Air travel has now converted what was once a lengthy land or sea voyage into a matter of hours, but the accounts of that earlier, more arduous experience on foot or camelback, under sail or steam, are many and extraordinary. Although overwhelming numbers of travelers have been driven chiefly by piety and God's command, some of them have been European frauds, adventurers, or explorers drawn by the lure, and the danger, of a forbidden experience. Peters has enhanced his presentation of their accounts with an abundance of rare, and in many instances previously unpublished, nineteenth-century photographs of pilgrims and the Islamic Holy Places from the unique collection of the Harvard Semitic Museum, annotated by the curator, Dr. C.E.S. Gavin.




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