I’ve recently been looking through some of the public domain pictures scanned from books put online by the Internet Archive on Flickr and happened to spot a photo from a book called A Trip to the Orient, The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise by Robert Urie Jacob, published in 1907. The photos appealed to my love of street photography and travelling to exotic places.
In addition to the pictures – you can see the full set tagged here – you can also, of course, read the book online: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31609/31609-h/31609-h.htm. Some quotes and photos appear below:
An interesting feature of the book is the large number of illustrations made from artistic photographs, all of which have been kindly contributed by amateur photographers. It contains nearly two hundred illustrations of views or incidents in Funchal, Granada, Algiers, Malta, Athens, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Cairo, Luxor, Naples, and Nice, reproduced from photographs taken by Mr. L. O. Smith, Rev. G. B. Burnwood, Mr. Charles Louis Sicarde, Mr. Franklin D. Edmunds, Mr. Roberts LeBoutellier, Mrs. Charles S. Crosman, Miss M. Florence Pannebaker, Mr. Walter F. Price, Mr. S. L. Schumo, Mr. George C. Darling, Mr. Howard E. Pepper, Mr. John W. Converse, Mr. C. Edwin Webb, and Mr. Edwin Alban Bailey.
It was yet early when we ascended the deck, but the sun was shining brightly. Funchal appeared like a beautiful picture. Overhead was the azure sky of a summer day; before us, stirred by a gentle breeze, glistened in blue and silver the waters of the harbor; on the curving shore, tier above tier, reflecting the sunshine, rose the white and yellow stone buildings of the city surmounted by roofs of red tiling; above the city, white cottages amidst a dense foliage of green shrubbery dotted the steep hillsides, and beyond, but seeming very near, higher mountains formed a dark and appropriate background.
As twilight was settling down we arrived on schedule time at the white stone station in Granada where carriages stood in waiting to convey us to the hotels. The Spanish drivers strove to surpass each other in speed. Our coachman lashed his horses till they ran like a run-away team. Regardless of anyone in the streets, grazing wagons by the way, overtaking and passing carriages ahead, he gave us the wildest ride we had ever taken. This chariot race to the hotel, a distance of over a mile, happily ended without accident or collision.
On the porch of the Mosque we put our feet into the loose slippers, a Moslem attendant tied them on as carefully as the clumsy things could be tied, and then, accompanied by him, we entered the building. The immense floor, an acre in size, was covered with handsome heavy rugs. As we slid, rather than walked, over the soft Turkish carpets, our turbaned guide, with sharp, piercing, black eyes, watched carefully to see that our slippers did not become unfastened and drop off, and our infidel shoes profane the holy enclosure. And when one of the visitors laughed within the sacred edifice, the attendant’s black eyes flashed with anger.
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