When Men and Mountains Meet : The Explorers of the Western Himalayas 1820-75

Century, London, 1983. First Paperback Edition. Paperback. Very Good/N/A. Century Travellers Series; illustrated by b/w. maps & drawings; "As a challenge for explorers the mountain wilderness between India and Inner Asia was unique. The Western Himalayas were seen as a barrier guarding fabled cities unvisited since Marco Polo, barring the way for the commercial opening of Central Asia and Inland China. It took half a century to penetrate this barrier - evidence enough of the appalling difficulties involved. Then, as now, these were partly man-made, for the mountains were of overriding strategic and political importance: there was too much at stake for the sort of free-for-all that happened in Africa or Australia. The freelance traveller was discouraged or discredited; official travellers operated behind a dense screen of secrecy and unlikely excuses. Then there was the terrain - the most formidable on earth, powerful enough to undermine man's sense of self-importance. Yet these explorers are characters of extraordinary stature; Alexander Gardiner, the American adventurer who brought the spirit of OK Corral to the Afghan Hindu Kush; Joseph Wolff, the mad missionary who crossed the same range stark naked; Victor Jacquemont, the Byronic Parisian who suffered for his love of the ladies; or Thomas Thomson, the Scottish naturalist who first reached the crest of the Karakorams. Along with the legendary Moorcroft and dogged surveyors like Godwin-Austen they fully live up to their magnificent setting. Here is a .story that rivals the search for the sources of the Nile and the race for the South Pole."; including bibliography & index - 277 pages. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Quantity Available: 1. Category: Mountaineering; Travel; Exploration. ISBN: 0712601961. ISBN/EAN: 9780712601962. Inventory No: TVL00028. . 9780712601962