Earle H. Waugh. Memory Music, and Religion: Morocco’s Mystical Chanters. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005. 260 pages, index, glossary. Cloth US$49.95 ISBN 1-57003-567-9

Abstract

Jabir Al-Sabah, ruler of Kuwait (a Kuwait just at the very beginning of oil discovery in 1936) relaxes on board his steam yacht with the British Political Agent in Kuwait, Major A.C. Galloway, is so real that the reader feels seated with them, feels the light breeze, the peace of the sea life, the softness of the cushions, the naked feet and the white cotton vests: a magic moment for international relations, still peaceful before the Second World War, before future oil struggles, before the disappearance of this world. Villiers' position, a westerner connected with the imperial reach of British officials and accepted as part of an Arab crew, afforded him a unique and a pioneering point of view. Sons of Sindbad is a first-hand English work on Arab seamanship, and it has been widely accepted as an authoritative source on the subject. It is a rich and heady brew of the people, ways of life, politics, governments, trade ancient and modern, cultures and human relations at the western edge of the Indian Ocean. The 'dream voyages' made by Villiers in 1938-39 did follow through twenty chapters the sound of the monsoon winds: from Aden to Ras Hafun, down to East African coasts to Zanzibar and to the Rufiji Delta, and back north again to Cape Guardafui, and towards the Gulf to Kuwait. In the introduction by William Facey, Yacoub Al-Hijji and Grace Pundyk, finally Villiers' right to be included among the greats of Arabian travel finds its recognition. The truth is that this Australian traveller was an independent traveller; the big names of the genre Gertrude Bell, T E. Lawrence, St. John Philby Bertram Thomas and Freya Stark were linked to British political power of the time in the Middle East. Villiers was the first one to turn his attention from the land, from the deserts to the sea: a new perspective and a new methodological approach to this vast region. And the sea (his view of the sea) kept him outside the 'inner circles' of the famous British explorers, till today. Villiers wished he could have sailed three years with the Arabs, for it was all very interesting three years with the Arabs and two years on the book. But he sailed one year and was fortunate to have the book, done in 1940, in time of war. Beatrice Nicolini Catholic University Milan, Italy