CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVIII, Issue 12995, 10 December 1902, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS.

» Karl Inger, who figured vaguely in our war news from, Somaliland as v being hand-in-hand with the Mad Mullah, is known to the Foreign Office as an ex-Aus-trian officer. He has been associated with African affairs for six or seven years, and on his abandoning Christianity for Mohammedanism was christened Emir Suleyman by the Mahdi. A cousin of Queen Victoria, who met the “ Emir ” a year ago, has described him as “a gentleman-like man, thin, with good and a fair beard, and a sulham or light woollen burnous flung over his shoulders.” “When.l] asked to whom I had the pleasure of speaking,” wrote Count Gleichen, “he looked nervous, and hesitated before owning up that his name was Karl Inger. He was the notorious gentleman who was arrested in 1896, near Suakim, dressed in a Dervish, jibbeh, and with a hagfuVof Arabic drill) books, on his way to Omdurman to instruct the Khalifa’s army in modern minor tactics.” Tills gentleman’s earlier connection with Somaliland seems to have been more, of a commercial nature, but this appears to have been merely a stepping stone to military glory. Whatever his convictions, and he has been continually regarded witt the strongest suspicion, Karl Inger has certainly worked hard to avert trouble in So maliland, and., has continually posed as -a pacifier; He actually, visited London with the avowed object of winning the friendship of the British Government and avert-

HAUL INGEB.

Sng internal trouble in Somaliland. He even went to the extent of offering to send or bring the Mad Mullah to London to plead his own cause. “Will the Government,’’ he wrote, “ see that ugly Mad Mullah?- If so, I will bring him to London or send him there, so that he can repeat what I have said and written. He is not a bad man, but an honest one, a free Somali, who loves his country and religion as well as any Englishman loves his own country.” The proposal was not accepted, but Inger’s desire for peace is a prominent feature of all his letters. . The fact that he was not persona grata with the Government, on account of his intrigues, can alone explain the ignoring of his overtures by the Foreign Office. Dr Sven Hedin, the Swedish explorer of Central Asia, has arrived at last in London after successfully completing his third expedition. For an explorer he is fairly up to time, for writing from Charkhlik, in April of last year, prior to setting out on his last expedition, he anticipated lirar. it would be over a year before be would be again heard from. At that time the explorer was confident of making further successful explorations, as although he and his party had 1 suffered great privations and hardships in the desert of the Kurruk Taghi and elsewhere, they had met but little opposition from the natives of the country. He .was greatly surprised! to leairn from' the letters awaiting him at Charkhlik that there was trouble in China, and he expressed himself a« somewhat amused at the warnings addressed to him by King Oscar, the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs and numerous other friends, to the effect that ho should be careful not to expose himself to the cruelty of the Chinese, while he laughed at the idea that he might be compelled to leave his

iJT ASIATIC SXFLORER.

■work unfinished and return, to Europe at \ once. As an instance of the effect of his

presence he records that at Oharkhlik, though it is a town in ,the middle of the Chinese Empire, there were only fifteen Chinese, and these were mortally afraid of him and his Russian escort of four Cossacks. They did everything he commanded, procuring camels, horses and provisions for him without delay, and Estherwise carrying out his' behests with the greatest promptitude. His intention in entering on the last stage of his exhaustive explorations was to cross Tibet diagonally from Temirlik to the sources of the Indus, passing, if possible a little to the north of Lake Manasrowar, then proceeding as quickly as possible to Kashgar, via Ladaik, and home by way of Russia for the convenience of his faithful Cossacks. As the result of his first two expeditions he. had compiled 726 sheets of maps, whilst his collection of relics and curios was growing so cumbersome that he felt it wise Ho despatch it to Europe at once. The scientific results of all his geographical, geological and hydrographical studies he purposes publishing in two volumes of 500 pages each, which will form ai. text to a large atlas of sixty or seventy maps. , Dr Hedin has such a'wealth of material to draw upon that he will find it very difficult to compress the popular narrative which he hopes tq publish into two moderate volumes; Our Wellington correspondent told us the other day that Sandow, when questioned on ,the. 'subject, caused a good deal of disappointment to the local prohibitionists by declaring that alcohol, taken in moderation, was not detrimental to a man’s physical development. They had hoped, of course, -that the famous strong man would insist upon..total abstinence as a» condition of perfect health. They cannot have been readers of Sandow literature, of which there is, by the way, enough to fill a small library at the present time, and th© promise of much more to follow in the future. San dew’s watchword, as regards both food and drink, is “moderation.” The athlete, he says, can eat what he Tikes, so long as it agrees with him. Everyone, ho told an interviewer in Wellington, should eat often . and little, and always get up from a meal with a margin of appetite remaining. This is the advice of a distinguished doctor, to leave the'table hungry, put another way. Sandow himself lived for seven weeks on the new food extracted from skim, milk by a German chemist, and called plasmon. He took only three teaspoonfuls a day, dissolved in Water, and yet retained all his weight and strength during the experiment. He says that a man can live for two months on a cake of plasmon fourteen inches square, and keep in far better health than if he were “ stuffing himself with four heavy meals a day. It will probably occur to the Government that the establishment of a State plasmon factory would be a very good way of fighting the monopoly of the Millers’ Trust. If a man can live for a week on a couple of inches of the new preparation, he may laugh at the advance in the price of flour. Sandow does not, however, recommend his disciples lo confine themselves to one form of food. His only advice to them in this respect, indeed, is to guard against over-eating. He is more exacting in regard to exercise. This must b© regulated by the class of muscles it is desired to develop. Athletics, he maintains, are act physical culture, and no man can be a perfect athlete until he has first brought into play by Intelligent use the muscles upon which he depends for success. Tor himself, he no longer takes any special form of exercise. He has got his muscles into such a state of subjection to his brain that: they exercise themselves, as it were, and he can do his training sitting in a railway carriage, <jr even lying in bed. Altogether, his system is much more attractive than were the raw beef steaks and twenty-mile walks that were prescribed by the professional trainers of thirty or forty years ago.

IHE»SANDOW 'GOSPEL.