A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy

1852

Special Collections DS48 P52 1852

London: Ingram Cooke & Co.

‘I had for years cherished the wish to undertake a journey to the Holy Land.’ So wrote the Austrian Ida Laura Pfeiffer (1797-1858) in her very popular A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy. Pfeiffer, one of the first female explorers, began her journey in 1842, travelling along the Danube river to Istanbul and then on to Palestine and Egypt. Her journey, which took nine months, also included Jerusalem (Hebrew: יְרוּשָׁלַיִם‬; Arabic: القُدس‎), one of the oldest cities in the world. In 1845, just after her visit, Jersualem’s population was 16,410, with 7,120 Jews, 5,000 Muslims, 3,390 Christians, 800 Turkish soldiers and 100 European. A recent census (2015) has the population at some 850,000 residents: approximately 200,000 Jewish-Israelis, 350,000 Haredi Jews, and 300,000 Palestinian Arabs. The aquatints – of which this is one of eight – greatly enhance Pfeiffer’s text.