There are very few firsthand Iranian travel accounts from the early nineteenth century that still exist today. Travel writing at that time was not an easy task. The handwritten manuscripts were threatened by the hazards of long journeys, and their authors were limited by the inconveniences of the road. Rezaqoli Mirza recalls an incident in Istanbul when members of Ottoman nobility asked to see his writing:

To avoid the dangers of plague, I asked one of my new servants … to heat the manuscripts with smoke … while I was talking [to my guests], I realized that the stupid fellow was burning sections of the only copies of the books that I have been writing with such hardship and for such a long time! … Since it was already over, there was no sense to punish the foolish servant. I rewrote whatever I could recollect, a small portion [of what I had lost]. ¹

Rezaqoli’s companion, Assaad Kayat, who translated the book into English, also lost portions of the manuscript during his trip:

The translator of these pages exceedingly regrets that the latter part of the history, consisting of about twenty pages … was robbed on his journey…. He considers himself very fortunate that the Bedouins only took these few sheets from the book for curiosity; for when they examined his saddle-bags on the camel, and found that it contained books and letters, and other papers, they asked him why he was so great a fool as to carry, along with him such a load of useless papers and books, which could neither be eaten nor drunk. ²

Travelers who intended to record their journeys were thus confronted by many difficulties, which did not always cease upon their return to their homeland. Regrettably, some of these accounts were never published and continue to exist today only as privately owned unique manuscripts.