Tuesday, May 12, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org
Travel and Colonial Encounter
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Texts
A True and Exact History of the Island of BarbadosRichard Ligon's 1657 account of colonial Barbados — sugar plantations, natural history, enslaved peoples, and island society, written from debtor's prison.A Voyage into TartaryA Frenchman's extraordinary account of his travels through Greece, Turkey, and into the remote interior of Tartary — a rare 17th-century travel narrative of wild adventure and philosophical curiosity.A Voyage into the LevantSir Henry Blount's account of his journey through the Ottoman Empire in 1634 — from Venice through Dalmatia, Bosnia, Hungary, Thrace, Rhodes, and Egypt to Grand Cairo — with observations on Turkish religion, government, and customs.A Voyage to St. KildaMartin Martin's 1698 account of sailing to St. Kilda, the most remote inhabited island in the Hebrides — a firsthand portrait of a people who had never seen a tree, thought writing was sorcery, and lived in the innocence the poets only feigned for the Golden Age.Dampiers New Voyage Round the WorldWilliam Dampier's circumnavigation of the globe (1679–1691) — the pirate-naturalist who inspired Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, and Darwin's Beagle voyage. The book that made the English-speaking world look outward.The Baptized TurkA Narrative of the Happy Conversion of Signior Rigep Dandulo, from Islam to Christianity in Restoration England (1658).The History of LaplandPreface and Chapters I–XI of Johannes Scheffer's 1674 ethnographic masterwork on the Sami people — the first scholarly study of Sami religion and magic, commissioned by the Chancellor of Sweden. Chapters XII–XXXV continue in the companion file.The History of Lapland — Chapters XII-XXXVChapters XII–XXXV of Johannes Scheffer's 1674 account of Lapland and the Sami people — government, language, dress, diet, hunting, marriage, wildlife, and natural resources.The Life of Tamerlane the GreatSamuel Clarke's 1664 biography of Tamerlane (Timur), the Tartar conqueror — a vivid Early Modern English account of his wars against Moscow, China, Bajazet the Turk, Egypt, and Persia, drawn from Arabic and European sources.The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary RowlandsonMary Rowlandson's narrative of her captivity during King Philip's War (1675–76) — the first bestselling book in American literature, a Puritan woman's account of eleven weeks among the Narragansett, Nipmuc, and Wampanoag during one of the most devastating conflicts in colonial New England.The Rare Adventures and Painefull PeregrinationsA Scottish traveller's account of nineteen years and thirty-six thousand miles on foot across Europe, Asia, and Africa, including his torture by the Spanish Inquisition.The Strange and Dangerous Voyage of Captaine Thomas JamesCaptain Thomas James's 1633 journal of his harrowing voyage into Hudson Bay in search of the Northwest Passage — storms, ice, starvation, and near-death wintering on Charleton Island.