This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

It is 1875, the time of the 'Great Game', when the British and Russian Empires are vying for power in central Asia. Great Britain learns of Russia's plans to annex India, the 'jewel in the crown' of the British Empire. A British officer rides for Khiva, a Russian city closed to European travelers. He is on a dangerous mission, to learn if this remote and dangerous oasis is about to be used as a springboard for the Russian invasion of India. Captain Frederick Burnaby ballooned across the English Channel, traveled in Spain and Russia, and was wounded, and eventually killed, fighting for Britain's empire. This account of his perilous journey to Khiva, published in 1876 and immediately reprinted, brought him instant fame.

This Elibron Classics title is a reprint of the original edition published by Smith, Elder & Co. in London, 1876. This book contains color illustrations.

First published in 1931. Mainly focussing on cultural and geographical aspects, Travels of an Alchemist are unique in their importance as a source for early Mongol history, enabling us as they do to fix with certainty the otherwise obscure and much disputed dates of Chingiz Khan's movements during his Western campaign. The author, a Taoist doctor, left some of the most faithful and vivid pictures ever drawn of nature and society between the Aral and the Yellow Sea. Waley's introduction provides excellent background information with which to place the Travels in their appropriate historical, social and religious setting.

Linking East and West, Asia with Europe, the Silk Road was once the most important trading route in the world. A conduit for the exchange of prized silks, spices and jewels as well as philosophies, cultures and religions, the Silk Road was a catalyst for the rise and fall of some of the greatest civilizations in history. This second title in the trilogy--The War,The Road andThe Lake--this is the account of Sven Hedin's 10,000-mile journey along the ancient Silk Road, as he carried out a mission for the Chinese to create a road linking China with the rogue province of Xinjiang. Forbidden by the government to conduct archaeological investigations, Hedin ignored the restriction and was imprisoned for it, but the research that he brought back with him has formed the basis of much of the West's knowledge of the Silk Road and its history. Today, as waves of tourists tread its abandoned routes and explore its ruined caravanserais, they follow in the footsteps of this original Silk Road explorer.