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Winter India

"Winter India" was first published in 1903, during the British colonial empire.  Scidmore, of course, mentions the characteristics of things under the British colonial power, but she trascends that period of India's history by mentioning places and ceremonies and gods and goddesses which are part of the India of all times.  Reading her book you feel transported to Delhi as it used to be,  learn about Madras and the Seven Pagodas,  visit Calcutta in Christmas week and feel in touch with the spirit of Buddhism reading about her description of the sacred bo-tree.  You may learn more about Shiva and Benares, travel in your imagination through the Khyber Pass with the old silk route caravans and  discovered Akbar, the greatest mogul of them all.
 

In the Strange South Seas

Beatrice Grimshaw was born in Ireland. She was an adventurer at heart since childhood and an independent soul who longed to travel to far away places. Until 1903 she had been a freelance journalist, a tour organiser and an emigration promoter but her dream was to go to the South Pacific islands. Embarking from San Francisco in 1904, she sailed first to Tahiti, followed by a four month voyage through the South Pacific and an additional two months on the island of Niue. During this trip, she visited Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, Rarotonga and some of the Cook islands. She returned to London and published “In the Strange South Seas” in 1907. In the book, Grimshaw not only recounts her adventures but she also describes the customs and lifestyles of the native populations as well as giving an exhaustive picture of the region’s fauna and wildlife. The book also contain accounts of cannibalism, head-hunting, poisoning and tribal magic.

Up the Amazon and Over the Andes

Violet Cressy-Marcks was fearless when faced with physical threats. She had already been trekking from Cape to Cairo and had sleighed across the icy fields to Murmansk before going to the rivers and swamps of South America in 1929. In the Amazon she was woken by a snake which bit her below the knee. She grabbed the snake below the head, crawled out from under her mosquito net and went to find a rock to smash the snake’s head. Then proceeded to use a scalpel to cut across the bite, pushing a tablet of permanganate of potash.