This book tells the story of an overland journey from Tunis to Egypt along the northern coast of the African continent. Originally planned to start at Algiers, the political disturbances there and at the Constantine made it impossible to include these two places. The goal of the journey was Cairo, or rather Heliopolis, a small town about twelve miles north-east of the capital. The author's route lay from Tunis, through Kairouan and Sousse to Sfax and Gabès, with digressions to the Roman cities of north-west Tunisia, the troglodyte villages of Matmata djebel, and the island of Djerba, the legendary land of lotus eaters classical antiquity. The author then travelled along the coast road to Alexendria by way of Tripoli, Benghazi, Cyrene, Derna, Sollum, and a dozen other places whose names were made familiar to the author through war-time newspapers. Whenever he could,he made excursions southward from the coast into the desert.