Book is a brief account of a journey in one of the lesser known areas of Nepal. Nepal, Tucci tells us, “has jealously kept herself closed to outsiders for centuries past, and only a short while ago half-opened her gates to the adventurous spirit of the climbers who gather there from all parts of the world to lower the pride of her magnificent peaks.” The author’s aim is different however: that of revealing and preserving, at least insofar as the record of photography may preserve, the remnants of the civilizations which have succeeded on another in the Himalayan area, and of reconstructing the complex events of the peoples who forma bridge between the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia.” Remarkable photographs – both in monochrome and in colour- by Francesca Bonardi offer the reader a glimpse of what the author referred to as “terra incognita.” His exploration is not just that of the physical or the geographic: “exploration is above all the revelation of human life…to explore also means to descend into the depths of the past, to retrace with the aid of science and imagination the road of time and to restore to the light the events of the past, to make them once more alive, to justify them and find once more in them the eternal human values.”