In the year 1905, Ellsworth Huntington undertook a journey through Chinese Turkestan, from India to Siberia, across the Central Asian land mass which was yet unmarked by the footprint of any western traveller. These pages bring to life a description of that historic journey, of the culture and way of life of peoples hitherto unknown to the rest of the world. It contains some of the earliest and most interesting ethnographic details of the peoples living across the Sind, Kashmir valley, Himalays and the Chinese Plateau. With tremendous descriptive skill, the author has etched out the minutest details of a bygone civilization, bringing out vividly all aspects of life, including material culture, mythology, prehistory, rituals and social practices of hose times. The descriptive details, which have a timeless character, embellish the core of the theoretical premise of the author, whose goal was to explore one off the perennial questions before mankind, namely the link between geography and civilization. It was to explore this relationship that the pioneering expedition was undertaken by team of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. This is a book about man’s eternal scientific quest also one off the most fascinating travelogues to emerge as a result off such a quest. A most remarkable amalgamation of a scientific endeavour and a literary masterpiece.