Discover Paolo Avitabile, a Neapolitan soldier of fortune, who rose to prominence in Persia and Punjab. Explore his dynamic life and military feats.
EUROPEAN ADVENTURERS OF NORTHERN INDIA, 1785 to 1849, by G. Grey, first published in 1929 and reprinted by the Languages Department, Punjab, Patiala, in 1970, contains biographical sketches of over one hundred Europeans who came to or served in the Punjab during Sikh times. The book, which is the result of "some six years of labour" in the archives of the Punjab Government as well as the consultation of a large number of contemporary memoirs and other works, supplements Compton`s European Adventurers which the author found both out of date and incomplete. Broadly speaking, these adventurers fall into two groups: well known men like George Thomas and Avitabile and the lesser known men "of whom no account has hitherto appeared." They could also be classified as combatants and noncombatants; the former category includes Generals like Ventura and Potter and the latter class includes medical men like Honigbergcr and Harlan, the antiquarian Masson and the engineer Bianchi.
Explore Punjab's history & medicine with insights on Sikh rulers in 'Thirty-Five Years in the East' by John Martin Honigberger, a 19th-century treasure.
