IN SOUTHERN TIBET

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 92, 19 April 1941, Page 17

IN SOUTHERN TIBET

EXPLORER AND BOTANIST

Modern exploration is mainly a matter of '■■Ailing in the gaps left by earlier travellers. Nevertheless, vast tracts H>f Southern Tibet still remain completely unknown, and there is much to be done before we can obtain a correct picture of its geography. No living Englishman has a more distinguished record as a traveller than Captain F, Kingdoh Ward, and his explorations in Southern Tibet during the summer of 1&35 have enhanced his reputation, for his 1000-mile journey was for the most part through unknown country, and he had the good fortune to discover the sacred lake of Tsogar, tipon whose waters no white man had ever gazed, and placed on the maps a magnificent range of snowy mountains which he had first seen in the far distance 11 years before: "Assam Adventure," his latest book, is a splendid jecord of danger and hardship squarely faced in the cause of science by one •who could say, "Forward or back it must be. But whoever went back?"

Captain Kingdon Ward is the most modest of travellers. Periodically he disappears quietly from England on one of his tremendous journeys, and when.he returns English gardens become the richer for his endurance. He does not travel to find material for a new book,' indeed, he is usually too "busy travelling to write—and that is the reason why his present record has been so long delayed. He regards even geographical discovery as incidental to his main purpose. His business, he insists, is to find new plants, particularly new garden plants, no matter whether a hundred people, or none at all, have been through the country before him; and he derives more satisfaction from' discovering and introducing a new plant, which'thousands can enjoy, than from finding a new mountain which he can only describe. It is not surprising, therefore, that he should be at his best when writing of his beloved flowers. They form an accompaniment to the description of each day's march, so that every page of his book is like a garden, blooming with rhododendrons and primulas. And there is no hecessity for the reader to be a botanist or horticulturist to derive enjoyment from "Assam Adventure."