The Sacred Oasis. By Irene Vongehr Vincent. With a preface
by Pearl Buck. (Faber and Faber. 30s.) THE man-made "Caves of the Thousand Buddhas" near Tun Huang in North China, just outside the Great Wall, are a famous centre of Buddhist pilgrimage, where for some 2,500 years an immense store of paintings and carvings piled up. This region is now completely inaccessible for West- erners. An account of a journey made in 1948 by an American woman is therefore of special interest. The authoress, while a student at Michigan University, attended in 1939 a course on Chinese art which kindled her imagination, and she resolved then and there to try to go one day on a pilgrimage herself. Exactly nine years later she found herself in China but hundreds of miles away. By persistence and pluck, unafraid of appalling discomfort, she reached her goal and spent ten days at the shrine as the guest of the Tun Huang Art Research Institute. Hers is a travel book with a historical back- ground illustrated by her own photographs in which enthusiastic admiration and scholarly curiosity have an equal share. As this is undoubtedly one of the most prolific centres of religious art in the world, any record of its treasures is most welcome; especially as the few publications in a Western language dealing with it at length are difficult to come by and very much out of date.
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