Burma Past and Present with Personal Reminiscences of the Country

8vo [22.5 x 15 cm]; 2 volumes, xiv, [i], 355; viii, [i], 348, 32 [publisher's ads] pp, frontis in each volume, with tissues, 2 engraved portrait plates, 10 colored lithographed plates (chromolithographs), other illus & plates, folding color map (tears). original green cloth, pictorial gilt and black designs, gilt spine title lettering, spine ends frayed, rubbed, internal hinges cracked but firm, joint repaired, minor foxing on some leaves, otherwise very good. A picture of this book is available upon req Cordier 5. Herbert 192. The author, who was chief commissioner of British Burma for years, describes all aspects of Burma (now Myanmar) in detail, based on his extensive travels, with much on customs, society, peoples, author's activities as commissioner, climate, geography, nature, agriculture, trade, language, literature, Buddhism, etc. The fine colored plates are mostly of scenery, but also one of the orchid Dendrobium Fytchianum, discovered by author and named after him, and another of the bird Bambusicola Fytchii, also named after him. The author commented favorably on the role of women in Buddhist societies. The dedication is 'to my cousin, Alfred Tennyson, poet laureate'.