THE MARCHES OF HINDUSTAN.* This is an uncommonly entertaining book

of travels. Mr. Fraser, whose work on the Russo-Japanese Campaign showed that he possessed an acute gift of observation, spent a year in crossing and recrossing the northern barriers of India.

First he went into Tibet by the Chumbi Valley, got as far as Shigatse, and returned by Khambajong over a difficult pass.

Then beset out from Simla and went by way of Leh to Kashgar and Yarkand ; then into Russian Turkestan; and finally, After a circuit through Persia, returned Yid Baku to England. He was travelling for exactly a year, and covered about six thousand miles, of which two thousand five hundred were accomplished on horseback, eight hundred on foot, four hundred in carriages, and the remainder by Indian and Russian railways. This is a pretty good record even for such a modern moss-trooper as Mr. Fraser shows himself. He has the true traveller's spirit. The monstrous white wall of Himalaya as seen from the Sikkim valleys tempts him to go beyond. There is always "something lost behind the ranges" for him, and over Himalaya, Karakoram, and Alai he must go to look for it. "Contentment and mountains," so runs his wise apophthegm, "do not go well together." There was no

goal to be reached, for the best travels are always a circuit, but he picked up a great deal of information and amusement on the way; and the reader will find far more news of Central Asian politics, anthropology, and sport than in most journeys undertaken with a serious purpose. Let us add that the book is printed in a way which is a credit to English publishing, fully illustrated, and provided with an ample map.

Tibet cannot be so very rigorously closed or Mr. Fraser would not have been allowed to accompany an Indian official

in an extended tour of the country. He went by the same road as the -Younghusband expedition, and on the plains of Tuna fell in with the Tashi Lama returning to Shigatse after his visit to Calcutta. Thereupon he became part of the "tail" of that great man and assisted in the celebration of his home- coming. He gives a very attractive account of the Tashi

Lama, and enables us to realise how stout must have been his courage and how potent the persuasions of Captain

07Connor to induce him to set out on an adventure so alien to the views of his class. Mr. Fraser throughout the book shows a high opinion of the Tibetan monasteries, and his testimony is interesting when contrasted with that of the correspondents with the Tibetan Expedition. Than Tashi- lumpo in especial he thinks that "no existing community could be more respectable and decent-living." The entertain- ment which they got up for his benefit was certainly innocent

enough:— '

" Then came another round of tea, which gave place to a religious controversy between two monks. These hitched up their elothes, slapped their hands together, stamped their feet, looking for a verbal opening just as a pugilist looks for a chance to get in with his left. One represented Satan, the other some sacred personage, the discussion dealing with the birth of Buddha. Satan said Buddha was born with red trousers ; after which sally he went into loud roars of laughter that drowned the indignant reply of his opponent. The saint then declared that Satan had a tail; whereat every monk in the rooin laughed delightedly. And so the two kept at it for about half- an hour, frequently verging on blows, which never ensued. When Satan looked a winner all over, the controversy was declared closed, and the saint the • 2718 Marches of Hindustan. By David Frazer. London: W. Iraolivnicid and Sons. [21a' net.] victor—another injustice to the Devil, who is no more popularly. Thibet than in Exeter Hall."

'We recommend Mr. Fraser's account of his sixty-three hours' task recrossing the Himalaya to those who wish a spirited narrative of mountain adventure. On the Tibetan side, where the climate is very dry, the snow-line even in winter is not much below twenty thousand feet. But on the Sikkitn side, owing to the continual saturation, accumulated masses of ice and snow extend down to eight thousand feet. This means that in going from north to south you cross the watershed by_ an easy pass, and then descend for days through interminable glaciers and snowfields. Mr. Fraser says little about the political question, eicept to emphasise the extreme folly of the arrangement we made three years ago. On the econotnia side he is very interesting. He expects much from the new trade route through Bhutan, and though he journeyed there in the dead of winter, he was amazed at the pastoral possi- bilities of the great Tibetan uplands. "There are in that

conntty millions of acres under grass supporting- not a tithe of the sheep and cattle which might thrive thereon." : We have heard the same report from other travellers.

The second journey was longer, but scarcely more adven- turous. He set out from Simla without a pass for Russian Turkestan, which was a sufficiently bold enterprise. Through

selecting an unfrequented pass, he had a hard time crossing the Himalaya. The chapter on Leh gives him occasion for an instructive digression on Tibetan polyandry, which is a much

more respectable system than it sounds, and which makes-the country a paradise for women. After Leh he plunged into the desperate passes of the Karakoram,—a land where mountains are, so to speak, still in the making, and glaciers still play fantastic pranks. His account (and photograph) of the little glacier lake he found give some impression of the uncanniness of that world in flux. On the road he Passed the Shyok River, which was responsible for the great Indian flood in 1841. A glacier which spanned the river collapsed and blocked the flow. In six months a lake twelve miles long and four hundred feet deep had been formed, with about twenty-three million cubic feet of water. Meanwhile the down-country reaches were lower than had ever been known, and men could ford the stream. In June the dam burst, and a great wave raced down to the plains of India, licking up every village in the valley, and devastating the Punjab and Sind. Similar catastrophes on a small scale happen every year, so mountain- travel in these parts is something of an adventure. Before crossing the Karakoram Pass Mr. Fraser came in sight of the

great peaks of the range, K2, Gusherbrum, and Masherbrum, looking from the high tableland a little foreshortened like the masts of ships at sea. Near the summit of the same pass a murder was committed some years ago; an Englishman dying at the hands of his Pathan companion; and the story of-how

the criminal was hunted down over all Central Asia is, as good a piece of detective romance as we have read for some time.

At Kashgar Mr. Fraser came into civilisation of a sort, and, forgetting the hardships. he had endured, lived like a lotus-

eater for eight weeks, waiting on a Russian passport. It was pleasant idling :—

`f My door faced the garden, and each morning I stepped out in slippers and pyjamas to pick my own grapes and peaches, to eat with the morning cup of tea. Afterwards a cigarette smoked under the trees gained a new and subtle aroma, to which was added the permeating scent of flowers and fruit, and the murmur of the little canals that ran hither and thither. about the feet of the trees. Early morning in the month of September is perfect in Kashgar, cool, yet warm enough for flimsy attire, bright and sunny, yet everywhere that marvellous summer symphony of green and gold that is.the joy and salvation of tired human eyes. There birds twitter busily, bees hum like distant, thunder, the ducks in a' pond quack lazily and 'sleepily ; and a tilt of the eye brings into view the silver strip of Hirer or its band of yelloW tree-fringed sand."

In this paradise divorce costs threepence, and other necessaries and luxuries are on the same scale.The hardest

part of the journey was over, and the rest' of the' book tell's- of the humours rather than the ,discomforts of the road. Mr.

Fraser is the true vagabond, for he is a friend of all who go on pilgrimage, whether Hadjis bound for Mecca or Indian bagmen or Russian—officers. He converses by means of a Russian-French conversation-book, and has no means of

expressing his regard for his hostess except by pointing to , . , .

the phrase vous-aime. A light heart and a trust in Provi- dence will get a man through most things, even though he may find himself sitting at Tashkent ignorant of one word of Russian "in a first-class carriage, with a very suspicious second-class ticket, and with enough luggage for a bride." We have not space to do more than call attention to the many shrewd and valuable comments on political and strategical questions which are interspersed in Mr. Fraser's narrative. Not every good expedition produces a good book, but in this ease letters are justified of their son.