethan book of airs which might serve as a motto for Eastern life: ‘Thy love is not thy love,’ says the author of the songs in the ‘Muses’ Garden o...

EVERY man, says a philosopher, is a wanderer at heart. Alas! I fear the axiom would be truer if he had confined himself to stating that every man loves to fancy himself a wander...

The cypresses cast their shadows over this page of Turkish history, springing upwards in black and solemn luxuriance, nourished by dead bodies. The cypress-trees are like mutes,...

But the gods have eternity in their hand, and we must hasten, for our time is short; long ere the monkey’s prayer was answered we had risen and taken leave of the three ladies....

In a year or two this bridle-path across the hills will have joined the long roll of things that were; no more will travellers entering Persia climb the narrow track which was t...

Early in the afternoon sounds of mourning rose from the village. The inhabitants formed themselves into procession, and passed up the shady outlying avenues, and along the strip...

‘Warum bin ich vergänglich, O Zeus? so fragte die Schönheit. Macht ich doch, sagte der Gott, nur das Vergängliche schön. Und die Liebe, die Blumen, der Tau und die Jugend vernah...

The bazaars in Constantinople are not so attractive: the crowds jostle you, the shopkeepers, throwing aside Oriental dignity, run after you and catch you by the sleeve, offering...

The man who carried the most amusing wares we ever examined was a Russian officer, and he spread them out for our inspection as we steamed round the eastern and northern coasts...