Nathaniel Pearce (1779-1820) was, according to J. J. Halls, who edited and published his autobiographical writings in 1831, 'one of those remarkable and adventurous beings, whom Nature ...seems to take delight in creating'. Having run away to sea twice, deserted from the navy, accidentally killed a man, and briefly converted to Islam, he came into his own as a guide and factotum to British travellers in Egypt. He accompanied Henry Salt's 1805 mission to Abyssinia, where he married a local girl and served the ruler of Tigre until the latter's death in 1816. Pearce's humorous account of his...

Nathaniel Pearce (1779-1820) was, according to J. J. Halls, who edited and published his autobiographical writings in 1831, 'one of those remarkable and adventurous beings, whom Nature ...seems to take delight in creating'. Having run away to sea twice, deserted from the navy, accidentally killed a man, and briefly converted to Islam, he came into his own as a guide and factotum to British travellers in Egypt. He accompanied Henry Salt's 1805 mission to Abyssinia, where he married a local girl and served the ruler of Tigre until the latter's death in 1816. Pearce's humorous account of his...