The Syrian Desert: Caravans, Travel and Exploration

For more than 3,000 years the trade routes of this desert have linked the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean with Mesopotamia; they have fostered cultural and religious, as well as commercial exchanges between the Near and the Middle East . . . until the opening of the Suez Canal, the Syria Desert was almost universally recognized as a short-cut between the Occident and the Orient. A secondary purpose of this book is an introduction to the classics of desert travel . . . meant to serve as a background for the adventures and experiences of all who have traveled in and across the Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean.