Description

Life in the Desert, or, Recollections of Travel in Asia and Africa is an English translation of a work originally published in 1860 in France under the title Les Mystères du Désert. The purported author, Louis Du Couret (1812–67), claimed to be the son of a colonel in the French army. He traveled to the Middle East in 1836, where he served as a military officer under Muḥammad ʻAlī (1769–1849), pasha and wali (governor) of Egypt, and fought in the Battle of Nezib in Syria in 1839. He ...