Among the Himalayas

London: Archibald Constable and Co., 1900 London: Archibald Constable and Co., 1900 vi, 452 pp with myriad B&W drawings and photos in text and large folding map bound-in at rear. Text is clean, tight and unmarked. Map is undamaged save for a closed tear near spine. Endpapers have light glue staining, front hinge is tender, there is a contemporary booksellers sticker (Van Siclen Bibliopole, New York City) Red buckram boards with gold-stamped titles on spine have a little bumping to tail of spine which has caused the start of a split in fabric, else clean and undamaged. Colonel Laurence Austine Waddell, (1854-1938) was a British explorer, Professor of Tibetan, Professor of Chemistry and Pathology, British army surgeon, collector in Tibet, philologist, linguist, amateur archeologist, Doctor of Laws, and author. He traveled extensively in India throughout the 1890s (including Sikkim and areas on the borders of Nepal and Tibet) and wrote about the Tibetan Buddhist religious practices he observed there. Stationed with the British army in Darjeeling, Waddell learned the Tibetan language and even visited Tibet several times secretly, in disguise. He was the cultural consultant on the 1903-1904 British invasion of Tibet led by Colonel Sir Francis Edward Younghusband, and was considered alongside Sir Charles Bell as one of the foremost authorities on Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism. Waddell continued his military service with the Indian Medical Service the next years. He was in China during the Boxer Rebellion (, including the Relief of Peking in August 1900. Wadell , in the introduction, descripes "Among the Himalayas" as "During the past fourteen years I have traversed portions of the borderlands of Sikkim nearly every year, sketching, shooting, collecting, and especially exploring the customs of the people on the frontiers of Tibet, and of Nepal. This illustrated narrative of my journeyings I hope may reflect, in some measure, the keen enjoyment of travel in these regions, may awaken further interest in a fascinating though little known land, may assist in guiding the traveler to those features that are of greatest general interest, and bring home to the reader a whiff of the bracing breezes of the Himalayas." Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Second Edition. Buckram. Very Good Plus. Illus. by McCormick, A.d.. Second Edition.. Hardcover. Very Good Plus. Illus. by McCormick, A.d..