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Second French edition, revised and corrected from the first complete French edition of 1776-80. This is the eyewitness account of the 1761-7 Danish expedition to Arabia, the first great scientific expedition to the Middle East, by its only survivor, the German-born surveyor Carsten Niebuhr (1733-1815). The first volume is an abridged translation of Niebuhr's Beschreibung von Arabien (1772), a description of the original expedition to Yemen. The second comprises excerpts from his Reisebeschreibung von Arabien und andern umliegenden Ländern (1774-8) and is almost entirely devoted to the peoples of Arabia and the Persian Gulf, with a brief relation of his return journey from India via Muscat and the Gulf to Bushire, and thence overland to Europe. The expedition, originally intended to "illustrate certain passages of the Old Testament, … rapidly blossomed into a full-fledged scientific expedition", comprising six members (Howgego). The party left Copenhagen in early 1761, travelling via Constantinople to Alexandria and spending a year in Egypt, ascending the Nile, and exploring Sinai. They then crossed from Suez to Jeddah and sailed down the Arabian coast to al-Luhayyah in Yemen, making frequent landfalls, before continuing overland to Sana'a via Mocha, with two members of the party dying en route. On returning to Mocha, the remaining four collapsed with fever and were put on a ship bound for Bombay, and only Niebuhr survived the sea voyage. He remained in India until late 1764, when he sailed for Muscat, eventually reaching Copenhagen in November 1767 and receiving financial assistance to compile the Beschreibung, which has long been considered one of the classic accounts of the geography, people, antiquities, and archaeology of the Arabian Peninsula and wider Middle East, with maps which "remained in use for over 100 years" (ibid.) The second volume contains chapters on the Hejaz, the Nejd, Yemen, and Oman, and general accounts of Arabian culture, religion, science, and natural history. There is much valuable information on today's Gulf states, including a remarkable section on the "Principality of Seer" (pp. 123-4): a "sovereignty extend[ing] along the Persian Gulph" and encompassing "Dsjulfar" (Julfar, a former name for Ra's al-Khaymah), and "Scharedsje" (Sharjah). The "Prince of Seer", whose navy is "one of the most considerable in the Persian Gulf", is evidently Shaykh Rashid bin Matar Al Qasimi (r. 1760-7), the second-recorded head of the Al Qasimi dynasty, the modern rulers of the emirates of Sharjah and Ra's al-Khaymah. The territory of the Al Qasimi tribe is delineated in the map frontispiece of the first volume, which also accurately situates the "Beni Ass" - the Bani Yas, antecedents of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi - in their ancestral homeland around the Liwa oasis. There are similar sections on Kuwait (pp. 127-8) and Bahrain (pp. 152-3), making this a singularly important account of the Gulf in this still-obscure period. This work was originally published in German at Copenhagen (1772-8), a French translation of just the first part being issued there in 1772. The prefatory note states that the distinguished orientalist Joseph de Guignes was called in to oversee the text and correct the "gross faults" of the original edition. It also states that the plates and maps were entrusted to the "best artists" and newly engraved. These include costume, inscriptions, views of the Great Mosque (al-Haram) at Mecca, the Prophet's Mosque (Al-Masjid an-Nabawi) at Medina, and two leaves from the Qur'an. Gay 3589; Howgego I N24; Speake II, pp. 857-9. 2 vols bound as one, small quarto (254 x 184 mm). With 25 engraved plates, of which 7 are maps (6 folding), with folding genealogical table for the ruling house of Yemen (not in list of plates); wood-engraved head- and tailpieces. Early 20th-century sheep bound to style, decorative gilt spine, red morocco label, endleaves renewed. Front joint a little rubbed and somewhat crudely repaire.
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