Travelers Accounts of the Cities of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka
Ames Online Library Guides
Patrons of the Ames Library of South Asia frequent request accounts and descriptions of the cities of South Asia. This guide serves as an index to the DS 412 and 413 (Travel accounts) section of the Ames Library for those works which have separately identified chapters or sections dealing with a particular city. Since most travelers to South Asia visited Agra, Benares, Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, and Madras, which makes such accounts extremely easily accessible, accounts of these six cities are not provided in this guide. However accounts of Benares which were not written in English have been included.
Multiple search strategies are possible for obtaining information. The most obvious is by the name of the city. Please remember that the spelling of cities changed over time (Jeypore vs Jaipur). The spelling of the names of cities follows that used in the Historical atlas of South Asia, edited by Joseph E. Schwartzberg. In those instances in which the city was not found in the Atlas it was searched in other reference compendiums.
Access may also be made by language. Travel accounts in the following languages are included in the guide: Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Swedish. Simply use the name of the language if you desire to search by language. Those interested in travel accounts for particular time periods can search by decade. Access is possible for 1760-1769 and then every decade from 1800-1809 to 1980-1989 (with the exception of 1959-1959). A final search strategy is by author or title.
Anyone with comments or observations regarding this guide are encouraged to contact Donald Clay Johnson (D-JOHN4@umn.edu), Ames Library Curator