myself familiar with that country I have this day sent off five pages of questions to a native."

"Ten, father," interposed the Daughter, "I copied them this morning."

"I know that much is to be gained by judicious use of local color," began the Young Author. He instinctively felt that he had avoided the question at issue, and was annoyed with himself when the Old Author patiently interrupted:

"That is not quite the point. It is not brilliancy of local color that is essential, but the feeling of actuality. Let me illustrate further. Suppose a man from the Philippine Islands sits in this room and tells me a story of his home. It is not because he describes the sugar plantations, or the manufacture of hemp, or the native dress that I am interested, but because he has been there and seen what he describes, so that every word carries the conviction of truth. You do not need long descriptions of scenery to convey this impression; it is enough to allude to a tree, a lake, a forest, a house, a village, anything that is really there. How does a French

man begin a story? - "On the 17th of June, 1834, at 3 P. M., there was a commotion in the main street of the town of R, before the house with four Doric pillars just north of the Church of St. Mary."

The Young Author no longer felt any desire to read his story aloud. He said: "Well, I suppose I might give up the rarefied air and locate my story in the North Carolina mountains which I know.""

It was a great concession. The episode of the rarefied air was one of his favorite passages. But he was repaid by the smile with which the Old Author said, "Yes, give up the rarefied air, invent some other episode, introduce conflict of feeling, and there is no reason why you should not construct a strong story with that plot. But first write out this conversation we have just had, and then finish the original story. That will make two."

From which the reader may possibly infer that this narrative is true, though that makes no difference.

Charles S. Skilton.

Empire. The entire cost of his tour of

AND BEYOND

THROU HROUGH ASIA, by Dr. Sven Hedin, bids fair to take high rank among

the books of the world devoted to original geographical research. Its author, who is a Swede, and who is not yet thirty-five years old, spent the four years from 1893 to 1897 in a series of expeditions through previously unknown tracts of Eastern Central Asia, including the terrible desert of Gobi, the Pamirs, and the belt of Tibetan tableland lying immediately south of the Kwen-lun mountains. He made preparations for his self-appointed task by studying all that was known of the geography of these regions at the University of Berlin, under Baron von Richthofen, the greatest living authority on the natural resources of the Chinese

THROUGH ASIA. By Sven Hedin. With nearly 300 illustrations from photographs and sketches by the author. Harper & Brothers, 2 volumes, 8vo, $10.00.

for scientific instruments, was under $10,000, while among the results are a

practically complete map of the Chinese Pamirs, an accurate tracing of the Tarim

River and its tributaries in their courses through the desert of Gobi, and a description of twenty lakes with their surrounding country lying south of the Kwen-lun mountains-next to the Himalayas the highest range on the globe. Besides doing extensive map work, Dr. Hedin ascertained the volume of all the important rivers which he crossed, took soundings of the lakes, learned to speak the Kirghiz dialect with fluency and the

Mongol 'dialect moderately well, and collected from two buried cities in the desert of Gobi enough specimens of tiles and pottery to enable experts to determine the age at which they flourished.

Here is Dr. Hedin's description of an ice avalanche, observed in the Pamirs at

an altitude of 17,000 feet on the slopes of Mus-tagh-ata, or Father-of-all-Ice-Mountains whose top is approximately 25,000 feet high:

"Suddenly we heard a deafening crash and roar from the right-hand rocky wall on the other side of the Chal-tumak glacier. It was an avalanche which had slipped from the ice-mantle. Large blocks of blue ice were hurled from the edge, clashing together and crumbling into fine white powder, as they struck against the outjutting rocks; then they fell like flour upon the surface

From "Through Asia."

of the main glacier. The sound reverberated like thunder near at hand, the first echo being flung backward and forward many times between the rocky walls before it finally died away, and was succeeded by the usual silence. But a mist of powdered ice needles hung a long time in front of the glaciers. Meanwhile we had a splendid opportunity of observing how the glacier worked. The ice-mantle kept slipping, slipping, ponderous and massive, over the edge of the rocks. Again and again it broke off at the crevasses and ice-falls, great blocks being precipitated into the depths below, and reaching the main glacier in powder fine

SVEN HEDIN

as flour. This, nevertheless, melted into its surface, and in that way built up a regenerated parasitic glacier." (Page 351.)

We should like to give an extract from Dr. Hedin's description of this noble mountain as it appeared by moonlight from an altitude of 20,660 feet (page 369), but must pass on to his first experience in the desert of Gobi, where most of his followers and camels died from exhaustion and want of water, while he himself was almost miraculously saved from a similar fate. His graphic description of his alternate agonies and hallucinations is too long to quote in full, and no mere excerpt can do it justice. We may say here, however, that he played the man throughout and proved that in his case at any rate civilization was not "a thin veneer."

This gives a life-like picture of the desert of Gobi during a rainless storm:

"Clouds and columns of sand whirled in a mad dance across the desert, so that every now and then we became entirely swallowed up in them. But, as they seldom exceeded a dozen feet in height, the zenith retained all the while its fresh blue color, and the sun's rays beat down upon us with undiminished fierceness. The horizon was veiled in an unbroken yellowish-red haze. The fine drift-sand penetrated everywhere-into mouth, nose, ears; even our clothes became impregnated with it, so that we experienced a disagreeable grittiness of the skin, to which, however, we soon grew accustomed. The haze on the horizon was very embarassing; for we often found it difficult to decide which way to go. It would have suited us very much better had things been reversed-namely, the zenith been clouded, but the horizon clear. Meanwhile the top of every dune afforded us an opportunity to observe how the drift-sand stood over like a plume or inverted tassel on the brink that faced the direction

Copyright, 1898, by Harper & Brothers.

of the wind; how one moment the minute grains of sand were whirling round and round in a frenzied dance on the windward side of the dune, then the next moment quietly settled down on the lee side in fine crumpled folds, as though some mighty master-hand were weaving them together after a tastefully designed pattern. But when our heads rose up to the same level as the sand-storm, which came whistling between the summit of the dunes, the effect absolutely baffles description. We shut our eyes and mouths tight; we lowered our heads against the fierce blasts which shrieked and moaned about our ears. But, the whirlwind passed, we stood still and literally shook the dust off our clothes by the pound." (Page 516.)

One unavoidable drawback to Dr. Hedin's book is the absence of military or political comment from its pages. He was traversing regions which must form. the scene of some future act in the great drama now being enacted between Slav

and Anglo-Saxon. The Russian advance to Fort Pamir has been quickly followed by the British occupation of Chitral and Gilgit. Come what may, the safety of British India demands that no other European race shall gain a permanent foothold in the mountainous mazes of Tibet. A Russian seizure of Kashgar inevitably means a British seizure of Yarkand and Khotan. Although the native Tibetans are not nearly as warlike as the Afridis and Pathans of the Northwestern Indian frontier, the passes leading into the country which they inhabit are higher, and the commisariat difficulties of even a peaceful army of occupation would be enormous. British military officers are naturally silent concerning the vulnerable points on the Indian frontier, but German officers, with more frankness, do not hesitate to declare that with Russian and British lines of occupation drawn as they are at present, the armies of attack and defence would be centred on Kandahar, Kabul and Chitral. Dr. Hedin, who was treated with magnificent courtesy by Russian civil and military officials, and who was also on friendly terms with English officers whom he met in the Pamirs, maintains a strict neutrality between both parties. His account of the Chinese Pamirs and of the northern frontier of Tibet, however, seems to be conclusive against the existence of any hitherto unknown passes which would be practicable for heavy artillery.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the deep interest with which we have followed Dr. Hedin's travels as narrated in these two handsome volumes, and yet it is difficult to analyze their charm into its component factors. The author made no great hunting bags, and in fact killed wild animals only when necessary for food, save in the

through which he passed were sparsely populated, though he quickly ingratiated himself with any nomads whom he met, so that we are deprived of much of the interest which European contact with multitudes of comparatively unknown peoples usually excites. But in power of iucid narrative, in frankness, truthfulness and modesty, in courage, cheerfulness and a thorough knowledge of the problems to be solved, Dr. Hedin may claim a place in the front rank of the great explorers.

We hope soon to see our ordinary atlas maps of the Pamirs, of the desert of Gobi, and of Northern Tibet filled in with the important discoveries which Dr. Hedin has made. Yet, when all this has been done, there will remain plenty of secure retreats for shy Mahatmas in the vast desert of Gobi, with its ever-shifting sandhills, often reaching a height of 150 feet above their normal base.

E. H. Mullin.

A TRAVELER'S TALE, WITH

AFFIDAVITS

LANDOR is usually picturesque, if

A he be somewhat eccentric, and is always a man of strong personality. In the Forbidden Land, just published, shows clearly that its author, Mr. A. Henry Savage Landor, possesses the marked charac

teristics of his forebears. He is a young artist and traveler, who, in the spring and summer of 1897, tried to reach Lhassa, and, as many have done before him, failed. Indeed there are grave doubts if MM. Hue and Gabet, in 1845-46, ever were within the walls of the capital of Tibet.

Mr. Landor's first planned route was

IN THE FORBIDDEN LAND. An Account of a Journey into Tibet, Capture by the Tibetan Lamas and Soldiers, Imprisonment, Torture and Ultimate Release,

of the wild yak and wild camel for the Stockholm Museum. All the countries

Karak Sing-Pal. By A. Henry Savage Landor. With Map and many Illustrations by the Author. Harper & Brothers. 2 volumes, 8vo, $9.00.