This story begins with a car crash.

In 1903, a middle-aged British aristocrat was tooling around with a newly bought motor car

near Schwabakh, Germany.

The driver, one George Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, was as close as one got to being an experienced motorist in 1903.

The wealthy lord was one of the first people in Britain to be issued an official driver's license.

By the turn of the century, he had purchased a small fleet of luxury automobiles and had earned the playful nickname Motor Carnarvin

for his unabashed love of the new machines. He also had a reputation for driving fast. In fact, some of the very first speeding

tickets in the history of the United Kingdom were issued to Old Ledfoot Motor Carnarvin.

But that day in the German countryside, Lord Carnarvin's luck ran out.

Traveling as always at top speed, Carnarvin crested a hill and was

surprised by a farmer whose ox cart had stalled on the rural road. The Earl swerved and narrowly missed the man and his ox,

but the car careened off the road and rolled several times before being stopped by a tree.

The driver survived, but just barely.

He suffered collapsed lungs.

A portion of his skull had been crushed and his jaw had been severely broken.

Miraculously, Motor Carnarvin was pulled from the wreck and managed to make a good recovery.

But it would be wrong to call it a full recovery.

Amazingly, his brain had remained undamaged even after fracturing his skull, but his lungs were never truly the same.

When he was back on his feet, his doctors recommended that he avoid the famously damp and chilly British winters and instead decamp somewhere

hot and dry to better avoid any added strain on his

lady wife would head to the most interesting hot dry place they could think of

Egypt.

...