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The books chosen here provide examples of the growing European interest in later centuries in documenting the geography, history, and cultures of desert regions, whether in the form of archaeological investigations into desert antiquities, early works of geography, or the various travelogues of daring explorers.

Before the beginning of the nineteenth century, European knowledge of the interior of sub-Saharan Africa was still very limited, and A Geographical Historie of Africa, 1600¹ – translated and edited by Caian John Pory – reflects a still rather nascent European desire to understand the diverse lands, archaeology and peoples of Africa. Taken largely from the firsthand geographical work Cosmographia et Geographia de Affrica, completed by Leo Africanus in 1526, it contains the first detailed descriptions published in Europe of the Barbary Coast (modern Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) and the gold-trading kingdoms of west-central Africa.

But it is really the late eighteenth century that is said to mark the beginning of the age of African exploration by Europeans, and Mungo Park was one of its first successful explorers. It was after his exploration of the upper Niger River around 1796 that Park wrote his popular and influential travel book Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, 1799.² This book provides vivid firsthand observations of African societies and landscapes, as well as compelling stories of his journeys, including across the Sahara, that were fraught with danger and hardship. His dispassionate – if not exactly objective – descriptions set a standard for future travel writers and were highly influential in giving Europeans a striking glimpse of Africa's rich culture and complexity.

This growing European interest in desert regions was, of course, not limited to Africa, and Three Years Travels from Moscow Over-Land to China, 1706,³ is the travelogue of a Danish merchant who undertook several diplomatic missions to China. His account provides valuable insights into the political, economic, and social conditions of the regions he traversed, including accounts of arduous of overland travel to China across desert regions in Central Asia.

Classical scholarship was another driver towards desert exploration. The first trip to Palmyra by Europeans, began with the historic 1691 expedition undertaken by British merchants based in Aleppo who, upon hearing stories about this vast ruin, made the dangerous journey across the desert. Their detailed report to the Royal Society was later published with an impressive 180-degree panorama that served as a virtual illustrated guide to their itinerary through Palmyra's ruins. It is this panorama that was subsequently reproduced by Abednego Seller in his book The Antiquities of Palmyra, 1696.⁴

Over two centuries later, in another travelogue penned by a diplomat, The Lost Oases⁵ by Egyptian Ahmed Hassanein – bearing a note of gratitude on the front flyleaf from the author to the master of Gonville and 91Ö±²¥ for their hospitality – tells of the author’s trip by camel from Egypt's Mediterranean coast west of Mersa Matruh, heading for the oases of Siwa and Kufra and into the unknown reaches of the Libyan Desert. Infused with elements of romance and intrigue, this book represents a decidedly more modern perspective on the age-old form of the desert travelogue.

Desert fathers << Early desert explorations >> Pilgrimage to sources

1. Leo Africanus, A Geographical Historie of Africa (London: George Bishop, 1600).
2. Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa (London: G. and W. Nicol, 1799).
3. Evert Ysbrants Ides, Three Years Travels from Moscow Over-land to China (London: W. Freeman, J. Walthoe, T. Newborough, J. Nicholson, and R. Parker, 1706).
4. Abednego Seller, The Antiquities of Palmyra (London: S. Smith and B. Walford, 1696).
5. Aḥmad Muḥammad Ḥasanayn, The Lost Oases (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1925).