I'm supposed to be on holiday, but somehow ended up in a vault full of books in the Austrian Academy of Sciences (long story!), where I ran across a copy of Mark Sykes's (of Sykes-Picot fame) memoirs of travels in Asia Minor, prefaced by then-Thomas A. Adams Professor of Arabic 
at Cambridge, Edward Browne. Two things attracted my attention, the first the manner in which Sykes expresses gratitude to Browne in the acknowledgements: 'for his inspiring instruction in Eastern custom and mode of thought'. The second the condescending manner in which Browne
refers to Turks (forget about his distaste for Levantines): 'hardly any one... has remained altogether unfriendly to a people who, whatever their shortcomings may be, command the respect and esteem of even those who least desire the continuance of the Ottoman regime'.
Well, I mean, of course, in their omniscience, it's also within the ambit of the orientalist's expertise to instruct their pupils (many of them colonial administrators) in 'eastern custom and mode of thought' in addition to knowing eastern histories and literatures etc. But it's
also interesting how this instruction comes with a genuine sympathy for the object of the orientalist's study that almost invariably stems from a sense of superiority to the 'uncouth oriental' who 'is good-natured' but 'doesn't know better'. I still see much of this in many
quarters, on a daily basis, both within and without academia.
