Eighteen Capitals of China (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Eighteen Capitals of China<br><br>"Now when nations are competing for the honour of planting their flags on the poles of our planet, is there not some danger that heroic travellers who have penetrated savage regions, and brought to light the hidden things of darkness, may fail of due recognition<br><br>"Livingstone and Stanley did more for science and civilisation than a dozen polar expeditions. A noted explorer who deserves to share their laurels, if only for what he achieved on the same arena, is the author of this volume.<br><br>"Dr. Geil's researches have taken a wider range than theirs, extending to three zones, and he has shown me a tattered flag which he bore on voyages by land and sea sufficient to put a tenfold girdle round this globe.<br><br>"After piercing the Heart of Africa and confirming the Homeric legend of pigmies at war with snakes, if not with cranes, he passed at a single bound from Guinea to New Guinea, where he found materials for many a blood curdling picture of life among the head-hunters and cannibals of the Southern Seas.<br><br>"Eight years ago Dr. Geil turned his attention to China, ascended her Great River to the frontiers of Tibet and gave the world his experiences in a fascinating book entitled "A Yankee on the Yangtze." Had the sister stream been navigable he might have attempted to eclipse the exploit of a fabled hero, who, seeking the source of the Yellow River, found himself looking down from the Milky Way.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.