Some Heroes of Travel or, Chapters from the History of Geographical Discovery and Enterprise

The closing years of a life which, in its spring and summer, had been crowded with incident and adventures, were undisturbed by any notable event, and in his old age Marco Polo...

“But I must now tell you a strange thing that hitherto I have omitted to mention. During the three months of every year that the Khan resides at that place, if it should chance...

Next morning, at daybreak, while he was still asleep, Mr. Ruxton resumed his journey, and before evening entered Santa Fé, after a ride in all of nearly two thousand miles.

The arrival of Sir Samuel Baker being made known to Kamrasi, he requested him to pay a visit to his capital, and sent a legion of porters to carry his baggage. Lady Baker suffer...

Another bull was then let loose, and the wild ride recommenced; nor, until the corral was empty, and every horse and horseman completely spent, did the game cease. It is a rude...

Major Burnaby paid a visit to a Kirghiz kibitka, or tent, and his description of it may be compared with Mr. Atkinson’s. Inside it was adorned with thick carpets of various hues...

Their ride was continued over a high plateau, on which huge rocks, rugged and curiously wrought, the remains of shattered peaks, stood in their awful grandeur; carrying back the...

The love of new scenes, however, had not been quenched by her adventures, and in her yacht she made frequent visits to Naples and Rome, Smyrna and Jaffa, Algiers and Tripoli. Wh...

“When any one is ill, they send for the devil-conjurors, who are the keepers of their idols. When these are come, the sick man tells what ails him, and then the conjurors incont...

The public museum at Barnaoul contains a very good collection of minerals, some Siberian antiquities, a few Siberian animals and birds, and four tiger-skins. The wearers of thes...

The railway went no further than Sizeran, where Major Burnaby and a Russian gentleman hired a troika, or three-horse sleigh, to take them to Samara. The distance was about eight...

The 1st of February was a “white day” in the voyagers’ calendar, for on that day the scenery of the river underwent a welcome improvement. The marshes gave place to dry ground;...

Skirting the base of the Kourt-Choum mountains, which form the boundary between the Russian and Chinese empires, Mr. Atkinson turned his face southward, and before long arrived...

Here the camels greatly excited the curiosity of the population; for they are rarely seen in A’damáwa, the climate of which these animals are unable to endure for any length of...

ABOUT 1862, letters from Khartûm, the capital of Nubia, stimulated the curiosity of European geographers by announcing that three courageous ladies had undertaken a journey into...

The murderer had satisfied his passion; but was he happy? No; as he gazed at the corpse of his victim, he was seized with a passionate sense of remorse and regret. Loathing hims...

At Badámuni, the fertile fields are brightened with springs, which feed a couple of lakes, connected by a canal. Notwithstanding this channel of intercommunication, one of these...

Here the Khan said a few words to his treasurer, and then remarked, in allusion to the tribute he pays to Russia annually:—“Why do they take money from me, then? The Russians lo...

The whole scenery of the town—with its great variety of clay houses, huts, and sheds; its patches of green pasture for oxen, horses, camels, donkeys, and goats; its deep hollows...

From the mosques we pass to the bazár, which is simply a street covered in, like the arcades so popular in some English towns. The roof consists of beams laid from wall to wall...

THE present age is sometimes described as an Age of Commonplace; but it has its romance if we care to look for it. Assuredly, the adventures of its travellers and explorers do n...

On the 5th of August he entered into a region of swamp and morass, and he was glad when, to relieve the monotony of the landscape, he caught sight of the picturesque Souray vill...

The flora of the surrounding country is very picturesque: tamarinds, mimosas, climbing plants, the papyruses, and the euphorbias thrive in unchecked luxuriance, as they have thr...

Immediately on Mr. Atkinson’s arrival a sheep was slain to do him honour, and it was soon steaming in the iron caldron, with the exception of a portion broiled for his special d...

Armed with a passport from the Czar of All the Russias, which in many a difficult conjuncture proved to its bearer as all-powerful as Ali Baba’s “Open Sesame,” Mr. Atkinson left...

“We have scarcely shut our eyes,” says this intrepid, indefatigable traveller, “when we are called by the guide to renew the march. It is still night, but the desert is visible,...

On the evening of the 1st of November, they began their “rush” or forced march for the Oakover river, and across the wearisome sand-hills actually accomplished five and twenty m...

Monday came, but Halleem and the camels came not with it. Sahleh, who had been exploring in the vicinity of the camp with a gun, returned in the evening with the startling infor...

It was the evening of the 5th of May, 1865, when Sir Samuel and Lady Baker entered Khartûm, to be welcomed by the whole European population as if they had risen from the dead. O...