River Road to China

THE MEKONG RIVER EXPEDITION 1866-1873

Milton Osborne

London, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd, harcover with dustjacket, illlustrated.

Ninety years ago, no one in the Western world knew the full course, or indeed the source, of the great Mekong River. In 1866, however, six Frenchmen set out with an expedition to seek a trade route up the Mekong into China; and it is this expedition — the equal of other, much better remembered European expeditions in Africa at the same period led by men such as Burton, Speke and Livingstone — that is the subject of Milton Osborne's book.

When the expedition was concluded, it was judged 'the happiest and most complete of the nineteenth century' and its surviving leader, Francis Garnier, shared an award with David Livingstone. But it was a story also of courage, endurance and tragedy. Great obstacles were overcome by disease-weakened men as they traveled up the river. During two years they mapped over 4,000 miles of previously unsurveyed territory, as their journey took them from Saigon, Phnom Penh, and the tropical heat of Viet-Nam and Cambodia to the bitter cold of the mountains of southwestern China.

It is a stirring and an epic story, enhanced not only by the excitement of the events, but also by the readability and drive of Dr. Osborne's narrative and his wide knowledge of the present-day Indochinese region, where he has traveled extensively in VietNam, Cambodia and Laos.

He served two years in Cambodia when in the Australian Foreign Service. Subsequently he has become a well-known authority on Southeast Asia and the French role there; a visiting professor at Yale University in 1974-75; and is now director of the British Institute in Southeast Asia, based in Singapore.