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This collection of travel narratives, mainly from the nineteenth century, records the impressions of Europeans who visited China, Japan, South and South-East Asia. Some came as missionaries, others as members of trade or diplomatic missions or as colonial administrators. Some were straightforward tourists and one or two arrived as prisoners or shipwrecked sailors. Such accounts of travellers' experiences in exotic locations were eagerly received by European readers.

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96 results in Cambridge Library Collection - Travel and Exploration in Asia

Page 3 of 5

Korea and her Neighbours
  • A Narrative of Travel, with an Account of the Recent Vicissitudes and Present Position of the Country
  • Volume 2
  • Isabella Bird
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    08 March 2012
    First published in:
    1898
  • Isabella Bird (Mrs Bishop, 1831–1904) was recommended an open-air life from an early age as a cure for her physical and nervous difficulties. Her accounts of travel in America, Hawaii, Japan and Persia were best-sellers. This two-volume work, first published in 1898, was one of the books arising from Bird's visit to Korea and China between 1894 and 1897, the other being The Yangtse Valley and Beyond (1899), also available in this series. Korea was a battleground during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–5, and subsequently became increasingly dominated by Japan, being annexed fully in 1910. Bird provides vivid descriptions of the Korean people, their way of life and customs at a time when the country had only recently opened up to the West. In Volume 2 she visits the Russian frontier, where many Koreans had settled, and discusses the effectiveness of Christian missionaries.

Through the Heart of Asia
  • Over the Pamïr to India
  • Volume 2
  • Gabriel Bonvalot
  • Translated by C. B. Pitman
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    08 March 2012
    First published in:
    1889
  • The French explorer, author and legislator Gabriel Bonvalot (1853–1933) received funding from the French government to lead two expeditions to Central Asia in the 1880s. This two-volume English translation by C. B. Pitman of the French original was published in 1889 and is a richly illustrated account of the second of the two Asian expeditions, in which Bonvalot and the scientist Guillaume Capus attempted to enter Afghanistan. Although the party was detained and sent back to Samarkand upon entering Afghanistan, they refused to concede defeat, as Bonvalot was determined to reach India via a trail believed to run across the Pamir and Hindu Kush mountains. In Volume 2 the party reaches the remote Kingdom of Chatral, but is imprisoned again. Bonvalot uses the confinement to study the customs of the local people, and eventually, with the help of the British authorities, they are released and allowed to continue to India.

Across Thibet
  • Being a Translation of De Paris au Tonkin à travers le Tibet inconnu
  • Volume 2
  • Gabriel Bonvalot
  • Translated by C. B. Pitman
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    08 March 2012
    First published in:
    1891
  • The French explorer, author and legislator Gabriel Bonvalot (1853–1933) travelled widely in Central Asia in the 1880s. This two-volume English translation by C. B. Pitman of the 1889–90 French original was published in 1891. It describes Bonvalot's expedition across Europe and Asia to French Indochina. Accompanied by Prince Henri d'Orléans whose father, the Duc of Chartres, financed the expedition, Bonvalot left Paris in July 1889. In Volume 2, the expedition succeeds in gaining formal permission to enter Tibet, despite the Lhasa government's usual policy of turning away foreigners. Bonvalot shows himself fascinated with the polyandry and polygamy practised by the Tibetans, saying that they seem 'quite contented with their lot, and gaiety reigns supreme'. The party continues through China's Yunnan province to Tonkin in northern Vietnam, and reaches Hanoi in 1890; they return to France by sea.

Korea and her Neighbours
  • A Narrative of Travel, with an Account of the Recent Vicissitudes and Present Position of the Country
  • Volume 1
  • Isabella Bird
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    08 March 2012
    First published in:
    1898
  • Isabella Bird (Mrs Bishop, 1831–1904) was recommended an open-air life from an early age as a cure for her physical and nervous difficulties. Her accounts of travel in America, Hawaii, Japan and Persia were best-sellers. This two-volume work, first published in 1898, was one of the books arising from Bird's visit to Korea and China between 1894 and 1897, the other being The Yangtse Valley and Beyond (1899), also available in this series. Korea was a battleground during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–5, and subsequently became increasingly dominated by Japan, being annexed fully in 1910. Bird provides vivid descriptions of the Korean people, their way of life and customs at a time when the country had only recently opened up to the West. In Volume 1 she gives her first impressions of Seoul, and travels down the Han river, commenting especially on the lowly position of women.

Journal of a Residence in India
  • Maria Callcott
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    08 March 2012
    First published in:
    1813
  • The daughter of a naval officer, Maria Graham (1785–1842), later Lady Callcott, combined her passion for travel with a diligent attention to scholarship and self-improvement. In 1808, the talented linguist and artist sailed for India with her family. She travelled widely in south and east India and Ceylon, and became fascinated by the culture, religion and antiquities of the sub-continent. This, the first of her celebrated travel journals, was published on her return to England in 1812. She regarded it as a supplement to scholarly works of history or economics, aiming to give a real, and unusually open-minded, impression of the country. Covering flora and fauna, social life, and tourist attractions, and written in a vivid style with her own illustrations, the book was an immediate success, the second edition (reissued here) appearing in 1813. It was followed by volumes on Brazil and Chile, also available in this series.

A Residence among the Chinese: Inland, on the Coast, and at Sea
  • Being a Narrative of Scenes and Adventures during a Third Visit to China, from 1853 to 1856
  • Robert Fortune
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    08 March 2012
    First published in:
    1857
  • China was still largely alien territory for westerners in the mid-nineteenth century. In this book, first published in 1857, Robert Fortune (1813–80) describes his third visit there, but despite his relative familiarity with the country, his account is full of strange and bizarre sights and happenings. Beginning in Shanghai, where he was sent to collect tea samples for the East India Company, he describes an earthquake and the myths of its aftermath, along with his fears of becoming embroiled in the Taiping Rebellion. A keen botanist and entomologist in his own right, he also collected insects (a pastime that led him to become a figure of great hilarity among the locals) and explored the flora of the north. His account of his three-year expedition offers a glimpse of the Chinese language and culture through the lens of Victorian expectations, and is a fascinating resource for students and the general reader.

Across Thibet
  • Being a Translation of De Paris au Tonkin à travers le Tibet inconnu
  • Volume 1
  • Gabriel Bonvalot
  • Translated by C. B. Pitman
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    08 March 2012
    First published in:
    1891
  • The French explorer, author and legislator Gabriel Bonvalot (1853–1933) travelled widely in Central Asia in the 1880s. This two-volume English translation by C. B. Pitman of the 1889–90 French original was published in 1891. It describes Bonvalot's expedition across Europe and Asia to French Indochina. Accompanied by Prince Henri d'Orléans whose father, the Duc of Chartres, financed the expedition, Bonvalot left Paris in July 1889. In Volume 1, the expedition crosses first Russia and then Siberia, making its way south to Tibet. The obstacles encountered are considerable, with temperatures reaching 40 degrees below zero (Bonvalot describes how the fat that the expedition eats for butter is so hard that it may be 'used as a projectile') and altitude sickness affecting many of the party. The volume ends as the party enters Tibet, but without being certain exactly where they are.

Through the Heart of Asia
  • Over the Pamïr to India
  • Volume 1
  • Gabriel Bonvalot
  • Translated by C. B. Pitman
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    08 March 2012
    First published in:
    1889
  • The French explorer, author and legislator Gabriel Bonvalot (1853–1933) received funding from the French government to lead two expeditions to Central Asia in the 1880s. This two-volume English translation by C. B. Pitman of the French original was published in 1889 and is a richly illustrated account of the second of the two Asian expeditions, in which Bonvalot and the scientist Guillaume Capus attempted to enter Afghanistan. Although the party was detained and sent back to Samarkand upon entering Afghanistan, they refused to concede defeat, as Bonvalot was determined to reach India via a trail believed to run across the Pamir and Hindu Kush mountains. In Volume 1, Bonvalot describes the journey from Marseille via Tehran to Samarkand, interspersing his narrative with observations of the climate and culture they encounter. At the Afghan border, guards warn that 'they will hack us to pieces and throw our bodies into the stream'.

Narrative of a Journey in the Interior of China, and of a Voyage to and from that Country in the Years 1816 and 1817
  • Containing an Account of Lord Amherst's Embassy to the Court of Pekin
  • Clarke Abel
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    08 March 2012
    First published in:
    1818
  • Clarke Abel (c.1780–1825) was Chief Medical Officer accompanying Lord Amherst's unsuccessful diplomatic embassy to China in 1816. Encouraged by Sir Joseph Banks, he acted as official naturalist to the expedition, which penetrated further into China than had been possible for previous western visitors. Although most of his large collection of botanical and mineralogical specimens was lost during the return voyage, survivals included several new species, some of which were named after him. This work, published in 1818, made Abel's reputation, and he was elected to the Royal Society the following year. His geological survey of the Cape of Good Hope, studied on the outward journey, is particularly impressive. Abel's account of Chinese society and culture is an important record of a country which was then largely inaccessible to Europeans. An appendix by Robert Brown (Banks' botanist) lists the specimens that survived the shipwreck, which is itself dramatically described.

From Far Formosa
  • The Island, its People and Missions
  • George Leslie Mackay
  • Edited by J. A. Macdonald
  • Published online:
    05 November 2012
    Print publication:
    03 November 2011
    First published in:
    1896
  • First published in 1896 and based on extracts from diaries, notes and reports, this work, edited by J. A. Macdonald, tells of the nearly three decades that George Mackay (1844–1901) spent on the island of Formosa (now Taiwan). In 1872 the Canadian Presbyterian priest arrived in northern Taiwan and set up a new missionary station. Within a month of his arrival he had made his first convert, a Chinese named Giam Chheng Hoa. Mackay married a local woman, with whom he had three children, and made numerous trips around the island, founded a hospital and established a college. He also gathered specimens of local fauna and flora that formed the cornerstone of a museum. Mackay offers vivid descriptions of Formosan geography, culture and animal life; his interpretation of the syncretic 'heathenism' of Formosa as a 'dark damning nightmare' is characteristic of the Western viewpoint of his time.

Autobiography of James Silk Buckingham
  • Including his Voyages, Travels, Adventures, Speculations, Successes and Failures
  • Volume 1
  • James Silk Buckingham
  • Published online:
    05 October 2012
    Print publication:
    08 November 2011
    First published in:
    1855
  • James Silk Buckingham (1786–1855) was a writer who travelled extensively and published accounts of his adventures in places such as India, Persia, Egypt, and Palestine. He first went to sea as a boy, and, aged only ten, spent a period as a prisoner-of-war in Spain. He was expelled from India in 1823 for criticising the East India Company and the Bengal government. Back in London, he was a supporter of reform, and served as the first M.P. for the new constituency of Sheffield, from 1832 to 1837. He founded several journals, including The Athenaeum. On retiring from Parliament, he left for North America, where he spent nearly four years, and was highly critical of America's economic dependence on slavery. His autobiography was cut short by his death. Volume 1 covers his early life and travels until 1812, mostly in the Mediterranean but also to the West Indies and America.

Autobiography of James Silk Buckingham
  • Including his Voyages, Travels, Adventures, Speculations, Successes and Failures
  • Volume 2
  • James Silk Buckingham
  • Published online:
    05 October 2012
    Print publication:
    08 November 2011
    First published in:
    1855
  • James Silk Buckingham (1786–1855) was a writer who travelled extensively and published accounts of his adventures in places such as India, Persia, Egypt, and Palestine. He first went to sea as a boy, and, aged only ten, spent a period as a prisoner-of-war in Spain. He was expelled from India in 1823 for criticising the East India Company and the Bengal government. Back in London, he was a supporter of reform, and served as the first M.P. for the new constituency of Sheffield, from 1832 to 1837. He founded several journals, including The Athenaeum. On retiring from Parliament, he left for North America, where he spent nearly four years, and was highly critical of America's economic dependence on slavery. His autobiography was cut short by his death. Volume 2 covers his travels in the Middle East and India, where he met European travellers including Belzoni and Burckhardt.

The Garden of Asia
  • Impressions from Japan
  • Reginald John Farrer
  • Published online:
    05 September 2012
    Print publication:
    03 October 2011
    First published in:
    1904
  • Reginald J. Farrer (1880–1920) was a traveller and plant collector who was an important influence on horticultural style in England. In 1902 he embarked on an expedition to Asia, where he was inspired by the rock gardens of Tokyo, Yokohama and Beijing, and discovered plant species such as Clematis macropetala, and the eponymous Geranium farreri and Viburnum farreri, which are now common in European gardens. In his first book, published in 1904, he records his experiences in Japan and other Asian countries, vividly recounting his impressions of, and his passion for, eastern landscape, terrain, plantations, forestry and flora, of which the aesthetic characteristics became central to the rockeries and shrubberies he created on his return home. Farrer died while on an expedition at the early age of forty, but the legacy of his highly influential writings and his wide-ranging plant introductions remains significant today.

Intimate China
  • The Chinese as I Have Seen Them
  • Alicia E. Neva Little
  • Published online:
    05 March 2012
    Print publication:
    10 June 2010
    First published in:
    1899
  • Part memoir, part travelogue, part crusade, Intimate China details the exploits of Alicia Little (Mrs Archibald Little), who first arrived in China as a new bride in 1887. Little was already a prolific writer before her marriage, and this narrative is both compelling and refreshingly frank. Published in 1899, her account of life in late nineteenth-century China is arranged eclectically, with chapters on 'Superstitions', 'Current coin in China' and 'Hindrances and annoyances' interlaced with descriptions of trips to Tibet and up the Yangtze. The latter third of the book is devoted entirely to politics. Fuelled with a determination to represent the Chinese 'as I have seen them', Little spares no details, supplying descriptions of the complications arising from foot-binding, a practice she found abhorrent and against which she actively campaigned. Extending to over six hundred pages and lavishly illustrated with maps and photographs, this is an extraordinary book.

Narrative of a Journey Overland from England, by the Continent of Europe, Egypt, and the Red Sea, to India
  • Including a Residence There, and Voyage Home, in the Years 1825, 26, 27, and 28
  • Volume 2
  • Anne Katharine Curteis Elwood
  • Published online:
    05 March 2012
    Print publication:
    21 October 2010
    First published in:
    1830
  • Described by The Morning Post as exhibiting 'facilities of observation never before possessed by a European lady', Anne Katharine Elwood was the ideal narrator for an exotic and exciting travel journal. The first woman to travel overland to India, she acquired a reputation as a pioneer even before her diary was published. When it first appeared in 1830 this work attracted much praise from critics and the general public alike. Elwood's travelogue introduces readers to an extraordinarily diverse range of locations and sights. Volume 2 describes the customs, habits, castes and religions of Indian society, includes a startling account of snakes and lizards, and ends with Elwood's homeward voyage via Ceylon, St Helena and Ascension Island. A contemporary critic recommended her account as 'the most amusing book of travels we have read for a long time'. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=elwoan

Yün-nan
  • The Link Between India and the Yangtze
  • Henry Rodolph Davies
  • Published online:
    05 March 2012
    Print publication:
    31 October 2010
    First published in:
    1909
  • H. R. Davies (1865–1950) was an English army officer and member of the British intelligence service. Between 1894 and 1900 he was asked by the British government to lead survey expeditions into the modern Chinese province of Yunnan to discover possible routes for a railway connecting British-occupied Burma with the upper Yangtze river and through to Sichuan. This book contains an account of his travels though Yunnan province, written as a travelogue and first published in 1909. The region had been little explored by westerners before Davies' expeditions, and this is the first detailed description of Yunnan from a European traveller. The society, diverse indigenous cultures, geography, economy and political situation of the province are described in detail, with an introductory three chapters on the political context of the expeditions, and on railway construction in south-east Asia in the late nineteenth century.

The River of Golden Sand
  • The Narrative of a Journey through China and Eastern Tibet to Burmah
  • Volume 1
  • William John Gill, Henry Yule
  • Published online:
    05 March 2012
    Print publication:
    09 September 2010
    First published in:
    1880
  • William Gill (1843–1883) was an explorer and commissioned officer in the Royal Engineers. After inheriting a fortune from a distant relative in 1871, Gill decided to remain in the Army and use his inheritance to finance explorations of remote countries, satisfying his love of travel and gathering intelligence for the British government. He was awarded a gold medal by the Royal Geographical Society in 1879 for his scientific observations on his expeditions. This two volume work, first published in 1880, is Gill's account of his expedition from Chengdu, China through Sichuan, along the eastern edge of Tibet via Litang, to Bhamo in Burma, a region little explored by westerners before him. Gill describes in vivid detail the cultures, societies and settlements of the region, and their political and economic systems. Volume 1 covers the area around Chengdu and includes an introductory chapter by the eminent orientalist Henry Yule (1820–1889).

A String of Chinese Peach-Stones
  • William Arthur Cornaby
  • Published online:
    05 March 2012
    Print publication:
    10 June 2010
    First published in:
    1895
  • William Arthur Cornaby (1860–1921) was born in London and educated at the School of Mines before training as a Methodist minister. In 1885 Cornaby was sent as a missionary to Wuhan, central China, and A String of Chinese Peach-Stones (1895) was inspired by his experiences. Cornaby explains that his title suggests that the reader possesses 'a collection of desiccated tales, legends, and the like, picked up here and there along the highways and byways of China'. Cornaby's work covers the period 1849–1867, and discusses the major episodes of the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) as well as providing a detailed account of village life in central China, with its farm work, foods, festivals, customs and rituals that remains of interest to anthropologists and historians today. Cornaby's aim was to educate his English readers and to interest them in the culture that so dominated his own life and work.

My Early Travels and Adventures in America and Asia
  • Volume 2
  • Henry Morton Stanley
  • Published online:
    05 February 2012
    Print publication:
    22 September 2011
    First published in:
    1885
  • Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) was a journalist and explorer renowned for his adventures in Africa. After emigrating to America in 1859, Stanley worked as a journalist for the New York Herald. In 1869 he was instructed to undertake an expedition to find the missionary David Livingstone, and the success of this mission brought him public recognition and financial success. Published in 1895, these two volumes contain Stanley's early journalistic writing as special correspondent for the Herald and the Missouri Democrat. Volume 2 begins in 1869, when Stanley was sent to report on the inauguration of the Suez Canal, to write a guide to the Nile and to give an account of Sir Charles Warren's explorations underneath Jerusalem, before proceeding through Persia to India. Displaying his characteristic energy, versatility and direct writing style throughout, Stanley portrays, in the words of his publisher, 'life-like pictures of times gone by'.

My Early Travels and Adventures in America and Asia
  • Volume 1
  • Henry Morton Stanley
  • Published online:
    05 February 2012
    Print publication:
    22 September 2011
    First published in:
    1895
  • Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) was a journalist and explorer renowned for his adventures in Africa. After emigrating to America in 1859, Stanley worked as a journalist for the New York Herald. In 1869 he was instructed to undertake an expedition to find the missionary David Livingstone, and the success of this mission brought him public recognition and financial success. Published in 1895, these two volumes contain Stanley's early journalistic writing as special correspondent for the Herald and the Missouri Democrat. Stanley's reports in Volume 1 cover General Hancock's military expedition against the Cheyenne and the Sioux peoples in Kansas and Nebraska, and the subsequent peace conferences between General Sherman and the Plains Indians. He paints a vivid picture of life in 1867 in this area of the United States through in-depth descriptions of the customs and living conditions of the native Indians, geographical features and military confrontations.

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