EDWARDS, Francis Millward.

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"George Forster Sadleir (1789-1859)". First edition, first impression, of the first biography of Sadleir. In the early 19th century, he completed a landmark journey across Arabia from coast to coast. "His journal of this expedition remained the only source of information on the interior of Arabia until the early twentieth century", and the cross-peninsula feat was not to be repeated until Captain Shakespear's journey in 1914.In April 1819, Sadleir was instructed by Lord Hastings to travel from India to Arabia both to cultivate relations with Ibrahim Ali Pasha, the son of the Egyptian viceroy, and to gather information on the topography of the peninsula. He reached Muscat on 7 May and spent the next five months on the road in search of Ibrahim, finally gaining an audience at Medina. Following these unsuccessful negotiations, he travelled to Yenbu and then to Jeddah, returning to Bombay in May 1820.Although Sadleir's Diary of a Journey across Arabia was published in 1866, his achievements were long overshadowed by those of later Arabists such as Burton, Doughty, and Lawrence. The present article, written by Francis Millward Edwards (1886-1976), a former member of the Egyptian Civil Service, brought to light a significant amount of hitherto unknown information concerning Sadleir and was instrumental in restoring him to his rightful place.

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