The author discusses his experiences on a 250-mile journey through the Himalaya Mountains and his attempts to locate the Lama of Shey in an isolated monastery.

Peter Mathiessen chronicles two voyages to the polar ice cap, discussing how the ice cap holds almost ninety percent of the world's fresh water and describing the wildlife and fish which live off the ice cap.

For twenty thousand miles, Peter Matthiessen crisscrossed the South American wilderness, traveling from the Amazonian rain forests to Machu Picchu high in the Andes, down to the edge of the world at Tierra del Fuego and back. In the course of his journey he followed the trails of old explorers, encountered river bandits, wild tribesmen, and the evidence of ancient ruins, and discovered a fossilized snout of a giant unknown crocodilian hidden in the...