ADDITIONS TO LIBRARY

Taranaki Daily News, 13 April 1935, Page 14 (Supplement)

ADDITIONS TO LIBRARY

TWO BOOKS OF TRAVELS EXPLORING INLAND GUIANA. PIONEER FARMING IN MONGOLIA. The chief librarian of the New Plymouth Public Library reports the following books in popular demand:— General Literature. “Retreat from Glory,”, by R. H. Bruce Lockhart. “The War Letters of General Monash,” edited by F. M. Cutlack. “C. P. Scott of the M anc hester Guardian,” by J. L. Hammond. “Red Road Through Asia,” by Bosworth Goldman. “Fortune Grass,” by Mabel Lethbridge. “Crowded Days and Nights,” by Arthur Croxton. Fiction. “Pitcairn’s Island,” by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. “The Foundry,” by Albert Halper. “Master Sanguine,” by Ivor Brown. “Full Flavour,” by Doris Leslie. “So Red the Rose,” by Stark Young. “And Quiet Flows the Don,” by Mikhail Sholokov. The following volumes have been added to the library recently:— “Ninety-two Days,” Evelyn Waugh. (Duckworth, London.) Mr. Waugh bought a large map of British Guiana, one of what he calls “those three little gobs of empire” that have survived the general explosion of South American self-government. He found his map “all blanks and guesses. I found a friend of mine had an uncle there as a missionary; another had himself made a journey up one of the rivers to Kaieteur Falls, one of the, finest, most inaccessible,, and least advertised natural wonders of the world ... Gradually a vague general idea began to take shape in my mind of a large empty territory stretching up three great rivers and their tributaries to shadowy undefined boundaries; most of it was undeveloped and unsurveyed, large areas quite unexplored; except for a tract of grass land on the Brazilian frontier and an inhabited fringe along the coast, it was all forest or swamp; . . . the coast population contained every conceivable race, chiefly Portuguese, Negro and East Indian; the greater part of the colony had no permanent inhabitants, except shy communities of aboriginal Indians; except on the coast there had been practically no European settlement and little enough there.” A solitary exploration through such a country was bound to provide unusual experiences, and Mr. Waugh had them in plenty. He found on arrival at Georgetown, the seat' of Government, that what he had heard of race mixtures in Guiana was quite true. There was no colour line in society there, even the Commissioner, for a large district was a “Creole with some Indian blood.” Mr, Waugh spent Christmas at Georgetown, and writes amusingly of the troubles that beset the traveller who would organise an exploratory mission in that city of “wait awhile.” Still there were breaks in the monotony! “An unknown Dutchman shot himself on Christmas morning on account of feeling lonely, and a gentleman known to his friends as ‘the Blood of Corruption’ was arrested on numerous charges. He was the leader of a criminal organisation called ‘The Beasts of Berlin.’ They had taken the name from a cinema film; none of them had the remotest idea what Berlin was; they just liked the name. But they were perfectly serious criminals for all that.”

However, early in January Mr.. Waugh left Georgetown for New Amsterdam by railway, thence up the river Berbice for the mysterious inland of which he had heard so much. At first, under Mr. Bain’s pilotage, the journey, when the river was left, was much the same as might have been experienced in North Queensland a generation ago by any new chum. Mr. Waugh had to learn to accommodate his riding, his outfit and ■ his diet to the necessities of a primitive and often a barren country.

The jungle was luxuriant and oppressive, but when the “savannah,” the great open plain stretching across into Brazil, was reached the climate was exceedingly trying.. Heat, and dust storms did their best to make travelling a misery, and to climatic troubles were added specimens of nearly every biting insect that existed.' Occasionally a “ranch” was reached, mostly a collection of huts, sometimes a decent homestead, but nearly always occupied by “coloured” people. It was not until Mr. Waugh reached an outlying Catholic Mission that he had any “pure English” conversation. “Here Father Mather lived quite alone for the greater part of the; year,” teaching the Indian children, running, a small ranch, trying to show the Indians in his workshop how to use white man’s tools and methods, and keeping a home ready for his colleague, Father Keary, who was continually on circuit among the villages. Mr. Waugh writes very entertainingly of his visit to the decaying Brazilian town of Boa Vista. He had been led to expect the town'to b.e a place where, soft living for. a time would enable him to forget the asperities of rough travelling. Instead, he was told there was no hotel, the town.was decrepit, and the stranger’s stay at the local monastery was anything but comfortable. The officials live by bribery, murder is a commonplace happening, and in the end Mr. Waugh was glad to bribe his way to escape across the river to British territory.

• He had some rough experiences before he reached Anundaharu where an acquaintance made at Georgetown was sluicing for gold. From there he returned via the river and jungle to Gebrgetown, but the journey was by no means a simple undertaking. Mr. Waugh tells of it all with the satisfaction that it is behind him! He gives much interesting detail of the Indians and the other settlers he met in his travels, but he leaves the reader with little enthusiasm for life in British Guiana.

“Tents in Mongolia,” by Henning Haslund. (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., London.)

This is the story of a Danish attempt to establish a co-operative farm in Mongolia, not far from the Southern border of Siberia. To reach the spot chosen the adventurers had to cross part of the Gobi Desert, and as the experiment was launched when- the Mongolian Republic was in process of establishment, when Communism was being enforced there by the sword and the revolver, and when China was making'spasmodic efforts to regain her authority over Mongolia there were other difficulties for the Danish immigrants besides those of soil and climate.

Although the venture it records was a doubtful success, this is a most exhilarating volume. It is the record of a party of young, extremely healthy and well educated young men- setting out upon an adventure that appealed to their love of excitement as much as to their desire to make a fortune. They reached their goal, after hardships and disappointments that might have daunted less enthusiastic and determined people, and they did not flinch from the hard work as well as the excitement that attends the pioneer, particularly in a land where the winter temperatures are calculated in degrees below zero! Mr. Haslund had some extraordinary

personal experiences. He was arrested .by Bolshevik officials in Siberia and narrowly escaped execution as a rebel or a “counter-revolutionary.” A bold front, and a good deal of luck pulled him through that dangerous experience, but with- all the risks and the disappointments there is an air of youthful enjoyment throughout this volume that is most stimulating. The author. writes interestingly , of the various, peoples met. with in Central Asia, of the religion, of the family life, of tribal tradition, and of the reaction of older peoples to modem civilisation. The accommodation between the medicine meh of the ancient religion and ■the dqc.tqr'.’ Who was the. Danish leader showed .that human nature and even professional'etiquette can find means of cooperation between civilisations that are far apart. The young men enjoyed their experience, but Central Asia is no land for the weakling! The book speaks of the courage and endurance of the few European and American women who have accompanied their menfolk to the far-off rerons. They need it all, and much, too, of the saving grace of humour that Mr. Haslund and his colleagues had so often to cultivate or lose their grip of conditions well-nigh insupportable. This is a book that can be recommended strongly for those who like to learn of an almost unknown country, and hear how far light-hearted adventure can take young men in these days so often called decadent