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Where Three Empires Meet

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Where Three Empires: A Narrative of Recent Travel In Kashmir, Western Tibet, Gilgit, and the Adjoining Countries, with a Map and 54 Illustrations by E.F.Knight, Longmans, Green, and Co. 1905, reprint Asian Educational Services, 1993, p. 528.

The travel writer E. F. Knight is a find! This narrative travelogue of the 1890's allows us to accompany him on his way through many locations of the British Empire.

The descriptive travel narrative is filtered through the experience of an Englishman before the decline of the British Empire. That said, with all it's bias, some what over inflated sense of superiority and all that goes along with this...Mr. Knight captures the rarefied air, the magnificence of the mountains, the variation in landscape, people, weather and delivers it to the reader.

He transports the reader through a year of travels of British-occupied Kashmir. His description of Kashmiris, Ladakhis, Baltis, and all the tribal peoples through whose land he traverses is brought to life by the smells, the dirt, the friendliness, the guardedness of some and the open curiosity of others. An example was his description of playing golf in the mountains, where he enlisted local boys as caddies. He overhears locals input on what golf is and is not; it is viewed as ludicrous as there aren't the ponies usually included in local polo. The visual picture of these Brits on high mountain snowfield, playing golf to pass the time, paints an odd picture.

At this time England was attempting to conquer parts of this vast land and build roads. Mr. Knight accompanied several of these campaigns as well as forged off on his own. There's adventure and enjoyment of all things physical. There is curiosity, of the polyhusbandry of Ladakhi women, the cloistered hiding of Musselman (Muslim) women from public view, the hordes of children in Musselman areas. He speculates on the population explosion due to polyandry compared to the contained population growth of Ladakhis. He interacts with the rich, the poor, the village tribal leaders, all in his efforts to find a common language. Much effort is driven by his desire to push on into and through these then non-European traveled lands.

Much of his travel had nothing to do with people but rather crossing rope bridges over great crevasses, noting pack animal plummet over the edge of the narrow trails, and even a war maneuver and subsequent skirmishes. He hears the crack of ice with an avalanche ensuing.... more than once. This book includes photographs, which he took upon occasion. Where Three Empires serves as a historical document as well as a benchmark for travel writing.