With Bartlett to Bangkok
Go East, Old Man. By Vernon Bartlett. (Latimer House. 9s. 6d.)
MR. VERNON BARTLETT is what is called a trained observer: a curious phrase, for, although institutions exist for training practically any- thing from a Labrador to a lepidopterist, the one class of person almost invariably referred to as " trained " has never had access to any recognised form of training at all. In point of fact, the observer trains himself, with a little assistance from editors and a great deal from life. The finished product, in the case of Mr. Vernon Bartlett, is very highly finished indeed, and that is what makes his account of a nine months' journey to various parts of Africa and Asia so frequently interesting and so consistently engaging. His conclusions never aspire to finality and not very often to profundity ; many of the sights he saw and the problems he examined have been described before ; but he is a traveller so curious, so shrewd and so experienced that his comments always have pith and point and the lively, informative record of his wanderings will appeal as strongly to those who know the distant places he visited as to those (and their number today must be very large) to whom they are only unattainable names on a map.
- He sailed, on doctor's orders, to South Africa and managed to see many new and many old things in that continent before taking ship for Ceylon. Thence to Malaya'(where events have been unkind to his assertion that there is " practically no political extremism"), and on by air to Bangkok and Hongkong. A Jardine boat, complete with the usual White Russian janizaries in case of pirates, took him on to Shanghai by way of Keelung in Formosa, and from Shanghai he flew via Okinawa to Japan before turning for home. For a convalescent (which in effect he was) he achieved a very high degree of mobility.
Taking leave of the Far East he writes : " It's an amazing thing to me that big trading and banking firms find it difficult to recruit young men for service in this part of the world " ; and it does indeed seem odd that even in the circumstances of today the mere fact of exile should be a greater deterrent than it was before most of the perils and inconveniences of exile had been removed or mitigated b.w agencies ranging from D.D.T. to airmail. Of this, as of the other odd things he noticed, Mr. Bartlett treats with urbanity and per- cipience. He draws a politely deflationary sketch of General MacArthur, notices that the Chinese like the African peasant laughs more often because he is pleased than because he is amused, and reflects that the Bishop of Colombo, who signs himself " Cecil Colombo," ought really, with that name, to be the leader of a dance-band. Altogether he makes a most agreeable and stimulating guide to places, many of which stand badly in need of rediscovery
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