Voyages d'un Faux Derviche, Dans l'Asie Centrale / Siyahat-i darwisi durugin dar hanat-i Asiya-i Miyana

Teheran: B. T. N. K.; Bungah-i Targama wa Nasr-i Kitab, 1959. Hardcover. Very Good/good. Large 8vo, cloth backed boards in dust jacket, book very good, jacket good with some edgewear. 557 pp, illustrated. In Persian / Farsi. A well known scholar of Ottoman history, and a tutor to various Pashas. From 1861 to 1864, "disguised as a Sunni dervish, and under the name of Reshit Efendi, he set out from Constantinople. His route lay from Trebizond on the Black Sea to Tehran in Persia, where he joined a band of pilgrims returning from Mecca, spending several months with them traveling across Central Iran (Tabriz, Zanjan, and Kazvin). He then went to Shiraz, through Ispahan, and in June, 1863, he reached Khorezm (Central Asia). Throughout this time, he succeeded in maintaining his disguise as "Reshit Efendi," so that upon his arrival at the Khanate of Khiva he managed to keep up appearances during interviews with Khan Sayyid Muhammad. Together with his band of travelers, he then crossed Bokhara and arrived at Samarkand" (Wikipedia). In returning to Constantinople in 1864, this was the first successful such journey completed by a European.