Publisher's Synopsis
This book is a follow up of the author's A Collection of Classic Travel Narratives which provided extracts from his abridgments of the narratives of thirty five journeys spanning the great range of time from 1245 to 1896. With just one exception they are written in the first person by the traveller, and several are from translations into English where first given in another language. Travel Narratives over Five Centuries in three volumes fleshes out those extracts into about twenty five abridgments of those travels. This second volume of eight abridgments starts with Ralph Fitch's visit to India and Burma in 1583-90, the first Englishman in India. Next come Joseph Pitts' life as a slave under the Moors from 1678-93, John Byron's great sufferings following shipwreck in 1741-44, John Macdonalds travels in Europe and India as a man servant in1745-79, Mungo Park's journey alone into the heart of Africa in 1795, and William Wheelers great letters over twenty years as a soldier in Wellington's army in Spain and Waterloo. Volume 2 ends with Mary Kingsley's charming writing about her remarkable journey into the heart of equatorial Africa, in 1895-6 where Gaboon French officials thought she was bent on self destruction.
