About the book (from jacket flap):
In Riding to the Tigris Freya Stark returns to the style that made her first book, The Valleys of the Assassins, a classic among travel books. The years and experiences between have deepened and enriched her sensitivity but have not modified her method of travelling: and most of the journey from Lake Van on the high Turkish plateau, through the lonely and mountainous Hakkiari, and down to the River Tigris was achieved on horseback. She travelled along except for muleteers whom the kindness of the Turkish governors provided and chance companions – a young schoolmaster with his violin, a jester with his mad son, an a police escort here and there – who found themselves attached to an unusual traveller, probably the first Western woman to make thisjourney.
History plays a minor role in this book, for even the greatest movements of people and civilisations have washed round this difficult, and till recently dangerous, area which contains the watershed of three rivers and one of the spots where Noah’s ark is reputed to have touched ground.
About Freya Stark:
Dame Freya Madeline Stark (31 January 1893 – 9 May 1993) was a British explorer and travel writer. She wrote more than two dozen books on her travels in the Middle East and Afghanistan, as well as several autobiographic works and essays. She was one of the first non-Arabians to travel through the southern Arabian deserts.
