Book Description
Their goal was to complete their college education by getting to know the people of the world face to face, unhampered by guides and translators. To do that, they chose to travel by a new invention, the modern bicycle. Everywhere they went, their bicycles opened doors, simulating a curiosity that served far better than any passport or letter of introduction would.
This book, back in print for the first time in over a century, is their description of their trip across Asia in 1891-92. In many cases, these two young men provide us with one last glimpse of cultures that would soon be forever altered by the arrival of the rail and telegraph.
The change in circumstance they experienced from one day to the next was often amazing. One day they might sleep in a bug-infested hovel and wash in a typhoid-infected ditch. The next they might find themselves being entertained by a Persian khan, catching fleeting glimpses of his harem, or being fed lavishly by a Chinese mandarin. Throughout their trip they talked with and bought food from the poorest of the poor. Yet at the end of their Asian journey, they were interviewed by Li-Hung Chang, the most powerful man in the world's most populous nation.
Along the way and almost incidentally, the two men became the first Americans to scale Mount Ararat in Turkey (16,940 feet or 5165 meters high). At that time only six other parties claimed to have climbed the mountain and the most recent ascent had been fifteen years earlier.
Publisher comments
Unfortunately, the arrival of the automobile put a quick and unfortunate end to the age of globe-circling bicycle travel. As a result, this book has been out of print since the 1890s.
This newly typeset edition contains all the original text plus additional notes describing the people they met and places they visited. There are also two additional chapters. One is the reprint of a 1899 article in Outing magazine describing their adventure. The other is a short biography of each author based on information collected by the college they attended, Washington University.
