The Road to Oxiana
In 1933 the delightfully eccentric Robert Byron set out on a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad, and Teheran to Oxiana-the country of the Oxus, the ancient name for the river Amu Darya which forms part of the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. His arrival at his destination, the legendary tower of Qabus, although a wonder in itself, is not nearly so amazing as the thoroughly captivating, at times zany, record of his adventures.\ His story would become...
Search in google:
In 1933 the delightfully eccentric Robert Byron set out on a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Teheran to Oxiana -the country of the Oxus, the ancient name for the river Amu Darya which forms part of the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. His arrival at his destination, the legendary tower of Qabus, although a wonder in itself, it not nearly so amazing as the thoroughly captivating, at times zany, record of his adventures. In addition to its entertainment value, The Road to Oxiana also serves as a rare account of the architectural treasures of a region now inaccessible to most Western travellers. When Paul Fussell "rediscovered" The Road to Oxiana in his recent book Abroad, he whetted the appetite of a whole new generation of readers. In his new introduction, written especially for this volume, Fussell writes: "Reading the book is like stumbling into a modern museum of literary kinds presided over by a benign if eccentric curator. Here armchair travellers will find newspaper clippings, public signs and notices, official forms, letters, diary entries, essays on current politics, lyric passages, historical and archaeological dissertations, brief travel narratives (usually of comic-awful delays and disasters), and—the triumph of the book—at least twenty superb comic dialogues, some of them virtually playlets, complete with stage directions and musical scoring."
Part 1Venice 19s.s. Italia 20CyprusKyrenia 22Nicosia 24Famagusta 25Larnaca 27s.s. Martha Washington 27PalestineJerusalem 28SyriaDamascus 38Beyrut 39Damascus 40IrakBaghdad 45Part 2PersiaKirmanshah 49Teheran 50Gulhek 53Teheran 54Zinjan 55Tabriz 58Maragha 61Tasr Kand 62Saoma 64Kala Julk 65Ak Bulagh 66Zinjan 67Part 3Teheran 69Ayn Varzan 76Shahrud 77Nishapur 78Meshed 79AfghanistanHerat 84Karokh 108Kala Nao 110Laman 114Karokh 116Herat 116PersiaMeshed 119Teheran 123Part 4Teheran 125Kum 133Delijan 133Isfahan 134Abadeh 137Shiraz 137Kavar 141Firuzabad 144Ibrahimabad 149Shiraz 157Kazerun 157Persepolis 159Abadeh 169Isfahan 170Yezd 178Bahramabad 181Kirman 181Mahun 182Yezd 184Isfahan 184Teheran 185Sultaniya 192Teheran 192Part 5Shahi 195Asterabad 197Gumbad-i-Kabus 199Bandar Shah 202Samnan 203Damghan 204Abbasabad 205Meshed 205Kariz 213AfghanistanHerat 216Moghor 224Bala Murghab 231Maimena 233Andkhoi 241Mazar-i-Sherif 243Kunduz 260Khanabad 264Bamian 267Shibar 271Charikar 274Kabul 275Ghazni 277Kabul 280IndiaPeshawar 283The Frontier Mail 285s.s. Maloja 285EnglandSavernake 286
