DOWN THE NILE: ALONE IN A FISHERMAN'S SKIFF by Rosemary Mahoney

962.0455

MAH

Mahoney fulfills her ambition to row herself down the Nile, but not without some difficulty. Mahoney is an experienced and enthusiastic rower so the difficulty is not physical but cultural. In the Islamic country of Egypt, women do not row and Mahoney must pretend to be buying a boat for her nonexistent husband in order to be taken seriously. And then there is the matter of the police.

This is a well-written picture of contemporary Egyptian society and of those who came down the Nile before Mahoney, including Gustave Flaubert and Florence Nightingale.