# Silk Road Books & Photos

## Afghanistan Travel Literature (Page 3 of 8)

## 1940s

#### 21 | #### Fox, John | #### Afghan Adventure
First Edition 1958, London The Adventurere's Club pp190 in dw. An account of the arrest of an Afghan who had been forcibly taking weapons from British forces in Baluchistan during British Rule. £12
#### 22 | #### Shakur, M.A. | #### A Dash Through the Heart of Afghanistan
Personal narrative of an Archaeological Tour with the Indian Cultural Mission Curator Peshawar Museum. 1947 Hardback 127 PAGES with folding map. Very good condition. £50 ## 1950s
#### 23 | #### Hunter, Edward | #### An Account of Life in Afghanistan Today The Past Present
Hardback in dw very good condition. 1959 1st edition Hodder and Stoughton 352 pages. An account by an American living for one year in Kabul who meets disaffected Communists, Westernised Afghans who hold secret Western style Dance parties, but fearing that the Afghan Police may arrest them for such behaviour. The author also meets Andre Maricq of DAFA who is translating an old Greek stone tablet. £20
#### 24 | #### Matheson, Sylvia | #### Time off to Dig
Archaeologists working on behalf of the Hornimann Museum carry out a dig in Mundigak.Publishers Odhams 1961 first edition. £21
#### 25 | #### Myrdal Jan and Kessle Gun | #### Gates to Asia
A diary from a long Journey 1972 Chatto and Windus travels through Afghanistan and Soviet Central Asia from 1958-71. Pages 246 in dw very good to fine condition. Translated from the Swedish. £20
#### 26 | #### Newby, Eric | #### A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
1958, London. First edition Hardback edition, two folding maps, pp 247, in good condition. Signed by Author in dw which has suffered from some paper loss. £200
#### 27 | #### Eric Newby | #### A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
1958, London. First edition Hardback edition, two folding maps, pp 247, in very good condition. Author died in 2006. 'That cook's going to die,' said Thesiger; 'hasn't got a coat and look at his feet. We're 9,000 feet if we're an inch here. How high's the Chamar Pass?' We told him 16,000 feet. 'Get yourself a coat and boots, do you hear?' he shouted in the direction of the camp fire. After two hours the chickens arrived; they were like elastic, only the rice and gravy were delicious.... 'England's going to pot,' said Thesiger, as Hugh and I lay smoking the interpreter's king-size cigarettes, the first for a fortnight. 'Look at this shirt, I've only had it three years, now it's splitting. Same with tailors; Gull and Croke made me a pair of whipcord trousers to go to the Atlas Mountains. Sixteen guineas - wore a hole in them in a fortnight. Bought half a dozen shotguns to give to my headmen, well-known make, 20 guineas apiece, absolute rubbish.' He began to tell me about his Arabs. 'I give them powders for worms and that sort of thing.' I asked him about surgery. 'I take off fingers and there's a lot of surgery to be done. They're frightened of their own doctors because they're not clean.' 'Do you do it? Cutting off fingers?' 'Hundreds of them,' he said dreamily, for it was very late. 'Lord yes. Why, the other day I took out an eye. I enjoyed that. Let's turn in.' The ground was like iron with sharp rocks sticking up out of it. We started to blow up our air-beds. 'God, you must be a couple of pansies,' said Thesiger. SOURCE: The Observer Travel £30 ## 1960s
#### 28 | #### Delapraz Alain Et Micheline | #### Afghanistan
French Text, Avanti Club 1964. 48 colour photos. 127 pages hardback in mint condition. £15
#### 29 | #### Gall, Sandy et al | #### A Passage to Nuristan: Exploring the mysterious Afghan Hinterland
A first hand account of extraordinary travel, it is a reminiscent of "Short Walk in the Hindu Kush". This book about Afghanistan is highly topical. Despite its recent upheavals, for most of the twentieth century Afghanistan was a sleepy, faraway place of little interest to outsiders. Nowhere was the romance and mystery attached to the country more dramatically expressed than in its Nuristan region (formerly Kafiristan - Land of Infidels). Here, the spectacular mountains and lush but inaccessible valleys have, for centuries, been home to one of the world's least known peoples. Isolated in their mountain villages, the Nuristanis were only converted to Islam at the end of the nineteenth century. "A Passage to Nuristan" is the story of three young westerners - a Briton, an American and a German - who in 1960 set out to penetrate a land that few westerners had set eyes on. Unable to rely on maps or information on what would confront them, they were guided step by precarious step into the unknown world previously immortalised by Kipling's "The Man Who Would be King". This is the contemporary record - now published for the first time - of an extraordinary journey. It will fascinate all who are interested in Afghanistan, Central Asia and travel. At the same time it captures the essence of a time and a place now gone forever. Hardback first edition in dust wrapper 2005 192 pages.Signed Photo of author present with book. £40
#### 30 | #### Murphy, Dervla | #### Full Tilt
Ireland to India with a Bicycle. First Edition in DW. Fine condition. The author travels through Afghanistan on bicycle and then later goes on to Swat valley an independent princely state and meets the WALI OF Swat as well as the Pashtun President of Pakistan Ayub Khan. £30
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