The volume includes a narrative entitled 'Journey of a Tour Round the World via Suez', recounting a tour through Liverpool, Malta, Port Said, Aden, Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Singapore, Hong Kong, Yokohama, San Francisco, New York City, and back to Glasgow in 1871. Also included are narratives of separate tours in Germany, Denmark, and Sweden in 1865 and Spain and France in 1866. The accounts appear to have been copied into the volume retrospectively. They include detailed descriptions of people, places, and events.

Robert Cochrane was accompanied on the outward leg of the 1871 journey from Glasgow to Sri Lanka by his daughter Amelia Cochrane, who married John Lewthwaite Dewar, tea planter, in Kandy in June 1871.