By Desert Ways to Baghdad

At the turn of the century, two Englishwomen with no business being in the saddle set out to cross the Turkish Empire on horseback. Louisa Jebb and her companion spoke no Turkish, had never long-distance ridden, and persisted in cumbersome full-length skirts and antiquated side-saddles. They hired a guide, gathered horses, and rode into a world that would cease to exist within a decade. What could have been catastrophe becomes something else entirely: a portrait of Victorian audacity, of two women who simply decided the world was worth seeing and went to see it. Jebb writes with wry humor about their misadventures and genuine awe at the landscapes and people they encounter. The book captures the Ottoman Empire in its final years, a place of ancient routes and shifting borders, seen through the eyes of travelers who were perhaps too innocent to know they should be afraid. It endures because it reminds us that sometimes the people least prepared are the ones who go.