ABSTRACT
Travel writing does more than merely chronicle places and events; it also contains an understanding of the self that goes along with the exploration of a new place and a new culture. The travelogues of Mirza Abu Taleb Khan, the Masir-i-Talibi, and Sheikh Itesamuddin's account of his travel from the Indian subcontinent to England in the late eighteenth century, the Shigurf Namah-i-Velaet, manage to capture the multiple layers. This chapter describes the travel writing of these travellers, considering what inspired their writing and their perceptions of the lands they visited. Travelogues from Persia and the Indian subcontinent have received attention only in the recent past. Juan Cole is sceptical about finding, in texts of travellers from the subcontinent to Europe, 'a mirror image of "Orientalism" and a systematic critique of colonialism and European culture'. In discussing the administration, Taleb and Itesamuddin observed that the British had a strong military and naval presence.
