The Heart of a Continent: A Narrative of Travels in Manchuria, Across the Gobi Desert, Through the Himalayas, the Pamirs, and Chitral, 1884-1894Francis Younghusband was an explorer and soldier best known for leading the controversial British military mission to Lhasa, Tibet in 1903-4. In 1886 Younghusband was granted leave from his military post in British India to accompany the explorer H.E.M. James on a seven-month journey around Manchuria. After completing this expedition, Younghusband received permission in March 1887 to undertake an overland journey from Peking (Beijing) to India. Traveling alone with just hired guides, Younghusband crossed the Gobi Desert to reach Hami (China), and proceeded from there over the Himalayan Mountains via Kashgar (present-day Kashi, China) and the Muztagh Pass to Kashmir. He reached Srinagar on November 2 and his post at Rawalpindi on November 4, exactly seven months after his departure from Beijing. Younghusand recorded this journey in the first eight chapters of his The Heart of a Continent. In 1890-91 Younghusband undertook further travels to the Pamir Mountains (chiefly in present-day Tajikistan, with parts in Afghanistan, China, and Kyrgyzstan) and the Karakoram Range, the unclaimed corridor between Afghanistan and China. He and his superiors in the Indian government suspected that the Russians might be looking for an invasion route to India through these mountains, and one object of his travels was to search for signs of Russian activity. Younghusband recounted these expeditions in the remaining chapters of the book. The book provides descriptions of spectacular scenery and of the peoples - Chinese, Kalmak (Kalmyk), Kirghiz (Kyrgyz), Tajik, Hunza, and others - that he meets. It also recounts several meetings with Russian reconnoitering parties, including one in the Pamir Mountains in August 1891 with a Russian detachment of more than 30 Cossack soldiers that resulted in a diplomatic clash between Britain and Russia. After an initial friendly meeting, the Russian staff officer in command of the party, Colonel Yonoff, declared that Younghusband was on territory claimed by Russia and that he was under orders to escort the British intruder across the border to China. This encounter led to the lodging of a diplomatic protest by the British embassy in Saint Petersburg and a subsequent apology by the Russian government and an acknowledgement that Yonoff had been operating outside the Russian sphere of influence. The book contains illustrations and several maps, including a large foldout "Map of the Northern Frontier of India." Widely praised for his explorations, Younghusband was elected the youngest fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1890 and named Companion of the Indian Empire (CIE) in 1891. |
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The Heart of a Continent: A Narrative of Travels in Manchuria, Across the ... Francis Edward Younghusband No preview available - 2017 |
The Heart of a Continent: A Narrative of Travels in Manchuria - Scholar's ... Sir Francis Edward Younghusband No preview available - 2015 |
Common terms and phrases
Afghan afterwards Altai Mountains appeared argali arrived ascended baggage British brought camels camp Captain Grombtchevsky caravan China Chinaman Chitral Chong Jangal cold Colonel Cossacks covered crevasses crossed cultivated descended desert encamped European explored Gilgit glacier Gobi Gobi Desert gorge grass Gulmit Gurkhas halted Hami hard height Himalayas hundred feet Hunza Hurku Hills India inhabitants journey Kanjutis Karakoram Karakoram Pass Kashgar Kashmir Kirghiz Kwei-hwa-cheng Ladak look Manchuria Mehtar miles Mongol Mongolia morning mountain-side mountains Mustagh Pass native night officer Oprang River Pamir party peaks Peking plain ponies raids range reached road rock round route Russian Safder seen Shahidula Shimshal Pass side slope snow snowy started stream summit taels Tashkurgan tent thousand feet Tian-shan told town trees Turdi Turfan Turki valley bottom village wall whole wind yards Yarkand River yurts
Popular passages
Page 188 - Above me are the Alps, The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, And throned Eternity in icy halls Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls The avalanche — the thunderbolt of snow ! All that expands the spirit, yet appals, Gather around these summits, as to show How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.
Page vii - Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends ; Where roll'd the ocean, thereon was his home ; Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends, He had the passion and the power to roam ; The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam, Were unto him companionship; they spake A mutual language...
Page i - Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new : That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do...
Page i - Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field, And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn. Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn ; And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men...
Page 214 - Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part Of me and of my soul, as I of them? Is not the love of these deep in my heart With a pure passion? should I not contemn All objects, if compared with these?
Page 377 - I venerate the man whose heart is warm, Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life, Coincident, exhibit lucid proof That he is honest in the sacred cause.
Page 322 - And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste, And o'er the aerial mountains which pour down Indus and Oxus from their icy caves, In joy and exultation held his way...
Page 322 - And o'er the aerial mountains which pour down Indus and Oxus from their icy caves, In joy and exultation held his way; Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower, Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched His languid limbs.
Page 238 - ... touching the cliffs on the right bank; but fortunately the river had kept a way for itself by continually washing away the end of the glacier, which terminated in a great wall of ice 150 to 200 feet high. This glacier runs down from the Gushirbrum in the distance towering up to a height of over 26,000 feet. The passage round the end of the glacier was not unattended with danger, for the stream was swift and strong, and on my own pony I had to reconnoitre very carefully for points where it was...
Page 395 - Mr. Benjamin Kidd, from the side of English sociology, assures us that " Since man became a social creature, the development of his intellectual character has become subordinate to the development of his religious character; " and concludes that religion affords the only permanent sanction for progress.