Note: Published as an 11-part serial, 13 chapters, Harper's Young People 1883-10-30 to 1884-01-01, each issue with one illustration signed "Thulstrup" (No instalment in the Christmas Number, #216 dated December 11, presumably as inappropriate content) Ker was then a world-traveling correspondent to NYT: "All the readers of The Times are familiar with those letters signed D. K. [... on] manners, habits, and customs of the inhabitants of the most distant parts of the world. ... who for the last 18 years has been traveling over the universe." --NY Times 1884-12-28 p3 "OUR OWN GLOBE TROTTER: Experiences and Methods of a Wanderer: A citizen of the world, who is here to-day, there to-morrow, and everywhere one time or another" Ker had been war correspondent of the London Daily Herald in Central Asia, early 1873, when he

Synopsis: One of Ker's three Lost Race tales; this one "in which an ancient Greek city is found in Tashkent" --SFE3 "Mr. Ker carries his readers into the strange cities and mountain districts of Afghanistan during the terrible days that preceded the late war between Afghanistan and England. The story abounds in adventure, and the scenes and incidents are as varied and thrilling as the land is strange and the people singular." --unattributed quotation by the publisher NY Times 1884-12-20 p5, this one of three listings under "Published This Day"