cc Yabonah ,1 Tents in Mongolia. By Henning Haslund. (Began Paul.
15s.) Tins is no ordinary book. In it there is travel, adventure, hardship and poetry. Its author is a young Dane who took part in the Krebs expedition to Mongolia in 1923 which aimed at proving that the Sable Plateau—Brdgen Tel—could be developed as an agricultural settlement for the Danish farming colonies that were driven out of Siberia by the Bolsheviks. He tells the story of a gallant enterprise with such zest that the reader is carried from Copenhagen to the Mongolian
steppe with an ever-growing sense of sharing in a very unusual experience ; and the reviewer must add that Mr. Haslund is exceptionally fortunate in having found most competent translators for the English version of his tale. The book is lavishly illustrated with good pictures and is well indexed.
The story opens in 1923 and ends in 1926. In those three years, the Krebs party proved their point, and only failed to create a Little Denmark in Bulgun Tal because the Soviet authorities refused them permission to found a permanent settlement. They endured every kind of hardship, sur- mounted forbidding obstacles and survived dangers by flood and storm and wild beasts. Where the riches of experience are so abundant as in these pages it is difficult to choose those which will best prove the quality of this Odyssey. There is the engaging bandit-princess who held them up on the fourth day out from Kalgam : the dust-storm when the air became " rust-coloured " : the adventure with the six Siberian wolves : the sea of blue irises stretching for miles : the splendour of Urga : the peaceful monastery of Dein Derchen Kure: and the poignant lure of the wilderness. And the sound of bells !
" From the far distance came the enchanting ringing of the deep-toned camel bells . . . the more rapid tinkling of the ox caravans. One first became aware of the sound of a single bell moving slowly through the night : then the more distant bells chimed in . . and for hours one heard the sound of many bells like a composition on three notes . . . like the desert's own hymn to the deep night sky. Then the last wagon passed, the sound softly faded and vanished into the far unknown."
But, with all the poetry and adventure, there was hard work. On reaching the beautiful plateau, far on the western border of Inner Mongolia, they built their farm, planted wheat, oats, barley and potatoes ; they traded in flour, furs, butter and live stock, and learned why the horse is the mainstay of Mongolian life. Politics disturbed them even in Bulgun Tal ; and Mr. Haslund will not easily forget his sojourn in a Soviet gaol in Siberia, nor the manner of his return from, prison across an ice-bound wilderness. His picture of the Shaman—in lithe female form—exorcizing the evil spirits. which threatened an old Soyote with death is but one among many memorable
scenes ; and throughout his pages there are grisly traces of the savage warfare of General Hsu, Ungern Sternberg,. and the " Young Mongols " who played the game of the Sickle and Hammer for their Moscow masters. And if the reader asks whether this is all true, I will reply on Mr. Haslund's behalf, that his ,book is, like Wordsworth's poetry, " emotion recol- lected in tranquillity "; and since the author is a poet, who shall say that he has not made an epic out of his experience, and perhaps. transfigured- cold fact into glowing fancy.? But the authentic note is there all through, and few indeed are the
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