![\"Frontispiece](\"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/specialcollections\/files\/2015\/01\/SCM09672_front_reduced.jpg\")
<\/a>Frontispiece from: Sir Thomas Herbert, A relation of some yeares travaile, begunne anno 1626 \u2026, (London, 1634), SCM 09672.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Frontispiece from: Sir Thomas Herbert, Some years travels into divers parts of Africa and Asia the Great \u2026, (London, 1677), SCT 00254<\/p><\/div>\n
His account of his experiences, Some Years Travels into Divers Parts of Africa and Asia the Great \u2026<\/em>, first published in 1634, was a great success and several later editions, with extensive additions, appeared during his lifetime. Herbert\u2019s narrative is full of interesting details and digressions and the spontaneity, enthusiasm and humour in his writing must have been instrumental in the book\u2019s popularity. In addition to the first edition, the Special Collections holds copies of the 1665 and 1677 editions.<\/p>\n Herbert vividly describes the hardships of his party\u2019s journey by camel across the Parthian desert to the Caspian Sea:<\/p>\n \u2018We journied towards \u2026 Hircania \u2026 travelling all the night and reposing (I cannot say sleeping, the Gnats so troubled us) all the day. We had guides and a Convoy to direct us, the Starres were theirs, without whose ayme there is no certaintie. The Sunne is so fiery and makes the Sands so scalding on the day time, that it then prohibits Pilgrimages \u2026 The sands by the fury of Tempests lie in great drifts, like mountaines. So light and unstable, that the high ways are never certaine \u2026\u20191<\/sup><\/p>\n The embassy crossed a salt desert, \u2018not unlike pure Snow \u2026 so deepe and boggie\u20192<\/sup> that camels would sink and be buried, if they strayed from the causeway. They climbed the mountain of Damoan, from the top of which they could see the Caspian Sea 180 miles distant: \u2018Tis above composed of Sulphur, which makes it in the night sparkle \u2026 tis so offensive to mount up, that you cannot doe it without a Nose-gay of strong Garlicke \u2026\u20193<\/sup><\/p>\n These trials had an adverse effect on the health of even the robust young Herbert (the adventurer Sir Robert Sherley, who accompanied the embassy, and its leader Sir Dodmore Cotton both died in Persia). Herbert, though suffering from dysentery, was \u2018forced to travel 300 miles, hanging upon a Camell\u2019 and his servant, \u2018an old Tartarian Hecate\u2019 tried to poison him:<\/p>\n \u2018Abbas King of Persia\u2019 from: Sir Thomas Herbert, Some years travels into divers parts of Africa and Asia the Great \u2026, (London, 1677), p. 216, SCT 00254<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018Shee knew strong drinke was utterly forbid me, for feare of inflammation, yet forced by inordinate thirst to call for water, she returnes me old intoxicating Shiraz Wine, which insensibly I powred downe, and \u2026 it \u2026 put mee for foure and twentie houres into a deadly trance.\u20194<\/sup><\/p>\n While he lay in this stupor, the servant stole linen and money from his trunk and fled. Herbert, however, did not pursue her, because he did not want her to undergo the brutal punishments he had witnessed the Persians carry out on others.<\/p>\n \u2018The Buriall Place of the Persees in India\u2019 from: Sir Thomas Herbert, A relation of some yeares travaile, begunne anno 1626 \u2026, (London, 1634), p. 40, SCM 09672<\/p><\/div>\n The book is rich with incisive little pen-portraits of the people Herbert encountered \u2013 Shah Abbas was \u2018low of stature \u2026 fiery eyes, his nose long and hooked \u2026 his Mustachoes very long and bending downwards\u2019.5<\/sup> Herbert was intrigued by the exotic customs and practices he witnessed, Zoroastrian burial rites, for example, where the naked corpse was laid on top of a burial tower \u2018exposed to the Sunnes fiery rage and devouring appetites of Vultures and Cormorants\u2019. Herbert comments that these rites are \u2018better to be spoken of, than seene\u2019.6<\/sup><\/p>\n He gives us colourful descriptions of the local flora and fauna. In the \u2018Her body is round and fat \u2026 so great as few of them weigh less than fifty pound: meat it is with some, but better to the eye than stomach; such as only a strong appetite can vanquish.\u20198<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>waters by the Canary Islands lurk \u2018sharkes, whose cruell appetite[s] encourage them to devoure men alive. They are always directed by a little specled fish, called a pilot fish, by guiding their Monster-masters to a prey.\u20197<\/sup> In Mauritius, he watched the Dodo:<\/p>\n