His was the familiar invented вЂњOrient of memoriesвЂќ discussed by Said: all вЂњsuggestive ruins,вЂќ and вЂњforgotten secrets,вЂќ the present inhabitants having little to offer. In вЂњMirror to Damascus,вЂќ published in 1967, he wandered that cityвЂ™s alleys and souks, dwelling on its ancient past, uninterested in the contemporary realities of an independent Syria. He is an Englishman of a decidedly old-school sort - Eton-educated, the son of a military diplomat - and his first forays into travel writing fit neatly into the Orientalist mode. If the weight of this legacy has spurred critical self-awareness among some more recent practitioners in the genre, Colin Thubron does not seem to be among them. Mark TwainвЂ™s вЂњRoughing It,вЂќ for instance, made it easier for white readers to feel just fine about the extermination of American Indians he described as вЂњthe wretchedest type of mankind I have ever seen.вЂќ вЂњFrom travelersвЂ™ tales, and not only from great institutions,вЂќ Said wrote, вЂњcolonies were created and ethnocentric perspectives secured.вЂќ This was not limited to the Levant. The scholar Edward Said would famously argue that travel writersвЂ™ creation of a backward вЂњOrientalвЂќ other was crucial not only to the inflated self-image of the West, but also to the actual maintenance of empire. Lawrence, he of вЂњof-ArabiaвЂќ fame.Д«urton and Lawrence were military men, but civilian contributors to the genre also did their part, intentionally and not, to further the cause of European dominance. Think of Sir Richard Francis Burton, who searched out the source of the Nile and visited Mecca disguised as a Muslim pilgrim, or T.

Ibn BattutaвЂ™s and Marco PoloвЂ™s accounts of their adventures in the 13th and 14th centuries are still widely read, but as a modern genre, travel writing would not take off for another few centuries, until European colonialism had opened Africa and Asia to assorted gentlemen - and occasional gentlewomen - travelers. Titillating stories of faraway lands date to at least as far back as the fifth century B.C., when Herodotus wrote of a goat-footed people far to the north, and of the cannibals beyond them. Travel writing is a complicated pleasure. THE AMUR RIVER Between Russia and China By Colin Thubron

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