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VILLIERS, Alan.
Sons of Sindbad.
An Account of Sailing with the Arabs in their Dhows, in the Red Sea, round the Coasts of Arabia, and to Zanzibar and Tanganyika; Pearling in the Persian Gulf; and the life of the Shipmasters and the Mariners of Kuwait.
Publisher: London: Hodder & Stoughton Limited, 1940
Stock code: 63567
Price: £225 Currency Conversion
First edition, first impression. An extremely desirable copy of what is probably Villiers's finest book. A record of "A journey of 10,000 odd miles along the Arabian and African coasts in dhows. The record contains wonderful stories of feats of seamanship, carried through without navigation instruments, except, perhaps, 'discarded steamship compasses bought in a junk yard in Bombay.' Perhaps the most graphic chapter is the one entitled Delta of Misery, an account of a visit to the Rufiji Delta. To the ordinary, the journey could only have been one of extreme discomfort, but it had its compensation for Villiers, who has here given us a remarkable story of sailing with 'a group of skirted mariners, illiterate and fanatic, but seamen to the backbone" (Scottish Geographical Journal, 57, 1941). Superbly illustrated from Villiers's own photographs.
Large octavo. Original blue boards, title gilt to the spine. With the dust jacket. Frontispiece and 35 other plates, maps in red and black to the free endpapers. Neat contemporary ownership inscription inked to the front pastedown, in al other ways an exceptionally clean and bright copy.
