The book is a travel adventure novel by English travel writer and historian Alexander William Kinglake. The book proved to be a very popular work of Eastern travel, apparently first published anonymously, in which he described a journey he made about ten years earlier in Syria, Palestine and Egypt, together with his Eton contemporary Lord Pollington. His witty sense of humor present the book not just as a travel account of his different destinations but also about how he navigates through the situations he comes across.