LAKE TANA AND THE BLUZ NILE Major R. E. C heesma n
Major Cheesman's 'reputation as a traVelleennd writer
on travel has already_ been established by hit book In -Unknown
Arabia. In Lake. Tana and the Blue Nile (Macmillan, 188.) he tells the story of the exploration which he was able• to carry out in the eight years of his service as Consul in-North- : West Abyssinia. When he took up his post Lake Tana
had been. examined from the point of view of irrigation only, while of the ,Blue Nile itself practically nothing was known between its exit from the lake and Zakas ford, 300 miles downstream. By 1934. there remained but one.loop, 15-miles long, unseen by European eyes, and though, as bfajor Cheesman says, it is one thing to see the Nile and quite another to map it, the veil of mystery has been lifted from that stupendous gorge which the river has furrowed for. itself in its age-long task of carrying down the rich silt• to which the fertility of Egypt owes its' being. TO the geographer Major Cheesman's work is of great value, but to the general reader his description of the Tana islands, with their wealth of legend and strange monastic inhabitants Will perhaps offer the greatest interest. The story of his travels, - of the chiefs and peasants with whom he had to • do, of the strange blend of laWlessness and courtesy which . he encountered and of the birds and beasts and flowers which it was his great pleasure to study makes most fascinating reading ; and is, incidentally, a healthy corrective to those " authorita- tive accounts " of Abyssinia and its people based on a few weeks' residence in Abyssinia which have been presented to us in such distressing Volume during the past twelve months.
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