The Journey of Prince Mohammed Ali Pasha to North America

Spring 1912. The Titanic has just gone down, and the news haunts the preparations in Paris. Yet this is the moment Prince Muhammad Ali Pasha, younger brother of Abbas II, khedive of Egypt, chooses to board the Kronprinzessin Cecilie at Cherbourg, bound for New York.

His programme, arranged with the Cook agency, fits into three months: the United States, Alaska and Canada. With two companions, among them the inimitable Mustafa Bey, terrified in turn by snow, mules and cold, he crosses the continent from one ocean to the other. The skyscrapers of Manhattan, the daredevils of Niagara, the slaughterhouses of Chicago, the snowbound roads of Colorado, the Indian dance on the rim of the Grand Canyon, then the California of orange groves and giant sequoias.

Then come a mishap with the mounts at the edge of the Yosemite gorge, the ice fields of Alaska, the Treadwell gold mine, the Canadian Rockies and the rapids of the St. Lawrence.

Everywhere, this curious and demanding traveller observes the American machine: liners, trains, hotels, advertising, crowds. He marvels at it, mocks it, and never stops comparing it with Egypt. For behind the princely tourist lies a graver concern: what must the East learn from this New World that moves so fast?