WHAT TIMARU IS READING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21186, 5 November 1938, Page 12

WHAT TIMARU IS READING

ADVENTURE IN LAND OF SOVIETS ROMANCE OF JOURNEYS BY CANOE (Specially written (or "The Timaru Herald" by A. K. EUiot) “Alone Through the Forbidden Land,” by Gustav Krist, is a iale of journeys in disguise through Soviet Central Asia, with no pretence of having been undertaken in the interests of science—merely a love of adventure which incited the author to force his way into a forbidden land in order to see more of it titan before. In this spirit he commends his book to his readers. We read—reminiscent of the time of the Caliphs and the golden road — that he went again to Persia, and took service with a carpet merchant of Tabriz, in whose company he travelled the length and breadth of ths country. And so we read of Barfurush —a town where, according to the carpet merchant, milk and honey flowed in streams but it was found to be a miserable little mud town. “Across the Qara Qum to Samarkand” has a sound of Kubla Khan and his stately treasure dome, but we find it is very presentday. In the opening paragraph of this chapter, he says, he saw a long cloud of dust and sand approaching from a considerable distance. There were about a hundred camels, every second one carrying a rider on its back. Unladen camels were such a rarity that he asked the caravan-bashi. who was ahead, whether those could be the celebrated desert highwaymen. He was already anticipating an exciting adventure. The riders proved, however. to be the exact reverse of what he had supposed; they were a detachment of the camel corps of Desert Police, and they presently drew up alongside. This is an interesting, wellwritten book with beautiful photographs. Pictures for the Press The author of “I Get My Picture” (Bert Garai) has built up the biggest independent photographic Press agency in the world, and through his numerous interviews for photographing kings, queens, dictators, and other renowned people, he has certainly had enough of adventure to have something of interest for readers. Mr Garai is a Hungarian by birth—after many pov-erty-stricken years in Budapest, he j eventually finds his way to the United States. In his pages, he records not I only many triumphs but also many j failures. There were times, he says. I when he failed and failed badly. I Newspaper scoops are generally won | not by a length, but by a head, and I on more than one occasion it was the I head of one or other of his rivals. After relating many adventures, the author writes that on re-reading what he had written, he found that he hr,d not related a tenth of the experiences that had fallen to his lot during tre incessant hunt for newspaper all over Europe. It would take several volumes to record all the exciting experiences I end all the difficulties he has had to overcome in the course of his work.

Canoe on Mighty Rivers Major Raven-Hart who now gives us “Canoe Errant on the Mississippi" has already “canoed” on the Nile and written an entertaining book on his encounters. Writing of the Mississippi he says: “This noble and celebrated stream, the Nile of North America, which commands the wonder of the old world, while it attracts the admiration of the new.” The commencement of the voyage was made from Mark Twain’s old home town. Hannibal, and from there the canoe voyaged over a thousand miles, during which the voyagers camped on sandbanks, bathed and picnicked, made friends with the shanty-boat dwellers—a race in themselves—remote in their cut-off existence. They met the engineers in whose hands was the controlling of that dangerous river—the Ole Man River of Paul Robeson's song. They travelled in the moonlight—this was inevitable, if only for the sake of Mark Twain's description of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn drifting down on their raft. “Tile navigation was amusing, things that go ssshsh in the night being audible as rushing water long before they could be seen, and the excitement being in locating them in time to avoid them. As a general rule we followed the current, paddling little: Somehow we found our voices growing lower, softer and we talked less, feeling intruders in the silence. There seemed to .:e nothing left in the universe but the I moon and the canoe, floating both in air and both framed by the black J velvet of the banks, tenuous, unsubstantial, best seen by not looking directly at it.” This certainly is a most unusual travel book.

A Barrie museum for Kirriemuir is now, it is understood, within measurable distance of being established. Recently the house in The Tenements in which Sir James Barrie was born was acquired by the National Trust of Scotland and restored under the supervision of the Office of Works, and a Kirriemuir committee has now been informed of the trust's readiness to set apart two upper rooms for the purpose of a museum. Many interesting relics are already available for the museum, notably the bed on 'which Barrie was bom and the “mutch” he wore when he was christened.

The entertaining and remarkably clever artist who depicts “The British Character” in Punch and signs himself Pont has now issued a selection of his drawings in book form. Needless to say, it is a volume that will add to the gaiety of nations, including our own. In an introduction, E. M. Delafield says: “It will be part of our English inconsistency to enjoy Pont s delightful presentations of our national life, to point out to one another how very true it all is. and to continue, unmoved, on our ways.” The artist himself, in a foreword, expresses alarm that, because his book lacks Something to Read, sales will be low. A gallant effort to help the publisher in tills respect has resulted in several small offerings in prose and verse, of which the following describing the social system is a sample: The British with their tidy minds, Divide themselves up into kinds. The common kind they call the masses. The better kind —the upper classes. In either case it’s really not A specially inspiring lot. The common ones play darts In pubs The others slowly die in clubs.