Frank Kingdon-Ward was a dedicated explorer of western China and Central Asia as well as being a master botanist, and this book documents his first trip in 1909 and 1910, a year-long adventure through northwest China, Gansu, eastern Tibet and Sichuan. This is a unique account of a journey through remote territories, meetings with Tibetan lamas and warlords, and several scrapes with death, along with fascinating descriptions of the great vastness of western China, Central Asia and the wonders of Tibet. Kingdon-Ward was primarily a plant collector, but that was, it seems, an excuse for what he really liked to do, which was to travel through the wilds of that part of the world which is so physically magnificent, so central to the past of the human race, and so laced with cultures and traditions that had depth and meaning beyond anything else in the world.