The Sky above, the Kingdom Below

By Daniel Allen

Two Englishmen abroad – wandering deep within strange lands, braving deserts and mountains, precarious roads and uncomprehending locals… Two Englishmen journeying four centuries apart, but with the same passion for exploration: the first a true pioneer, the second inspired by him to undertake an epic journey in his footsteps.

The wellspring of The Sky Above, the Kingdom Below is the remarkable 17th-century Thomas Coryate, unofficial jester to the royal court, associate of John Donne, Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones – and a Jacobean Grumpy Old Man. Long forgotten by history at large, he is now regaining well-deserved public recognition as an eccentric wit, an idiosyncratic writer and, above all, a pioneering traveller.

Coryate was the first European traveller in the modern sense of the word, travelling not for commerce, warfare or pilgrimage – why else would a man leave home? – but for the thrill of it, drawn ever further by the lure of the unknown. In 1612, the last great adventure of his life, Coryate travelled from Damascus to Surat, in India, taking in the Holy Land, Ottoman Turkey, Persia and Afghanistan: a journey of some 4,000 miles, nearly all of it, astonishingly, on foot. Now, for the first time, Coryate’s mammoth eastern odyssey – the sights, sounds and smells, the perils and pleasures of peregrination – is brought back to life by a 21st-century kindred spirit. Daniel Allen has set himself the challenge of recreating his journey, though on two wheels.

Daniel Allen has travelled extensively in Europe and Asia and has worked on three continents, living in Hong Kong and Sydney for several years.