River Road to China: The Search for the Source of the Mekong, 1866-73

In the mid-19th century, the major powers of Europe descended on East Asia, determined to forge empires. The French, who came to what is now Vietnam and Cambodia, sought to join their holdings there to the scattered French colonies farther north in China, but they were faced with a problem: the Mekong River, which laces through Indochina, was not mapped. In the dry season, little more than a wide stream, but in the monsoon season "an uncontrollable torrent, spilling over its banks to turn hundreds of square miles of dry land into a massive patchwork of temporary lakes," the Mekong was a formidable obstacle.

In 1866 a party of six French explorers, led by a young officer named Doudart de Lagrée and his lieutenant, Francis Garnier, set out to travel the river to its unknown source. Though de Lagrée died of fever in Cambodia, the remaining French explorers, led by Garnier, ventured onward into the mountains of southwestern China. Garnier and his men traveled across more than 4,000 miles of uncharted territory in their two-year journey, but never reached the Mekong's source, which remained unknown until just recently. Turning defeat to advantage, however, they mapped major portions of the then-unknown Red River, opening it to French trade. First published in 1975, Milton Osborne's adventure-filled narrative of their dangerous journey is a fine contribution to the history of exploration, and makes for enjoyable reading. --Gregory McNamee