Travel Narrative of An English Woman Traveling in Egypt and the Holy Land.
[Travel – Israel] Manuscript Travel Diary of an Englishwoman travelling in Egypt and the Holy
Land. 1860-61.
4to.; notebook; 268 pages, nearly full; black half calf; marbled boards; stamped in blind; marbled edges
and endpapers; worn.
Together with:
Two loosely inserted contemporary albumen prints: a group portrait of the travelling party posing in front
of the ruins of a temple in Karnak; and a temple relief of Hathor; a loosely inserted partially colored SDUK
map of Egypt; several small ink sketches in text.
An early Victorian travel diary containing an interesting and tolerant firsthand account of a journey to
Egypt and the Holy Land before the opening of the Suez Canal transformed the region into a popular
tourist destination. Written by an unidentified Englishwoman journeying with her husband John and a
group of other English travelers, it spans December 4, 1860 – April 26, 1861. The entries are all dated, are
often extraordinarily detailed, and are occasionally accompanied by sketches.
The first part of the diary, which starts on the date of sailing (December 4 1860) and details the voyage
from Southampton to Alexandria via Gibraltar and Malta, makes up approximately a tenth of the notebook.
The author is travelling with the SS Ceylon, a P&O passenger liner sailing on the Southampton-Malta-
Alexandria service until 1865, together with ‘about 150 passengers…of whom 60 were ladies, & 22
children. The 2nd class passengers amounted to about 30’ (December 4). While entries in this part are
shorter than many later ones, they give a clear sense of the often repetitive life onboard. Like log books,
many begin with notes on the weather: ‘We rejoiced in the volume of moderate weather & were able to be
on deck again’ (December 13). The author also remarks on lodgings (‘we…slept well & comfortably’;
December 4), onboard entertainment for children and adults (children singing “Polly Put the Kettle On,” 5
December; ‘There was another dance,’ 15 December), and religious practices (‘Mr Brown preached a very
good sermon’; 16 December). Sketches include a labeled interior view of her cabin (p.2), and various
landscapes captured along the route, including the Bay of Gibraltar (p.6) and Sierra Nevada (p.7).
The second part of the diary opens with the arrival of the Ceylon in Alexandria about two weeks after
leaving Southampton (17 December). The stopover in the city is brief, with the author’s party staying at the
Hotel d’Europe for but a handful of days before continuing to Cairo by rail (21 December). A fortnight
later, the group leaves Cairo for a journey up the Nile on the paddle steamer Numa (2 January 1861),
presumably going as far as the Second Cataract; however, the author never mentions Aswan. On the way,
she visits various temples and ancient sites, including Giza (4 January), Luxor and Karnak (29 January), El
Kab (7 February), Gebel el-Silsila (8 February), and Kom Ombo (1 March). Overall, the author finds Egypt
fascinating and Cairo in particular delights her. While she describes visiting specific historic sites, such as
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the Citadel (December 24) and Heliopolis (December 26), she finds the contemporary city to be just as
inspiring: ‘The streets of Cairo always afford full occupation to a stranger’s eyes – Beneath, the people &
the shops – above the lattices & the minarets…the various patterns of carving on the domes of the
numerous mosks [sic] are often beautiful & ingenuous’ (December 26). The author expresses none of the
racist attitude present in other British visitors to the region, such as Florence Nightingale’s description of
Egyptians as ‘an intermediate race…between the monkey and the man’ (Nightingale, On Mysticism and
Eastern Religions, 2003, p.144). Similarly, while visiting the English Chapel is a natural part of her stay
(December 25; December 30), she never makes the common claim, for the time, of Christianity’s
superiority to Islam (Bolt, Victorian Attitudes t
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