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BONVALOT, Gabriel : Through the Heart of Asia over the Pamïr to India With 250 Illustrations by Albert Pépin

Chapman & Hall, 1889

2 vols. Near fine in the original dark green pictorial cloth, light crushing head spine volume 2, the text uncut and unopened and therefore completely unread. A very attractive example of this scarce narrative. Pierre Gabriel Édouard Bonvalot (July 13, 1853 – December 10, 1933) was a French explorer of Central Asia and Tibet. In 1880–82 he visited Russian controlled Central Asia and returned to France via Bukhara, the Caspian sea, and the Caucasus. His travels were financed by the Minister of Public Instruction. In 1886 he set out for Russian Central Asia with Guillaume Capus, a botanist, ethnographer, and doctor of natural sciences, and designer Albert Pépin. They departed from Tashkent in 1886 and traveled up to the border with Afghanistan. During the winter season, they remained in Samarkand and sought a way to cross the Pamir Mountains from north to south and reach China. In 1887 they crossed through Kyrgyz territory in the Alai Mountains. As a European, Bonvalot felt superior to the locals and used threats or force to obtain equipment, supplies, pack animals and porters. He crossed the Pamirs, Chitral, where he was detained for more than a month, and the Karakoram, until he reached Kashmir. He was rewarded for this expedition by the Société de Géographie in Paris.[1]

First English Edition

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