cacakerbamakhlukpolitik

Nineteenth century English adventurer, linguist, and explorer Richard Burton lived and traveled in the Middle East at a time when British “blue eyes” were unwelcome. Disguised as an Afghan physician, Burton spent time in Egypt tutored by a once-rich druggist to perfect his Arabic pronunciation and then set off to see for himself the city of Medina ( Al-Madinah ). He joined a caravan and thus began to see and experience life as an Arabian traveler. He learned, for example, that the larger the turban worn, the greater the owner’s claims of religious knowledge and respectability, He experienced a great deal more. During Ramazan, for example, when the faithful [including a disguised Burton] are expected to fast for 16 hours each day (not even swallowing their spit!), his traveling companions grew increasingly bad-tempered; the daily heat took its toll so they traveled at night; and they were harassed almost daily by Bedouin tribesmen intent on raiding. After many armed skirmishes, th...

Jane Digby was known in her later years as “Engleysi,” the Madwoman. Unbelievable as it may seem, this is the true story of a Regency-era woman, born into nobility in 1807 in Norfolk, England. She grew up in comfort, in a serene pastoral countryside before the Industrial Revolution, and she gave her governess heart failure: Jane loved life; she had perfect health, a reckless and ardent temperament; and (in her later years) she thrived on scandal. Throughout her life a “scarlet thread of exoticism” pulled her into a yen for adventurous travel (not surprising since her father was a buccaneering admiral). A child of the Regency, she was enamored of romantic curiosities–Turkish slippers, Arab daggers, Moorish-style gazebos, onion-shaped domes. Jane was married (though not consulted) at age 17 to Lord Ellenborough, a man twice her age who neglected her. In 1821 she had a fling with her cousin, Captain George Anson, conceived a child, whom Lord Ellenborough accepted as his heir. Jan...