News from Tartary: an epic journey across Central Asia

News from Tartary describes a phenomenally successful attempt that legendary adventurer Peter Fleming made to travel overland from Peking to Kashmir. The journey took seven months and covered about 3,500 miles. and Motivated largely by curiosity, he set out with his companion Ella Maillart across a China torn by civil war to journey through Xinjiang to British India. It had been eight years since anyone had crossed Xinjiang; in between those who had entered this inhospitable and politically volatile area—under the control of a warlord supported by Stalin's Red Army—seldom left alive. Entering the province by a little known route and following the path of the Silk Road, they ended up in Kashgar before crossing the Pamirs to India. Beautifully written and superbly observed, this is not simply an account of a part of the world few of us will ever see, but also a marvellous insight into the last days of the Great Game, when Britain and Russia still faced each other across a Central Asia in a state of anarchy.