Gabriel Bonvalot

In 1886, he set out for Russian Central Asia with Guillaume Capus, a botanist, ethnographer, and doctor of natural sciences, and designer Albert Pépin.

During the winter season, they remained in Samarkand and sought a way to cross the Pamir Mountains from north to south and reach China.

As a European, Bonvalot felt superior to the locals and used threats or force to obtain equipment, supplies, pack animals and porters.

Bonvalot wanted to cross Europe and Russia by train and then continue on foot and horseback to the border with Chinese Turkestan.

Finally he intended to cross 1,700 kilometers of land in eastern Tibet that had been unexplored by Europeans until he reached Yunnan, where he would travel down the Mekong River to Indochina.

Bonvalot was accompanied in his travels by a Belgian missionary, Father De Deken (1852–1896, who spoke Chinese and joined the expedition to reach Shanghai with his Chinese servant), an Uzbek assistant, Rachmed, who joined the expedition in Russia, Abdoullah a translator, and Prince Henri of Orléans, who acted as his photographer and botanist.

The group crossed into Chinese controlled territory and traveled through the Ili River valley, Tian Shan Mountains, the Tarim Basin, and the Lop Nor.

But Bonvalot failed to obtain the cooperation of the Ethiopian emperor, Menilek II, and quit the expedition before they reached Sudan.