Across Thibet

The French explorer, author and legislator Gabriel Bonvalot (1853-1933) travelled widely in Central Asia in the 1880s. This two-volume English translation by C. B. Pitman of the 1889-90 French original was published in 1891. It describes Bonvalot's expedition across Europe and Asia to French Indochina. Accompanied by Prince Henri d'Orléans whose father, the Duc of Chartres, financed the expedition, Bonvalot left Paris in July 1889. In Volume 2, the expedition succeeds in gaining formal permission to enter Tibet, despite the Lhasa government's usual policy of turning away foreigners. Bonvalot shows himself fascinated with the polyandry and polygamy practised by the Tibetans, saying that they seem 'quite contented with their lot, and gaiety reigns supreme'. The party continues through China's Yunnan province to Tonkin in northern Vietnam, and reaches Hanoi in 1890; they return to France by sea.