author
M. S. (Montagu Sinclair) Wellby
1866–1900
A British army officer turned explorer, he wrote vivid firsthand accounts of difficult journeys through Tibet, China, Somaliland, and Abyssinia. His travel books carry the pace of adventure and the eye of someone moving through places many of his readers had never imagined.
1 Audiobook
Through Unknown Tibet
by M. S. (Montagu Sinclair) Wellby
About the author
Born in 1866, Montagu Sinclair Wellby served as a captain in the 18th Hussars and became known for ambitious journeys across parts of Asia and Africa. Library and public-domain records confirm him as the author of Through Unknown Tibet and 'Twixt Sirdar & Menelik, books drawn from expeditions that took him across Tibet and China, and later from Zeila to Cairo through Abyssinia.
Through Unknown Tibet presents the 1896 journey in Wellby’s own plainspoken style, explaining that he wanted to describe what he "did and saw" from beginning to end. That direct, practical voice helps make his writing feel immediate even now: it is travel literature shaped by hardship, observation, and constant movement.
Wellby died in 1900, only a few years after the travels that made his name. Even with that short life, his books preserve the record of a soldier-explorer writing from experience, with the mix of stamina, curiosity, and risk that defined late Victorian expedition narratives.