Across Asia on a bicycle

At 8000 feet we struck our first snowdrift, into which the donkeys sank up to their bodies. It required our united efforts to lift them out, and half carry them across. Then on...

We had expected, on our arrival in Bayazid, to find in waiting for us a Mr. Richardson, an American missionary from Erzerum. Two years later, on our arrival home, we received a...

Our entry into Kirshehr was typical of our reception everywhere. When we were seen approaching, several horsemen came out to get a first look at our strange horses. They challen...

It was already dusk on the evening of August 10 when we drew up to the hamlet of Shang-loo-shwee at the end of the Hami oasis. The Great Gobi, in its awful loneliness, stretched...

In one out-of-the-way village of northwestern China, we were evidently taken for some species of centaurs; the people came up to examine us while on the wheel to see whether or...

“Most honored Vizir; Maintainer of the good order of the World; Director of public affairs with wisdom and judgment; Accomplisher of the important transactions of mankind with i...

A present from the village khan was announced. In stepped two men bearing a huge tray filled with melons, apricots, sugar, rock-candy, nuts, pistachios, etc., all of which we mu...

Tashkend has long been known as a refuge for damaged reputations and shattered fortunes, or “the official purgatory following upon the emperor’s displeasure.” One of the finest...

The autumn rains had so flooded the low-lying country between the capital and its seaport, Tientsin, that we were obliged to abandon the idea of continuing to the coast on the w...

Before retiring for the night, the dervish led the prayers, just as he had done at sunset. The praying-mats were spread, and all heads bowed toward Mecca. The only preparation f...

On the morning of July 8, in company with a body-guard of zaptiehs, which the mutessarif forced upon us, we wheeled down from the ruined embattlements of Bayazid. The assembled...

Down the narrow valley of the Kuitun, which flows into the Ebi-nor, startling the mountain deer from the brink of the tree-arched rivulet, we reached a spot which once was the h...

This volume is made up of a series of sketches describing the most interesting part of a bicycle journey around the world,—our ride across Asia. We were actuated by no desire to...

Li-Hung-Chang is virtually the emperor of the Celestial Empire; the present “Son of Heaven” (the young emperor) has only recently reached his majority. Li-Hung-Chang is China’s...