Then, a tiny bomb at the very end of the paragraph: 'In Kuwait one can buy a black baby for twenty rupees.' The figures that move about are mostly clothed in white or black, with a touch of red for the head or the sleeve: and a black African face as often as not, since slavery flourishes, if not so much from new importations as from old slave families who multiply, and provide half the pearl divers. But because our narrator is singularly nonjudgmental, it can arrive with surprise, and it disappears as quickly. Something that on its own would be alarming, disturbing, disgraceful. Then there is always, hidden in the text somewhere, what one can think of as a throwaway.

In this case, it's 'People who live by a riverside have always two pleasures to command: they can look both upstream and down.' First, each chapter begins with a soupçon of philosophy. The chapter 'The Kuwait Journey' is one of the most winning in the book, with three typical Freya Stark touches. Baghdad Sketches takes us into Iraq, with side trips to Najd, Yezidi, 'Ain Sifneh, Samarra, Tekrit, and finally Kuwait. Instead, she had became mesmerized with what we then called 'The Orient.' Starting in 1927, she traveled through the Middle East, often alone, often depending on the good will and kindness of strangers. She was certainly not interested in staying at home, getting married, tending a garden in Sussex. She was another of those indomitable English women who came of age during the days when the sun never set on the colonial lands of Great Britain.

Baghdad Sketches by Freya Stark