Little more than a decade before theAmerican Revolution stole the international headlines, the King ofDenmark sponsored an expedition to Arabia in order to search forclues about biblical history. A rather odd group of individuals cametogether for the adventure of a lifetime that would in fact claim thelives of all but a young surveyor andjack-of-all-miscellaneous-scientific-trades by the name of CarstenNiebuhr. What is most significant about this rather unusual voyage,made three decades before Napoleon dragged a virtual army of savantsalong with him to Egypt, is the brief but eventful stop in Yemen.Niebuhr, compiling an account from his own observations and notes ofhis colleagues, gave Western European scholars a first hand glimpseof a part of the world that was virgin terra incognita at this time.The trials and accomplishments of the Danish expedition, wonderfullyset forth in Hansen's Arabia Felix: The Danish Expedition of1761-1767 (London: St. James, 1964), have been known for sometime. The article by Joseph Chelhod entitled "Notes d'ethnologieyéménites: l'Arabie du Sud vue par C. Niebuhr"(Revue de l'Occident Musulman et de laMéditeranée 18:19-45, 1974) should also beconsulted.
Garnet Publishing has seemingly filled a gapin availability of Niebuhr's classic account of the journey by it'srecent publication in two volume of a facsimile of Robert Heron's1792 English translation of the French translation of Niebuhr'soriginal 1772 German text (reprinted in Graz in 1969). Apart from abrief (7 pages) but informative introduction by Robin Bidwell, thearchaic orthography and quaint translation quality (Heron apparentlydid the translation while in a debtor's prison!) have not beenimproved upon. In principle, I am pleased to see publishing firmsbring back to life valuable past resources for the study of Yemen.Apart from the edition printed in Beirut, one has to find a librarywith a rare book collection to locate this important travel accounton American soil. I purposefully said "in principle" due to two majorobstacles I see to getting the best value out of this old text.First, the high cost (fed in part, I know by the declining value ofthe dollar versus the British pound) of this two volume set ($100 pervolume) renders it beyond the budget of most individuals. Librarieswill appreciate the hard cover, but I fear the price will cause manylibrarians to think twice about ordering the set unless pressed andpressed again by a concerned faculty member. There is a second andmore important obstacle that is more substantive: this Englishtranslation is simply not very good and a poor substitute for theGerman original. Given that American scholars appear to be less andless fluent with German and French (two rather important languagesfor reading through basic texts on the history and culture of Yemen),I fear that the value of Niebuhr's work will continue to be ignored.It would be far more valuable to have a decent translation of thisseminal text. To the extent this facsimile delays that, I amsaddened.
It would be quite easy to give a facilereview of this publication of Niebuhr's text . After all, it has awonderful plot with dead bodies and foreign intrigue, as well as therare comments of an educated 18th century European in Yemen. I havedecided to expand the typical short review such a publication mightget in almost any other forum, and dedicate an extended discussion ofthree things: the trip itself (surely worth the effort), the adequacy(or should I rather be up front and say forthrightly 'inadequacy') ofthe Heron translation, and the reprint itself. I shall also append afew short selections from the text to give a taste for the type ofinformation available in it.
There is a very readable account of theDanish expedition and the life of Niebuhr in Hansen's text citedabove. The members of the expedition were Carsten Niebuhr (basicallya graduate student), von Haven (the Arabist), Forskal (the botanist),Kramer (the physician), and Baurenfeind (the artist). I thought itmight be interesting to give an account of the trip by giving thegist of the comments to be found in this abbreviated account. Theteam set out on January 4, 1761 from Copenhagen on a Danish militaryship. Ill luck plagued them from the start. Heavy storms impededtheir progress until mid-March. Things were so bad aboard ship thatvon Haven decided to go by land to Marseille, a port the ship wasbound for and eventually arrived at on May 14. A month later the shipset anchor in Malta, finally reaching Istanbul (despite some flackfrom English ships prowling the Mediterranean) in late July.
Upon leaving Istanbul, the explorers decidedto wear native "Turkish" dress rather than draw attention tothemselves as Europeans (rather distant northerners at that). AtRhodes their appearance was sufficiently convincing that the Danishconsul was afraid to let them in. Niebuhr was quick to show hisethnocentrism on the Turkish ship taking the team to Alexandria,Egypt. He "had foon an opportunity of remarking the ignorance of theTurks in every thing relative to navigation" (vol 1, p. 27), assumingthat the navigational instruments must have been stolen from aChristian ship! Even the "few rufty guns" were "not properlymounted." In a short while Niebuhr and Forskal made the acquaintance,surreptitiously, of a harem of young Turkish girls in the cabin nextto theirs. "Thofe females became at laft fo familiar with us, as togive us notice by knocking at the window, whenever they were alone"(pp. 30-31). Only later did Niebuhr realize that such "imprudentfrolic" might have gotten them into serious trouble. Otherwise it wasan uneventful voyage, apart from the eight crew members that died enroute (and thus brought fears of the plague to the green eyes of theEuropean savants).
Having at last landed in Egypt, Niebuhrwastes little time in commenting on the "ftupidity and ignorance ofthe native inhabitants" (p. 39), including the peasant who thoughthis house turned upside town after looking through Niebuhr's lookingglass. The boat trip to Cairo occasioned more fear on the part ofNiebuhr, who complained of pirates and strong swimmers who wouldattempt to steal from the boat. Later in Cairo he complained that theattendants in the public baths might dislocate a foreigner's limbs(p. 62). The account as a whole has wonderful details on Egyptianlife, manners and trade. We are told, for example, that 1,800,000pounds of saffron were produced for export in Egypt annually (p. 96).Niebuhr was an apt observer of Egyptian culture, noting, for example,that Arabic "in the mouths of the Egyptians" "difplays little of itsgenune purity" (p. 110). But he was very much prone to interpretbehavior in simplistic and deterministic ways: thus we are informedthat the "climate, cuftoms, and government, confpire to give themanners of the orientals a melancholy caft" (p. 122). In theirOriental ignorance, even their diversions are defined as "infipid"(p. 122). These public diversions include dressing up baboons likepeople, although, as Niebuhr notes, "a monkey, with his tail, appearsto them no unfit reprefentation of an European" (p. 146). And likethe good tourist he was, Niebuhr even talks about the pyramids (pp.153-156).
After a year in Egypt, Niebuhr was able tovisit the Sinai. True to his mission to address issues of concern tobiblical scholars, Niebuhr visited Mount Sinai, remarking ratherahead of his time that he did not see how the multitude of Israelitescould have camped at the narrow foot of the mount (p. 192). No doubthe was unaware that the North African Ibn Khald‚n had arrived ata similar conclusion a couple of centuries earlier. The team tookship to Jidda, describing the sites, and eventually landed in theharbor of Luhayya on December 29, 1763. At last they stepped foot onYemeni soil.
Upon arriving in Yemen, Niebuhr had the samereaction that many of us who have lived in Yemen also have: he foundthe Arabs "more civilized" the farther he proceeded from Egypt. Thosein Luhayya were deemed to be "curious, intelligent, and polifhed intheir manners" (pp. 256-257). Later, the normally fearful Niebuhrremarked that he "found the inhabitants of Yemen in fuch a ftate ofcivilization, that we could travel among them with the fame fafety asin Europe" (pp. 273-274). No doubt Yemen was safer at the time. Thelocal emir hosted the team and was quite delighted to look throughForskal's microscope and see minute insects loom so large. Butcustoms officials in Mocha reeked havoc with Forskal's faunalcollections (pp. 320-321).
Niebuhr seems to have lightened up afterreaching Yemen. He tells a number of anecdotes about the good-naturedcuriosity of the local people. At times a few of the team playedtheir violins, though not in public given the low esteem held forcommon musicians. He tells of a certain aging merchant, who had"enjoyed" over a hundred female slaves in his day and now asked theforeigners for some herb that would restore the "vigour of youth" (p.261). Niebuhr claims that the women here would lift their veils toshow their beauty off to the foreigners if they thought no Arab wouldsee. In fact, on the subject of gender Niebuhr is quite modern. Hechides Europeans for assuming Muslim women are treated differentlythan Christian women. "The women of that country feem to be as freeand happy as thofe of Europe can poffibly be," he says (vol. 2, p.212). Of course, we might inquire what the status of women was inEurope at the time!
From Luhayya Niebuhr and company set off forMocha, as is stated quite quaintly in the translation "upon ouraffes" (p. 265). Riding assback was, he confided, "not the moftpleafant to the rider" (p. 264). There is much to be gleaned fromNiebuhr's rich description, notwithstanding the poor quality of thetranslation. Apart from placenames and descriptions of various placesvisited, there is a never ending stream of stories and curious factsabout life in Yemen at the time. I will note just a few of these:wheat bread was very rare in the coastal region (p. 267); termiteswere a great nuisance (p. 270); Banian merchants were allowed topractice their native religion but not to bring their wives (p. 273);only about half of the "ancient extent" of Zabid was occupied whenNiebuhr saw it (p. 284); highland Yemenis use sleeping bags (p. 298);the streets of Jibla were paved (p. 304); Europeans could not ridedonkeyback into Mocha (p. 316); the university at Dhamar was said tohave 500 students (p. 362); the hills near Sanaa were deforested inNiebuhr's time (p. 375); Yemeni girls marry as early as age 9 or 10(vol. 2, p. 57); drinking a tea of coffee husk (qishr) is more commonthan drinking coffee made from the bean (vol. 2, p. 229).
One of the points noted by Niebuhr that hithome with me was the inquisitive nature of highlanders. "The Arabs ofYemen, and efpecially the Highlanders, often ftop ftrangers, to afkwhence they come, and whether they are going" (p. 303). I canremember quite vividly how many times I would be hailed with a minwayn ji't on my walking treks near al-Ahjur. Another relates tohis brief remarks on qat, which he found "unfavourable tofleep" (vol. 2, p. 225).
Niebuhr and Forskal seemed to have hit itoff quite well on the trip, often traveling together in nativedisguise. At Jibla one Yemeni mistook Niebuhr for a certain HajjAhmad, an old acquaintance (p. 303). Just when things seemed to begoing their way, the expedition members started dropping likeproverbial flies. Von Haven caught a fever and died on May 24 inMocha, where he was buried. Forskal succombed to fever on July 11 inYarim, where he was buried but only by finding six pallbearers to dothe job at midnight (p. 360). Niebuhr and Kramer reached Sanaa onJuly 16 and were housed in an empty villa in Bir al-'Azab. But theystayed only ten days, after which the imam supplied them with camelsfor the trip back to the coast. In August all three remaining membersfell ill, but the English merchant resident in Mocha came to theirrescue (p. 396). However, only Niebuhr was to recover and continuethe journey. The artist Baurenfeind died on board an English ship onAugust 29, a Swedish servant the next day, and Kramer later at Bombayon February 10, 1764.
The second volume of the travels containsinformation on the geography and customs of the region, includingmore details on Yemen. There is much of value here on the politics ofthe late 18th century, especially the Zaydi imams. And anyoneinterested in religion, science and esoteric knowledge will not bedisappointed. There are short accounts of the flora and fauna,although Niebuhr earlier edited Forskal's detailed yet uncompletedstudies on these. Would there were an index to the rich descriptionNiebuhr provides.
"As to the translation; I cannot indeed saymuch for it." (vol. 1, p. xii)
I could not agree more with Robert Heron inhis candid (perhaps moreso than he intended) admission that histranslation of Niebuhr's travel account was not that good. Part ofthe problem goes beyond his proficiency in French (which I am notthat qualified to judge) to the obvious fact that he simply chosethose parts he found interesting and left out "various things feemedto be addreffed fo exclufively to men of erudition." In that I fancymyself to be a man of erudition, I find this Reader's Digestcondensation approach to translation a poor substitute forserious scholarship. To be blunt, Robert Heron did not have a clueabout the Middle East and it appears that it was only the expeditionwoes that stimulated him to produce his none-to-literaltranslation.
I must say up front that Garnet Publishingspared no lack of effort (please read the previous phrase carefully)in this venture. Let us start with the dustcover jacket for volume 1.The cover is attractive with an original , historical drawing by D.Lizars of a man in Yemeni dress. This is a variant of theillustration found on p. 382 of volume 1. This is of far betterquality than the similar illustration (which is poorly reproduced) inthe text itself. The drawing is interesting in its own right, and itdeserves a short aside. The illustrator was not very well informedabout Yemen. The pose of the main figure is more studio thanrealistic. His left foot is forward with his right foot raised on thetoes. The left hand is semi-clenched in a fist at his side with theright hand brandishing a narrow standard (minus its flag). The daggerangle indicates a sayyid or qadi, but the rose designs on the robestrike me as more befitting French wallpaper of the time than aYemeni's best wardrobe. There appear to be two men in the backgroundfighting each other with daggers. If I am not mistaken, one of themen is about to be scalped. I wonder if the illustrator had justfinished a job for a book on the Iroquois? I think I detect a poorattempt at drawing aloe to the right of the main figure. The picturefor the second volume cover is of a man on horseback near thepyramids, so I will pass on its merits.
Back to the cover... For some reason thedesigner (from op den Brouw Design and Illustration Consultancy,according to the jacket) copied the original title page informationverbatim. Thus we find that the volumes are "performed by M. Niebuhr"(pro forma as per the original). Perhaps it may seem to be a quibbleabout maintaining an archaic "performed" here; I find it somewhatconfusing as it implies this might be something other than a travelaccount (which I suppose it is). But surely this will only confusealmost everyone that Niebuhr had a name with the first initial of"M." His first name was in fact Carsten (even Karsten, if you want),and the "M" in the original is simply an obscure and wrong-headed(probably borrowing from M. for Monsieur) shortening (now not used inEnglish) from Mr (see vol. 1, p. ix where Heron refers to "MrNiebuhr"). On the bookshelf we are condemned to look at M. Niebuhr!It strikes me as sloppy and lazy to not provide accurate and lessconfusing information on the jacket.
The reprint iself was photographed from the1816 London edition, which contrary to the claim in the productionnote (vol 1, p. viii of preliminaries) was not the "original" editionof the translation. I point this out mainly because it is the titlepage of the original 1792 edition that is reproduced in the reprint.I am not sure the publisher needs to blame the quality of the type onthe printing technology of the time (is this not obvious in anyreprint?), except as a way of justifying the "slight distortion ofthe type" in the photographic process. I am somewhat curious whatthis refers to and why the details might not have been given if itwas considered useful to mention distortion at all. There are indeedplaces where the type is indistinct, which is not surprising. To mymind here is yet another reason why a modern translation of theoriginal is called for. The illustrations are very poorly reproduced;I have seen better results from my office xerox machine. These appearto be inferior reproductions from a well-thumbed 1816edition.
The introduction by Bidwell is short andrather pedestrian. I somehow expect more from a scholar of Bidwell'sstature and expertise. No effort was made to place the text incontext apart from the basic details of the expedition and Niebuhr'slife. There are interesting archival materials that might have beenconsulted. It is rather unfortunate that no attempt was made tosuggest references for the reader to follow up on the subject. EvenBidwell's own travel book, also newly republished, should be citedfor gaining a better grasp of the travel's context. To be honest, Ifear there is little in this brief introduction that would differfrom his earlier account of the expedition. The exact sameintroduction is provided in both volumes. Is this really necessary?Is there anyone who would just buy volume 2?
I must take issue with the rather flippantremark on p. v of the introduction that the 1772 German text (whichis Beschreibung von Arabien and not Bescreibung ! as misspelled here)is "a dry factual book, without embellishment and without any attemptto attract the casual reader." This sentiment is quite illogical tome. Having looked at the original, I find great value in what Bidwellpasses off as "dry." Such dry documentation may not be for the casualreader, but neither is this reprint! Once again, I see in such aremark the need for a thorough translation to restore the so-called"dry" material which is of paramount interest to scholars of Yemen.Given that Heron translated (or should I say embellished) from theFrench, already removed from the original, these remarks suggest thatthe original German was not consulted but simply ignored out of handas Bidwell put together his haphazard introductory remarks.
While I am going deeper and deeper into theinadequacies of the reprint, I might also inquire why normalpublishing guidelines were abandoned in printing the introduction.First, the print is much larger in the modern introduction than thatin the original text. It reminds me of a book written specificallyfor older people with poor eyesight. Second, the margins arevirtually obliterated. The right hand margin is a half-inch, far tooclose to the edge for this size print; the left hand margin is only aquarter inch due to the binding. Apart from being unattractive, it isinconsistent with the text as a whole. The "Note on Production" isnot justified (in a printing sense), while all else is.
Picky, picky, you might say. I agree, but mymain point is that the production as a whole is sloppy. When apublisher wants $200 for these two volumes without any colorphotographs and a poor quality of text that will turn off manyreaders (casual or not), I think more effort is called for on itspart. For this amount I would like a major introductory essay, anannotated bibliography and a far more coherent justification forputting an inferior translation back into print. If you can afford it(were it not for the review copy, I would not spend this much of myown money for a text I would only occasionally consult), by all meansadd these volumes to your bookshelf. If you can still find the oldBeirut pirate edition, by all means go for that. If your librarian isnot too aghast at the cost, try to add it to the collection of yourcollege or university despite the misgivings I have raised in thisreview. There is one hope that I have from this reprint publication -that someone who reads it might agree that the translation is bad andoutdated to the point he or she decides to do a translation of theoriginal German. And I might add a related hope that in the futurethe publisher, whose efforts at publishing these rare archival textsare to be commended, will expend at least a modicum of effort ingiving the buyer something more for something less.
| |