5 comments about Walk with Me Through Alaska.

1. By:JOSEPH ROBERTIA
   Peninsula Clarion news
   
   
   Charley Dunn, a Soldotna resident for 42 years, has experienced a lot since first coming north as a wide-eyed young man in 1966, and if a person could earn a college degree for storytelling, he would hold a Ph.D. for his gift of gab.
   
   "I have been truly blessed to have had the opportunity to work, hunt, fish and explore in Alaska," he said.
   
   He said he has always enjoyed sharing tales of these experiences with others, but recently decided to take his storytelling a step further.
   
   "I'd tell a story and people would say, 'You should write this down,' so I finally just did it," he said.
   
   Dunn put together 25 to 30 of his more interesting, exciting and dangerous stories and sent the manuscript to two publishers, and immediately got offers from both. He decided to work with PublishAmercia a traditional publishing company whose primary goal is promoting the works of new, previously undiscovered writers and on Oct. 25, his 125-page book, "Walk With Me Through Alaska," was released.
   
   "People aren't going to believe some of the stories in the book, but they're all true," Dunn said.
   
   They take place all over the state, and Dunn said he did his best to make readers feel transported to the scene of these stories.
   
   "The areas where they occurred will be explained in detail so that you feel like you are with me in a walk across Alaska. I have included pictures so that you will be able to see the things I have seen. It is my sincerest hope that you will have the same sense of awe and inspiration that I have had about Alaska," he said.
   
   He begins the book by detailing how he came to Alaska to work as an oil field service laborer, and what was in town when he arrived.
   
   "There were no malls, fast food restaurants or large grocery stores. It was mostly dirt roads and just a few service stations without convenience stores," he said.
   
   After a few stories about working for Shell Oil Company, Sante Fe Drilling Company and Coastal Drilling Company, Dunn moves into detailing what he did in his off-time.
   
   Most of the stories are "pretty serious stories of adventure," Dunn said. There are tales of moose hunts up on Tustumena Lake, sheep hunts through the rugged mountains near Seward, and bear hunts on Kodiak where Dunn almost became the hunted instead of the hunter.
   
   There are also fishing accounts describing the heyday of king salmon fishing on the Kenai River and a story about guided halibut fishing out of Seward that is almost too good to believe, according to Dunn.
   
   "We had taken out two elderly women and an elderly man from Seattle, and their nephews from Anchorage. Between them they had caught eight halibut that when we got back weighed in at 1,068 pounds for the eight of them," he said.
   
   This meant the average weight of each fish was 133.5 pounds.
   
   "They got about 855 pounds of fillets," Dunn said, and explains in the book that at that time, halibut was selling for around $11 a pound back in Seattle, which meant the tourists had roughly $9,400 worth of delicious flatfish meat.
   
   Dunn said while there are numerous adventures stories in the book, there are also a handful of humorous tales and a few accounts that are just plain extraordinary, such as when Dunn and a friend saw an unidentified flying object up on the Little Killey River, and another time when he found an original copy of the "Call of the Wild" that was signed "To Hattie from Jack London" in a cabin on Tustumena Lake.
   
   "It would be worth a million dollars now, but we left it because it didn't belong to us," he said.
   
   As to who might enjoy reading Dunn's new book, he said there's something in it for everyone from the cheechako to the sourdough.
   
   "I think it would appeal to anybody who's interested in Alaska and the goings-on up here," he said.
   
   Asked if he thinks he will write another book now that he knows the process, he said you can count on it.
   
   "This book is by no means everything. I've lived a life some will only dream about, and I've lived to tell about it, and I'm planning on having more adventures in Alaska," he said.
   
   To learn more about Dunn's book, or to learn how to order a copy, visit his Web site at [...]
   
   Joseph Robertia



2. We are so thankful that our dad took the time to write a book about his life adventures. These are exciting, unbelievable stories that make you want to take on the world. God has been so good to keep and preserve this man all the days of his life and this book is just the begining of the fun exploits and encounters that the family has been blessed to hear stories about through the years. Anyone who likes outdoor adventure will enjoy this book. Alaska is unlike any other place you will ever experience.



3. I enjoyed every minute of this book. A very interesting quick read. I learned a little more about the state I live in and also found no problem following and understanding the author's life events. Those of us that live in Alaska have such diverse experiences due to our jobs, location, living conditions, weather, and natural events. I found myself feeling that I was there, watching as every event unfolded. This can be a harsh life in Alaska and this man chose to live it to it's fullest! Can't wait for the "rest of the stories!" Another book maybe???? Thanks for some of the tips on what to do and "NOT" to do while hunting or being out in this wonderful wilderness.
   
   Pat Ligenza - Anchor Point, Alaska



4. I have lived on the Kenai Penninsula for 32 years. I've worked many night shifts with Charlie Dunn and shared many stories with him. All the events in this book are true in fact I lived many events that are simular.
   This book explains events that several people have lived which is common to the life in Alaska. The adventure never ends. Ifyou want to know what living in Alaska is like, this is the book for you.
   
   Dan Winters



5. This is a really interesting book that is true to life.
   The author did a good job of portraying his life in Alaska.
   If you have plans to visit Alaska, this is a good book to read first.

5 comments about Thieves of Baghdad: One Marine's Passion for Ancient Civilizations and the Journey to Recover the World's Greatest Stolen Treasures.

1. There were many aspects of the art recovery story that were both useful and interesting. Especially the use of the human resources of experienced police, prosecutors and the museum staff. It was regretable that so much laudatory, sometimes self evident and eventually irritating material about the author was seen as desirable. This aspect detracted from the authority of the author and the work.



2. Colonel Matthew Bogdonos did a great service by writing about his account; however, I must completely agree with a prior review regarding this egotistical author. Being a former Marine and an undergraduate in Historical Studies, he discredited his book by boasting. A book of this scope should be strengthened by facts, sources, and even personal experiences, as long as the ego can be left out of it. While I was satisfied with the book, I wouldn't recommend this book unless one could forgive the semantics.



3. Colonel Bogdanos has a fascinating tale of the war on terror, Iraqi reconstruction, and the recovery of stolen artifacts. Unfortunately, the author's ego too often overshadows the amazing tale.
   
   Certainly the author had the opportunity to witness history-changing events. He was a neighbor who saw the destruction of the twin towers. He visited Afghanistan and saw the trouble of rebuilding the remote country. Then he went through Iraq and finally settled in the Iraq museum in Baghdad, helping recover and protect artifacts.
   
   Unfortunately, Bogdanos' boasting occurs early and often. He recounts how he evacuated his building in lower Manhattan after the towers fell. Reading his description makes it sound like he escorted his family through a war zone. He was packing a gun, hustling past roadblocks, and scanning for threats. My initial thoughts were "Didn't thousands of other people make this same passage safely ... and without nearly as much machismo?"
   
   Based on his biographical overview, you'd think the author single-handedly came up with the idea of protecting the Iraq Museum, that he was the one who developed the plans to recover the stolen artifacts, and (best yet) that he was responsible for developing inter-agency anti-terror training.
   
   My impression is that he was a part of those efforts, but that he had a lot of (understated) partners. Reading his book, you will see no such partners. Instead you will see a lot of underlings who are grateful for such a smart leader. You will see two types of supervisors: the bumbling ones who overlook Bogdanos' obvious qualifications and contributions, and the intelligent ones who give Bogdanos the authority to fulfill the mission only he can accomplish.
   
   A good story of post-war Iraq is in this book. Unfortunately, Bogdanos' bravado distracts too much from it.



4. This book for several reasons did not impress me. First, Bogdanos drops a lot of names of "important" people that enlist his help and vice-versa. Problem is, they're just names to the reader. I don't know these people from Adam and the author does very little to "flesh them out". Second, his need to continually quote famous historical figures to prove he is a well-educated serviceman not only shows his insecurities and self-righteousness but also slows the story to a snail's pace. While he claims to be telling a story about marines and the wonderful work they do, rather than himself, he engages in some pretty heavy self-glorification. Third, while he denies couching any of his story in political partisanship, the political theater that he participates in is filled with Republican "good ol' boys". Some of the justifications Bagdanos gives for the military's reluctance to safe guard museums and archaeological sites seems valid while other reasons do not. I saw Matthew Bogdanos at a lecture in Indianapolis this spring. His haughty demeanor did not dispel any of the reservations I feel about this bias account. On the positive side, Bogdanos does give the reader a picture of the historical significance of Mesopotamian artifacts and background on the domestic and colonial personalities that helped shape present day Iraq. His passion for history cannot be denied. He also gives some of the Western media as well as the Iraqi museum staff positive credit. However, for a truly humbling account of the "shock and awe" aftermath, please read Lawrence Anthony's "Babylon's Ark".



5. Matthew Bogdanos' story of the lost antiquities of the Bahgdad Museum is a fascinating and informative account of his experiences with an interagency counterterrorism unit following 9/11. However, its not just about Bahgdad, as he tells us about the challenges he faces growing up in downtown New York, his roots in Greek and Middle Eastern classics, etc. In fact, despite the extraordinary depth of his knowledge of classic literature, arts, and history, there is a certain air of self-promotion throughout the book that the reader just can't overlook. Nonetheless, I found Bogdanos' writing to be sophisticated and interesting and I felt that I finished his book with a better understanding of U.S. efforts to help the Iraqi people help themselves (despite the efforts of their fellow Iraqi's to sell their own heritage to the highest bidders). The beautiful photos add great depth to Bogdanos' account and spark the reader's interest in the history and art of the region. Enjoy this highly unusual account of one man's war time experiences.

No comments about Another Face of Empire: Bartolomé de Las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism (Latin America Otherwise).

1 comments about My First Years in the Fur Trade: The Journals of 1802-1804 (Wisconsin).

1. While the introduction and footnotes were very well edited, I did struggle through the actual journals themselves. This could be attributed to Nelson's writing style, my unfamiliarity with Lake Superior geography and/or the plethora of French nomenclature (which can generate confusion for some). Overall, the journals are insightful of survival strategies and day to day existence in the fur trade years of 1802-04 in northern Wisconsin. Nelson, who was only fifteen when joining the XY Company, was a keen observer of Ojibwa Indian customs, the interrelationships between company men and his immediate surroundings. If the writing of the journals had more continuity, it would have been an enjoyable read.

5 comments about The Long Walk.

1. Rawicz's trek is an amazing story, and a great read. His voice comes through so strongly, and authentically that you find ourself with him almost every step of his journey.



2. This book has been thoroughly reviewed on Amazon already. I add this review in the hopes on contributing something to the discussion.
   
   This is the story of Slavomir Rawicz, a Polish cadet who was arrested by the Soviets on false charges and sentenced to prison in Siberia for 25 years, and of his amazing escape south, across 4,000 miles past Lake Baikal, through Mongolia, across the Gobi Desert, over the Himalayas, and finally into British India. The book is engaging, extremely well-written, heart-breaking and inspiring.
   
   The problem is that it may not be true. I agree with other commenters that the book loses all of its value as an inspirational story if it was fabricated. My five-star review assumes that it is true.
   
   Critics of the book can rely on two types of evidence: internal and external. (I reject objections that such a journey is impossible. Modern adventurers have retraced Rawicz' steps; granted, they were much better equipped, but they also weren't fleeing for their lives).
   
   The external evidence shows that Rawicz was released from prison and sent back to Poland; that the British (probably) have no record of Rawicz or his companions arriving from the Tibetan plateau; that no one has ever located or identified his companions. The first objection can be met by pointing out that the Soviet Cheka was not necessarily above forging documents, especially if necessary to avoid a humiliating admission that seven prisoners escaped. The second objection is undermined by the history of the book's criticisms -- for years, people pointed out that the Soviets had no record of Rawicz' imprisonment at all. The discovery of his papers is a dramatic illustration that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
   
   The final point is simply a mystery. One would expect that Rawicz's companions would try to contact him after the book was published. But that assumes his companions survived long enough to do so -- they arrived in India in 1942, and the book was not published until 1956. It is possible they died, or returned to their homes in communist countries and never saw the book, or were imprisoned again. Of course, all we can do is speculate.
   
   For me, the more interesting question concerns the internal evidence. Is Rawicz' description of a Soviet prison camp consistent with actual practice? When Rawicz crossed the border into Mongolia, he described a series of signs marking the border -- is his description accurate? He describes the clothing, houses and certain material culture in Mongolia, China and Tibet -- is it consistent with local practice at that time?
   
   Adventurer Peter Fleming supposedly challenged the internal evidence as unrealistic shortly after the book was published, but I have not found a copy of Fleming's specific charges, so I cannot evaluate them. In addition, according to a wikipedia article on Rawicz, Fleming supposedly discovered military records that contradicted Rawicz' claims. One must wonder why Fleming would bother with such external evidence if he thought the case against the internal evidence was so clear.



3. Well, the story itself may be untrue, and come to a point where it's even farcical in what it tries to put over on readers (seeing a pair of menacing yetis in the Himalayas while crossing the mountains in winter with all of rusty wire and animal dung as provisions). But! This is a moot point, because as a tale, it's first-rate. If you can allow the fraud (and there's no real reason to get upset about it), there are large rewards to be had from The Long Walk. The story of the trek to freedom is incredible and very compelling, page b' page. The prose isn't the best, but it serves its singular point well in keeping the action moving and gripping. It's entirely designed in this way, to be a terrific story, and true or not, it only assists itself with all its narrative tendencies.



4. After reading snippets of this book for years, I finally got it. The story was interesting and entertaining from the initial captivity in the European prisoner camp, through the trek to the Siberian camp, until the end of the long walk that led from Siberia to freedom.



5. This book was impossible to put down. If I hadn't known it was a true story, I would have thought it fiction. The human spirit and longing for freedom is truly the basis for their endeavor.

No comments about "Catch 'em Alive Jack": The Life and Adventures of an American Pioneer.

No comments about Adventures of Tibetan Fighting Monk (Asian Portraits).

4 comments about Just Wind: Tales Of Two Pilots Under Pressure.

1. I just finished reading the book. The two stories presented are amazing. I'd really like to know more about the technical details of both projects, but none the less, the book is an engrossing page turner. The stories of the Earthwinds are particularly amazing.... could the program really keep continuing with the utterly amazing amount of drama therein? The book presents an amazing contrast of big project versus small project. Recommended reading!



2. I have knowledge about both of the stories in this book. I can tell you that both of these stories are really true and that alone makes it better than any fiction. It is amazing how this author was able to retain all of that detail and then narrate it so interestingly.



3. THE NEW YORK TIMES

   In the quest for ultimate achievement--the scaling of the highest peak or a descent to the deepest ocean trench, for example--even heroic efforts often fall short of victory. The losers, alas, usually end up as forgotten footnotes to history.

   But monumental failures can be as fascinating as successes. Although Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay went into the record books in 1953 as the first climbers to conquer Mount Everest, climbing fans will forever remember an earlier failure: the fatal attempt on Everest's summit in 1924 by George Leigh Mallory, who disappeared a few hundred yards short of the mountain's mist-shrouded peak.

   Bill Armstrong's Just Wind brilliantly chronicles two of ballooning's magnificent failures--the ill-fated 1974 attempt by Col. Tom Gatch to be the first balloonist to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and the struggle by Larry Newman and his Earthwinds balloon team two decades later to circle the earth non-stop.

   As a long-duration balloon pilot himself, Mr. Armstrong was a close friend of Col. Gatch. He also served as spokesman for the Earthwinds group, and his insider's perspective endows this book with rare technical details and insights into the sometimes bitter human conflicts that often characterize big-league ballooning.

   For any reader awakened to the heady thrill of long-distance ballooning, this book is a must.

   -- Malcolm W. Browne, The New York Times

   AKRON BEACON JOURNAL

   Bill Armstrong provides a compelling look from the inside at the dreams and efforts of two men to expand the world of ballooning.

   His book is the definitive and detailed inside story of two aerial expeditions and the men and women behind those dreams. It is a book for those who care about expanding aerial frontiers and humans working to overcome challenges.

   -- Bob Downing, Akron Beacon Journal

   BUOYANT FLIGHT
   (THE LIGHTER THAN AIR SOCIETY BULLETIN)

   As an experienced balloonist himself, Bill Armstrong brings unique credentials to the telling of these sagas. He successfully combines a strong factual account of events with his personal observations on the motives and methods of those who sought to make ballooning history. JUST WIND fills an important gap in the chronicle of balloon history in America, and I highly recommend it.

   -- Eric Brothers, editor, Buoyant Flight




4. I knew Tom Gatch. As a member of the Balloon Club of Amrerica, I helped train Tom to fly. His death was and is a tremendous loss to all of us who knew him. As interesting a book as Just Wind is, the speculations left me a little perplexed. Since Tom was not in contact with us for most of the flight it is impossible to describe what he was doing unless you are just trying to tell a story. I had high hopes about reading the book and was a bit disappointed.

   I also believe that there was technical details left out of the book which might have explained his predicament a bit better. All in all, however, it is good to have some documentation about Tom's attempt. I am happy to have the book on my shelf. It is too bad that more isn't known about the flight itself. Now if someone wants to write about Bob Burger you might have an even more sorrowful tale.

2 comments about Mountie in Mukluks: The Arctic Adventures of Bill White.

1. I have a whole passel of personal connections with this book. Not only did I once live on the arctic coast for several years, I've fished the mouth of the river that almost took Bill's life. I was still living in Toloyoak in 1974 when Bill White made his return trip to Cam. Bay after 40 years, though I didn't know it at the time. I've walked and crawled all over the St. Roch in its permanent berth at the Vancouver Maritime Museum and visited Pasley Bay on the Boothia Peninsula where it once overwintered in the ice. Thanks to James Eetoolook and Pat Lyall I've visited almost every landfall along the ice coast the St. Roch stopped into the summer of 1930.
   Then, while living on the Sunshine Coast in 1975, the author's father, Howard White (they aren't related to Bill), loaned me a copy of Bill's original 175 page manuscript. I thought it a dry read, historically questionable in places and grossly over opinionated. In fact, when Bill asked me what I thought of it, I told him I figured his opinions were as valid as anybody else's'. Holy poop! "Opinions," he bellowed, and that was the end of that politically incorrect conversation.
   Jim

   LIFE IN THE OLD NORTH

   "I never wanted to be a cop. Christ, I didn't want to spend my life handing out traffic tickets. I joined the RCMP so I could get up north. There was nothing more to it."
   So opens this illuminating book about fours years in the life of Bill White, one of the most unlikely of cops ever to build an igloo.
   Written entirely in the first person by Patrick White (no relation to Bill), this tale will captivate arctic buffs, RCMP enthusiasts, historians and everybody else interested in a first hand glimpse of "the best years of my life;" how it was in the central arctic in the early 1930s. Life in the old north.
   "I decided to join up with an eye on getting to the Arctic as soon as possible." After basic training in Regina: "...really nothing more than a modified Boy Scouts program," Bill began his career herding naked Doukhobours and chasing bootleggers along the US border in Saskatchewan. He applied for arctic service and was transferred to Vancouver, there to await transport north.
   Bill shipped out of Vancouver aboard the St. Roch under the command of the legendary Henry Larsen in June 1930, bound for the arctic.
   The book dishes up a smorgasbord of written and visual delicacies (there are 80 some black and white photographs throughout); snapshots of the old police posts at Herschel Island, Baillie Island, Bernard Harbour, Coppermine and Cambridge Bay as the St. Roch flounders in frigid swells, scrapes through pack ice, bounces off reefs, dodges bergs and slams across sand bars.
   Bill meets arctic veterans like trader Charlie Klengenberg and his son Patsy, Ikey Bolt who married Charlie's daughter Etna, Gjoa Haven Canalaska trader George Washington Porter, Tree River Hudson's Bay trader Otto Binder and Mrs. Pannigabluk Stefansson. He befriends Sam Carter, Mahik and L. A. Learmouth. In fact, he and Learmouth once liberated three quarts of alcohol from the compass of the good ship Maud, by then a half submerged derelict in Cambridge Bay, and the two'm ended up having a fine old time.
   Learning to live in the country, Bill was taught how to build an igloo, hunt caribou and seals. He spent the better part of each summer in a fish camp at Wellington Bay. And he got to go trapping too, albeit illegally, bringing in $3,500.00 in white foxes one year; quite a boost to his $700.00 annual salary.
   A census took him over 700 miles by dog team to count 750 northern folk widely scattered over a wide chunk of real estate. Another trip took him a thousand miles by dogs to retrieve a body and witnesses in an alleged murder case.
   Returning south to another land and another life, Bill finally revisited Cambridge Bay in June of 1974, went fishing with Bill Lyall and had tea again with Angulalik and his old friend Mahik.
   "On a windy autumn day, snow crunching underfoot, two active Mounties, a priest and two Inuit elders stood on Mount Pelly, the hill overlooking Cambridge Bay, with Bill's ashes." It was the fall of 2001. Constable Dean Larkin let the wind scatter Bill's mortal remains in the one place in the world where he had always felt he belonged. Bill White was home.
   This may Patrick's White's first book but he's sure enough learned how to use his tools. Patrick has done a bang up job of rendering Bill's adventures imminently readable, historically sound and immensely enjoyable. Feet up beside the wood stove, Mountie in Mukluks was a fine trip for me.

   Review by Jim Green




2. This book is incredibly refreshing and honest. Finally, a man who is not afraid to speak the truth and who really immersed himself in the Inuk culture to be able to understand these Canadians. A book well worth buying as youw will want to read it over and over.

3 comments about Isabella Lucy Bird's "a Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains": An Annotated Text.

1. "It is hard to recall another woman in any age or country who traveled as widely, saw so much, and who left so perceptive a record of what she saw," says Daniel Boorstin who wrote an introduction to an edition of "A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains."
   
   The daughter of a respectable English clergyman, Isabella Bird was a short, dumpy, 41-year old spinster in 1873 when she visited Colorado. She found there a bunch of people she mostly disliked, but a place -- Estes Park -- on which she lavished pages of Wordsworthian nature worship. She climbed Long's Peak -- no small feat of physical endurance -- described Denver, Colorado Springs, and other Colorado cities, and lived briefly the life of a pioneer ranchwoman in a mountain wilderness.
   
   The reader should be aware of a romantic subtext not fully described in "A Lady's Life." Isabella met "Rocky Mountain Jim" Nugent, a famous desperado who she described as an
   "awful looking a ruffian as one could see." Jim became her guide and companion in Estes Park, but she only hints in her book at a romantic attachment. In letters to her sister in Scotland, she tells much more of the relationship and of Jim's ardour and his marriage proposal. Was she fantasizing? Was Jim, known as a ladies man, putting out a lot of Irish blarney to this less-than-glamorous gentlewoman? Or was his infatuation with her real? The relationship between the two is explored in several biographies of Bird. In any case, Isabella left Jim behind and headed back to Scotland after a couple of months. Jim was killed in a gunfight a few months later by another man Isabella had known. A romantic triangle? Who knows?
   
   With a story like this -- and a backstory of frustated love and gunfights -- "A Ladies Life in the Rocky Mountains" can hardly fail to be fascinating. This edition has an introduction, illustrations, and a map of Isabella's travels plus footnotes that complement her text. Isabella Bird was quite a woman.
   
   Smallchief



2. After 125-plus years, Isabella Bird comes across as a formidable, judgmental, frumpy and brave (if not foolhardy) woman who saw parts of Colorado at a time and in a condition that a lot of us wish we could have seen it. Her standard for measuring anything human (character, behavior, diet, education, etc.) can pretty much be summed up in the formula "English and Christian, good; everything else, bad."

   She was keenly observant, although her writing style seems overwrought, romantic and sentimental (I'm trying not to say "cheesy") by our standards.

   Most remarkable, though, is her bravery and her (apparent) charisma. By her account, she was welcomed wherever she went, and even the grotesquely grizzled recluse Jim Nugent fell for her -- she hints that he proposed marriage. And she went places alone, in winter, that you are more likely to read about these days in cautionary tales from the Colorado State Patrol or a search and rescue unit, where the protaganist ends up in a coffin.

   Was she telling the truth? Maybe. Probably. Better-educated people than I seem to take her at her word. And the detail in her stories has the ring of authenticity. So, OK, let's take her at her word.

   As a witness to a pre-sprawl, pre-Vail, pre-John Denver period of the Colorado Rockies, she is fairly readable and considerably entertaining. And her precise and photographic descriptions of the people and landscape are invaluable. You just have to keep in mind that she's looking (which is to say, judging everything) through the lens of a smug 19th century Englishwoman.




3. The book was an interesting account of Bird's travels through the Rocky Mountains, but as I read it, I kept wondering why, why, why? Why would a 41-year old woman travel through the Rockies on horseback in winter? Living in the area where she traveled, I appreciate the descriptions of the mountains and the awesomeness of nature which she elegantly describes. The book is an interesting travel log of her journey and adventures in 1873.