American Geographical Society

Lattimore and Sven Hedin in the GobiThe Desert Road to Turkestan by Owen Lattimore; Auf grosser Fahrt: Meine Expedition mitSchweden, Deutschen und Chinesen durch die Wuste Gobi 1927-28 by Sven HedinGeographical Review, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Oct., 1929), pp. 694-696Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/209702 .

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THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

was sent to the home village in Russia and new immigrants were attracted, not by the promise of a wage but by the offer of land which the employer could get through his influence with the government. But the new settler was economically and politically bound to the employer through the device of an advance to him of provisions and tools.

How the squatter operates on the frontier is the theme of one section, and the floating population another, with much comment upon the process by which settlers try to gain independence by going beyond reach of government in many a corner of the remoter steppes and forests. The economic development of the land by close settlement requires railways and highways, and the lack of both produces effects here vividly set forth-the long broad tract (five to ten kilometers wide) over which the carts go in summer, narrowing to a focus at a stream crossing or a swamp or a railway station. Tributary roads come in over the prairie in direct lines, cross-lots, so to speak; and the tendency is carried even further in winter, when streams furnish new if temporary highways and change the pattern of the roads, the whole country- side being under deep snow and transport going any way it pleases. Automobile roads would help transport enormously, says the author, and they would intensify the use of the land even if at first only a limited number of trunk lines could be built.

First in importance in bettering transport and economic development is the

improvement of railway communications between the cotton-and-dried-fruit region of locally irrigated Russian Central Asia and the grain-growing region of Western Siberia. Russia requires more and more cotton and cotton goods, and the Siberian and Turkestan region can largely supply them. The author sees the great advantages of a textile industry created in the area of cotton production not merely for the good of the region but also to supply the growing need for textiles in Mongolia and western China, of whose political importance to Russia he has much to say. This would have the effect of reducing transport costs on cereals to feed the cotton districts and would lead to a largely self-contained Central-Asian economic unit. The trade outlets and conditions are analyzed, the Ob and the Yenisei and the Kara Sea route and the difficulties of shipping out the raw products of an extractive economy to distant European markets. The chief trade needs of China's outer territories in Asia being manufactured wares, Russia is in no position to supply them, but she

may compete in textiles ultimately. The dairy business is especially emphasized, for it may be increased to supply the capital needed for other than purely agricultural purposes. Statistics are given, and some analyses of them, for the export and import trade, its trends, and the forms of production that can most readily be increased under present conditions.

Altogether this is the leading book on Siberia, as it claims to be; which makes it a pity that the maps are not more than rough sketches, that the number should not have been greatly increased to enable the reader to follow the detailed text, and that the absence of an index requires each reader to construct his own if he wishes to con- sult this highly useful volume again.

LATTIMORE AND SVEN HEDIN IN THE GOBI

OWEN LATTIMORE. The Desert Road to Turkestan. xiv and 331 pp.; maps, ills., index. Methuen & Co. Ltd., London, 1928.

SVEN HEDIN. Auf grosser Fahrt: Meine Expedition mit Schweden, Deutschen und Chinesen durch die W/iste Gobi 1927-28. xii and 347 pp.; map, ills., index. F. A. Brockhaus, Leipzig, 1929.

The routes across the heart of the Gobi followed in 1926-I927 by Lattimore and a year later by Sven Hedin were approximately the same. Both travelers journeyed from Peking to the Mongolian frontier by rail; both struck directly over the Alashan

was sent to the home village in Russia and new immigrants were attracted, not by the promise of a wage but by the offer of land which the employer could get through his influence with the government. But the new settler was economically and politically bound to the employer through the device of an advance to him of provisions and tools.

How the squatter operates on the frontier is the theme of one section, and the floating population another, with much comment upon the process by which settlers try to gain independence by going beyond reach of government in many a corner of the remoter steppes and forests. The economic development of the land by close settlement requires railways and highways, and the lack of both produces effects here vividly set forth-the long broad tract (five to ten kilometers wide) over which the carts go in summer, narrowing to a focus at a stream crossing or a swamp or a railway station. Tributary roads come in over the prairie in direct lines, cross-lots, so to speak; and the tendency is carried even further in winter, when streams furnish new if temporary highways and change the pattern of the roads, the whole country- side being under deep snow and transport going any way it pleases. Automobile roads would help transport enormously, says the author, and they would intensify the use of the land even if at first only a limited number of trunk lines could be built.

First in importance in bettering transport and economic development is the

improvement of railway communications between the cotton-and-dried-fruit region of locally irrigated Russian Central Asia and the grain-growing region of Western Siberia. Russia requires more and more cotton and cotton goods, and the Siberian and Turkestan region can largely supply them. The author sees the great advantages of a textile industry created in the area of cotton production not merely for the good of the region but also to supply the growing need for textiles in Mongolia and western China, of whose political importance to Russia he has much to say. This would have the effect of reducing transport costs on cereals to feed the cotton districts and would lead to a largely self-contained Central-Asian economic unit. The trade outlets and conditions are analyzed, the Ob and the Yenisei and the Kara Sea route and the difficulties of shipping out the raw products of an extractive economy to distant European markets. The chief trade needs of China's outer territories in Asia being manufactured wares, Russia is in no position to supply them, but she

may compete in textiles ultimately. The dairy business is especially emphasized, for it may be increased to supply the capital needed for other than purely agricultural purposes. Statistics are given, and some analyses of them, for the export and import trade, its trends, and the forms of production that can most readily be increased under present conditions.

Altogether this is the leading book on Siberia, as it claims to be; which makes it a pity that the maps are not more than rough sketches, that the number should not have been greatly increased to enable the reader to follow the detailed text, and that the absence of an index requires each reader to construct his own if he wishes to con- sult this highly useful volume again.

LATTIMORE AND SVEN HEDIN IN THE GOBI

OWEN LATTIMORE. The Desert Road to Turkestan. xiv and 331 pp.; maps, ills., index. Methuen & Co. Ltd., London, 1928.

SVEN HEDIN. Auf grosser Fahrt: Meine Expedition mit Schweden, Deutschen und Chinesen durch die W/iste Gobi 1927-28. xii and 347 pp.; map, ills., index. F. A. Brockhaus, Leipzig, 1929.

The routes across the heart of the Gobi followed in 1926-I927 by Lattimore and a year later by Sven Hedin were approximately the same. Both travelers journeyed from Peking to the Mongolian frontier by rail; both struck directly over the Alashan

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GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEWS

Desert to the strange river Edsin Gol, which loses itself in two salt lakes; and thence over the Black Gobi to Chinese Turkestan. Lattimore tells us that this route is known as the "Winding Road" and that of late years the Chinese trade caravans have been following it rather than the old, established routes farther north. By taking this difficult passage they keep as far as possible to the north of "Chinese officials collecting likin or transit taxes" and far enough to the south of the indepen- dent Mongol tribes to avoid confiscation of their goods. The latter evil may be attributed to Soviet influence, which is attempting "to bind Mongolia economically to Russia" by enforcing "a prohibitive discrimination against Chinese trade." Although parts of the territory traversed by the "Winding Road" had been visited by other explorers, Lattimore claims to have been the first "to follow it throughout with a conscious interest in its history and its relation to the other great highways of inner Asia."

The latter portions of the journeys of Lattimore and Sven Hedin were made in the late autumn and winter. Both travelers had to contend against the hardships and dangers of the fierce mid-Asiatic winter, and both encountered suspicion and active opposition from the local authorities when Chinese Turkestan was finally reached. Lattimore was detained for several days in the miserable town of San- t'ang Hu, and at one time it looked very much as if the entire program of the Sven Hedin expedition would fail owing to the hostility of Yang Tsen Hsin, at that time the powerful governor of Sinkiang (Chinese Turkestan). Yang, however (about whom Hedin gives some interesting details), was finally won over and did all he could to promote the success of the expedition. But at best the complicated cross currents of political intrigue engendered by the Chinese and Russian revolutions have raised difficulties for the present-day explorer in Mongolia and Central Asia that were unknown before I911.

Although the routes followed and the troubles encountered were similar, two more unlike journeys could hardly be imagined, nor two more unlike books recording the results. Lattimore traveled alone with a trusted Chinese servant and a few hired camels and their attendants, sometimes joining a commercial caravan for a longer or shorter stretch. His purpose was "to break with the office life of the fringing coastal ports, to go somewhere a long way off, to countries where men do things as they were done uncounted years ago, because their fathers did things in that way." Elsewhere he writes: "Those were high days for dreaming, before the cold began and the really arduous marches. Part of the magic of Mongolia is in the satisfying physical joy of immersion in the life of monotonous fatigue and simple laziness; the shifting landscapes, the feeling of bodily exaltation in the proud distances and swinging marches. Part of it is in learning the tone and spirit of men whose crude but tradition-informed manners and society are only a rough balancing of physical needs; in long idle talking not made brittle and false by thought, and in longer, idler silences."

Knowledge of their language and a sympathetic spirit of understanding gained for Lattimore the confidence of "camel pullers," desert rovers, bandits, and village folk, who seemed to forget that he was a foreigner and would talk freely and naturally with him. His was not a "scientific" expedition, in that he did not attempt to make precise, quantitative measurements. He used no calipers on Mongol crania and no. theodolite or plane table on the Mongolian landscape. Some of the time he did not know exactly where he was, and it would be difficult to plot his route on a large-scale map. The poetic, subjective note struck in many passages throughout his book, however, lends it an unusual charm, and the curious and obscure facts recorded about the lives and traditions of the people of the Gobi are of rare value and interest. We learn, for instance, of the great trading firm of Ta Sheng K'uei with headquarters in Kuei-hua, which "has been established for more than two hundred years; it has a history that would stand well beside that of the Hudson's Bay Company." Latti-

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THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

more has little sympathy for the Chinese policy of agricultural settlement in Mon- golia. "The Chinese are evicting the Mongols, as near as I can compute, at about the rate of Io miles a year, all along the edge of the red and blue and gold and purple Back Country, behind the Ta Ch'ing Shan," but the movement will not solve the problem of overpopulation. "This vice in Chinese political economy might be corrected by saner marriage customs; certainly never by merely expanding the area of their breeding-grounds and burial-grounds."

Sven Hedin's party consisted of eighteen white men, ten Chinese, thirty-four servants, and, at one time, 392 camels. The European staff consisted of Swedes, Germans, and a Dane; it included a geologist; a physician who took anthropological measurements on the side; an archeologist; three meteorologists; a "navigating officer" who operated the wireless receiving set; a moving-picture man; a treasurer; several people in charge of the supply train, as well as general utility men. The Chinese staff comprised specialists in archeology and meteorology, together with five students. A vast quantity of impedimenta was taken along, including a library of Chinese historical works bearing upon the regions visited. The expedition was normally divided into three columns which swept the country over a broad front; triangulation nets were established, topography was sketched on the plane table, special geological and archeological maps were made, meteorological observations taken, and sounding balloons sent up daily. During prolonged halts special parties were sent out to visit neighboring localities. Never has a more elaborate and com- prehensive exploring expedition penetrated the heart of Asia. The government at Peking had at first offered opposition, but finally the matter was adjusted by arrang- ing to have the Chinese scholars take part in the work, with what appear to have been admirable results, for Sven Hedin gives a glowing account of the harmony that at all times prevailed. The primary purposes of the Chinese members were the making of archeological and meteorological observations and the establishment of five permanent stations in central Asia to co6perate with the observatories in China in the preparation of weather forecasts.

Sven Hedin sent his book to the publisher in August, 1928, during a brief sojourn in Sweden before returning to Chinese Turkestan. Notices in the press indicate that the work of the expedition was continued through last winter and will be carried on over one or two years more.

"Auf Grosser Fahrt" is a lively and vigorous narrative of the first year's exper- iences written for the general public. It tells us a great deal about the conduct and daily life of the expedition and the difficulties encountered and also something of peoples seen and country traversed. The scientific results of the expedition when finally published should be very impressive and should go far toward removing those last traces of the glamor of the unknown that still lingered over the Gobi when Lattimore made his way across it.

PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC

J. B. CONDLIFFE, edit. Problems of the Pacific: Proceedings of the Second Conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations, Honolulu, Hawaii, July 15 to 29, 1927. xiii and 630 pp.; maps, diagrs., index. Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1928. $3.00. 912 x 6/ inches.

No geographer who deals with the Pacific area can afford to be without a working knowledge of this book. He would do well to begin with a chapter near the end entitled "The Human Potential in Pacific Politics" by Herbert Croly. There he will find the case of disinterested research set forth with a breadth and penetration al- together unusual, which stamps this paper as the leading contribution of the book. Croly describes the object of the Institute of Pacific Relations as an attempt "to give reality to the vision of the Pacific as an area of positive political association among

more has little sympathy for the Chinese policy of agricultural settlement in Mon- golia. "The Chinese are evicting the Mongols, as near as I can compute, at about the rate of Io miles a year, all along the edge of the red and blue and gold and purple Back Country, behind the Ta Ch'ing Shan," but the movement will not solve the problem of overpopulation. "This vice in Chinese political economy might be corrected by saner marriage customs; certainly never by merely expanding the area of their breeding-grounds and burial-grounds."

Sven Hedin's party consisted of eighteen white men, ten Chinese, thirty-four servants, and, at one time, 392 camels. The European staff consisted of Swedes, Germans, and a Dane; it included a geologist; a physician who took anthropological measurements on the side; an archeologist; three meteorologists; a "navigating officer" who operated the wireless receiving set; a moving-picture man; a treasurer; several people in charge of the supply train, as well as general utility men. The Chinese staff comprised specialists in archeology and meteorology, together with five students. A vast quantity of impedimenta was taken along, including a library of Chinese historical works bearing upon the regions visited. The expedition was normally divided into three columns which swept the country over a broad front; triangulation nets were established, topography was sketched on the plane table, special geological and archeological maps were made, meteorological observations taken, and sounding balloons sent up daily. During prolonged halts special parties were sent out to visit neighboring localities. Never has a more elaborate and com- prehensive exploring expedition penetrated the heart of Asia. The government at Peking had at first offered opposition, but finally the matter was adjusted by arrang- ing to have the Chinese scholars take part in the work, with what appear to have been admirable results, for Sven Hedin gives a glowing account of the harmony that at all times prevailed. The primary purposes of the Chinese members were the making of archeological and meteorological observations and the establishment of five permanent stations in central Asia to co6perate with the observatories in China in the preparation of weather forecasts.

Sven Hedin sent his book to the publisher in August, 1928, during a brief sojourn in Sweden before returning to Chinese Turkestan. Notices in the press indicate that the work of the expedition was continued through last winter and will be carried on over one or two years more.

"Auf Grosser Fahrt" is a lively and vigorous narrative of the first year's exper- iences written for the general public. It tells us a great deal about the conduct and daily life of the expedition and the difficulties encountered and also something of peoples seen and country traversed. The scientific results of the expedition when finally published should be very impressive and should go far toward removing those last traces of the glamor of the unknown that still lingered over the Gobi when Lattimore made his way across it.

PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC

J. B. CONDLIFFE, edit. Problems of the Pacific: Proceedings of the Second Conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations, Honolulu, Hawaii, July 15 to 29, 1927. xiii and 630 pp.; maps, diagrs., index. Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1928. $3.00. 912 x 6/ inches.

No geographer who deals with the Pacific area can afford to be without a working knowledge of this book. He would do well to begin with a chapter near the end entitled "The Human Potential in Pacific Politics" by Herbert Croly. There he will find the case of disinterested research set forth with a breadth and penetration al- together unusual, which stamps this paper as the leading contribution of the book. Croly describes the object of the Institute of Pacific Relations as an attempt "to give reality to the vision of the Pacific as an area of positive political association among

696 696

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