The Story Of The Portuguese In Ceylon Is Of More Than Local Interest, For It Depicts For Us A Characteristic Phase Of The Beginning Of European Expansion In The East. A Hundred And Fifty Three Years After The Portuguese First Landed In Ceylon They Were Expelled From The Country, Leaving The Gloomy Word Failure Writ Large Over All Their Actions. That However Was Not All, For They Left The Sinhalese A Broken Race, With Their Ancient Civilization Brought Ot The Verge Of Ruin, And Their Scheme Of Life Well-Nigh Destroyed.

Containing more than 600 entries, this valuable resource presents all aspects of travel writing. There are entries on places and routes (Afghanistan, Black Sea, Egypt, Gobi Desert, Hawaii, Himalayas, Italy, Northwest Passage, Samarkand, Silk Route, Timbuktu), writers (Isabella Bird, Ibn Battuta, Bruce Chatwin, Gustave Flaubert, Mary Kingsley, Walter Ralegh, Wilfrid Thesiger), methods of transport and types of journey (balloon, camel, grand tour, hunting and big game expeditions, pilgrimage, space travel and exploration), genres (buccaneer narratives, guidebooks, New World chronicles, postcards), companies and societies (East India Company, Royal Geographical Society, Society of Dilettanti), and issues and themes (censorship, exile, orientalism, and tourism). For a full list of entries and contributors, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia website.

Chiefly covers the 19th-20th centuries.