The book is an account of Byron's ten-month journey in the Middle East, Afghanistan and India in 1933–34, partially in the company of Christopher Sykes.

It is in the form of a diary with the first entry "Venice, 20 August 1933" after which Byron travelled by ship to the island of Cyprus and then on to the countries of Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.

The primary purpose of the journey was to visit the region's architectural treasures of which Byron had extensive knowledge, as evidenced by his observations along the way.

And then I suddenly thought of that unfortunate species, modern interior decorators, who imagine they can make a restaurant, or a cinema, or a plutocrat's drawing-room look rich if given money enough for gold leaf and looking-glass.

The travel writer Bruce Chatwin in his introduction to the book has described it as "a sacred text, beyond criticism,"[3] and carried his copy since he was fifteen years old, "spineless and floodstained" after four journeys through Central Asia.