A Ride to Khiva: Travels and Adventures in Central Asia

It is 1875, the time of the 'Great Game', when the British and Russian Empires are vying for power in central Asia. A British officer rides for Khiva, a Russian city closed to European travellers. He is on a dangerous mission, to learn if Russia plans to invade India, the 'jewel in the crown' of the British Empire. It might be the plot of a Rudyard Kipling novel; instead it is the true story of Captain Frederick Burnaby (1842–85). Burnaby joined the British army in 1859, but in periods with...