A Northern Highway of the Tsar

Westminster: Archibald Constable. Very Good. 1898. First Edition. Hardcover. xiv, 256, (20 ads) pages; Contents clean and secure in original green cloth binding with bright gilt lettering and gilt image of a Russia two-headed eagle on front board, faded at spine and edges. Original owner's bookplatewith the coat of arms and motto "Fidelis ad Urnam" of the Malone family and "C. R. R. Malone" Illustrated with a portrait frontispiece, 9 plates, one text illustration, and a folding map of the River System of North West Russia. British explorer & ornithologist Trevor-Battye's account of his journey through high Northern Russia in 1894 from Kolguev Island, up the Pechora River & then west to the White Sea. According to the author this region has five seasons of the year. The fifth is Rasputnya -- the period between autumn and winter. From the Preface: "Travelling by one of the high northern trails is easy enough in summer when the ground is dry and firm is delightful in winter when the sleighs glide over the snow, and over the ice of lake or river; but in Rasputnya it is not easy, it is very difficult, and no one dreams of moving then. It is freezing one day and thawing the next, the ice-charged rivers are dangerous for boats, and all the land is morass and swamp . But an Englishman is proverbially obstinate; and, meantime, through these swamps I was pushing inch by inch by various shifts and devices. It is of these that this story tells." .