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TORRENS, [Henry D’Oyley.]
Travels in Ladâk, Tartary, and Kashmir.
Publisher: London, Saunders, Otley, and Co., 1862
Stock code: 45046
Price: £1,500 Currency Conversion
First edition. "A beautifully illustrated work, his book details the journey of Torrens and several soldiers from Simla to Leh, with descriptions of Hindustan and the Tibet Road. There is a chapter relating to his attempts to bag bear in the region, with additional note of stalking ibex in the Patseo Valley." (Czech) A typically nonchalant and adventurous British soldier's "shooting leave" into Great Game territory. Commissioned in the Royal Welch Fusiliers in 1849, Torrens served in both the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. By 1884 Torrens had risen, with prodigious speed, to the rank of Lieutenant-General, and was appointed to command the British forces in South Africa. He was made Governor of the Cape Colony in 1886, and during his four years there he established the Cape Golf Course, later the Royal Cape, the first in South Africa. In 1888 he took over as Governor of Malta, but ill health forced him to resign in September 1889 - not before he had set up Malta's first golf course - and he returned to England where he died two months later.
Octavo (220 × 140 mm) recent maroon morocco on old moiré effect boards, black morocco label, raised bands, foliate roll on the bands. Folding map frontispiece, 12 coloured lithographic plates, 2 of them folding panoramas, line-drawn illustrations and decorations to the text. Light foxing, browning and some soiling throughout, first panorama torn, without loss, and repaired verso, overall a very good copy.
