A Ride To Khiva

Captain Frederick Burnaby's secret unofficial mission was to discover if the caravan city of Khiva, closed to all European travellers by the Russians, was about to be used as a springboard for an invasion of India. This is his tale. A Ride to Khiva recounts Captain Burnaby's strictly unofficial mission in 1875 to investigate the motives behind Russia's exclusion of foreigners from Central Asia. Forced to travel in winter, he journeyed through blizzards and snowdrifts to reach the mysterious caravan city of Khiva, his adventures extending from surviving the Cossack's treatment for frostbite to taking tea with the Khan. Burnaby's account of his `one-man Great Game mission' was hugely successful, reprinting eleven times in its first year of publication, and A Ride to Khiva continues to make gripping reading today. Now reissued with a new introduction by the highly acclaimed author, Peter Hopkirk.