In 1884, John Compton Pyne, a British soldier, having finished his tour of duty in India, decided to make a detour on his trip home in order to spend three months crossing Persia, unaccompanied except by the local muleteers. Among his accouterments he packed a small leather-bound sketchbook in which he not only wrote a journal but also added beautiful and charming watercolor illustrations. This edition reprints his adventurous journal alongside an introduction that contextualizes this trip against the background of the Persian influence in British culture, and sets this influence as a driving force behind Pyne’s travels.