Description

William Gifford Palgrave (1826–88) was a famous English traveler to Arabia who inspired a generation of European explorers and missionaries. He became fluent in Arabic while serving as a Jesuit missionary in Syria. In 1862 he undertook a year-long journey through the Arabian Peninsula with the stated aim of studying the “moral, political, and intellectual conditions of living Arabia.” He was also working as a secret agent for the French emperor, Napoleon III (1808–73). Palgrave disguised himself as a Syrian doctor and was accompanied by his assistant, Barakāt ...