A Pilgrimage to Nejd

The 'pilgrimage' alluded to in the title of this work describes a five-month journey undertaken by an Englishwoman, in 1878, to the great central desert region of Arabia. That a woman should venture on such a perilous journey at all was unusual enough in the mid-nineteenth century, and the resulting narrative throws a refreshing and sensitive light on the people and places of those times. Lady Anne Blunt (1837-1917), Arabic scholar, horsewoman, musician, traveller, has left a unique record of her journey. Her narrative contains all the romance of the desert and excels in the portraiture of its inhabitants. Yet also described are the awful hardships she faced in one of the world's harshest environments. Here reproduced in facsimile, the work was originally published in two volumes edited by the author's husband, Wilfred Scawen Blunt. Himself an active supported of Muslim aspirations and of nationalism in Arab countries, he accompanied his wife on her travels. The journal remains a sympathetic and worthy account of their adventures.