A dense manuscript journal of the author's travels to Egypt and the Holy Land (1848–1849) and Sydney (1852–1853) with the years spent in-between convalescing in London and at Cambridge University.

Likely the journal of William Walter Brocklehurst (1829–1918), of the Brocklehurst silk manufacturing and banking family from Macclesfield, who travelled with his brother Edward to Australia and founded the village of Brocklehurst outside Dubbo. His entry to Downing College, Cambridge, in February of 1851 tallies closely with the entry of the author of the journal to the same and so does his arrival dates into Sydney before travelling 'up into the country'.

The author first travels to Egypt, to Cairo and thence the Pyramids, in 1848 via Malta and Alexandria. He sees Pompey's Pillar, Cleopatra's needle (illustrated), a 'Nubian slave market', and has 'Chibouks & Coffee' with the British consul Sir Charles Murray before proceeding down the Nile. The awe at seeing Dendera is evident: 'the enormous size of the whole structure was quite overpowering at the first sight... a great portion of the Temple was in an excellent state of preservation, the roof as well as the walls being covered in hieroglyphics, a many of which might only have been cut but a few years before, they were so perfect.' The complex of Karnak, on the other hand, confuses him, not least by the century of European archaeology already done to the site. At Asyut he meets Egyptologist Sir John Gardner Wilkinson who 'had come to take a copy of some of the hieroglyphics on the walls,' and after turning around at Luxor stops at Abydos, Manfalut, Tell el Amarna, and Dahshur.

Next the author crosses the Suez the Holy Land. He sees the Mount of Olives, Jericho, the Dead Sea, Nazareth, Damascus, the temple of Baalbek, Beirut, the convent at Mount Carmel, Jaffa, and Gaza. Throughout the journal there are constant mentions of the people he encounters, the culture he experiences, and the environment he travels through, all of which are enlivened with small sketches of objects and views he witnesses. He is however plagued with health problems, and in June of 1849 leaves not for England but the spa towns of Freiwaldau (Jeseník) and Gräfenberg where he experiences the latest hydrotherapy treatments under Vincenz Priessnitz (1799–1851). These involved the same mix of cold and hot plunges that Charles Darwin endured in an attempt to cure his ill health. The author's detailed description of hydrotherapy and dietary health treatments in the nineteenth-century are a considerable contribution to medical history.

In 1852 the author, after convalescing in England and attending a year at Cambridge University, 'Began to think seriously of going to Australia'. He departed on the 9th of November aboard Resolute with his brother, likely as a result of the growing interest in the gold rush in Victoria, and landed in Sydney in March 1853. Along the way they stop at Trinidad (see the illustration of the island), and Cape Town (two profile views of the harbour and Table Mountain in the distance). Upon arriving in Sydney the author spends about two weeks detailed across a page going to various social engagements and often dining back on board the ship. His final words are about his preparation to go up the country. William Brocklehurst would go on to help build the the first Church of England in Dubbo in 1859, be elected as one of the key figures in the area during the Scab sheep crises in 1865, help establish the hospital in Dubbo in 1866, before eventually sailing home for England whilst leaving annuities for further funding in Australia including the building of the School of the Arts and the Dubbo Public Library.

Small 4to (20.5 x 17.5 cm); 151pp. of manuscript in ink, in ruled notebook, 20 small ink illustrations, the first page bearing 4 pressed botanical specimens captioned 'El Arish', 'Nazareth', 'Mount Tabor', and 'Lady H. Stanhope', three loosely inserted leaves, one with four further sketches, one in watercolour, and one with constellations; original half black roan, marbled boards, edges, and endpapers, discreet booksellers ticket to rear pastedown, a little worn, but very good.