EXPLORER RETURNS FROM ASIA WITH MARVELLOUS STORIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18939, 9 December 1929, Page 1

EXPLORER RETURNS FROM ASIA WITH MARVELLOUS STORIES.

He Saw Barking Birds, Tame Tigers, Grinning Grizzlies, And Monks Who Teach “Cooties ” Tricks (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Received December 9,10 a.m.) CHICAGO, December 8. Herbert Stevens, leader of the Kelly-Roosevelt Expedition into Asia, brought back a marvellous story of barking birds and tigers that are comparatively harmless, a story of grinning grizzlies never before seen by the eye of civilised man, of Tibetan monks, who never wash, but train “ cooties ” in their hair to perform neat circus tricks, of natives of a forgotten land, who eat baby white mice dipped in syrup, holding the tiny rodents by their tails and slipping them down their throats raw as we would eat oysters. Stevens travelled a total of 1700 miles, a thousand on foot and seven hundred miles on bamboo rafts, tumbling down yellow rivers. “ I couldn’t quite relish the white mice,” he said,” “ Even after they were dipped in syrup, but bamboo rats were not so bad.”