Travels—By Freya Stark Murray, London, 12/6.
It is but natural that with the ea-|-
possible to the average person a largo fended travel which has been made number of books dealing with the subject should be published. But it is a noticeable fact that many of them are of a tiresome mediocrity' or else so hopelessly unoriginal as to amount to mere plagiarisms of work that has been more ably and deftly handled before. There are exceptions to this, and the work of Freya Stark, dealing with her travels in Persia between the head of the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea is amongst their number. Miss Stark, cherished a desire to travel in Persia from the time when at nine years of age' she received a copy of the "Arabian Nights." 'The book which she has written indicates that there was little of that particular type of glamour about What she saw in the extensive travels which she well deseribles in her book, though doubtless she found' it of another; type which was probably just as entrancing, It is obvious that she had to do a great deal of hard travel such as few women have ever done. But she must have gone on her way with an ever-perceiving eye and a capacity for taking notes which makes the volume under review particularly full of meat. Indeed her work has been Ukened to the works of Hue and Cabot, and while th 1 is not entirely apt, there is a similarity between this volume and the works of those travellers sufficient to lift It above the ordinary work on travel.
'One of the most interesting features of the book is found in the delight ful vignettes of Persian life with' which it Is replete. Thus, the origin of a feud between a man anda township is graphically describ 'It was a fight," said he, "two yea ago, T used to live in "Harsin then, Thad. married. a Harsint "woman fand hada hata there. One evening, in' the 'Chavchena there' was an below. No one is more helpless than a rider on a back-caddie: seated fon a platform. without either. rein OF stirrup, suicidal mania in his mount a contingency not provided. for. But luckily" the And rescued. my" camera which hed
abyss. for cauent atthe very lip of the "hank God It is not broke:
with the single-mindedness photographer. The Refuge of Allah. Said nothing fur a long time.
you had got killed." he remark-at Fast ina Feproachful tone. sweat Should we have said when we got t0 'Teheran' without you?"
It is perhaps unfortunate that inher travels she did not have enough opportunity to enquire fully into the customs and habits of the pieturesque people amongst whom she moved, though often little cameos show that she was not always unobservant and able very quickly to obtain the reactions of some of the people, partieularly the women, with whom shi came in contact. "Thus, on the sub-Joe? of polygamy the following rather pathetic passage appears in the book: she apologised." "Every. time my Ait have not, Sead room, there," husband' marries a new. wife, T am turned out into an' inferior room, and he has now three wives besides myself, Tt is not very comfortable Here again, the attitude of a mother-in-law to her two grandchildren very sharply outlined:
"They taught me that love is that matters In the world," said mother-in-law, with her two. grand children on her knee, "and you can hot think how I love these childrens al excepting that. one "over there," the "added, nedding towards the eldest little girl who sat' neglected {hone corner, "I cannot bear her"
anis "peculiar Interpretation of Christian precept roused me to some, alld" pro 1 had. gone. home. to. bed, accursed: Harsin's came round 1 bouted out that they dt eibesmen In their "town and T'was to eave." 1 of up on to the root and said T would net leave. 'Then they Began to shoot, and Tahot ack and hit rome of them. they all surrounded "the house, and T'wont into the upper. room which hada small window food for ring from, and we Kent at it till the mor Ang and. all' through that day. The house had high" walls so that the people could not get in anywhere, and Thad a frlent amon them ouisld and in' the The crept. up and Spoke to me, and T told him to-go Into the mountain and calt'the tribe. 'Meanwhile. the. Warsinis. knew that T always smoked my pipe of op! in' the evening, and counted one ing "Into the house when. had stop firing. "But my wife was a good woman: put her at the window with "the gun, and. she continued to
the says, "Anyway, we kept I: up a Shoot while f'smaked, apd ita man. that night as well, and next morning ust at dawn, tik, tak we heard shots fal around th "he hills, and we knew Ghat' the Kakavends were "coming. Our tribe numbered 8,000 fighting men then "before "these last year's wars. Well, the Harainis also" knew "that the tribe war" coming" down upon them, and they scattered like rabbits Quite her uncompromising brutality.
Miss Stark had a wealth of guides during her Itineraries and she succeeds {in sketching them in a manner which absolutely makes them live in the eyes of the reader. Of them all probably Keram is the most attractive because he seemed gifted with an inability to keep out of mischief which, while it may have endeared him to the Lady he was guiding, undoubtedly must at times have got him into serious trouble with his own authorities:
We had been deprived of his gun for shooting the seven pet pigs. of the America Governor. The seventh them he only. lamed. It imped back tothe castle just as the Gove ferner came out of the gate for his evening Fide. "What la thie?" said the Governor. "T shot sh pigs in the ood." Keram explained innocently. Whereupan his gun was taken rom him, wand ence then." said he, have had to'take {0 opium: my Neart n's0, sad for the tong days in the; In all a most attractive book and certainly one well worth reading and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.