About the author (from wikipedia):

Lieutenant Colonel Sir Francis Edward Younghusband, KCSI, KCIE (1863 –1942) was a British Army officer, explorer, and spiritual writer. He is remembered for his travels in the Far East and Central Asia; especially the 1904 British expedition to Tibet, led by him, and for his writings on Asia and foreign policy. Younghusband held positions including British commissioner to Tibet and President of the Royal Geographical Society.

About the book (comments from goodreads.com):

Great book, it is very strange that this is one of the lost books in Indian sub continent which we no longer remember. I came to read it by accident and completely moved by its narration and highly sophisticated prose style. Travel book of first degree!

My fav. lines from Kashmir,
“The country with which one is most apt to compare it is, naturally, Switzerland. But there is no place where one can see a complete circle of snowy mountains surrounding a plain of anything like the length and breadth of the Kashmir valley, for the main valleys of Switzerland are like the side valleys of Kashmir. The great broad reaches in the river, glistening in the sunlight and fringed with the rich autumnal foliage, were superlatively beautiful.”