The great explorers were the celebrities of their day - the romance and danger of their daring expeditions captured the public imagination and the world's headl

Eating Dirt in Venezuela - Alexander von Humboldt Geographer, geologist, naturalist, anthropologist, physician and philosopher, Baron von Humboldt brought to ex

Escape from Riyadh - William Gifford Palgrave A scholar and a solider, a Jesuit and a Jew, a French spy and a British ambassador- Palgrave was a man of contradi

Alarms amongst the Uzbeks - Alexander Burnes Of all the "forbidden" cities (Timbuktu, Mecca, Lhasa, Riyadh and so on) none enjoyed a more fearsome reputation th

Alone in Africa - Mungo Park Park's 1795-7 odyssey in search of the Niger first awakened the world to the feasibility of a white man penetrating sub-Saharan Afr