RANDOM READINGS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 560, 19 April 1913, Page 7

RANDOM READINGS.

KURDS AND THE GYMNASTIC

WAY. George H. Hep worth, in "Through Armenia qp Horseback," relates a humorous incident which occurred while he was putting up at a Kurdish village which possessed but one living-room:— "In the morning I began my regular gymnastics, stooping until my fingers touched the floor, throwing my arms about like the spokes of a wheel, striking out,from the shoulder, and going through all the exercises, none of which I ever oaiitted. I .would gladly have taken a sponge bath, but it would have been impossible to get enough water for one —a pint is enough to suffice a Turk.

"Well, I got under way with my exercises, when I saw that my audience was excited; conversation dropped into a whisper, then ceased ; word passed from one to another, and one by one the occupants of the room left noiselessly. I feared that they were offended, and wanted to call them back and' apologise. Just then my dragoman entered, laughing. " 'What has happened ' I asked. "His laughter increased as he replied— " 'The Kurds think you are practising devotional religious exercises and they retired under the impression that you would regard their presence as an intrusion.

SUNDOWN IN THE ARCTIC. * We were at the foot of Humboldt Glacier when the sun bade us a final adieu for a long winter night, not to appear again for many months to come. As though to leave us with a pleasant memory of his visit, his going was in an effulgence of glorv, and, reluctant to go, he lingered for a little while below the horizon, lighting the sky with a mass of marvellous colouring—red, purple, and orange, reaching upward from the white earth Into the deep blue of the high heavens. For a time a prolonged twilight remained, but that, too, was presently lost behind the dark curtain that shut from our world all warmth and light. No words can adequately describe the awful pall of the Arctic night. It is unreal and terrible. Even the moonlight is unnatural, casting on the snow : and ice» the wind swept rocks, and the people themselves, a shade of ghastly, indefinable greenish yellow. Shifting shadows flit among moving ice masses like wraiths of departed spirits. A deathlike silence prevails, to be broken only by the startling and unexpected crackling of a glacier with a sound of mighty thunder clap, or the smashing together of great ice floes with a report like heavy cannon.

In spite of one, depression takes possession of the soul —a hopeless kind of unreasoning depression. Intense and severe as the cold maybe, anv active man can stand it without serious suffering, when a little experience teaches how, for that acts only on the physical being, and can only be guarded, against; but _ the prolonged, sunless night has a direct effect on the human mind which only exercise and diversion can counteract. —From "Hunting from the Eskimos," by Harry Whitney.

UNEXPLORED LANDS.

"It is a mistake to assume that most ol" the earth's surface has been explored." In many parts of the woVld, it points out, there are still fresh fields for the explorer. There is, for example, still something new to be expected out of Africa. In the Sahara the highlands of Tibesti and Ahaggar need exploring, and the district of Wadai has been visited by very few. Again, the region between Lake Rudolf and Abyssinia., and the valley of Sobat, a tributary of the White Nile, is almost unknown. There is also an unknown Asia. An area of more than 400 miles square awaits the explorer in Arabia. There is also much to be- investigated in Asia Minor. Persia, again, offers unexplored regions in Turkestan and the country of the Persian Kurd. There are passes from .Thibet into Nepal awaiting the traveller, and much unknown land in south-western Thibet. The great mountain and river systems between India and China invite the geographical explorer. That great mass of islands lying to the south of Asia, and including little-known New Guinea, offers a great field of investigation, and doubtless contains many surprises. Turning to the New World, we find that there are still vast unknown tracts in Canada. The most ' extensive unexplored regions, however, are said to exist in South America'. In his wonderful Trans-Hima-layan journeys Sven Hedin has done much to wipe off the reproach of "Unexplored" written so large across the maps of Thibet, but he has not exhausted that land of mystery. There is still much work for the' traveller in those elevated re-' gions of the earth.* As the great Swedish traveller himself says: "1 have been able to follow and lay down only the chid" geographical lines; between my routes many blank spaces are still left, and there is sullicicnt (Wailed work Tor °eneralions of and Irawiicrs more thoroughlv prepared and bet-