ABSTRACT
In 1845 W.H.Bartlett was hesitant to contribute to the growing library of books on Egypt. ‘To add another book on Egypt to the number that have already appeared’, he wrote, ‘may almost appear like a piece of presumption.’ But he distinguished between the ‘army’ of erudite savants schooled in archaeology, history and natural history-a reference to the scholars who had accompanied Napoleon’s army of occupation in Egypt between 1798 and 1801-and those who, like himself, were enlisted in what he called the ‘flying corps of light-armed skirmishers, who, going lightly over the ground, busy themselves chiefly with its picturesque aspect’ and ‘aim at giving lively impressions of actual sights’ (Bartlett 1849, iii). Whatever the merits of the distinction, there was no doubt about Bartlett’s success: his account, The Nile Boat, or glimpses of the land of Egypt, turned out to be one of the canonical texts of travel in Egypt.
