8vo. 320 pp., [2], double page frontispiece view of Aden, 10 wood engraved plates, 1 folding map, later half-calf, marbled end paper, new fly leaves, publisher’s original wrappers preserved, few red crayon underlining & annotations at margins, damp stain at lower margins of first few leaves, otherwise copy in good condition, Librairie Plon, Paris, first edition, 1884.

Synopsis

A rare French study covering the political, economic and social life in Iraq at the end of the 19th Century. Denis De Rivoyre held the Grand Médaille by the Société Nationales des Edtudes Coloniales et Maritimes in France for his studies on Muscat, Aden, Basra, and the Arabs living on the coasts of the Red Sea and the Arab Gulf.
This is an account of a journey he made through Iraq, in which he describes the navigation at the Tigris, the Turks and Europeans working in Iraq for the Sultan, the French presence in the country, the pilgrimage to Kerbala, the Sabeans, and a detailed description of Basra and Baghdad.