BELLEW, H. W. JOURNAL OF A POLITICAL MISSION TO AFGHANISTAN, IN 1857, UNDER MAJOR 1862 BELLEW, H. W. JOURNAL OF A POLITICAL MISSION TO AFGHANISTAN, IN 1857, UNDER MAJOR (NOW COLONEL) LUMSDEN; with an account of the country and people. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1862. First edition. Eight tinted lithographs. Octavo. xvi,480 pp.; errata slip tipped-in after p. xvi. Publisher's binding; brown cloth over beveled boards, title gilt-stamped to spine, frame and central device blind-stamped to sides, brown coated endpapers. Ex-library, with all of the usual marks and with a varnished backstrip. Binding shows general light soiling all over, as well as some wear at heel, crown and bottom corners, a small nick in fore-edge of the upper board, and the front hinge is starting. However, other than a library stamp on the title-page, the text leaves and plates are clean and quite fresh. It is a sound and very good copy overall. In January 1857, after Persia had seized Herat, Major Harry Burnett Lumsden was sent on a delicate mission to Kandahar to make sure that the British subsidy to the amir was duly applied to the payment of troops for the defence of Afghanistan against Persia and, if possible, to advise and assist the amir so far as it could without exciting Afghan jealousy. Henry Walter Bellew was the medical officer on the mission. Bellew (1834-92), who had been born in India, educated in England, and had returned to serve in India, was generally familiar with the inhabitants, customs, languages, and topography of the region and a keen observer. This work is full of information from a scientific as well as from a political point of view; for instance, at the end of the book is an appendix of plants gathered in Afghanistan. (DNB). 2 Price: USD 1,750.00 other currencies   order no. 78631    inquire

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