Description

After qualifying as a physician, Robert Richardson (1779-1847) joined the household of the earl of Belmore, and accompanied him and his family on a tour of the eastern Mediterranean in his yacht the Osprey, converted from a captured American schooner, the James Madison. Richardson dedicated this two-volume work to his patron in 1822. Having spent several months in Naples, the party travelled through the Greek islands to Constantinople, arriving in Alexandria in September 1817. Volume 1 recounts their journey up the Nile, exploring both the antiquities of Egypt and the modern cities, as far as the second cataract. Volume 2 describes further exploration in Egypt, travels into Palestine, where the party visited the Holy Places and the cities of the Old Testament, and into Syria and Lebanon. Richardson's account is full of detail, both of the archaeological remains and of everyday life in the Middle East.