THROUGH JADE GATE AND CENTRAL ASIA: An Account of Journeys in Kansu, Turkestan, and the Gobi Desert, by Mildred Cable and Francesca French. London: Constable & Co., Ltd. Price 10s.
This is the story of a hazardous journey by three ladies of the China Inland Mission, who made their way across the largely untracked spaces of North-Western China and Central Asia. These ladies had spent twenty-one years in the province of Shansi in schoolwork. The story of their great adventure is told simply, without any straining after effect or heroic posing. The marvel is that ever they reached this country alive when one considers the extremes of heat and cold they encountered, the marshy swamps through which they passed, the dreary tracts of desert they traversed, and the swollen rivers they crossed. They were exposed continually to the attacks of robbers, yet they came safely through it. The sober way in which the story is told gives a reality to its romance. The remarkable kindness shown to these ladies by people who were of an alien race and creed shows that the custom of entertaining strangers exists where Christianity is unknown, though the motive prompting it must be very different from that which lies behind the hospitality inculcated in the New Testament. The story of the conditions existing among the different peoples met with on the journey and the superstition that characterises their religious worship is a trumpet call to the Christian Church not to rest content until these nations shall have the Gospel of our Lord brought to their doors.