Through The Heart of Asia―Over the Pamir to India

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. Volume 1 describes the journey from France to Samarkand via Tehran, and the checkpoint at the Afghan border. In Volume 2 the party reaches the remote Kingdom of Chatral, but is imprisoned again. Eventually, the British allow the expedition to enter India.