Trespassing in Tibet

A CONQUEST OF TIBET--Sven Hedin-- Dutton ($5).

Though world-travelers are now conducted in droves to many an outlandish spot. Tibet is not one of them. While it houses one of the most ancient of the world's extant civilizations, Tibet is so nearly inaccessible that it remains one of the least-visited places on the globe. A trip to Tibet is more in the nature of a conquest than a journey; Author Hedin well names this record of his perilous peregrinations.

His first expedition, which had as its goal the Forbidden City of Lhasa, started in 1896. Over 16,000-ft. mountain passes, in bitter sub-zero weather, he led his dwindling caravan where no white men had ever been before; for 55 days they saw no other human being. Not since 1846, when French Missionaries Hue and Gabet had gone there in disguise, had a European entered Lhasa. On the last stretch Hedin cut down his party to three men. But word of their coming had reached the Tibetan Governor, Kamba Bombo, who politely but firmly about-faced them. Explorer Hedin had to be content with his discovery of a chain of 23 lakes. Two years later the British sent a punitive expedition to Lhasa, which took the bloom off Hedin's desire to go there.

In 1906 he went to Tibet again, this time to map some of the country's unexplored areas, to discover the source of the Indus, and to visit Tashi-lunpo, monastic citadel of the Tashi Lama, holiest man in Tibet since the flight (in 1904) of the Dalai Lama. All these things he accomplished. He interviewed the Tashi Lama himself, witnessed "devil-dances" in the sacred city, set the first European foot on the Transhimalayan range. But Traveler Hedin's graphic descriptions, no less graphic sketches, while they make good reading for armchair travelers, will lure few to follow him to a chilly land where every countryman goes armed, where the chief fuel is yak dung, where dead bodies are exposed for the vultures to pick clean, where a stuck-out tongue is a friendly greeting.

The Author-- Called Sweden's foremost explorer, "the modern Marco Polo," Dr. Sven Anders Hedin got his start 49 years ago as tutor with a family in Baku on the Caspian, has been prowling Central Asia almost continuously ever since. Expert hydrographer and cartographer, he carries only the simplest instruments on his expeditions, depends largely on the measured stride of his riding camel for computing distances. For Chicago's Century of Progress he directed the reproduction of Jehol's "Golden Pavilion." Short, bland, unmarried and 69, Explorer Hedin is now completing a railroad survey for China's Nanking Government. Though A Conquest of Tibet had to be translated, it has not yet been published in any other country than the U. S. Other books: Adventures in Tibet, My Life as an Explorer, Jehol: City of Emperors, Across the Gobi Desert.

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