THROUGH GOBI DESERT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20252, 11 May 1929, Page 11

THROUGH GOBI DESERT.

YOUNG EXPLORER'S TRIP, 1600 MILES BY CARAVAN. SCENES BY THE WAY. From a 1600-mile journey over the Gobi Desert by an ancient caravan route which runs the length of Mongolia to the borders of Chinese Turkestan, Owen Lattimore, a young American adventurer, has just returned with interesting tales of his strange exploits. Mr. Lattimore, who is the son of David Lattimore, professor of Far Eastern civilisations at Dartmouth College, was taken when an infant from Washington, D.C., to China, where for 20 years his father was a college professor in the service of the Chinese Government.

Since that time the junior Mr. Lattimore has finished not only his novitiate as an explorer, but also as a lecturer; and as an author he has written of his Mongolian experiences. He was interviewed at his apartment in Cambridge, Mass., where he expects to remain while learning Russian and completing preliminary research work at Widener Library, Harvard University, before leaving for Manchuria, the country he has picked for his next trip of exploration. "Although I was educated in Switzerland and England, still China seemed to have become a, vital part of me, and when I had finished school I got work there even though my family had returned to the States," Mr. Lattimore continued. Sharing Mud-built Quarters. While working for an exporting firm he was sent up country to arrange transportation for a consignment of wool. " I shared the mud-built quarters of a cargo-foreman and his gang, and from them by the light of a twist of cotton in -a saucer of oil I heard more talk of the frontier. We turned in early that night, but I stepped out of the low-ceiled room for a few long breaths of cold, clear air before the Mongol dogs were unchained to range the yards all night. " The stars shone big and bold as I

looked up from the gloom below tower- [ ing stacks of wool and cotton bales. There r came on mo a feeling that I had known before in other places of interior China —a desire to break with the office life of the fringing coastal ports; to go somewhere a long way off, to countries where men do things as they were done uncounted years ago, because their fathers did things in that way. A few days after returning to Tientsin I gave notice of resignation to my employers." Mr. Lattimore was accompanied by the 1 owner of. the nine camels which made up his caravan, and Moses, his Chinese servant, a wily and valiant fellow, who kept his head and his courage no matter what happened. The route taken, known to the caravan traders as the Winding Road, is considered the most difficult route in Mongolia, because of the lack of water and grazing and the great desert stretches. Not much of it is known, Mr. Lattimore explains, as the great body of information on Mongolia is compiled from Russian sources, and for this reason almost all the mapping that has been done has been from north to south. Getting Out at Dawn. For a great part of the time Mr. Lattimore travelled in company with large trading caravans, and in this way got on friendly terms with the men of the desert trade. He lived in the same way. sharing the same food and the same tent, and by the end of the journey he tells us that he was dressed mostly in that same kind of clothes. For these reasons, and because, lie could speak Chinese and had learned something of their local dialect, these men accepted him as one of themselves, and revealed to him the fascination which their work holds for them. The day's programme on a caravan begins at dawn, when the camels are turned out to pasture. At noon, following the one and only meal of a queer cooked dough covered with a more extraordinary sauce, the day's march begins, continuing until after midnight, with intermittent halts throughout that time to rest the camels, but covering in all about 25 miles a day. The seasons when caravans are despatched from Kuci-hua in the greatest numbers are February, when there is , time for them to reach the west before the grazing season, and August, just after the grazing. A caravan sent out in August, when camels are at their very best, can sometimes make the round trip before the next grazing season. It is, however, much more common for a caravan to start in August, make the journey in anything from three to eight months, wait for the grazing season, and start back again the following August.