The Southern Gates of Arabia: A Journey in the Hadhramaut (Transaction Large Print Books) [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Freya Stark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1995 | Series: Transaction Large Print Books

In 1934, famed British traveler Freya Stark sailed down the Red Sea, alighting in Aden, located at the tip of the Arabian peninsula. From this backwater outpost, Stark set forth on what was to be her most unforgettable adventure: Following the ancient frankincense routes of the Hadhramaut Valley, the most fertile in Arabia, she sought to be the first Westerner to locate and document the lost city of Shabwa. Chronicling her journey through the towns and encampments of the Hadhramaut, The Southern Gates of Arabia is a tale alive with sheikhs and sultans, tragedy and triumph. Although the claim to discovering Shabwa would not ultimately be Stark's, The Southern Gates of Arabia, a bestseller upon its original publication, remains a classic in the literature of travel. This edition includes a new Introduction by Jane Fletcher Geniesse, Stark's biographer.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In 1934, a 42-year-old Englishwoman named Freya Stark arrived in the British-governed Protectorate of Aden on a singular mission: to locate the fabled, long-lost city of Shabwa.

Located on the high Hadramaut plateau in what is now Yemen, Shabwa was renowned in antiquity as the source of frankincense. Little visited even then, it was also thought to be a particularly forbidding place; Genesis mentions it as the "enclosure of death," and the Roman geographer Pliny reported that it contained 60 great temples and wealth beyond measure. That was good enough for Stark, who, having not long before made a difficult passage across the badlands of Iran, thrived on improbable adventures. And so, by burro and whatever mechanical conveyances she could find, she ascended the high mountains into a world that was sometimes perilous, but that also sometimes approached fairy-tale dimensions, as when, climbing the Hadramaut, she writes, "The path kept high and open, until gradually the valley clefts narrowed again upon us, and shut us in walls whose luxuriant green made a romantic landscape of the kind usually only invented in pictures."

Stark never reached Shabwa; laid low by measles, she had to be evacuated from territory overrun in any event by warring religious factions and gangs of bandits. Though cut short, her time in the Yemeni highlands yielded this superb travel narrative, full of uncommon vistas and milieus (harems, bazaars, and Bedouin camps among them). Anyone who values tales of adventure well told will find Stark's body of work--and this book in particular--to be full of treasures. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

[Freya Stark] writes angelically in the great tradition of Charles Doughty and T. E. Lawrence. The pulse quickens as you read, because she can bring the sights and sounds of incredible countries before you in the twinkling of an eye."
--The New York Times Book Review

"[The Valleys of the Assassins] remains a wonderful description of a people and a place, altered today by Progress, perhaps, but through [Freya Stark's] eyes still alive with bandits, dervishes, idol worshippers, armed tribesmen, and mountain scenery of great beauty."
--From the Introduction by Jane Fletcher Geniesse

"Stark is constantly alive to her immediate surroundings: indeed, what gives her work its extraordinary depth and power is just this ability to focus past and present... stereoscopically, in a single image."
--Times Literary Supplement [London] --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Isis Large Print Books (March 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 185695210X
• ISBN-13: 978-1856952101
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,919,982 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amusing and Enlightening Tales of Travel, October 23, 2001

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R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Southern Gates of Arabia: A Journey in the Hadhramaut (Modern Library Paperbacks) (Paperback)

In 1934, Freya Stark determined that she would follow the ancient frankincense routes through the fertile Hadhramaut valley to locate and record what was left of the legendary lost city of Shabwa. In 1936 she published _The Southern Gates of Arabia: A Journey in the Hadhramaut_ which, as did many of her thirty-odd books, became a best seller. It is now republished by the Modern Library, and is a welcome reminder of a brave, erudite, and witty explorer. The current volume has as an introduction a capsule description of Stark's life by her biographer, Jane Fletcher Geniesse. Born in 1892, Stark was only able to indulge in travel in her thirties; she realized that there was a hunger for knowledge about exotic Arabia, and she schooled herself in the language and history of the area, through which she traveled by foot, car, donkey, and camel well into her eighties. She lived to be 101.

The explorations of these exotic lands are rendered now more strange and lovely by time. Few of us will get to see the lands Stark loved, but we will never see them as she did. For most of the steps along the trail described in this book, Stark was the first European woman to come that way, and that she did so unaccompanied by a European escort gave the Bedouin, the learned men, and the sultans something to admire and wonder at. One who thought himself a leader of her group attempted to exclude her by bringing her meals to a separate area. "He was showing a Victorian disapproval of females who do not keep themselves to themselves, a thing I find dull and difficult to do." She finds that she very much likes being in the middle of the group, even as an outsider. "To sit over the fire with one's fellows in the evening, when the work is over and the talking begins, is the only sure way of keeping harmony and friendship. I never had any difficulties with my beduin and found nothing but friendliness and an anxiety to serve in every way, and I attribute this chiefly to the fact that we had our meals together..." On the last night being with one group, one of the Bedouin thanks her for sharing food together (rather than keeping separate as he had expected the European traveler to do), and says it has been pleasant traveling with her. "'Here we are now,' he said, 'all together. And tomorrow?' - he opened his hand out wide - 'all scattered, where?' After this question, so sad, ancient, and universal, we looked in silence to the darkness and the stars."

Stark's quest was unfulfilled because of all things, measles. The discovery of Shabwa awaited a German traveler the next year, for she was too sick to continue toward her goal. One of her hosts, as she was ailing, reassured her: "Here we have no sickness; we are well or we die." She was carried off in a plane of the Royal Air Force, to whom in gratitude she dedicated her book. Her work is a perfect illustration that journeying well, and not achieving the destination, is the better accomplishment. It is impossible to come away from this volume without admiring this spunky, amused and amusing woman, nor to share in her admiration for those among whom she traveled. "The magic of Arabia," she writes, "which so many have felt, is due perhaps less to the sun-wrinkled arid land itself than to the innate peculiar nobility and charm of its people."

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Tale of a Time of Adventure, Lost Forever, February 28, 2006

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Sir Charles Panther "Life is hard. It's hard... (Alexandria, Virginny, USandA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Southern Gates of Arabia: A Journey in the Hadhramaut (Modern Library Paperbacks) (Paperback)

I found this book absolutely fascinating as it described a time, only 70-odd years ago, when there truly were unexplored reaches, where legend and history still co-existed, and where a culturally sensitive and aware, and properly respectful traveler could find peaceful and fulfilling adventure. This book is even more interesting now, given the changes in the Middle East in the past ten years. Can one imagine making the same kind of journey in Yemen now? Of course not; it would almost be suicide. That time has long since been destroyed, everything about this book but its pure physical setting gone, so this memoir is even more poignant and compelling.

Stark has an eye for detail, as jaundiced as it is with the unavoidable Orientalism of her time and socio-cultural context. This can be forgiven/overlooked, and she's a lot more fair and obliging when describing those she encounters than the majority of her contemporaries. She's at her best when describing the landscapes she is encountering, the stark desert and wadis, the unexpected lushness of the oases and tucked-away mountain crevices where all the shades of green burst forth.

More than anything, what comes through in this book is Stark's grace and abiding respect for the people she meets. She has taken the time to learn their language, and is familiar with their culture, and takes pains to encounter them in terms that will make them comfortable. She does not attempt to bend anyone to a Western European point of view. This is not to say she is subservient or fawning; she most certainly stands up for herself when it is required. But throughout the book and on this journey, her continued success comes from her honesty tinged with her respect for the region and the people with whom she is interacting. This engenders respect for her in return.

I found the three maps in the beginning of the book at first absolutely invaluable as references to Stark's locations and progress. I then found the maps to be absolutely infuriating, due to their black/white printing, the too-small script, the confusing order of the maps, the contradictory scales and place-name differences, etc. I ended up abandoning the book's maps and opening my unabridged atlas to Yemen and tracking her movement there. Editors: if you're going to offer maps in a book like this, make sure the maps are actually worthwhile and readable.

Two scholarly additions to the book are good. Stark's appendix on the "Southern Incense Route of Arabia" is a fascinating account of exactly what she was looking for, and what brought her to the Hadramaut in the first place. It's her indirect formal scholarly statement of motivation. This appendix would have been well-placed as a foreword to this book, serving to establish her motivation and objective. Stark lists her sources, and they're offered as a listed bibliography immediately after the appendix. There is also an index, but for whatever reason, many of the persons and places in the text are not included, and there is no cross-referencing. For example, the names of individual wadis are placed in the index as "Sidun, Wadi," and are not cross-referenced with a "Wadi Sidun" entry.

Bottom line: If you're one of the many readers newly interested in Islam, Arabs and the Middle East, and are looking for some context beyond the latest book on extremism or terrorism, something to add depth to what you think you understand, then this book will do you well. If you're looking for some insight into the cultures and traditions of Islam, this also will move you in that direction. If you're looking for a glimpse into a time when the West and Islam actually got along on a basis of mutual respect, this enjoyable book will tell you about it.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a woman adept at cross-cultural encounters, February 3, 2002

By 

Jon R. Schlueter (Grand Terrace, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Southern Gates of Arabia: A Journey in the Hadhramaut (Modern Library Paperbacks) (Paperback)

As a Christian worker in China, I had first-hand opportunity to see how we "foreigners" interacted cross-culturally. (Usually, the most successful of us were those who were not on a Mission from God.) Having seen people badly suited to live abroad and admiring those who were very able to do so, the joy of this book by Freya Stark was reading about a woman operating cross-culturally with a world-class ability to encounter persons with a much different backround than her own. Her sheer delight in her Bedouin companions is vicariously enjoyable.
Of course, this book journeys not just across cultures but across times, beginning with the author's introduction, which discusses the antiquity of the regioun she explores, especially in the time of great trade in frankincense, which made the region, for a time, wealthy. It is also reflected in the ancient culture and historical monuments and artifacts the author encounters.
Moreover, Freya Stark writes (wrote) beautifully. This book will appeal to anyone who is curious about other peoples, other lands and other times or who enjoys good writing.