First Journey from Cairo to the Arabian Desert

Cairo, April 1845. For a year and a half, a Finnish orientalist has been living in the dress of an Arab sheikh in the house of his teacher. Georg August Wallin has chosen his next role: he will enter the Arabian desert as a Muslim doctor, with a small pharmacy in his baggage.

First he must find a Bedouin, sign a contract before witnesses, pay the deposit, recite the Fatiha. On 11 April, Wallin passes through the Gate of Victory. Six hours of waiting at the edge of the void, a Kurdish companion who appears out of nowhere, and by the next morning the guide Husein has vanished along with his promises.

Then the apprenticeship begins: water from the skins, the evening fire, the cold of the nights for a man from the North, the salt plains of Agrud, the meagre spring of Mab'uk. At the fort of An-nakhal, the false doctor holds his consultations under the great porch and pulls a tooth with a door key. Then he sets off again toward the valley of Tih with Sheikh Salim, who questions him about his wives.

A meticulous observer, full of humour, Wallin describes Bedouin customs, names, titles and caravan quarrels with rare precision. Of his great account, he wrote only this beginning. Nine days on the road, and a letter written on a mountaintop, on the way to Ma'an.