Lithgow (1582-c. 1645) was born at Lanark, and spent several years travelling in the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere, visiting among other places the Ionian Islands, Athens, Rhodes, Cyprus, Aleppo, Damasacus, Galilee and Jerusalem. His accounts of these travels were collected in the present work, first published in 1632, and relished by many for “its baroque richness and exaggeration” (ODNB).