Captain John Dundas Cochrane

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dundas_Cochrane

Captain John Dundas Cochrane (14 February 1793 – 1825) was a Scottish officer in the Royal Navy, traveller and explorer. An illegitimate son of Scottish adventurer Andrew Cochrane-Johnstone, John Dundas Cochrane came from a large and adventurous family - he was a cousin of Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, and nephew of Admiral Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane.

John Dundas Cochrane crossed France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Russia and Asia to Kamchatka on foot, hence his nickname of the "Pedestrian Traveller" ("voyageur pédestre" in France).

After returning to England in 1823, John Dundas Cochrane published his travels in Narrative of a Pedestrian Journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary, to the Frontiers of China to the Frozen Sea and Kamtchatka ( 2 vols., London, 1824).

VOL.I MSN scanned full text and a free book. Note: This shows image of Captain J. D. Cochrane at beginning.

VOL.II MSN scanned full text and a free book. Note this shows image of his wife, Mrs. Cochrane, at beginning.

These two volumes are not identical and include some of the captain's travels and experiences as well as his motives for traveling by foot over vast distances in harsh terrain.

Cochrane married Ksenia Ivanovna Loginova (1807-1870) in 1822; she was an adoptive daughter of Admiral Pyotr Rikord, the Russian governor of Kamchatka. As a widow, she married Pyotr Anjou, an Arctic explorer and Russian admiral.

John Dundas Cochrane died in 1825 in Valencia, Colombia while in transit, again on foot, to his family's mining interests in South America.

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http://www.andydrummond.net/Novgorod/novgorodmaterials.html Born 14/02/1793, John Dundas Cochrane was the illegitimate son of Andrew Cochrane. It is not known who his mother was, but we might suppose it to be Georgina Hope-Johnstone, since she married his father barely nine months after John's birth: this maternity, however, mere speculation by the present author. At the age of ten, John, like many of his cousins and his uncles before him, joined the Royal Navy, probably on a ship captained by one of the Cochrane clan. Any biography of his more famous cousin, Thomas, the 'Sea Wolf', describes similar circumstances. After the end of the Napoleonic wars, John found himself, again like many another naval officer, on half-pay and with nothing to do. This rich reserve of bored, active men was tapped by men such as John Barrow, who sent them out in exploratory droves to roast in Africa and freeze in the Arctic, in search of adventure, trade-routes and Empire - see Fergus Fleming's excellent book Barrow's Boys. John Cochrane himself preferred his adventures in solitude, and undertook his epic pedestrian journey across Europe, Russia and Siberia, between 1820 and 1823. On 8/01/1822 (O.S.), he married Ksenia Ivanovna Loginova, in Kamtchatka, and with her returned overland to St Petersburg, arriving in London in June 1823. The first edition of his Pedestrian Journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary was published by John Murray in 1823; the 2nd and 3rd editions were printed Charles Knight in 1824 and 1825; and a 4th edition by Archibald Constable in 1829. The book was translated into Dutch and German, and possibly also into French. In June 1824, he travelled alone to South America, probably at the suggestion of his cousin Charles. Returning to London in 1825, he prepared the 3rd edition of his book in which he found ample space to argue bitterly with Sir John Barrow, and then set off again to Gran Colombia (Venezuela), possibly to oversee a copper-mine, probably with the aim of walking the length of South America; no sooner arrived than he promptly died of a fever, in the town of Valencia on 12/08/1825.