Travelling the Incense Route

"She has a gift for people; she has an eye for places." - The Times

The Incense Route is one of the most ancient and important highways in the world. It was once a rival to the Silk Road, at a time when faith in the mystic power of incense was at its height and its traffic - frankincense and myrrh, spices from India, gold and exotic African animal skins - was the lifeblood of the countries through which it passed.

Barbara Toy set out to travel the length of this long-forgotten route at a time of particular turbulence in the region and became the first western woman to have made the journey. Beginning in Bir Ali, Can'a of ancient times, she passed through war zones in Yemen, joined a band of pilgrims as far as Mecca, forged on to Jeddah and Medina, explored the breath-taking Nabataean city of Madain Saleh and then turned north, to Midian, Aqaba, Petra, Amman and finally Damascus.

Travelling the Incense Route is both a gripping account of intrepid travel and a portrait of Arabia unlike any other.

Auteur

Barbara Toy was a well-known traveller and explorer. Elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society for her visits to Iceland, Yugoslavia, Greece and Lebanon, she later became the first Westerner to set foot on the summit of Mount Wahni in Ethiopia. She received the Rover award (an award granted only once before) for her transit of North Africa from the Niger River to the Mediterranean.

Described by Philip Llewellin as a 'traveller in the most full-blooded sense of the word', Toy was the author of several acclaimed books, including In Search of Sheba, A Fool on Wheels, Rendezvous in Cyprus and The Way of the Chariots. She died in Banbury in 2001 at the age of 92.

Résumé
&quote;She has a gift for people; she has an eye for places.&quote; - The TimesThe Incense Route is one of the most ancient and important highways in the world. It was once a rival to the Silk Road, at a time when faith in the mystic power of incense was at its height and its traffic - frankincense and myrrh, spices from India, gold and exotic African animal skins - was the lifeblood of the countries through which it passed.Barbara Toy set out to travel the length of this long-forgotten route at a time of particular turbulence in the region and became the first western woman to have made the journey. Beginning in Bir Ali, Can'a of ancient times, she passed through war zones in Yemen, joined a band of pilgrims as far as Mecca, forged on to Jeddah and Medina, explored the breath-taking Nabataean city of Madain Saleh and then turned north, to Midian, Aqaba, Petra, Amman and finally Damascus.Travelling the Incense Route is both a gripping account of intrepid travel and a portrait of Arabia unlike any other.

Contenu

Prologue

1 Unwelcome Traveller
2 Over the Jol
3 Mukalla
4 Open Sesame
5 Towards the Yemen
6 Live Now - Die Later
7 Royalist Friends
8 Sheba Came This Way
9 The Waking Giant
10 Into the High Asir
11 The Forbidden City
12 'Jeddah - of Frankish Consuls'
13 The Hijaz Railway
14 Madain Salih - Tombs of the Nabataeans
15 The Midian
16 The King's Highway

Index