“Robert Byron (1905-41) was the most brilliant travel-writer of his generation, and when this book first appeared it was seen to be a masterpiece of its king. It is an account of travels in Persia and Afghanistan in 1933-4, as fresh and lively as when it was written. The times called it ‘extremely diverting’ and G. M. Young wrote of Byron’s ‘power of making every situation yield all it contains of comedy and beauty’…”—back cover.