'The Great Game' (also referred to as the Tournament of Shadows) is a term used to describe the political and diplomatic confrontation that existed during most of the 19th Century between the British Empire and the Russian Empire centered around Afghanistan and its surrounding regions. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running approximately from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, in which nations like the Emirate of Bukhara fell. Alexander Burnes was a British adventurer and employee of the East India Company during this turbulent era. He spoke Hindi and Persian and was nicknamed Bokhara Burnes for his role in establishing contact with and exploring Bukhara, which made his name. He was rumored to be a spy during the first Afghan War and was knighted by Queen Victoria for his clandestine services during the conflict. Burnes kept a lively, detailed record of his trail-blazing journey across Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, the Indian sub-continent and beyond which he later published in three volumes to great acclaim, entitled Travels into Bokhara - A Voyage up the Indus to Lahore and a Journey to Cabool, Tartary & Persia.This is Volume One.

William Moorcroft (1767-1825) was a veterinary surgeon who, after maintaining a veterinary practice for a time in London, was engaged in 1807 by the East India Company to manage its breeding of horses. He arrived in India in 1808 and took charge of the company's stud operations at Pusa, Bengal. In 1811 and 1812 he undertook journeys to the northwest in search of larger and better stud horses than he was able to find in India. In July 1812 he crossed the Himalayas to become one of the first Europeans to enter Tibet by this route. By this time, his interests had expanded from the procurement of horses to include the opening of trade relations between Central Asia and Great Britain and the projection of British influence beyond the northwest of British India to counter what he saw as a growing Russian presence in the region. In May 1819 Moorcroft received permission from the East India Company to travel to Bukhara (in present-day Uzbekistan). He reached the city in February 1825 after a more than five-year journey that took him to Ladakh, Kashmir, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, into Afghanistan via the Khyber Pass, and through Kabul and Kunduz to his ultimate destination. He began his return journey to India in July 1825, but died of fever in Balkh, Afghanistan, on August 27. Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and the Panjab is Moorcroft's account of his journey of 1819-25. It was posthumously edited and published by Horace Wilson, professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford and a member of the Royal Asiatic Society, based on Moorcroft's voluminous notebooks and correspondence. Volume one is devoted entirely to Moorcroft's journey to and residence in Ladakh. Volume two completes the account of Moorcroft's time in Ladakh and recounts his journey to Kashmir, Kabul, and Bukhara. The book contains a detailed map of Central Asia compiled and drawn by the London mapmaker John Arrowsmith, based mainly on the field notes of George Trebeck, a young Englishman who accompanied Moorcroft on the journey and who recorded geographical details measured in paces combined with compass bearings.

Alexander Burns (1805 ¿ 1841) recounts in his personal memoir his time journeying to and living in Cabool from 1836-38. Burnes was a British traveler and explorer. He is most famous for exploring Bukhara. Burnes took part in the Great Game. The Great Game was a rivalry between the British Empire and Russia for supremacy in Central Asia. The Great Game began with the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813 and lasted until the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. Burnes left Bombay in 1836 and traveled in and around Afghanistan until 1838. Burnes¿s narrative gave Britain its first in depth study of this area. The British curiosity about exotic lands made his book immensely popular.