Ed

Sire,Dear Gentlemen and Ladies,The Somalis' Country, of which I have the honour of relating, stretches along the entire East Horn of Africa and is called Bar-as-Somal in the Somali language. The Somalis belong to the Mohammedan religion of the Shafi'ite sect and

We are four university professors, invited here in the year 2000 (we have started to use this number with a certain panache) for conferences and for negotiations concerning a possible world congress of the International Society for Comparative Literature – one from Germany,

excerptWe arrived on the right riverside of the Congo, in front of the bridge, which the engineers could not even imagine; a general aaah went out of their chests. In addition, at the same time, after casting me glances of imputation, they burst into formidable laughers.

excerptTo put it in a nutshell, there are three races living in Congo today:The Pygmies, scattered all over the territory and on the verge of extinction;Nuba, the invaders who live in the north – and, finallyThe Bantu, the most numerous. Several distinct and independent

excerptAbout the Earth's Crust A loud knock on the door of the cabin disturbs my sweet morning sleep. Gibrelterra!… Gibrelterra!… I rub my eyes sleepily and, without understanding anything, I ask stroppily: what is it? what's happened?Gibrelterra!…We can

The summon sounded imperative, I had positive interests, thank goodness – I was to receive by the hands of professor Cioranescu the second volume of his memoirs - this, as he had no intention of coming to the country this year – moreover, my curiosity was not inconsiderable.

excerpt In 1846, M. Kogalniceanu travels to France and Spain (Notes sur l'Espagne). The recollection of Moldavia lingers with him at the opposite end of the continent. I have studied Spain a great deal, he writes to I. Ghica, a very curious country whose language,

Lisbon, a town whose name comes from the mythical traveler Ulysses – so they say – , illustrated in the Middle Ages by so many navigators and explorers curious and eager for adventure, shows to the visitor first its drowsy side. It is true that I first visited it on

I cannot think of a more fortunate coincidence: this is the first time I have visited Paris in May and the show is extraordinary. I know somebody who keeps a dried chestnut flower between the covers of a notebook, a flower that he has picked up from the sidewalk in Cluny

We are stepping in on a realm of legend. My reader undoubtedly knows the thrill of finding himself in places bearing a special aura. Something memorable has occurred there. Not necessarily a glorious, heroic deed, a moment of history, but an act of spirit (pardon my grandiloquence!)

Studium (…) qui ne veut pas dire, du moins tout de suite, mais l'application à une chose, le goût pour quelqu'un, une sorte d'investissement general, empresseé, certes, mais sans acuité particulière. C'est pas studium que je m'intéresse

It is an old spillover from the landscapes of the great Dutch masters, as depicted forever on canvas.  Holland by Mihail Sadoveanu (1880-1961)