In 1676, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605 89), French merchant, traveller and pioneer of trade with India, published an account of his journey through India. This two-volume translation, published in 1889 by Irish geologist Valentine Ball (1843 94), includes a biographical sketch of the author, notes and appendices. Tavernier begins his tale with the declaration that 'I came into this world to travel.' As well as most of Europe, he visited large areas of Turkey, Persia and India (where he acquired the great gem, now known as the Hope Diamond, which he sold to Louis XIV), and sailed to Java....

In 1676, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605 89), French merchant, traveller and pioneer of trade with India, published an account of his journey through India. This two-volume translation, published in 1889 by Irish geologist Valentine Ball (1843 94), includes a biographical sketch of the author, notes and appendices. Tavernier begins his tale with the declaration that 'I came into this world to travel.' As well as most of Europe, he visited large areas of Turkey, Persia and India (where he acquired the great gem, now known as the Hope Diamond, which he sold to Louis XIV), and sailed to Java. In...

Clergyman and ornithologist H. B. Tristram (1822 1906), was an early supporter of Darwin's evolutionary theories in his 1859 paper 'On the Ornithology of North Africa' who became both a Fellow of the Royal Society and canon residentiary of Durham; he was also the Church Missionary Society's representative in the county for forty years. This 1895 volume, the last of many travel narratives he published, is an account of a sojourn in Japan, visiting his daughter Katherine, then headmistress of the Society's school for girls in Osaka. As well as describing the country's minority Christian...

During the time of the Second Opium War between Britain and China (1856 60), sailor Edward Brown (about whom little is known) was discharged from a trading vessel in Hong Kong. He was then offered the opportunity to captain a Chinese-crewed ship bound for Wai-how on the west coast, though he was warned that it was a risky enterprise because of the ongoing hostilities. Soon his ship was chased by Chinese pirates and Brown was taken captive for many months in Cochin-China (southern Vietnam). Published in 1861, this engaging account of his captivity, attempts at escape, and eventual return to...

The Norwegian Norwegian explorer and ethnographer Carl Lumholtz (1851 1922) wrote the influential ethnographic studies Among Cannibals and Unknown Mexico (both reissued in this series) after his journeys through Australia and Mexico respectively. In 1913, Lumholtz went on his final expedition, which aimed to explore the large parts of Borneo unknown to the rest of the world. Interested by tales of head-hunting, he wanted to spend time with the indigenous people and conduct research. Originally published in 1920, this two-volume work is Lumholtz's account of his expedition. Many of the...

The Norwegian Norwegian explorer and ethnographer Carl Lumholtz (1851 1922) wrote the influential ethnographic studies Among Cannibals and Unknown Mexico (both reissued in this series) after his journeys through Australia and Mexico respectively. In 1913, Lumholtz went on his final expedition, which aimed to explore the large parts of Borneo unknown to the rest of the world. Interested by tales of head-hunting, he wanted to spend time with the indigenous people and conduct research. Originally published in 1920, this two-volume work is Lumholtz's account of his expedition. Many of the...

Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston (1874 1938) was a colonial administrator and oriental scholar. He travelled extensively in the Far East and developed a deep interest in Chinese culture and religion. His fourteen-year posting to Weihaiwei, a quiet naval base, allowed him to travel to places not usually visited by Europeans, and to begin writing. In 1906 he spent six months travelling across China to Burma, publishing this illustrated account of his arduous journey in 1908. In it he comments on the economic and political state of China, but the book's main theme is the beauty of the country and...

A naval officer and man of science, Basil Hall (1788-1844) commanded the brig HMS Lyra as part of Lord Amherst's 1816 embassy to the Qing court in China. While Amherst was engaged on his ultimately abortive venture, the mission's ships visited the west coast of Korea, and then travelled to the island of Okinawa (then known as the Great Loo-Choo Island), where they stayed for several weeks. Little was known about these regions in Britain, and this illustrated account of the journey offered many insights. As well as providing nautical data, such as surveys, soundings and meteorological...

The Scottish doctor Henry Faulds (1843-1930) is best remembered for his role in the history of fingerprinting. His strong religious faith had first led him to missionary work in India and then, from 1874, in Japan. He worked there as a surgeon in the mission hospital at Tsukiji, near Tokyo, where he also established a medical school and a school for the blind. It was his discovery of the impressions of thumbprints on ancient Japanese pottery which led to his development of a fingerprinting system and his championing of it as a forensic tool. The present work, part-travelogue, part-journal,...

A successful officer in the colonial Indian Medical Service, Glasgow-educated Laurence Austine Waddell (1854-1938) was fascinated by the landscapes and cultures of Darjeeling and Tibet, studied local languages, and spent his leisure time researching and writing on Tibetan topics. His earlier books The Buddhism of Tibet (1895) and Among the Himalayas (1899) are also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection. Waddell had attempted to enter Lhasa (then closed to foreigners) in disguise in 1892, but did not succeed until he accompanied the controversial British expedition to Tibet in 1903-4;...