ROUND ASIA ON HORSEBACK.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XIX, 9 May 1896, Page 532

ROUND ASIA ON HORSEBACK.

Prince Constantine Wiasemsky has just completed a journey lasting two years and a half, which has been not less interesting from a scientific point of view than fertile in incidents, for he has been round Asia on horseback, covering a distance of 26,875 miles, visiting in turn Siberia, Mongolia, the whole of China from north to south and from east to west, Tongking, Anam, Cochin China, Cambodia, the Mois country, Siam, the I.aos, Burma. Manipur, Assam, India, Kashmir. Thibet, Turkestan, Bokhara, and Persia, returning to Russia by the Caucasus. In the course of his travels he was attacked four times by wild people and twice wounded in the shoulder and the leg, while, but for a lucky escape from captivity, he would probably have been killed by a tribe of fanatics in Thibet. After having been delayed by floods in Siam, where he contracted malarial fever, he nearly died from thirst in the desert of Gobi, where all his horses perished, and he did part of his journey on other animals, riding oxen in Cambodia, and doing over 600 miles on elephants in Siam, while in Thibet he bestrode the yaks, or mountain cattle, which travel where horses cannot go. When he could not get a horse he travelled on foot, taking copious notes upon the usages and dress of the natives, and visiting several Buddhist monasteries in India, where he claims to have discovered the secret of the fakirs. Prince Wiasemsky had already ridden round the Mediterranean from France to Egypt and thence into Africa, and he dined with Gordon Pasha a few weeks before the capture of Khartoum. Prince Wiasemsky, who says that he lost all the twelve horses which he took out. is residing at Rome to recuperate bis strength, as he is suffering very much from the fatigue of his last journey.