Bibliotreks: Bonvalot's Through the Heart of Asia (BT000098)

BONVALOT, GABRIEL. THROUGH THE HEART OF ASIA, Over the Pamïr to India. With 250 Illustrations by Albert Pépin. London: Chapman and Hall, Limited, 1889. Two volumes. Large 8vo. Original dark green cloth with gilt-bordered vignettes on top covers, spines stamped in gilt. Edges untrimmed. Half-titles. [1l. (Dedication)], xxii, 281 pages; x, 255, 8 (Publisher's ads dated November 20, 1888) pages. Partially-colored folding map with route traced in red, numerous engraved plates and illustrations in the text after Pépin. A couple of minor paper faults, very slight wear to extremities. A fine set.

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, following publication in Paris earlier the same year. Through the Heart of Asia is the account by Pierre-Gabriel Bonvalot (1853-1933), the French explorer, author and legislator, of his second great journey on horseback into central Asia. "From Samarkand he explored the head of the Oxus in the Pamirs, and descended to the Indus from the Wakhan valley through Masutj in Chitral" (Yakushi). Bonvalot was accompanied by Jean Guillaume Capus (1857-1931), an author and botanist, and the draughtsman Albert Pépin (1849-1917) who illustrated Through the Heart of Asia.

After traveling East from Bokhara to Samarkand, Bonvalot had intended to proceed South through Afghanistan, but was detained by an Afghan warlord. Returning to Samarkand and continuing East, he found himself

at the foot of 'the roof of the world,' where the civilization of the East on the one side and that of the West on the other expire, like the furthest eddies of two tides which run into each other. As all the routes through inhabited regions were barred to us, we determined to improvise one over the Pamir, where we were less likely to be stopped by man, and where the obstacles in our path were raised by nature. (p. ix)

"The roof of the world" was the Pamir - the rugged, mountainous highland of Central Asia spanning most of present-day Tajikistan and parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and Kyrgyzstan. Bonvalot and his party may have been the first Europeans to cross the Pamir, "an area hitherto considered as inaccessible during the winter" (Tr. from Grande Encyclopédie). Despite being pursued by the Afghans and Chinese, losing their horses and having to overcome severe physical hardships, they "nevertheless succeeded in reaching English India and arrived at [Kashmir] on August 13, 1887, after walking on foot for a month" (Id.). Upon his return to Paris, Bonvalot was feted at the Sorbonne by the Société de Géographie, and in 1888 he was decorated with the Legion of Honor. Yakushi B219b. BT000098.

CROSSING "THE ROOF OF THE WORLD"