Across Chryse , being the narrative of exploration through the South China border lands from Canton to Mandalay . (2 vols)

New York: Scribner & Welford, 1883 New York: Scribner & Welford, 1883 Across Chrysê, being the narrative of exploration through the South China border lands from Canton to Mandalay. With 3 specially prepared maps, 30 facsimiles of native drawings, and 300 illustrations. Chiefly from Original Photographs and Sketches Vol 1 - xxx+ 420 pp, Volume 2 - xvi + 408 pp, with 300 wood engraved illustrations. Texts are tight, unmarked save for foxing and the occasional fingerprint. Two folding maps, one post-text for each volume plus one map in text. The maps are foxed but undamaged. Grey cloth boards have gold-stamped titles and a drawing of a cliff and sampan in brown. Both spines have faint remnants of library numbers, these are the only library markings. Boards on both volumes are clean and undamaged save for slight bumping at spine ends and corners. Archibald Ross Colquhoun (1848 -1914) joined the Indian Public Works Department in 1871 as an assistant surveyor. In 1879 he was secretary and second in command of a government mission to Siam and the Shan States, and in 1881-2 he travelled from Canton (Guangzhou) to Bhamo in Chinese dress to find the best railway route between China and Burma, a journey he wrote on in his two books, "Across Chryse," and "Amongst the Shan." Widely regarded as an explorer of the first rank, in 1884 he was awarded the Royal Geographical Society founders' gold medal; his publications on the trade potential of Burma were welcomed by the British international business interests. In 1885 he became deputy commissioner in Upper Burma however his career came to an abrupt end when a frank criticism he made of government policy fell accidentally into the hands of his superiors. In 1894 Colquhoun became the agent in Peking (Beijing) for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and in the following year he surveyed Nicaragua and Panama as possible routes for a Central American canal. From 1896 until 1913 he undertook several tours of Siberia, China, Japan, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, southern Africa, North and South America, and the Habsburg Empire. Powerfully built, with a walrus moustache and a fondness for champagne, Colquhoun was a mercurial character whose life embodied the Victorian ideal of colonial adventure. He was an accomplished writer of more than fourteen scholarly books and numerous articles on colonial administration, comparative ethnography, railway and canal construction, land settlement, trade prospects, and geopolitics and defense in the European colonial empires, Russia, China, East Asia, and the Americas. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. First American Edition. Decorative Cloth. Very Good/No Jacket. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.. First American Edition.. Hardcover. Very Good/No Jacket.