The Dominion. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1910. THE EXPLORER'S SPIRIT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 734, 5 February 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1910. THE EXPLORER'S SPIRIT.

: .The explorer who!sets forth to-day to "travel; the uncharted" has few of the'dazzling lures; that encouraged his predecessors in adventure,; causing- them to go light-hearted through a'thousand:perils;-' In' the { ocean he can hope to find no Fortunate Isles, no sunny India beckons him between I the-. Polar 'bergs, and ;on-: land ■no golden -cityV of.'; Manoa,' marvellous men "whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders,','-or:like miraculous i sights a -wondrous reward fdr.hia' hardships.' It;is no longer ; open to him'to''discover thai the earth is round, or solve.a world-old; m'ystery,"standing by' : tne source of Nile. . The explorer can still tread untrodden ways, but he will endure privations' in ...the. 'cheerless .knowledge that not much can, meet his vision which he has not had;reason to expect. Romance, no more, inspires; him with her glamour, and his youngerVmistress,- Science, is : almost too omniscient for surprise. His plight is not so,bad that he has no worlds; left; to, conquer t but, compared .with "the, old prizes, his remaining worlds seem scarcely worth the-conquest..-./ r;'. ;

Yet to-day, in these; untoward ciroumstancea,' we, are finding the exr, plorer, like Maek Tapley, "come out.| strong." Captain Scorr is preparing to dare the extremes of cold and] hunger in search of a South Pole, which: Sra /Ernest: Shackleton has. robbed . pf' all 'its, mystery..; Miss Maeie . Hall, who , is at present in Wellington, has crossed Africa from south 'to north, and will start soon with the intention of crossing South America from east to west. ,A German explorer, Dr. Kael Kumm, according to the Standard, has just traversed Africa from the Niger to the "Nile,; He will be the envy r of other explorers,! who seem to seek hardship now as the only goal still left, to them, for he has had experience of an island called "God-helpr us Island," "where men and beasts have been marooned for months, and where men have died of starvation." Lastly, the Swedish explorer, Sib Sven Hedin, has just published a description of his recent travels in Trans-Himal&ya, where /-.he. was cheerfully marooned for two long years from civiliseo] companionship, storm-buffeted, frozen, and twice almost drowned in order that he might cross eight deadly .mountain'passes, whore other men had crowed "but

seven, add some new strokes to a map which none but jealous rival explorers will ever want to see, and discover three river sources, which are not likely to become tourist resorts for very many years. The force which drives these adventurers : to the wilderness is one not easy to understand. Sir Ernest Shaobmton acknowledges "the call of the wild," and we feel that that is also the inducement felt by Captain Scott. Sir Sven Hedin, who is evidently a man Of unusual social; gifts, lets us see in his book, which we have before / us, • that his adventures and privations arise from a similar call., ."Three years had passed since my return to my own country; iny study began to be too small for me; at eventide, when all around was quiet, I seemed to. hear in the sough of the wind a voice admonishing'; me to 'come back again to the silence of the wilderness,' and when I awoke in the morning I invariably listened for caravan ■ bells outside. So the time passed till my plans were ripened, and my fate was soon decided; I must return to the freedom of the! desert and hie.away ' to the broad plains between the'snow-. clad mountains of Tibet." The Antarctic wastes', are riot more-desolate than ' these " strangely, 'attractive plains, according to Sven, Hedin's own description of them.. For eighty | days this cultured : gentleman,;, who could enjoy 'the hospitality and intercourse of Lord Labj .Minto. and Lord Kitchener, toiled through an, ice-bound desert, with the temperature frequently ~ below zero, arid lashed' by terrific blizzards, with a caravan of a hundred mules and horses, and about; forty native followers. ,' They;: crossed : repeated passes 18,000 feet and more in.heighfc, where the "air' wis so rarefied •; that they had to stop every few minutes and fight for.breath.,. In.the/daily snow and hail-storms' the' animals would' turn their tails to the .driving hail, .arid, thus leave* tho'track, and; have to-be ; driven again into, .the right -, The whole caravan would stumble on, and no one knew where it. was going. At night "the moonlight fell:in:sheaves;'of -rays through an atmosphere'of fine sriow crystals. Absolute silence I One can hear the' puppies', hearts beat, the ticking "of'the-chronometer, the cold of night descending and penetrating into the earth."' ; Horses and mules died daily, after fearful agonies. Out of a-'.'.-hundred; roughly, withwhich the. party started,' none .survived this fearful journey across thebleak plateau." \ Twice'. ; SvEn;,HEbiN. arid a; follower ventured ■ upon lake voyages, and . were', overtaken', by; tremendous ! 'storms,; which '..flung thoiri :up on a ; surf-beaten -shore,-' and left them' frozen and. almost ;dead.* On one occasion waiting wolves upon, the'., shore -' threatened 1; . a.... 'dreadful; death so soon as,the mad waves should 'daA'iihem: ; '6n';'to'.''.t!iio'/'''Btrarid.; ; ',:De- j scribing the conclusion .of their first adventure of this kind, Sven Hedin. says,: "We 1 wereiquite; numbed;' no wonder,' :fpr the, wafer froze; in out clothes so that"they crackled- whentouched.; The water, "ont the bottom of the boat (beneath which they sheltered), '.turned to,.ice; my fur'coat' was as hard as a board,; and. absolutely useless.. 'Hands arid .feet; were stiff;; arid',' had'.'!lost "all:...feeling'; '.'.TO must get;up or we- should be quite frozen. !.' .■',-■. ;How were ..we; to

pass, the night with 29 degrees of frost,' and wet clothes already stiffened into cuirasses of ice? Could we keep alive till the sun rose?" A tiny fire was lighted, and they kept alive.

;;\ Svbn .HEDiN : .was..very ill..for';days i,before'.-'the caravan fell in. with nomads,'and'. .-finally. ■■■.reached;. the Tibetan- Bacred city of .Shigatse; ; The : explorer had' interesting; interviews with': the .Tashi ' Lama, ; 'one'; of." the two great spiritual heads of. Buddhism, and'was allowed to see the inside of-a Buddhist monastery. This was about the; only : portion .of his two years': travels, whichthe ordinary, man would find attractive. : On his return- journey to India he discoy-. ered the sources of the Brahmaputra,Indus;' 1 arid Sutlej Rivers;/and then, setoff, again -to repeat, with/aggravated hardships,- his';former, journey over the plateaux!' A few hew mountains discovered in a score; of ■ inaccessible ranges,'three river'sources whose positions, within a' - thousand miles must have ■ been known before, are .the result of two years' .labour and privations, almost passing, human strength. The mind of'the explorer deems them a magnificent reward. ~-, '-■' : ;:'-:';. ■''.:■■ '..'; :

: Surely the explorers must-be valued .as the pith /arid youth-of the world, for only youth cab rejoice in labours so immensely disproportionate to their result. The explorer has, ; " to; ..strain.:' his;" superfluous strength, as: young /dogs tear. at everything, to bring out their, teeth. The' "call,of .the,-wiid"..is> the".rare in:.'»'.' aneient people, of the old resistless. roving energies of their "nomadic' prime. The world iB; not bo old while these men still exist, /and find space,; even in-the deserts, to let.loose their energies. .In the far-off future, when all Antarctica is occupied with consumption sanatoria,; and "God-help-us Island" is ..the scene'- of holiday excursions run from Timbuctoo, and the Brahmaputra's source can ;-be seen by, all and everyone from Brahmaputra" Terrace, the explorers will have languished and died out, and civilisation will have lost one of its most wholesome inspirations.