Evening star., 1934-10-14
CONTINUED From Fourth Page.)

(Contlnueo from tOurtn Fage.j
woman behaves with dignity" or, as
her Chinese courier Kitaislxi, on her
sledge journey across the Siberian
steppes, said, sis educated" Mrs,
baltimore also felt exhilaration
throughout her long trek from Peking
to Join her husband at Chuguchak,
on the Siberian-Turkestan border.
II have had a queer kind Of pleasure
out Of suffering from the filth and
squalor and discomfort of this trip.
It is so awful that it's funny. And
in a way it's rather glorious. I like
knowing I can have grand time in
spite of it. And it's glorious because
ats real and human. It's all expert
ence'."
The first part of her book deScrib-
ing her adventures on the Trans
Siberian Railway, her stay at Semi
palatinsk with the Kosloffs in their
one-room home, already occupied by
two adults, two children and the dog
and the cat, with two boarders for
meals, and the 17-day sledge journey
to Chuguchak is the most unusual.
Curiosity and humor made every hap
pening interesting to her and she
successfully transfers her interest to
the reader. Descriptions of the nest
of furs into which she was packed
on the sledge, surrounded by bag
gage, the frequent overturns, troubles
with carriers and their exhausted
horses, the recurrent meals of tea,
hard bread and bits of boiled or
roasted mutton, and the romantic
and filthy" Chinese or Chanto inns
at which she stopped, all uniform in
their yellow mud walls, dark, smoky,
low-ceilinged interiors and felt-cov-
cred floors, are detailed and vivid, as
are also her word sketches of Kazak,
Mongol, Russian. Chinese, Chanto
and Tatar types.
At Chuguchak, Mrs baltimore met
her husband and the two continued
their nomad trip, with the help of a
valuable eX-Boxer servant, Moses,
and two ponies, Islander and Mean
der, through deserts, mountains,
and oases and at last over the five
high passes to Leh and across the
last ridges of the HimalayaS to KaSh-
mir, from which lovely but tourist
ridden land we re-entered the world,
Tebelliously." The year of wandering
and adventure was a wedding Jour-
ney ION top of the world" End
paper maps show the route and the
drawings add greatly to the graphic
quality Of the narrative.
x x X
RETREAT FROM GLORY. BY r. H.
Bruce Lockhart. New York: G.. P.
Putnams Sons.
TN BRITISH AGENT" Mr.. Lock-
= hart, a special agent of the Brit
tsh government in Russia, was not
altogether candid with his readers.
He gave the impression of being alb
solutely frank, even indiscreet, in his
revelations of the intrigues in which
he was involved on behalf of his gov
ernment and, in his spare time, on
his own account, but he stopped short
of telling everything and at the end
left his readers with many questions
IN their minds. In this sequel to
British Agent" he satisfies some of
that curiosity and tells of his further
AoAC LID 4CSd1 1IOlll
Russia. He did not return to popular
ity either with the British foreign
Office or with his wife and his parents
and epiStle- writing grandmother. The
foreign Office did not appreciate all
that he had done in Russia and his
family had heard of 'Moura," who
had shared his society and his arrest
during that last year in Russia.
Mr.. Lockhart's temperament did
not, however, fit him for the role
of repentant prodigal, nor for that
of neurotic invalid, which his rela-
tives would have assigned to him. He
was soon on the trail of new inter-
national entanglements. which his
versatility readily provided. He went
to Prague as commercial diplomatic
secretary. with the aim of becoming
a minister in the service shortly, an
ambition which has not been fulfilled
There he had an opportunity to dab
BILE in the intrigueS Of postwar Cen
tral Europe and he tells some illum-
mating things about them, as well as
about the men who were then playing
the leading parts-MaSaIyk and BeneS,
Social diversions commanded much of
his time and are given much space
in his narrative, for he has obviously
always loved play. The reason for his
resignation at Prague was, briefly,
debts. Banking appealed to him as a
good occupation in which to pay debts
and make a fortune, SO he became an
employe of British banking concern
having branches in Central Europe.
1t did not succeed. Next he tried
journalism, and in that profession. for
which he seems especially fitted, he
is at present gambling with fate and
earning his bread and butter. Whether
or not the wild Macgregor blood of
which Mr.. Lockhart is so proud is
responsible for his restless, adventur-
Gus, unaccountable personality, the
last words to his son of one of his
Macgregor ancestors seem to have be-
come his life's maxim: Keep thou
unSoiled the freedom which I leave
thee as birthright."
X X x
THE LONG DAY CLOSES. BY Bea-
trice Tunstall Garden City: Dou-
bleday, Doran & Co.
TN HER earlier novel, "The Shiny
- Night" which was delight for
lovers of good fiction, Beatrice Tun-
stall proved that she knows and is
capable of producing all the elements
of superior romance-the atmosphere,
language and feeling of rich period
of the past heroic and cowardly deeds,
dark doings, vengeance, superstition,
love till death. For the groundwork
OF THE Long Day Closes" she has
chosen one Of the most romantic times
In English history, that year of 1745,
when the Young Pretender, Charles
Edward Stuart, landed on the coast
of the Scottish Highlands and, with
the support of large numbers of High
landers, headed by the gallant Cam
eron of Lochiel, invaded England as
far as Derby. London was in panic,
the Bank of England was forced to
pay in siXpenses and George III con-
veyed his valuables to yacht in the
Channel, ready to flee to Hanover.
The failure of this final attempt of
the Stuarts to regain the throne has