Described by one commentator as 'a man of sterling common sense, intellectual rigour and ability', the distinguished naval officer Sir Adolphus Slade (1804–1877) was one of the best-informed and engaging travel writers of the nineteenth century. Later in his career he was to spend 17 years on secondment to the Turkish navy, heading its administration and improving its efficiency, but already in his twenties, having served in Russia and South America, he was keen to commit his observations of foreign lands to paper. First published in 1832, Slade's two-volume account of his travels in the Mediterranean and Turkey responded to the public's appetite for colourful chronicles. It contains descriptions of fashions, superstitions, dignitaries and despots, and covers topics ranging from antiquities and architecture to piracy and cricket. Volume 2 includes Slade's impressions of the Tartars, the Cossacks, the plague, Constantinople, and the habits of Muslim women.
