Miss Tully's Letters form a clear and eminently readable narrative of her years in Tripoli and the political situation there in the late 18th c, as well as a unique account of relationships within the harem of the ruler. She and her nieces had free access to the women of the family of the Bashaw (Pasha) and an intimate relationship developed. The Preface to the first edition of 1816, tells us that Miss Tully's nieces had spoken Arabic all their lives, and she herself clearly learned some, but it would still be fascinating to know whether this was the only common language of the harem or...

This moving autobiography of a Berber woman from the village of Tizi-Hibel in the Kabilie Mountains of Algeria is unique on a number of levels. Illegitimate, Fadhma Amrouche would have been killed with her mother to preserve the honour of the family, but for the intervention of the French authorities. Because of this, she received an education and eventually married a Christian convert, although they remained closely linked to their families of origin. Her account of battling poverty, illness and exile is a gripping story. Fadhma's fight for an education in a world of almost universal female...

Odette du Puigaudeau is best known for her major ethnographic work, Arts et Coutumes des Maures, a detailed study, in words and drawings, of the cultural world of the nomads of Mauretania. The present work explains how she came to write it. Barefoot Through Mauretania is an account of her first journey across the country by camel in 1933-4, with her life-long companion, Marion Senones. The book records the adventures of the two women during that year, often with a touch of humour. Above all, however, it presents a picture of a way of life that has, as they feared, almost vanished, and their...

"From the age of thirteen I wandered abroad and at twenty-one I decided to take a little trip across France dressed as a man....." Maria ter Meetelen tells the story of her capture by Barbary pirates and twelve years as a slave at Meknes in Morocco. Straightforward and with no literary pretensions, her voice comes down the centuries, robust, clear, personal and often surprising: "I do not complain at having been so far across the world, nor of my twelve years of slavery, nor of the suffering the Turks caused me, I can rise above that. But the spitefulnessand derision that my husband and I...

In 1608, Roderigo de Vivero, soldier and administrator, set out from Acapulco to take up his post as interim Governor of the Philippines. On the way home, his ship was wrecked off the coast of Japan and he lost everything. While in the Philippines, he had been in communication with the Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who now treated him as an honoured guest and informal ambassador. Trade, security for the expanding Christian population, mining technology and the problem of Dutch piracy were all discussed. When Vivero left Japan - in a ship built by the Englishman, Will Adams - he took with him the...