A WOMAN'S TOUR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10769, 15 May 1913, Page 2

A WOMAN'S TOUR.

GREAT JOURNEY THROUGH CHINA.

Miss Elizabeth Kendall has published her narrative of a very interesting and adventurous journey, first through Western China from Tongking to Chengfu, and thence along tho Yangtsse to Hankow, from there by railway to Pekin, and thence again across the Gobi Desert to the Siberian railway. This 2000 and odd miles of wayfaring appears a sufficiently daring undertaking for a woman traveller, but Miss Kendall closes her verv, interesting book by saying that she "never met anything but courtesy and consideration from all, whether coolie on the road, villager, or innkeeper, official or priest." Not thus happily havo all travellers in tho Celestial-Empiro had experience of their journeying.?. Miss Kendall is inclined to imply that the traveller is often responsible for any troubles that may occur. " These men of the East—Turk, Indian, Chinese, Mongol—are much of a muchness, it seems to me; pay them fairly, tr,eat thorn considerately, laugh instead of storm at the inevitable mishaps of the way, and generally they will give you faithful, willing service. It is only when they have been spoiled by overpayment or by bullying of a sort they do not understand that the foreigner tinds them exacting and untrustworthy. And the Chinese is an eminently reasonable man. He does not expect reward without work, and he works easily and cheerfully. This, however, was the result of the traveller's experience, for, at setting out from railhead at Yunnan, as she says, the Chinese was "an unknown quantity;" but she seems to havo known from earlier experiences how to control her little caravan, and how to get the best out of her party. She has, indeed, little but good to say of the Chinese (apart from the general unattractiveness, to put it mildly, of the inns), and suggests that there are still things which the Occidental might learn from tho Oriental. "We have reviled the people of tho East in the past for their unwillingness to admit, that there was anything we could teach them, and they are amending their ways, but we have shown, and show still, a stupidity quite equal to theirs in our refusal to learn of them. Take, for example, the small matter of manners—if it be a small matter. More than one teacher in America has confessed the value of the obiect-lesson in good breeding given by the chance student from the East, but how rew Westerners in China show any desire to pattern after the dignified courteous bearing of the Chinese gentleman. 1 have met bad manners m tho 1' lowery Kinedom, but not among the natives.' It" was a remarkable journey that Miss Kendall .undertook, and one the triumphant conclusion of whicit must have given her great pleasure. Through vallevs and over high passes, across broad' stretching plains, and by mors, walking, riding, or borne in a chair she saw some of tho most out-oi-tne wav parts of the vast Empire, and has set forth the story of her journey in in unaffected and natural manner, which should give it an assured place amonr the few distinguished travelbooks that have been given us by women-travellers who have courageousIv journeyed in strange lands. Wonderful are the contrasts afforded by her description of the places visited. Tachienlu, on . tho Tibet border—the most westerly point of her wayfaring—is described as a town sm generis. "Situated 8400 f- above the sea, it seems to lie at the bottom of a wall, the surrounding snow-capped mountains towering perhaps 15,000 ft in the air above tho little- town, while outside the wall there is scarcely a foot of level ground." Then there was Omei Shan, the Sacred, the wonderful Szechuan mountain, one side of which is described as being a mile-high cliff. Only three months after Miss Kendall was there the neighbouring town of Chiatmg "was aflame with the fires of revolution," for it was the first city of the province to declare for the Republic. Marvellously impressive must have beon the journey down the great river through the Yangtsze- Gorges; tho author says, indeed, that it was a relief to get to the open vacant land of the Lower Yantsze, where the eyes and brain had a chance to recover their tone after the strain of trying to take in the wonders of the gorges. At ; Hankow the wayfarer left the river and went by rail to Pekin, which .'-ho describes briefly but enthusiastically; thence still by'rail to Kalgan, where the Great Wall marks off China from Mongolia. Thence came a. journey from "which many people sought to dissuade the traveller, for a variety of reasons—all of which she duly proved unreasonable by accomplishing the ta.'k she had set herself.

"I did the trip from wall to railway, not counting the stops T made irr my own pleasure, in twentv-eight days," she concludes, "the westi.er was generally a joy. and T bade my Mongols good-bye in T'rga with real regret. I had no troubles, \ uith no accidents, and it was worth while--for once."