The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-04-03
REMARKABLE TRIP Of
AN ENGLISH OFFICER
Found Nomand Women in Chinese
Turkistan Riding Buoking
Horses.

Especial Cable to Herald-Republican)
London, April 2.-Strange and exciting
tales OF adventure are told by Lieutenant
Etherton, young English officer, who
has Just returned to his native land after
completing a secret mission on behalf of
the British government in Asia. He spent
three months in hts overland journey
from the Himalayas. through Chinese
Turkistan, Mongolia. and Siberia, to the
Trans-SibeFian railway, a total distance
of nearly 4o00 miles. Some idea of the
remarkable nature of Lieutenant Ether
toms explorations may be CLEANED from
the fact that he encountered:
Strange nOmad women in Chlnese-Tur-
kistan who ride bucking horses In thigh
boots with high French heels, and are
wooed and won by being captured on
horseback. AS many as a dozen suitOrs
frequently take part in an exciting
"chase of love-,
District officials who were completely
won over by the gift of a bottle of pre-
served gooseberries or box of assorted
crystallized fruit;
Monaghan natives who were utterly
cOwed by the daily "telescOping' of the
explorer cOIIapsible bed;
A mysterious deserted lake, near the
Russian frontier, eight hundred miles in
extent. but of unknown depth, in which
no fish swim and no boats float.
I'VE started from LansdOwne, in the
Himalayas, on March Is, 1909, said Lieu
tenant Etherton in describing his journey.
'The expedition, in addition to myself,
consisted of ten men, ali of whom, how
ever. with the exception of my sturdy Hit
tie Garhwali orderly, who is here with
me now, were changed from time to
time.
s'Our itinerary. which can be readily
followed In outline on any map, was as
follows:
''From Lansdowne to Rawalpindi, Kash-
mir, Giigit, Honza, over the Pamirs-'the
Roof OF the World by the little
known Yarkand river into the Kulan
Urgu valley; thence into the Asgar Sal
valley, and on to Yarkand, continuing
through Chinese tlrkistan, over the Tian
Chan mountains to Mongolia, across the
Altai mountains to Siberia, and so to
the Trans-SibeTian railway-which was
struck at NOYo NicholaeYska station;
thence by rail 20 Moscow, Warsaw and
Berlin. and so through Hanover to Eng
land.
1.-THE journey by the route followed
had never been made before.
at was in proceeding by the Yarkand
river and crossing hitherto untFodden
pass that l had my first disaster. This
pass is II, 400 feet high. The descent was
exceptionally steep, and the bridle-path-
ii was little mOre-was frozen as smooth
as glass One of my yek~men, who was
carrying some valuable camera slides and
measurement records. suddenly slipped
and fell 500 feet his drop to death being
punotuated by the tinkle of breaking
slides.
1T was In the Tfan Chan district of
Chinese Turkistan that we encountered
the strange Kalmuck women, one of them.
although wearing leather thigh-boots with
abnormaIly high heels. managed readily
to ride and subdue a bucking horse that
was the despair of my orderly. These
Kalnnuoks are born hOrsemen and horse
women IN the Tian Chan the horse
thieves proved very troublesome one of
my hunters losing thirty-six horses out
OF 100.
eve crossed into the Black Irish. val-