WHAT TIMARU IS READING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20782, 17 July 1937, Page 12 (Supplement)

WHAT TIMARU IS READING

THE ROAD TO KURDISTAN FRENCH IMPRESSIONS OF THE EMPIRE (Specially written for "The Timaru Herald" by A. K. Elliot) And still the road goes on. There is alays a certain romance and glamour about roads—roads old and new, Roman roads, ancient roads of Britain, roads of incense and camelbells, and tracks of pioneers—all necessary to civilisation, and all for their creation dependent on most courageous lives. Even to-day road. 1 # are made under conditions of hard toil and danger, and in “The Road to Kurdistan,” we have the story of a New Zealander, Mr A. M. Hamilton, who has directed the construction of the Rowanduz road in the remotest part of Iraq. This road, being designed to complete the Persian highway from Teheran to the Mediterranean, is over' a hundred miles long, and runs through rocky gorges and mountainous country. Mr Hamilton, besides having to overcome almost impossible difficulties in engineering, had also to placate unfriendly tribes, act as doctor and interpreter, train his own workmen and do his own surveying. Mr Hamilton makes a splendid job of it all, and this road, begun in 1928 and completed in 1932, stands as one of the greatest feats of modern engineering. The book, apart from its topical interest, is well written, with beautiful descriptions of the countryside, and the fullpage photos are a great help to the reader in his understanding of all that went towards the making of the road. “As I looked out over the silent mountains I wondered what fortune lay before me and whether I should ever see the road reach the wilderness of rugged peaks on the far skyline, through a land said to be Inhabited by people little better than savages. With a last backward glance at the plains, stretching away to Arbil and the deserts of the South from whence I came, I jumped into the car and, with a secret exhilaration I have rarely felt, entered the land which was to be my new home for four long years.” Through French Eyes It is interesting to obtain a Frenchman’s ideas of our Empire, especially one part of it as intensely interesting as India, and in “Diamonds and Dust,” Baron Jean Pellenc gives us wonderful word pictures of India from a Frenchman's viewpoint, and a very refreshing and entertaining one it is. Baron Pellenc started out to put India on canvas, but both canvases and brushes stayed in his trunks, and his pictures were never begun. He confesses that with aspects so varied, modes of conduct and thought so alien, that Incoherence would have been the result—an army of footnotes would have been necessary for each picture. So he gives it to us in prose—a series of vivid pen pictures, as witness the following, a description of the Golden Temple of Amritsar: “Zoned in dazzling white, the water of the tank is blue beyond description, and in the midst glitters a marble islet crowned with a’peerless diadem of gold. Foursquare it rises like a great nugget from some fabled El Dorado, the cornice studded with a coronal of shining globes; four small minarets stand at the angles, golden sentinels around the scintillating dome. The esplanade is planted with shade-trees. The trunks are encased in marble sockets like yard-high candlesticks and the trees seem to have taken root not in earth but in solid stone. Now and again the sun shone forth between the rainclouds, turning the Temple to a fluming mass of gold; then as the light died out the glory passed, fading into a soft diminished radiance.” He also gives us the other side, the sordid huddle of village hovels, the horror of lepers and beggars; but I think his artistic eye takes in far more of the beauty and the wonder of temples and palaces, rajahs and durbars. One is almost overwhelmed with his description of all the gorgeousness and the voluptuousness, yet one is impressed by the shrewd observation of the keen French eye—keen to all the anomalies that go to make up the Indian state and its life.

Business in China One is always interested in what the "other fellow" is doing, and in like manner one country is always interested in the other country, and although vast numbers of books on China come before the public, there always seems to be room for still more on this interesting country. Carl Crow in his ‘‘4oo Million Customers" gives us a very unusual book from an advertising and merchandising agent’s point of view. His contact with the Chinese is a very personal one—as Mr Crow says, “ Travellers and statesmen, humourists, philosophers and economists have all given to the world their ideas on this land," but tills is the first from the angle that Mr Crow gives us. He has had to study the Chinese us regards character, history and institutions —every way that will fit in all knowledge into a merchandising pattern. He avers that no one gets more enjoyment out of the bargain than a Chinese, or search further or haggle more ardently to get one; but also no one will more stubbornly resist, and that successfully, all attempts to sell him anything he does not want. The agent has to overcome tradition, superstition, and age-long distrust of the intruding foreigner. He has to accustom himself to the wily brain of the Oriental, who has a very fine distinction between abstract and concrete truth. In the abstract—never can the Oriental bring himself to give a truthful answer—it is too much trouble—he would rather agree—the surest way to escape arguments. As for the concrete, he is most accurately truthful —as regards figures and prices and bales of cargo. There Is an entertaining chapter on shark’s fins and ancient eggs, and also a most entertaining description of how they Introduced raisins into China!. When promoting the sale he decided to run a competition for the best cake containing raisins. How he arouses the gambling instinct of the Chinaman with his zeal to get something for no-thing-how they were overwhelmed by a sea of cakes—his solution of choosing the winner was worthy of Solomon —all makes rare entertainment. And so on goes life in China, complications and difficulties all round, but as the author says, the work is always inter■ssting, and in spite of their years of disillusionment the agents secretly cherish the thought that a reasonable

number of China's 400 Millions may buy their goods next year. The Soul of the Jungle “Africa never fails to lure the wanderer to return,” so says Mrs Akeley In her book, “Restless Jungle,” and certainly a book on Africa never fails to appeal to the large number of readers interested in that mighty country. Mrs Akeley was a member of an expedition in 1935—1936, and was fortunate in having rare chances of studying unfamiliar species of wild life and also unfamiliar natives. In an interesting discussion on ancient civilisation in Africa she says that while Europe was in the Dark Ages, Zimbabwe, that wonderful architectural monument, was constructed by natives —a ruin now, but still there can be found golden objects and pottery of high cultural skill. She gives us splendid descriptions of those ever-interest-ing topics, magic, witchcraft and death. One chapter on an old pioneer is perhaps the best in the book, and here she tells of the pioneer in search of camping ground, in search of ivory, in search, in fact, of any excuse to keep on wandering, and no wonder

v.hen one reads of these wonderful surroundings. "There he camped on the borders of Swaziland, with vast stretches of sandy bushveld on every side, where the acacia trees were turning to tawny brown, and where the yellow fruit on thousands of marula trees hung .now but sparsely on the gnarled branches, and lay thick and golden on the ground; where tall aloes reared their upright spears of fading carmine blossoms among the multicoloured kopjes; where giant fig trees crowded along the banks of murmuring streams, their glossy leaves glittering in the sun and their long leafy branches bending to earth in densest si ade; where brilliant sunsets tinted red .the golden grass at eventide; and where at night the air was clear and dry, and heady too like old wine, and the white moon rode high through the sky above, yet somehow nearer than -ny moon he had ever seen at home, and the earth was turned to silver beneath her magic smile." And so we leave the “Restless Wanderer” |n the freedom of the great Lebombo hills rising far above the boundless low veld, where at sunset or when the moon rides high, there is magic and profound mystery—there man may pause for a little and invite hi.: soul.