british travel attitudes to the near east in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries anita damiani ph

285 Pages·2008·13.23 MB·English

BRITISH TRAVEL ATTITUDES TO THE NEAR EAST
IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES
ANITA DAMIANI
PH. D.
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
1977
ii
ABSTRACT
Until the beginning of the nineteenth century travel was
considered to be a necessary adjunct to education, and, eventually,
voyagers included Near Eastern countries within the Grand Tour.
They visited the area at a time when Ottoman rule went unchallenged,
and uropean countries, thanks to the help of their different
societies and institutions, were amassing a large amount of data
on a wide variety of subjects. Four outstanding contributors of
the period were Lady Mary Wortley riontagu, Richard Pococke, Robert
Wood and Alexander Russell.
Lady Mary, who was a friend of some of the most prominent
poets and writers of the age, immortalized the women of Turkey in
her belles lettre,S and attempted to present many of the customs
and manners of that area in a more favourable light than that in
the Arabian Nights or in the popular travel literature of the time.
Pococke, who later in life was Bishop of Ossory and Meath,
was a dedicated and selfless traveller, touring for five years the
various regions under Ottoman rule. His ;. Descrirtion of the East
was considered to be the most authoritative and comprehensive
travel account of the period, and made any further attempts along
the same lines useless.
The third traveller, Robert Wood, mainly concentrated on the
works of Homer and the study of archaeology. e was particularly
interested in the ruins of Baalbec and Palmyra, since they provided
a notable example of smaller states successfully competing against
larger and more powerful nations. The last contributor,
Alexander Iussell, was a physician attached to the Levant Tra-
ding Company in Aleppo, and he, like Lady Mary before him, had
the opportunity to observe and correct many of the popular mis-
conceptions regarding Eastern women and the Islamic religion.
In later years, however, as britain rapidly became a world
power while the Ottomans lost many of the provinces under their
jurisdiction, British travellers' attitude towards the area
changed. Rociantic revolutionaries at heart, they were no longer
interested in acquiring information in the manner of their pre-
decessors, but rather strove to challenge the past with the achieve-
ments of their own generation. Some works which demonstrated the
new trend were %illiam Kinglake's Eothen, Eliot 'darburton's The
Crescent and the Cross, and 1i11iam Thackeray's From Cornhill to
Grand Cairo.
iv
CONTENTS

Title page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.

Abstract • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 13.

Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • • • iv

Declaration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . V

Acknowledgements .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . Vi

INTRODUCTION
1

CHAPTER I - LADY NARY WORTLEY NONTAGU
11.9

CHAPTER II - RICHARD POCOCKE
92

CHAPTER III - ROBERT WOOD
137

CHAPTER IV - ALEXANDER RUSSELL
173
CONCLUSION - TRAVEL IN THE NINETEENTH

CENTURY
223
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
V.
DECLARATION
I hereby declare that this Thesis embodies
the results of my own special work, and that
it has been composed by myself.
Signed
Date__________
vi.
ACKNOWLEDG EMENT
I would like to thank the University of Edinburgh for
providing me with the opportunity to undertake the research
covered in this thesis. In particular, I must thank the
Senatus Academicus for granting me a studentship over the
period of two years.
Two people without whose help and guidance the completion
of this work would have been impossible are Nr. G.Carnall
and Dr. D. Sultana. Throughout the period of my enrolXw.ont
they have been generous with their time and advice. To
Mr. Carnall I am especially indebted for certain themes which
I explored with regard to eighteenth century literature, and
to Dr. Sultana I owe a great debt of gratitude for his con-
tinuous help and advice on eighbeenth and nineteenth century
travellers, as well as for his help with my style.
Of particular value in defining the limits of my subject
was the advice ofP .9.,Cchia, formerly associated with the
:pepartment of Arabic, and. that of Dr. A. H. Hourani at the
University of Oxford. Their suggestions with regard to
Middle Eastern authors were especially useful. The two
oral conversations held. with Dr. R.W. Ferrier of the British
Petroleum Company, and Dr. Hopwood of the Oxford Arabic In-
stitute were especially illuminating, since they are both
keen scholars of travel literature. One colleague whose
encouragement and apt suggestions will always be very much
appreciated is Dr. Mario Relich, once a fellow researcherin
eighteenth-century literature.
vii
I must also thank the libraries and staff of the University
of Edinburgh, the National Library of Scotland, and the British
Library in London without whose cooperation and facilities
the undertaking of such research would be impossible. To a
/
lesser extent, I must also thank the libraries at Beirut,
Cairo and Damascus for making available all their resources
when I initially proposed covering the works of some Arab
travellers as well.
In conclusion I must thank the Lebanese Embassy in London,
and especially, Mr. Gilbert Oun, our consul in Britain, for his
'f oF
spoSot5(
Afinancial help to Lebanese students during the civil war of
1976-77. I must also acknowledge the financial sponsorship
of Mr. James Somerville and Mr. Na'arnan Ass'ad throughout the
period of my studies, and the constant encouragement of
Miss Mary Millar, Miss Alma Easton and Mr. Myles Shanley whulel
resicl€c{ in Edinburgh.
INTRODUCTION
To study an eighteenth century traveller to the East is to
observe a very special kind of man, one, who after having followed
in the footsteps of his predecessors for two hundred years, was
destined to disappear at the turn of the century. The visitor
to the East, soon after the Napoleonic Expedition to Egypt, and
at the very latest, by 1820, no longer aspired towards a grand
comprehensive tour which would cover vast areas of human tradition,
and where he could test historical and scientific theories, His
narrative accounts took a more personal turn and the topic he chose
was one which appealed to him as an author rather than a traveller.
As a travel historian pointed out: "The 'romantic revival', which
transformed poetry and fiction, made itself gradually felt in the
literature of travel also." 1 The same source explained: tilt j
true that solid and formal records, such as are characteristic of
the eighteenth century, continued to appear down to about 1825,
but narratives of a more natural and easy flow were already
beginning to take their place."2
A traveller was no longer called upon to display great
fortitude, exhibit great powers of observation and classical
scholarship, nor was it necessary for him to belong to the
privileged and aristocratic class. As a result of increased
communication between East and West, created by growing numbers
of diplomatic missions, trading outposts and classical and
biblical pilgrimages, a bridge spanning both Asia and Europe
F. A. Kirpatrick, "The Literature of Travel: 1700-1900",
in Cambridge History of English Literature, eds. A. W. Ward and
A. R. Waller (London, 1907), 1k, 2k8.
2 Ibid.
1
2
was now erected. Voyagers braved the seas with less
trepidation and fear from roving pirates; while inland,
since the awesome reputation of the formidable Turk had been
mitigated by the growing stature of Europe, the outlying
provinces of the Ottoman domain were being approached with
more confidence.
One of the most outstanding features of travel during the
sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries was the tour for the sake
of education. At the very centre of education in Britain lay
the contention that "experience by travel completed the process
of academic education in school and university". 3 The argument
posited was that "what is learnt by the eye makes a more lasting
impression than book knowledge and is more accurate than.
Furthermore, the difficulties encountered in the course of voyages,
whether to Europe or further afield, were meant to "brace the
moral fibre of man".5 Gradually, in ever—increasing numbers,
members of various professions joined others in traversing the
seas in search of enlightenment and education. On one hand,
"an influential and ambitious class of educated laity, who took
the place of the rnediaeval clerks", toured Europe,iAmerica and
the countries lying under Ottoman rule, while, on the other hand,
"many diplomats were satisfied to visit the courts of Europe,
and the gentry /o send7 their sons away for a while to learn
something of the languages and customs of the European people".6
J. W. Stoye, English Travellers Abroad, l6O-l667:
their influence in English society and politics (London, 1952), p.21.
k b.
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid.
3
Eventually, the number of young men touring Europe had
reached such absurd proportions that many thinkers and
philosophers of the age reacted vociferously against the
merits of such a pastithé.
Foremost among the critics of the grand tour was the
British philosopher, John Locke. Having resided himself
in France for a number of years, he cast serious doubts on
the education to be derived from travel at a young and
impressionable age. In his work, Some Thoughts Concernin
Education, he indicated the weaknesses inherent in indiscriminate
travel to new and strange civilizations. He said: "The last
part usually in Education is Travel which is commonly thought
to finish the Work, and complete the Gentleman. I confess
Travel into foreign Countries has great Advantages, but the
time usually chosen to send young Men abroad is, I think, of
all other, that which renders them least capable of reaping those
Advantag". Due to their youth they are unable to understand
the way of men, their customs and their habits of living.
"Going abroad", this empirical philosopher continued, "is to
little purpose, if Travel does not sometimes open his Eyes,
make him cautious and wary, and accustom him to look beyond the
Outside, and, under the inoffensive Guard of a civil and obliging
Carriage, keep himself free and safe in his conversation with
Strangers and all sorts of People without forfeiting their good
Opinion."7 A further objection to this form of travel was
the need for a tutor to accompany the young student of culture.
Such a guardian, often hastily chosen and unresourceful in
character, not only failed to help his prote'gé to attain the
John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education
(Cambridge, l931+), p. i6.