Charlecote Park From the Library - Len Mullenger Eothen, or traces of travel brought from the East. By Alexander William  Kinglake 1844 Eothen, or traces of travel brought from the East. By Alexander William Kinglake 1844 Kinglake set out to be a lawyer but gave it up to become a writer and Eothen (you do pronounce the o) or Traces of travel brought home from the East  was his first book. The Charlecote copy is a first edition with this beautiful gold embossed cover. It describes a journey he made to the Middle East and it was an instant success. He was schooled at Eton and was in the same class as Tennyson. In 1834 he met an old Eton friend, John Saville who had just been to Russia, Persia and India and together they planned a trip to Turkey, ignoring the plague which was rampant there. Saville was called back home so Kinglake travelled on alone. He met up in the Lebanon with Lady Hestor Stanhope, a friend of his mother, who had made a life among the Bedouin. From there he went to Nazareth, Tiberius and Jerusalem and then to Cairo and finally Damascus. He spent some years writing the story of his travels only to find no-one wanted to publish it so he self-published and, fortunately for him, it was an immediate success. I would like to quote Michael Allen who wrote some years ago in his blog Grumpy Old Bookman: We recently had the hall and landing redecorated, which meant that I had to move all those books out from the shelves under the stairs, which meant, as usual, that I found a few things that I didn’t know I had, plus a few old favourites. One of the old favourites is Eothen by A.W. Kinglake. How did I come by that? Some years ago I read that someone had once asked Winston Churchill’s advice on how to improve his prose style. ‘Read Kinglake,’ said Churchill. Well, since the old boy did win the Nobel prize for Literature, on account of his ‘mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory’, I figured that it might be worth taking his advice. Turns out that Kinglake wrote two things of note: Eothen, for one, plus an eight-volume history of the Crimean War. I started with the former, which was originally published in 1844, when Kinglake was 35. The word Eothen, incidentally, means ‘from the east’, and the book describes the author’s travels in what is now, I suppose, called the Middle East. Well, Churchill was right, in that Eothen is easy to read and tells a gripping story. The title, as the author points out, is the hardest word in the book. There are 29 chapters, many of them indicating the places he went to, such as Constantinople, Cyprus, Cairo, Damascus, and so forth. Two examples of the content will suffice. One chapter is devoted to Lady Hester Stanhope. Lady Hester evidently came from Somerset, where she acquired a formidable reputation for breaking-in the most vicious horses. At some point, however, she became bored with life in England and answered the call of the east. She ended up in the desert, somewhere near Beirut. The desert held no terrors for an Englishwoman with balls, which is very definitely what Lady H was. She could also ride a horse better than most men. Her reputation with the desert tribes was sealed when she was accompanying a group which lived in constant fear of attack by their enemies. At one point, a tiny disturbance was noted on the far horizon, and the group began to panic, thinking that an enemy force was hunting them down. Lady Hester, however, had keener eyes than any of them. She studied the tiny speck on the horizon for a few moments, and then announced that there were indeed horses approaching, but that they were riderless. This statement proved to be correct, and thereafter the tribe seems to have made her some sort of honorary queen.  On another occasion, Lady H was with some other members of a tribe and was told, as tactfully as possible, that if she was found in their company, the whole group would be killed by a rival tribe. Lady H immediately broke apart from her companions, and set off across the desert alone. Sure enough, she was soon being chased by a large band of brigands. Recognising that she could not escape, Lady H turned to face them, and with a roar of defiance yelled out, ‘Avaunt!’ Which is, of course, an obsolete expression, meaning ‘Go away!’ Or ‘To hell with the lot of you!’ Or perhaps something even ruder. The band of brigands was so impressed by this display of courage that they decided not to kill her after all, and roared their approval in reply, firing their weapons into the sky instead of at her. There is more about Lady Hester, along the same lines. The other story in Eothen which I find quite unforgettable concerns Kinglake’s time in Cairo. Even as he approached the city, he was warned to turn back because the plague was rampant, but he went ahead regardless. He soon discovered that death was a commonplace event. The stream of funeral processions past his lodgings was almost constant. And sure enough, after a few days Kinglake too fell ill with a sore throat. Most of the doctors had fled the city, but one remained – remaining because he was too young and poor to leave, rather than through any desire to serve his fellow men. Kinglake visited the doctor, was examined, and was given a prescription. As he left, he noticed that, although the day was not hot, the doctor was sweating heavily. Within a few days, Kinglake had recovered and the doctor had died. It is, I believe, somewhere in Eothen (though I cannot now locate it) that you will find a piece of advice which I pass on to you. It is a saying which is sometimes attributed to Cecil Rhodes, but I suspect that it was common currency in the nineteenth-century gentlemen’s clubs and in the officers’ messes. The advice is this: Always remember that you are an Englishman, and have therefore won first prize in the lottery of life. In the nineteenth century, this was, of course, no more than a statement of fact; but it has a lot of truth in it, even today. So, on those mornings when you wake up and feel that all is far from well with the world – that Mr Blair is a clueless moron, and Mr Bush worse; that David and Victoria are bound to split up, despite your very best efforts; and that, as sure as it is Tuesday, it will rain again in the afternoon – on those occasions, dear reader, I recommend that you repeat the nineteenth-century mantra: I must always remember that I am an Englishman... et cetera.  Of course this little magic spell, so to speak, only works if you actually are an Englishman (or woman). If you are a Frenchman or an Italian, or something ghastly like that, I can only offer you my deepest sympathy. Reading Eothen, however, might at least cheer you up somewhat, and it won’t do your prose style any harm either.  The full text of Eothen is available on line http://www.gutenberg.org/files/282/282-h/282-h.htm Here is an extract from Eothen which shows just how readable the text is. I sailed from Smyrna in the Amphitrite, a Greek brigantine, which was confidently said to be bound for the coast of Syria; but I knew that this announcement was not to be relied upon with positive certainty, for the Greek mariners are practically free from the stringency of ship’s papers, and where they will, there they go.  However, I had the whole of the cabin for myself and my attendant, subject only to the society of the captain at the hour of dinner.  Being at ease in this respect, being furnished too with plenty of books, and finding an unfailing source of interest in the thorough Greekness of my captain and my crew, I felt less anxious than most people would have been about the probable length of the cruise.  I knew enough of Greek navigation to be sure that our vessel would cling to earth like a child to its mother’s knee, and that I should touch at many an isle before I set foot upon the Syrian coast; but I had no invidious preference for Europe, Asia, or Africa, and I felt that I could defy the winds to blow me upon a coast that was blank and void of interest.  My patience was extremely useful to me, for the cruise altogether endured some forty days, and that in the midst of winter. …………………………………………………….. A modern paperback of Eothen can cost as little as four pounds on Amazon Len Mullenger is a Sunday volunteer guide. Any comments are welcome and can be sent to len@musicweb-international.com Return to Index page