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Historical Long Riders
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In 1950 Douglas MacKiernan rode from Urimchi in Western China, across the Himalayas, into Tibet, where he was murdered. To read his travelling companion's report about this tragic journey, please click here. |
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Ella Maillart was the adventurous Swiss
woman who made her name as an intrepid explorer and one of the most
remarkable woman travelers of the early twentieth century. An amazing sports
woman, she first represented her country as the only woman competitor at the
1924 Paris Olympics in the single-handed boat-sailing contest, then later
raced for Switzerland as a member of the international ski team. Yet these outdoor activities only developed Maillart’s insatiable curiosity to travel east, leaving behind the confines of her early life in Geneva in search of the perfect life that she was instinctively seeking. Her later adventures took her across many continents and various oceans. Maillart sailed the Mediterranean in a yawl, traveled with famed travel English travel writer Peter Fleming from Peking to Kashmir, explored Tibet with a half-wild tiger-cat in search of spiritual enlightenment, and finally drove 4,000 miles from war-torn Europe to the fabled Khyber Pass in a battered Ford car. Yet her solo journey through Central Asia in the early 1930s was considered to be a highlight of her adventure-filled life. Setting off from the Tien Shan mountains of Mongolia, Maillart rode horses and camels to the far away walls of fabled Bokhara. Turkestan Solo is her vivid account of this wonderful, mysterious and dangerous portion of the world, complete with its Kirghiz eagle hunters, lurking Soviet secret police, and the timeless nomads that still inhabited the desolate steppes of Central Asia. |
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In1906, Finnish cavalry officer Baron Carl Gustaf Mannerheim undertook a 14,000 kilometre-long, two-year expedition from Andizhan in Russian Turkestan to Beijing, China. After the First World War Mannerheim held the post of Regent in Finland until 1919, and was Marshal of Finland in 1942. |
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Kate Marsden was a nurse in Bulgaria during 1878, caring for the wounded of the war between Russia and Turkey. While there, she saw for herself the plight of lepers, and decided to make a 2000-mile journey to the leper colonies of Yakutsk in the depths of Siberia. She hoped to find a herb which was said to grow there and which was allegedly a cure for leprosy. Although originally she set out to improve the lot of the lepers of India, she ended up trying to help the Yakutsk lepers, and attempted to raise funds to build a hospital for them. Even though she had the support of Queen Victoria, the Empress of Russia and her Lady in Waiting, the Countess Tolstoy, not to mention a pastoral letter from Bishop Meletie of Yakutsk, nobody believed that anyone could make such a journey, least of all a woman! Her immensely readable book, Riding through Siberia is a mixture of adventure, extreme hardship and compassion as the author travels the Great Siberian Post Road. Kate Marsden became one of the first women to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1892. |
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Seldom does an equestrian travel tale require its readers to exert more intellectual caution than this superbly written book. For herein lies a story whose message of intolerance is once again afoot in the world. True enough, young British officer Hippisley Cunliffe Marsh evaded plenty of danger in the way of Turkoman slave traders and other villains as he made his wary way from Turkey to India. Moreover, being a keen horseman, the Bengal Lancer made sure to note the equestrian practices of the countries he rode through. “The Turkoman horses are specially trained on little food and less water for a month previous to an expedition; and once they start the horse gets large quantities of a mixture of one-half barley, one quarter maize, and one quarter sheep’s fat, all made into a soft mass of eight pounds, on which the horse is able to do a hundred miles a day for several days,” Captain Marsh noted. With the decline of the Turkish, Persian, Afghan and Mughal kingdoms, the military might of the British Raj was in its ascendancy. With this rise in power, officers like Marsh harbored a corresponding belief in their personal superiority. The result was a long slide into religious and cultural bigotry. On arriving at the holy city of Meshed, Persia, for example, Marsh was detained at the gates by guards intent on inspecting his saddlebags. Adhering to the belief that Europeans were exempt from local legalities, the author, “struck the rascal holding my horse with my whip, leaving him bellowing on the ground.” Throughout history, the world of equestrian travel has been peopled by wise men and women. Their journeys taught them that custom and appearance count for little and that the perils of equestrian travel unite all Long Riders as they attempt to survive hunger, cold and danger. Such a bond of equestrian brotherhood has no room for the religious and political bigotry found in this book. Yet in this time of global woe, when the Islamic world is being devalued by a new generation of Sahibs who cherish the myth of their national superiority, Marsh’s A Ride through Islam reads like a warning from the grave. |
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Violet Martin and Edith Somerville were the two fun-loving, hard-riding, co-writing female cousins who penned a total of fourteen books, including their immortal classic, Some Experiences of an Irish R. M. While readers of that generation would have recognised the names of the co-authors' pseudonyms, “Martin Ross” and “E. Ś. Somerville,” few knew that the books were actually the pen names of these light-hearted Irish Long Riders. Their most famous equestrian work was entitled Beggars on Horseback. This delightful book recalls how the high-spirited young ladies decided to tour North Wales on horseback. Finding suitable horses was their first task: even in 1894 this was no easy matter, especially when they explained why they needed them: “We were conscious of social shrinkage as the work for which we required the ponies was explained; a fortnight’s road work in Wales, with the proviso that the animals would have to carry packs, held a suggestion of bagmen, not to say tinkers.” They were both avid horsewomen, and in due course they hired two ponies who have pride of place in this enchanting tale. |
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The Old West was populated by a host of colourful characters including gunfighters, cowboys, buffalo hunters, sod busters, and at least one cavalry officer with the eye of an eagle and a penchant for fine writing. Colonel James Meline was an educated New York journalist, turned pony soldier, who had fought for the Union during the recent Civil War. With the country lulled into an uncomfortable peace, the fifty-four year old Meline decided to partake of one last mounted adventure before he hung up his spurs. Lucky for the history of equestrian travel that he did. The resultant book, Two Thousand Miles on Horseback is a beautifully written, eye witness account of a United States that is no more. Meline was no fool. He sensed that the great American wilderness was about to be tamed. Setting out from Fort Leavenworth in the summer of 1866, Meline observed a nation on the move. In his first week in the saddle Meline counted 680 wagons heading west. Moreover, he warned, “the iron rail will soon clamp East and West, leaving no room for adventure or personal freedom.” Meline faithfully recorded the details of prairie life seen during his ride to Santa Fe. Once he reached fabled New Mexico the saddle-borne scribe fell in with Kit Carson. What followed was a three day marathon interview wherein the legendary frontiersman regaled the cavalry journalist with tales of fighting the Navajo, hunting gigantic grizzly bears, and eluding capture by Indians. Then, with his notebooks full, Meline headed home, experiencing a storm on the way that was so cold that “even my memory froze.” Though the frontier they inhabited is a thing of the past, Meline and his cast of mounted characters still jump off the pages and dare you to ride down the road of adventure with them. |
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