New-York tribune., 1885-08-11
TRAVELS IN CENTRAL ASIA
AN ryGLrsHMAN IN THE CARS POSSES
SIONS.

AN EyGLIsHMAN IN THE CARS POSSES
SIONs.
aussJkN SEsTRaE kAvA ASlA Asp aEky
IANsDELL. ID. ID. Maps ana ihnstrauons' ,iimin e
volumes, Pr. 6si-7o2. Bost0n Housn'sn' Am'n q
DR.. Lausdell, the author, or perhaps 1t would %
moro correct to say the compiler, OF these TWO
pouderous volumes, some years ago made Journey
through Siberia his account OF which had some
vorna The principal object OK his travels, DOM
on that occasion and later to distribute copies
of the Bible and New Testament. In Siberia ne
supplied oil the prisons abundantly Win 'his
literature, together with religious tracts, anu
everywhere he seems to have accepted WIN "a
questioning faith the assurances OF tnc poh'o
officials that the exiles aud prisoners woaid DO GU
raptured with the gifts Encoursgei oy h'S SUE
cess in the role of colporur he was moved 10 eAeh
hi. missioparv labcrs. and being assisted by some
London societies and benevolent individuals ne S0'
out to traverse Russian Central ASIA
From the first he helped greatly py 'he
Russian Government, which so commehdeo hi'h "
the Provincial Governors aud so fortined MN
With Imnerial passports that his journey was prob
abIv the smoothest on record. the same way
the Provincial Governors in their turn helped
him forward through the territories under their
SWAY. and SO he travelled through Bokhara ana
Khiya and Kulda with as little impediment OF peril
as though he had been Russian general. Gong
everywhere under the protection the White GAR
in the recently conquered Khanatcs of course he
neither saw nor heard anything preiudicial to his
patrons The Asiatics with whom he came In con-
tact naturally regarded him Russian officialt to
all practlcaI intents, and treated him with becom
ing deference Owing to the same causes he had
very few adventures and those of the tamest KIND
It NAV be doubted whether any one ever traVeied
40 far with few strange or exciting experiences
and one of the consequences is that he has been
driven to record great deal of triyia!ity which is
not worth preserving.
This however, is not the explanation OF the enor-
nous bulk of his volumes. That is due to tho
strange conception that he was under obligations
to write histories of every province he passed
through Accordingly he has emptied the contents
of the encyclopedias into his pages and as II that
were not enough has drawn heavily on all the works
ON the natural history Of Central Asia he could
find in the public libraries. Some of his statistics
are derived from Russian sources and are therefore
new. and NAV be more accurate than external
sources of infornation though Russian official sta
tstcs have for many years been so discredted that
IL IA difficult to know what of confidence to
give to these Mr. Iansdell himself is evidently
man of Astounding receptivity. Nothing in the
shane of information comes amiss to him. At times
il looks to the reader if he might have been pur-
posely mised by his informants, but no suspicion
of the possibility of this to have crossed
his mind.
Apart from the Russian statistics. which may or
NAV not be of value there is really not great deal
that is new in tho work. To those who know
nothing at all Of the countries described it is cal
cuated to serve a reference book, for 1t Is well
indexed and that is point which deserves men,
ton and credit, seeing how many much better
books are rendered useless by the omission of in
dexes in these days of slovenly book-makng But
MI. Lansdell adds scarcely anything to what was
previously known of the regions he travcrsed, and
his predecessors travelled in so much more adven-
turous and picturesque a way that the
world will naturally continue to prefer their
accounts. The personal element indeed enters
very largely into his narrative. Whenever a Khan
presented him with a khalat, or robe OF honor,
his first iupuse to have been to get himself
photographed in it, and it is the same with all
other novelties in costume. The result is quite an
excessive number of pictures OF the author now
in coat of mail again in a khalat, ETC., until the
reader Is apt TO become rather weary of these DIS
plays Of vanity. Another popularity OF the author
his fonduess for identifying everything he sees in
the Khanates manners, customs. dress, and so
forth. with Scripture text and descriptions 1t
may easily De unuerStOUu thdt tnc uIipleSSioh
drced on him by the constant correspondence be-
tween ancient and modern life in Central Asia was
considerable, but he might have remembered that
the existence of these correspondence was no rev.
elation to the world at large and tina. therefore it
could not be necessary demonstrate it repeated
" by citations of chapter and verse.
Several chapters are devoted to the subject Of
Russian prisons. In his Through Siberia Slr.
Lansdell gave an account of the prisons in that
g1on which appeared totally at variance with
all the descriptions given by Russian exiIes and
prisoners that suspicion was excited concerning
its accuracy. In fact it alleged that the Rus
sian Government had prepared the prisons espec-
tally for MI Lansdel. and that lie was deceived by
appearances of cleanness, good diet, kind treat
ment and general mIldness. got up on purpose to
take him in. He returns to the subject, defends
his account of the prisons and joins squarely
with Prince KIapotkuc "Stepniak" and
other Russian writer's in regard to the
prisons of the Fortress of st. Peter
ard ST. Paul. and especially the much-discussed
Troubetzkoy Bastion or Ravelin. About two years
ago terrible account of this latter place was pub
lished by the Nihtsts. 1t purported to have been
originally written with his own blood by political
prisoner confined in the Bastion underground cells.
The Russian police assert that instead of being
written IN prison with blood 1t was written at
Geneva with red ink. "Stepniak," in his
recent book Russia under the Cars" quotes
from it, and from other sources gives a blood
curdling description of the barbarities
OF the prison treatment. Mr.. LansdeH
on bis side says that he allowed to inspect all
the prisons in the Fortress of st. Peter and ST.
Paul; that he saw no underground cells at all, and
no damp and no dark cells; that the prisoners he
saw appeared to be well cared for. some of them
when found being carelessly disposed on their beds.
smoking cigars and reading; that the diet as de-
scribed to him was neither insufficient nor bad
and that with the one exception of exercise in the
OPEN air the prisoners appeared be as we'll OF as
those of any prison in Europe. He. however, ad.
mits beioe told after his inspection that he had