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News from Tartary
In 1935 Peter Fleming, an editor for the London Times and, interestingly, Ian Fleming's older brother, set out from Peking for Kashmir. It was a 3500 mile journey across the roof of the world. He chose as his traveling companion Ella Maillart, a beautiful Swiss journalist.
Fleming is one to underemphasize difficulties. He describes events and places in brilliant color and detail, also with great wit and humor. His story of the journey, a seven month odyssey through desert and upland, virtually uncharted, has become a classic of travel literature since its publication in 1936.
"No writer has given a keener picture of unchanging Tartary than has Fleming, and his description of Sinkiang reveals the last home of international intrigue, politics, violence and melodrama, where all foreigners are suspects and none welcome."
394 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1936
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3151 people want to read
About the author
Peter Fleming
33 books48 followersAdventurer and travel writer. A brother of James Bond author Ian Fleming, he married actress Celia Johnson in 1935 and worked on military deception operations in World War II. He was a grandson of the Scottish financier Robert Fleming, who founded the Scottish American Investment Trust and the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 87 reviews
March 25, 2024
For those who aren’t aware, Forbidden Journey, by Ella Maillart and News From Tartary by Peter Fleming both describe the same journey, at the same time, taken together. They were somewhat reluctant companions, who both expressed their misgivings about undertaking the journey together.
"The jokes were flying. Somebody observed that Peter’s last book was called One’s Company, and the English edition of my last book, was Turkestan Solo. Now here we were, contrary to all our principles, going off together!”
In both Forbidden Journey and News From the Tartary the authors distance themselves from the greatness of their work. Fleming goes so far in his Foreword to say “Anyone familiar, even vicariously, with the regions which he traversed will recognise the inadequacy of my descriptions of them… we were no specialists. The world’s stock of knowledge – geographical, ethnological, meteorological, what you will – gained nothing from our journey. Nor did we mean that it should. Much as we should have liked to justify our existence by bringing back material which would have set the hive of learned men buzzing… we were not qualified to do so. We measured no skulls, we took no readings; we would not have known how. We travelled for two reasons only… We wanted to find out what was happening in Sinkiang… the second… was because we believed, in the light of previous experience, that we should enjoy it. It turned out we were right. We enjoyed it very much.”
Both these books were written in a fairy humble, self-deprecating way, something I hadn’t expected from Fleming in particular. I had found his One's Company: A Journey to China in 1933 written quite pretentiously, and I hadn’t enjoyed it much at all. News from the Tartary however is not written this way at all.
Both books come across as accurately written, where one omits detail the other picks detail up, but they don’t contradict each other. It may be that one author takes more from one encounter, or one location than the other, or one author is more involved in the conversation with a certain person, and therefore finds more to describe. At times an even that might take a chapter to explain in one book is bypassed with a sentence in the other book. I don’t think anything would be lost from reading only one or other of these books, but I enjoyed the novelty of reading them together .
It is fair to say that the journey was not unique – it was not the first time this route had been followed, but it was the first time for a number of years, and it would be a number more before it was repeated. But to say that the journey of Maillart and Fleming was an inspiration for dozens of other intrepid travellers is no exaggeration.
Great books. I have opted to review them together… mainly due to the fact I read them together and can’t really separate them.
"The jokes were flying. Somebody observed that Peter’s last book was called One’s Company, and the English edition of my last book, was Turkestan Solo. Now here we were, contrary to all our principles, going off together!”
In both Forbidden Journey and News From the Tartary the authors distance themselves from the greatness of their work. Fleming goes so far in his Foreword to say “Anyone familiar, even vicariously, with the regions which he traversed will recognise the inadequacy of my descriptions of them… we were no specialists. The world’s stock of knowledge – geographical, ethnological, meteorological, what you will – gained nothing from our journey. Nor did we mean that it should. Much as we should have liked to justify our existence by bringing back material which would have set the hive of learned men buzzing… we were not qualified to do so. We measured no skulls, we took no readings; we would not have known how. We travelled for two reasons only… We wanted to find out what was happening in Sinkiang… the second… was because we believed, in the light of previous experience, that we should enjoy it. It turned out we were right. We enjoyed it very much.”
Both these books were written in a fairy humble, self-deprecating way, something I hadn’t expected from Fleming in particular. I had found his One's Company: A Journey to China in 1933 written quite pretentiously, and I hadn’t enjoyed it much at all. News from the Tartary however is not written this way at all.
Both books come across as accurately written, where one omits detail the other picks detail up, but they don’t contradict each other. It may be that one author takes more from one encounter, or one location than the other, or one author is more involved in the conversation with a certain person, and therefore finds more to describe. At times an even that might take a chapter to explain in one book is bypassed with a sentence in the other book. I don’t think anything would be lost from reading only one or other of these books, but I enjoyed the novelty of reading them together .
It is fair to say that the journey was not unique – it was not the first time this route had been followed, but it was the first time for a number of years, and it would be a number more before it was repeated. But to say that the journey of Maillart and Fleming was an inspiration for dozens of other intrepid travellers is no exaggeration.
Great books. I have opted to review them together… mainly due to the fact I read them together and can’t really separate them.
September 26, 2020
A long-read if ever there was one, and I enjoyed every minute and every mile.
For readers of travel literature there will always be favorite writers.
Some use a flowering language, making every sound and smell enjoyable - and in some cases not - to the reader, some are matter-of-factly in every sense of the word and some are spinning tales and elaborating on myths and hear-say they come across on their way.
However, the best travel writers are the ones without prejudice and the ones who are ready to admit to it when things en-route are difficult and challenging.
Peter Fleming is it all, he meticulously narrates from the seven months and about 3,500 miles long journey through Central Asia, leaving very little out of the tale, and when, mostly when he finds it a repetition or boring.
Compared to many of his contemporaries he is wonderfully openminded and very little damaged from the colonial mindset you will encounter when reading e.g. Evelyn Waugh and his relationship with and attitude towards the many different people he meet on his way is never based on a feeling of superiority in any way but only the immediate interaction between human beings.
For readers of travel literature there will always be favorite writers.
Some use a flowering language, making every sound and smell enjoyable - and in some cases not - to the reader, some are matter-of-factly in every sense of the word and some are spinning tales and elaborating on myths and hear-say they come across on their way.
However, the best travel writers are the ones without prejudice and the ones who are ready to admit to it when things en-route are difficult and challenging.
Peter Fleming is it all, he meticulously narrates from the seven months and about 3,500 miles long journey through Central Asia, leaving very little out of the tale, and when, mostly when he finds it a repetition or boring.
Compared to many of his contemporaries he is wonderfully openminded and very little damaged from the colonial mindset you will encounter when reading e.g. Evelyn Waugh and his relationship with and attitude towards the many different people he meet on his way is never based on a feeling of superiority in any way but only the immediate interaction between human beings.
July 5, 2015
"Kini's acute sense of smell I have mentioned as a handicap in travel; but here it stood us in good stead. She went out to have a look at the surviving camels and caught a whiff of rotting flesh; it came from the Prime Minister's camel, originally christened The Pearl of the Tsaidam and now known as The Pearl for short. Kini brought him into camp and we took his packsaddle off; on the spine between the humps an ancient sore under the skin had reopened and was festering fast. We pegged his head down and with little help from the Turkis, who were hopeless with animals, Kini doctored it despite his bellows. It looked a terrible place, but she made such a good job of it that it healed completely within a few days."
Do not be led by the star rating. There is a reason for the three stars, but on no accounts do 3 stars mean that this book is not worth your time.
News from Tartary is a great book. Peter Fleming had a marvellous ability to write. This report of his travel from Beijing across China and into India via Kashmir is a fantastic account of what it was like for a European to set out on a trip that very few people had accomplished before and that few adventurers have managed to describe to a Western readership since the days of Marco Polo.
When Fleming set out on his trip in 1935, he soon had to abandon his plans of travelling alone. Because of the political upheaval in China at the time - Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the rise of the Communist army - roads were blocked and warrants issued for anyone who did not have the right papers, the right connections, or the right demeanor. It was at this point that Fleming joined forces with Ella ("Kini") Maillart, a Swiss traveller and writer, who had also planned to follow the Silk Road across China - by herself.
Neither of them wanted to join forces, but the alternative for both would have been to abandon the trip. Together, they could produce enough languages, life skills, money, and passports/visa to at least leave Beijing - and try and by-pass the official control posts. Maillart also wrote an account of this trip in her book Forbidden Journey , but unlike Fleming her outlook on the trip and the content of her observations are quite different.
When reading News from Tartary, I probably learned more about Fleming than about the people he meets and the countries he passes through. It is also good to remember that when Fleming set out on his trip, he worked as a political correspondent for The Times, and much of Fleming's interests in the book focus on the political and military situation in China. For example, Fleming goes into quite some detail about the political leaders he meets, and troop movements he observes. As it turns out, however, his enthusiasm for political analysis may not have made up for a lack of expertise or indeed a lack of understanding of Chinese culture and society.
And this is really the crux of my hesitation to rate this book any higher: Fleming tried hard to transcend the stifled English attitude and open up to experience this different world that he threw himself into, but he never really manages to fully do this. As a result, the book reads like a boy's own adventure story - which it is, of course - but which could have been so much more in that his preoccupation with the British perspective seems to have blinded him to the marvels and wonders of the people and landscape he took so much trouble to encounter.
Do not be led by the star rating. There is a reason for the three stars, but on no accounts do 3 stars mean that this book is not worth your time.
News from Tartary is a great book. Peter Fleming had a marvellous ability to write. This report of his travel from Beijing across China and into India via Kashmir is a fantastic account of what it was like for a European to set out on a trip that very few people had accomplished before and that few adventurers have managed to describe to a Western readership since the days of Marco Polo.
When Fleming set out on his trip in 1935, he soon had to abandon his plans of travelling alone. Because of the political upheaval in China at the time - Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the rise of the Communist army - roads were blocked and warrants issued for anyone who did not have the right papers, the right connections, or the right demeanor. It was at this point that Fleming joined forces with Ella ("Kini") Maillart, a Swiss traveller and writer, who had also planned to follow the Silk Road across China - by herself.
Neither of them wanted to join forces, but the alternative for both would have been to abandon the trip. Together, they could produce enough languages, life skills, money, and passports/visa to at least leave Beijing - and try and by-pass the official control posts. Maillart also wrote an account of this trip in her book Forbidden Journey , but unlike Fleming her outlook on the trip and the content of her observations are quite different.
When reading News from Tartary, I probably learned more about Fleming than about the people he meets and the countries he passes through. It is also good to remember that when Fleming set out on his trip, he worked as a political correspondent for The Times, and much of Fleming's interests in the book focus on the political and military situation in China. For example, Fleming goes into quite some detail about the political leaders he meets, and troop movements he observes. As it turns out, however, his enthusiasm for political analysis may not have made up for a lack of expertise or indeed a lack of understanding of Chinese culture and society.
And this is really the crux of my hesitation to rate this book any higher: Fleming tried hard to transcend the stifled English attitude and open up to experience this different world that he threw himself into, but he never really manages to fully do this. As a result, the book reads like a boy's own adventure story - which it is, of course - but which could have been so much more in that his preoccupation with the British perspective seems to have blinded him to the marvels and wonders of the people and landscape he took so much trouble to encounter.
October 28, 2018
First read circa 1982, this remains one of my absolute all-time favorites -- I reread it every few years, and always keep a dictionary handy. No one writes with the elegance and bone dry humor of the late 19th/early 20th century British explorers. My very first nominee for the title "Best. Book. Ever."
September 15, 2015
I enjoyed Fleming's book To Peking: A Forgotten Journey from Moscow to Manchuria very much, and a commenter on that review suggested I read this one. I'm so glad I did. It was a delightful account of two people's travels to a place they absolutely weren't supposed to go--and did anyway. Fleming has a witty, dry voice that draws you in and makes even his accounts of the political situation in Asia in the 1930s interesting. The deserts of central Asia come alive--if you can call it that when so much of the journey takes place in lands bare of any form of life.
Fleming and his companion, Ella "Kini" Maillart, endure any number of privations with a nonchalance that left me stunned. I'm trying not to imagine something called tsamba, which is a sort of meal mixed with tea into a lump of I don't even know what to compare it to. Sometimes the tea is mixed with a lump of rancid yak's butter, which frankly I thought Terry Pratchett made up. Fleming's enthusiasm for hunting combines both his love of the hunt and his need for food that isn't sawdust-meal and yak butter. Reading this book made my appetite disappear. Also amusing are Fleming's infrequent comments on what it was like traveling with a woman he wasn't romantically interested in; at one point he says that if this were a romance novel, he and Kini would have fallen madly in love by then, but unfortunately for the reputation of romances, they remained platonically friendly.
Though Fleming's attitudes are those of an Englishman of his time, with casually racist assumptions about the Asians he encounters, the fact that he makes equally broad and probably unjustified generalizations about every non-European he meets tempers those assumptions. He's also quick to ascribe positive characteristics to anyone, regardless of race, and my overall impression is of a man who valued his own civilization but saw good things in that of others. I'm definitely interested in reading more of his journeys.
Fleming and his companion, Ella "Kini" Maillart, endure any number of privations with a nonchalance that left me stunned. I'm trying not to imagine something called tsamba, which is a sort of meal mixed with tea into a lump of I don't even know what to compare it to. Sometimes the tea is mixed with a lump of rancid yak's butter, which frankly I thought Terry Pratchett made up. Fleming's enthusiasm for hunting combines both his love of the hunt and his need for food that isn't sawdust-meal and yak butter. Reading this book made my appetite disappear. Also amusing are Fleming's infrequent comments on what it was like traveling with a woman he wasn't romantically interested in; at one point he says that if this were a romance novel, he and Kini would have fallen madly in love by then, but unfortunately for the reputation of romances, they remained platonically friendly.
Though Fleming's attitudes are those of an Englishman of his time, with casually racist assumptions about the Asians he encounters, the fact that he makes equally broad and probably unjustified generalizations about every non-European he meets tempers those assumptions. He's also quick to ascribe positive characteristics to anyone, regardless of race, and my overall impression is of a man who valued his own civilization but saw good things in that of others. I'm definitely interested in reading more of his journeys.
July 4, 2011
I unwittingly did this book a great disservice. And so it is not really a reflection on the book that I nearly gave it 3 stars. I therefore gave it 4.
The problem was, I read an incredible 5 star book (Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger) before News From Tartary and in light of that, News from Tartary paled in comparison.
I never felt a personal connection with this book, the people profiled within it, including the author, or the environment they travelled through. It was all just a bit intangible. It was also old fashioned, which Arabian Sands had not been, and that also shed News From Tartary in poor light. Robert Fleming is a man who calls American Indians 'Red Indians' and hunts for pleasure, an antiquated activity that led to many a Westerner taking photos of themselves standing over dead lions and elephants, or having them stuffed for their drawing rooms. This is the kind of old fashioned writer and book that I don't like.
I don't appreciate former generations who took such little interest in vanishing species and environment and cultures. People who lusted for adventure travel and rode out into the vast interiors of the continents with a dozen guides and servants, a pipe in their mouth and a general disregard for the lands they travelled through.
So, this is why I nearly gave it 3 stars, but ended with 4.
Wilfred Thesiger showed me in his book, Arabian Sands, that being of this era doesn't have to mean hunting for pleasure and that you can do things for yourself and that you can incorporate other cultures into your routine and life while you travel - as opposed to simply observing them from the saddle of your horse or the door of your tent.
Robert Fleming showed me nothing that even came close to this in News From Tartary.
The problem was, I read an incredible 5 star book (Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger) before News From Tartary and in light of that, News from Tartary paled in comparison.
I never felt a personal connection with this book, the people profiled within it, including the author, or the environment they travelled through. It was all just a bit intangible. It was also old fashioned, which Arabian Sands had not been, and that also shed News From Tartary in poor light. Robert Fleming is a man who calls American Indians 'Red Indians' and hunts for pleasure, an antiquated activity that led to many a Westerner taking photos of themselves standing over dead lions and elephants, or having them stuffed for their drawing rooms. This is the kind of old fashioned writer and book that I don't like.
I don't appreciate former generations who took such little interest in vanishing species and environment and cultures. People who lusted for adventure travel and rode out into the vast interiors of the continents with a dozen guides and servants, a pipe in their mouth and a general disregard for the lands they travelled through.
So, this is why I nearly gave it 3 stars, but ended with 4.
Wilfred Thesiger showed me in his book, Arabian Sands, that being of this era doesn't have to mean hunting for pleasure and that you can do things for yourself and that you can incorporate other cultures into your routine and life while you travel - as opposed to simply observing them from the saddle of your horse or the door of your tent.
Robert Fleming showed me nothing that even came close to this in News From Tartary.
January 27, 2015
To read such a book as this is to realise, by comparison, how desperately limited much fiction writing is. “News From Tartary” is an account of a journey made during seven months of 1935 through Sinkiang province; a part of Western China that was anything but quietly and godly governed. Imperial China had fallen; replaced by Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang government operating from Nanjing in the East of the country, who were at loggerheads with the Communist Chinese busily creating trouble in south-west China. Meanwhile the Japanese maintained a presence in the north-east, whilst the Russians closely monitored the west.
For two years Sinkiang had been virtually cut off from the rest of the country. What news that had got back to Peiping (Peking/Beijing) was bad: murder, unprovoked shootings, and imprisonment without charge had become routine. Peter Fleming, just twenty seven years old, and Special Correspondent to ‘The Times’ [London] decided that it was high time to go in; to gather and report evidence, to sift fact from fiction. He believed that a route along the ancient ‘Silk Road’ from Peiping via Sian, the Tsaidam and and Cherchen, to Kashgar and thence into India, finishing at Srinagar, was feasible. A like-minded fellow Swiss Special Correspondent to a Paris newspaper, Kini (Ella) Maillart joined him in the endeavour.
Fleming’s account of the trials, dangers, frustrations and rewards of this very long and hard journey, completed largely on horseback and on foot, is extraordinarily vivid and utterly compulsive. I’ll not describe it step by step, other than to say that my edition published by Jonathan Cape contains a very useful bicolour tri-fold map and 15 b/w photographic plates.
I instead intend to concentrate more on the minutiae of the journey.
Amongst the short list of staple foodstuffs bought in Peking were 2lb of marmalade and a bottle of Worcestershire Sauce (p.36). A logical choice indeed; to add flavour to other foodstuffs purchased along the route. As expected the Worcester sauce does indeed gain a psychological importance; which as an Englishwoman I fully understand.
What further delight there lies in the detail that Fleming sweeps into his account: how it is that he and Kini discovered that the Swiss National Anthem fits the tune of ‘Rule Britannia’(p.72). A little later on he describes a celebration of the 4th June, as all Etonians will understand; an evening of brandy and playing gramophone records (of which they had just three): “Somewhere a robin’s singing / Up in a tree-top high / To you and me he’s singing / The clouds will soon roll by.” (p.215). The spirit of a Pekin robin (Leiothrix lutea)?
The powerful experience of “spiritual awe and physical despair” in the Great Lamasery of Kumbum, in Tibet (p.89) serves to emphasise the importance of respecting local customs (p.125). Fleming also identifies commercial opportunities: the lamas of Dzunchia were fascinated by the sight of the explorer’s gloves; so much more effective in keeping out the cold than their own long sleeves!
Most humbling however is the appreciation gained of the character of Peter Fleming. Here is a man in his late twenties who yet has the maturity and world-view to be able to largely accurately appraise a situation or event from the viewpoint of those others in the scene. This is no false modesty; though a skill rather more normally ascribed to a diplomat than nowadays expected from a newspaper correspondent. Fleming castigates himself when he realises how very wrong he is to chafe at what, shaped by his limited knowledge of the Chinese language, he perceives as a delay in the journey; because a Mongol accompanying them did not initially have the benefit of sufficient time to prepare his staple tsamba ration, or to make other essential preparations (p.162).
Yet only four pages later Fleming records his and Kini’s pride in “… the very slowness and primitive manner of our progress. We were travelling Asia at Asia’s pace.” Learning how to patiently work round to ask the ‘right’ question to elicit required information was a similar essential skill to be mastered (p.173). However, he bemoans having ignored necessary homework; neither he nor Kini had read so much as “… one in twenty of the books that we ought to have read, and our preconceptions of what a place was going to be like were never based, as they usefully could have been, on the experience of our few but illustrious predecessors in these regions.”
One of the greatest strengths of this book is its author’s vivid descriptions of landscapes and terrain; of towns, deserts, wildernesses, mountains, gorges; of the heartbreak of having to let loose pack animals which had rendered sterling service, but which physically could go no further. As perhaps befits the caricature of an Englishman, Fleming’s heart was largely won through the devoted service of animals; and emphatically not by the often devious short-changing by men who belonged to a plethora of different races from Tungan Moslems to White Russians.
Even so Fleming’s thoughts dwell sympathetically on the one European man in Khotan, “this immaculate and courteous old man … when we were gone, M. Moldovack [Armenian by birth] would probably never see a European face again.” (p.298). He is also considerably more upbeat with his praise for the Maulai sect of Moslems in Hunza: “It was almost disconcerting to be given honest and informative answers to our questions – to meet, after months and months of lies and evasions and propaganda, men who meant what they said and said what they meant.” (p.366) Men, in other words, like Peter Fleming.
This book is rightly a classic; and as the years continue to pass, it can only become more so.
For two years Sinkiang had been virtually cut off from the rest of the country. What news that had got back to Peiping (Peking/Beijing) was bad: murder, unprovoked shootings, and imprisonment without charge had become routine. Peter Fleming, just twenty seven years old, and Special Correspondent to ‘The Times’ [London] decided that it was high time to go in; to gather and report evidence, to sift fact from fiction. He believed that a route along the ancient ‘Silk Road’ from Peiping via Sian, the Tsaidam and and Cherchen, to Kashgar and thence into India, finishing at Srinagar, was feasible. A like-minded fellow Swiss Special Correspondent to a Paris newspaper, Kini (Ella) Maillart joined him in the endeavour.
Fleming’s account of the trials, dangers, frustrations and rewards of this very long and hard journey, completed largely on horseback and on foot, is extraordinarily vivid and utterly compulsive. I’ll not describe it step by step, other than to say that my edition published by Jonathan Cape contains a very useful bicolour tri-fold map and 15 b/w photographic plates.
I instead intend to concentrate more on the minutiae of the journey.
Amongst the short list of staple foodstuffs bought in Peking were 2lb of marmalade and a bottle of Worcestershire Sauce (p.36). A logical choice indeed; to add flavour to other foodstuffs purchased along the route. As expected the Worcester sauce does indeed gain a psychological importance; which as an Englishwoman I fully understand.
What further delight there lies in the detail that Fleming sweeps into his account: how it is that he and Kini discovered that the Swiss National Anthem fits the tune of ‘Rule Britannia’(p.72). A little later on he describes a celebration of the 4th June, as all Etonians will understand; an evening of brandy and playing gramophone records (of which they had just three): “Somewhere a robin’s singing / Up in a tree-top high / To you and me he’s singing / The clouds will soon roll by.” (p.215). The spirit of a Pekin robin (Leiothrix lutea)?
The powerful experience of “spiritual awe and physical despair” in the Great Lamasery of Kumbum, in Tibet (p.89) serves to emphasise the importance of respecting local customs (p.125). Fleming also identifies commercial opportunities: the lamas of Dzunchia were fascinated by the sight of the explorer’s gloves; so much more effective in keeping out the cold than their own long sleeves!
Most humbling however is the appreciation gained of the character of Peter Fleming. Here is a man in his late twenties who yet has the maturity and world-view to be able to largely accurately appraise a situation or event from the viewpoint of those others in the scene. This is no false modesty; though a skill rather more normally ascribed to a diplomat than nowadays expected from a newspaper correspondent. Fleming castigates himself when he realises how very wrong he is to chafe at what, shaped by his limited knowledge of the Chinese language, he perceives as a delay in the journey; because a Mongol accompanying them did not initially have the benefit of sufficient time to prepare his staple tsamba ration, or to make other essential preparations (p.162).
Yet only four pages later Fleming records his and Kini’s pride in “… the very slowness and primitive manner of our progress. We were travelling Asia at Asia’s pace.” Learning how to patiently work round to ask the ‘right’ question to elicit required information was a similar essential skill to be mastered (p.173). However, he bemoans having ignored necessary homework; neither he nor Kini had read so much as “… one in twenty of the books that we ought to have read, and our preconceptions of what a place was going to be like were never based, as they usefully could have been, on the experience of our few but illustrious predecessors in these regions.”
One of the greatest strengths of this book is its author’s vivid descriptions of landscapes and terrain; of towns, deserts, wildernesses, mountains, gorges; of the heartbreak of having to let loose pack animals which had rendered sterling service, but which physically could go no further. As perhaps befits the caricature of an Englishman, Fleming’s heart was largely won through the devoted service of animals; and emphatically not by the often devious short-changing by men who belonged to a plethora of different races from Tungan Moslems to White Russians.
Even so Fleming’s thoughts dwell sympathetically on the one European man in Khotan, “this immaculate and courteous old man … when we were gone, M. Moldovack [Armenian by birth] would probably never see a European face again.” (p.298). He is also considerably more upbeat with his praise for the Maulai sect of Moslems in Hunza: “It was almost disconcerting to be given honest and informative answers to our questions – to meet, after months and months of lies and evasions and propaganda, men who meant what they said and said what they meant.” (p.366) Men, in other words, like Peter Fleming.
This book is rightly a classic; and as the years continue to pass, it can only become more so.
November 14, 2013
I thoroughly enjoyed this brilliant travel classic. Fleming and Swiss writer Ella Maillart set out to travel overland between Peking, China to Kashmir, India in the 1930's - an unstable time when China's Communist insurgency was on the rise, and the far west province of Xinjiang was well beyond the control of the capital. Fleming's account of their journey by horse and camel is sharply observed, brilliantly funny, and the dangers and hardships are always understated.
I traveled some of that same territory in 2002, and I really enjoyed reading about Xining, Qinghai, Kumbum monastery, the southern branch of the Silk Road on the far side of the Taklamakan Desert, Khotan and Kashgar, and more. Those regions felt like the most distant frontier even ten years ago, when China was rapidly bulldozing and resettling anything that makes them unique. It was nice to see from Fleming's account that, despite their political fortunes, the essential character of these people and places remains the same.
An outstanding work of travel literature.
I traveled some of that same territory in 2002, and I really enjoyed reading about Xining, Qinghai, Kumbum monastery, the southern branch of the Silk Road on the far side of the Taklamakan Desert, Khotan and Kashgar, and more. Those regions felt like the most distant frontier even ten years ago, when China was rapidly bulldozing and resettling anything that makes them unique. It was nice to see from Fleming's account that, despite their political fortunes, the essential character of these people and places remains the same.
An outstanding work of travel literature.
October 24, 2014
Travelling Asia at Asia's pace
Peter Fleming's account of his 3500-mile trek from Peking to Kashmir in 1935, a tale of adventure and portrait of a now-lost China, is enriched by his self-deprecating sense of humor and his expressive prose. A travel classic, News from Tartary is #64 on National Geographic's "100 Best Adventure Books" list.
Fleming calls himself "the amateur" and repeatedly draws the reader's attention to his lack of preparation:
“Our ignorance, our chronic lack of advance information, must be unexampled in the annals of modern travel….. This state of affairs reflected discreditably on us, but was not without its compensations. It was pleasant, in a way, to be journeying always into the blue, with no Baedecker to eliminate surprise and marshal our first impressions in advance.
Yet it is clear that there's a method to his madness and that this "amateur" prefers to live by his wits and take life as it comes:
“There are, I know, many people to whom our existence would not have appealed; but actually it was a very good existence. We were down to brass tacks."
Down to brass tacks. That really sums up nicely what Fleming and his companion Kini seemed to relish along the journey, which was fraught by heat, cold, thirst, hunger, and a thousand and one delays and frustrations.
But there are rewards along the way, moments of clarity and tranquility, such as when he looks down from a hillside onto the caravan he's traveling with:
“There it wound, stately, methodical, through the bleak and empty land, 250 camels pacing in single file."
Fleming excels at description. In a few quick strokes he portrays a superannuated "guard" assigned to them:
"The escort was a spindle-shanked and defenceless dotard, a scarecrow in uniform with a face of wrinkled parchment. His fragility was alarming and we hoped sincerely that no strong wind would arise, for then we must surely lose him. He had with him a white and equally venerable pony, and on its back, wrapped in a tattered greatcoat, he rode, hunched in a coma, protecting us."
The journey was conducted first by train, then by lorry, then by camel, horse, donkey, and, ultimately, on foot. Progress, was slow, but, to Fleming, this seemed appropriate:
“We took, besides, a certain pride in the very slowness and primitive manner of our progress. We were traveling Asia at Asia’s pace.”
Fleming's vivid accounts of the guides, bureaucrats, hangers-on, and ruffians met along the way are highly entertaining. His evocations of the stark landscape, impoverished settlements, and frequently brutal weather are equally striking. Fleming is most emotional, however, when he describes the suffering of the pack animals that he comes to know almost as well as his human companions. It would take a cold-hearted reader not to be moved when he and Kini are forced to abandon Kini's horse, Slalom, which is on its last legs:
“We called to the Turkis to halt and unsaddled him [Slalom] for the last time. He stood as still as a stone, the ugly shadow of a horse, alone in the sunlight under the encircling hills; he had served us faithfully ever since Tangar. The camels moved off and I followed them; Kini stayed a little while with Slalom. I found that I was crying, for the first time in years.”
In contrast, Fleming describes his own sufferings and deprivations with restraint, regarding the bad food (or no food), verminous lodging-houses, scum-filled drinking holes, and other perils and discomforts of the road with dispassion.
"You can hardly expect to cross Central Asia without occasionally experiencing inconveniences of this kind,” he dryly notes.
There is, for the alert reader, the joy of lighting upon what I have come to think of as "Fleming-isms," those wonderfully apt turns of phrases that light up the imagination, often provoking laughter:
"the beanstalk of procrastination"....
"the back wheels of the lorry fell through a small erection which was masquerading as a bridge"...
"in the matter of fuel we were back on the dung standard"....
And countless others. There are, perhaps, fewer bon mots than in Fleming's Brazilian Adventure, but there's more continuity in this account, and the reader gains a better understanding of what mattered to Fleming.
What mattered it seemed, was to clear his mind of the fog of civilization and to be as self-reliant as possible. When Fleming and Kini, after some seven months on the road, suddenly find themselves at journey's end back in the bosom of the British Raj, they are discomfited. Abashed, they enter a magnificent hotel:
Everyone was in evening dress. Anglo-India, starched and glossy, stared at us with horror and disgust. A stage clergyman with an Oxford voice started as though he had seen the devil. A hush, through which on all sides could be heard the fell epithet ‘jungly,’ descended on the assembled guests. We were back in Civilization.”
One senses, of course, that they would rather not be.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A note on this edition:
If ever a book was in need of a preface, it is this one. I had been forewarned by a reviewer on Amazon that some editions lacked a map and the photos that had been in the original version of the book. Happily, the J.P. Tarcher edition I bought had both, but the map was small and quite difficult to follow and the photos were very cryptically subtitled and I was never sure what portions of the text they referred to.
However, the thing I longed for most was some background information on the political situation of China during this time. Finding myself somewhat at sea, I boned up a bit on 20th-century Chinese history and was able to follow a bit better. I later read that a limited edition has recently been published with a forward by Fleming's daughter. Perhaps this would be the best version to read, if one can lay hands on it.
Peter Fleming's account of his 3500-mile trek from Peking to Kashmir in 1935, a tale of adventure and portrait of a now-lost China, is enriched by his self-deprecating sense of humor and his expressive prose. A travel classic, News from Tartary is #64 on National Geographic's "100 Best Adventure Books" list.
Fleming calls himself "the amateur" and repeatedly draws the reader's attention to his lack of preparation:
“Our ignorance, our chronic lack of advance information, must be unexampled in the annals of modern travel….. This state of affairs reflected discreditably on us, but was not without its compensations. It was pleasant, in a way, to be journeying always into the blue, with no Baedecker to eliminate surprise and marshal our first impressions in advance.
Yet it is clear that there's a method to his madness and that this "amateur" prefers to live by his wits and take life as it comes:
“There are, I know, many people to whom our existence would not have appealed; but actually it was a very good existence. We were down to brass tacks."
Down to brass tacks. That really sums up nicely what Fleming and his companion Kini seemed to relish along the journey, which was fraught by heat, cold, thirst, hunger, and a thousand and one delays and frustrations.
But there are rewards along the way, moments of clarity and tranquility, such as when he looks down from a hillside onto the caravan he's traveling with:
“There it wound, stately, methodical, through the bleak and empty land, 250 camels pacing in single file."
Fleming excels at description. In a few quick strokes he portrays a superannuated "guard" assigned to them:
"The escort was a spindle-shanked and defenceless dotard, a scarecrow in uniform with a face of wrinkled parchment. His fragility was alarming and we hoped sincerely that no strong wind would arise, for then we must surely lose him. He had with him a white and equally venerable pony, and on its back, wrapped in a tattered greatcoat, he rode, hunched in a coma, protecting us."
The journey was conducted first by train, then by lorry, then by camel, horse, donkey, and, ultimately, on foot. Progress, was slow, but, to Fleming, this seemed appropriate:
“We took, besides, a certain pride in the very slowness and primitive manner of our progress. We were traveling Asia at Asia’s pace.”
Fleming's vivid accounts of the guides, bureaucrats, hangers-on, and ruffians met along the way are highly entertaining. His evocations of the stark landscape, impoverished settlements, and frequently brutal weather are equally striking. Fleming is most emotional, however, when he describes the suffering of the pack animals that he comes to know almost as well as his human companions. It would take a cold-hearted reader not to be moved when he and Kini are forced to abandon Kini's horse, Slalom, which is on its last legs:
“We called to the Turkis to halt and unsaddled him [Slalom] for the last time. He stood as still as a stone, the ugly shadow of a horse, alone in the sunlight under the encircling hills; he had served us faithfully ever since Tangar. The camels moved off and I followed them; Kini stayed a little while with Slalom. I found that I was crying, for the first time in years.”
In contrast, Fleming describes his own sufferings and deprivations with restraint, regarding the bad food (or no food), verminous lodging-houses, scum-filled drinking holes, and other perils and discomforts of the road with dispassion.
"You can hardly expect to cross Central Asia without occasionally experiencing inconveniences of this kind,” he dryly notes.
There is, for the alert reader, the joy of lighting upon what I have come to think of as "Fleming-isms," those wonderfully apt turns of phrases that light up the imagination, often provoking laughter:
"the beanstalk of procrastination"....
"the back wheels of the lorry fell through a small erection which was masquerading as a bridge"...
"in the matter of fuel we were back on the dung standard"....
And countless others. There are, perhaps, fewer bon mots than in Fleming's Brazilian Adventure, but there's more continuity in this account, and the reader gains a better understanding of what mattered to Fleming.
What mattered it seemed, was to clear his mind of the fog of civilization and to be as self-reliant as possible. When Fleming and Kini, after some seven months on the road, suddenly find themselves at journey's end back in the bosom of the British Raj, they are discomfited. Abashed, they enter a magnificent hotel:
Everyone was in evening dress. Anglo-India, starched and glossy, stared at us with horror and disgust. A stage clergyman with an Oxford voice started as though he had seen the devil. A hush, through which on all sides could be heard the fell epithet ‘jungly,’ descended on the assembled guests. We were back in Civilization.”
One senses, of course, that they would rather not be.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A note on this edition:
If ever a book was in need of a preface, it is this one. I had been forewarned by a reviewer on Amazon that some editions lacked a map and the photos that had been in the original version of the book. Happily, the J.P. Tarcher edition I bought had both, but the map was small and quite difficult to follow and the photos were very cryptically subtitled and I was never sure what portions of the text they referred to.
However, the thing I longed for most was some background information on the political situation of China during this time. Finding myself somewhat at sea, I boned up a bit on 20th-century Chinese history and was able to follow a bit better. I later read that a limited edition has recently been published with a forward by Fleming's daughter. Perhaps this would be the best version to read, if one can lay hands on it.
February 19, 2021
This book is available online on archive.org. The photographer who accompanied him, Ella (‘Kini’) Maillart published her own account, Forbidden Journey.
The author, Peter Fleming, was the brother of Ian Fleming (the author of the original James Bond novels), and married to Celia Johnson, the actress in Brief Encounter. This book is an interesting account of a journey from Peking by train, then by foot, camel and horse, from Sining in the East, across the high plains, mountains, deserts and marshes of southern Mongolia, the north-east corner of Tibet, into the Sinkiang region of China, and over the mountain passes into what is now Pakistan and Srinigar in India, following the little-travelled southern Silk Route. His travelling companion was a practical and long-suffering Swiss journalist, Kini Maillart, as well as a succession of local guides, whose characters were as varied as those of the horses and camels. The year was 1935, and tensions ran high in the region, with friction between the various tribal groupings, the Turkis and Tungans, the Russians and the Chinese, with interference from the Japanese who had annexed Manchuria.
I found the tale of the journey absorbing, and yet Fleming manages to tell us very little about the day-to-day lives of the people who lived in the region. In that respect I would have preferred a more anthropological study of the way of life. A more modern book on the same trip would undoubtedly have included a better map and many beautiful photos. Unfortunately Fleming lost a good deal of his film, and naturally all the photos are in black and white and often unclear. I attempted to follow the journey in an atlas, but was flummoxed for a long time, as the place-names are now given in more Chinese spellings, and many of the places which figure strongly in the story are tiny villages or a couple of dwellings which are not marked on maps; I found the modern versions of the places by googling them individually. I will add them to this JE when I come across the piece of paper I wrote them on, which I don't have to hand at the moment. I also found that it is now possible to travel in this region with relative ease, with the completion of the Karakorum Highway, and other road and rail connections, as well as airports in Kashgar, for instance.
Fleming wrote in a sardonic style with a strong current of understated humour. Despite the fact that Fleming viewed the local people from the colonial point of view, and tended to be condescending, he shared their discomfort whilst travelling and tried to respect their customs. "When people know no customs but their own, and when their own customs are few because of the extreme simplicity of their life, it is only courteous to respect those customs when you can."
Finally, I was amused to note that Fleming and Kini engaged in a primitive form of Bookcrossing, although the fate of the books was not what one might hope. They had "a substantial paper-backed supply of the works of MM. Maurice Leblanc and Georges Simenon... We fought each other for these books and dreaded the day when they would be finished. As each was jettisoned the influence of French detective fiction spread gradually throughout the caravan, and it was no uncommon thing to see a Mongol stalking along with the lively cover of 'La Demoiselle Aux Yeux Verts' stuck in between his forehead and his fur hat to form an eye-shade, while the dramatic pages of 'Le Fou de Bergerac' stuffed up the holes in several pairs of boots. The only other form of literature the Mongols can ever have seen was prayer-books in their own lamaseries; if they thought that our books were prayer-books too we must have struck them as very sacrilegious people."
The author, Peter Fleming, was the brother of Ian Fleming (the author of the original James Bond novels), and married to Celia Johnson, the actress in Brief Encounter. This book is an interesting account of a journey from Peking by train, then by foot, camel and horse, from Sining in the East, across the high plains, mountains, deserts and marshes of southern Mongolia, the north-east corner of Tibet, into the Sinkiang region of China, and over the mountain passes into what is now Pakistan and Srinigar in India, following the little-travelled southern Silk Route. His travelling companion was a practical and long-suffering Swiss journalist, Kini Maillart, as well as a succession of local guides, whose characters were as varied as those of the horses and camels. The year was 1935, and tensions ran high in the region, with friction between the various tribal groupings, the Turkis and Tungans, the Russians and the Chinese, with interference from the Japanese who had annexed Manchuria.
I found the tale of the journey absorbing, and yet Fleming manages to tell us very little about the day-to-day lives of the people who lived in the region. In that respect I would have preferred a more anthropological study of the way of life. A more modern book on the same trip would undoubtedly have included a better map and many beautiful photos. Unfortunately Fleming lost a good deal of his film, and naturally all the photos are in black and white and often unclear. I attempted to follow the journey in an atlas, but was flummoxed for a long time, as the place-names are now given in more Chinese spellings, and many of the places which figure strongly in the story are tiny villages or a couple of dwellings which are not marked on maps; I found the modern versions of the places by googling them individually. I will add them to this JE when I come across the piece of paper I wrote them on, which I don't have to hand at the moment. I also found that it is now possible to travel in this region with relative ease, with the completion of the Karakorum Highway, and other road and rail connections, as well as airports in Kashgar, for instance.
Fleming wrote in a sardonic style with a strong current of understated humour. Despite the fact that Fleming viewed the local people from the colonial point of view, and tended to be condescending, he shared their discomfort whilst travelling and tried to respect their customs. "When people know no customs but their own, and when their own customs are few because of the extreme simplicity of their life, it is only courteous to respect those customs when you can."
Finally, I was amused to note that Fleming and Kini engaged in a primitive form of Bookcrossing, although the fate of the books was not what one might hope. They had "a substantial paper-backed supply of the works of MM. Maurice Leblanc and Georges Simenon... We fought each other for these books and dreaded the day when they would be finished. As each was jettisoned the influence of French detective fiction spread gradually throughout the caravan, and it was no uncommon thing to see a Mongol stalking along with the lively cover of 'La Demoiselle Aux Yeux Verts' stuck in between his forehead and his fur hat to form an eye-shade, while the dramatic pages of 'Le Fou de Bergerac' stuffed up the holes in several pairs of boots. The only other form of literature the Mongols can ever have seen was prayer-books in their own lamaseries; if they thought that our books were prayer-books too we must have struck them as very sacrilegious people."
March 8, 2022
In this significant work, Peter Fleming recounts his epic 1935 journey with Kini Maillart (Maillart wrote her own account in Forbidden Journey) from Peking to Srinagar in Kashmir. A trip of 3500 miles taking seven months across some of the bitterest and most desolate terrain in the world. This is Fleming's most impressive work, I think, although Brazilian Adventure is almost as equally unforgettable. And it begins modestly, almost as if Fleming and Maillart are taking a walk across some off the beaten track look at a few miles of hidden Asia. So modestly does it start, that I didn't find myself immediately engrossed with things as I did in Brazilian Adventure and Fleming's story from one year earlier about his trip to Manchuria and then southern China, One's Company. Instead, it took awhile. But once I settled in, I came to feel as if I were along for the journey. Its ending was something to be avoided rather than turned to quickly on the last page.
What makes this description of China and central Asia striking are two things: 1) the passages where a heretofore unencountered landscape takes on magical qualities, even while Fleming's own attitude is mannered and calm towards facing never ending snow storms, mountain passes almost 15,000 feet in elevation one after the other, then the torturous heat of the Taklamakan, lack of food, dying pack animals, and the threat of bands of brigands and conflicting armies, and 2) a photographic-like realism that describes territory and towns that were unchanged from the way they were 100 or even 200 years earlier (with one exception--the infiltration of modern political ideologies from the Soviet Union).
Speaking of photographs, they are included in the book. And I decided not to cheat and so waited until finishing before I looked at them. Glad I did. For as much as I let my imagination run wild with the sense of immensity and emptiness of Tartary, it was nothing compared to the pictures of the trip--enormous mountains shooting up out of the plains, remote passes that disappeared into the horizon, and oases that emit the taste, smell, and feel through their image of a paradise in the desert. Sitting back, I could enjoy it all vicariously, without myself undergoing the constant lack of sleep, the bone bruises, the torment of first mosquitoes then flies, the sand blowing grit and gravel into clothing, and putting feet, face, and body through the extremes of every imaginable type of weather. No, I'm safe and snug, knowing I would never attempt anything as audacious as this trip, were it even possible in the 21st century, which it isn't.
What makes this description of China and central Asia striking are two things: 1) the passages where a heretofore unencountered landscape takes on magical qualities, even while Fleming's own attitude is mannered and calm towards facing never ending snow storms, mountain passes almost 15,000 feet in elevation one after the other, then the torturous heat of the Taklamakan, lack of food, dying pack animals, and the threat of bands of brigands and conflicting armies, and 2) a photographic-like realism that describes territory and towns that were unchanged from the way they were 100 or even 200 years earlier (with one exception--the infiltration of modern political ideologies from the Soviet Union).
Speaking of photographs, they are included in the book. And I decided not to cheat and so waited until finishing before I looked at them. Glad I did. For as much as I let my imagination run wild with the sense of immensity and emptiness of Tartary, it was nothing compared to the pictures of the trip--enormous mountains shooting up out of the plains, remote passes that disappeared into the horizon, and oases that emit the taste, smell, and feel through their image of a paradise in the desert. Sitting back, I could enjoy it all vicariously, without myself undergoing the constant lack of sleep, the bone bruises, the torment of first mosquitoes then flies, the sand blowing grit and gravel into clothing, and putting feet, face, and body through the extremes of every imaginable type of weather. No, I'm safe and snug, knowing I would never attempt anything as audacious as this trip, were it even possible in the 21st century, which it isn't.
February 4, 2017
Продолжаем ходить по следам экспедиций великого Питера Флеминга. 1935 год — Рерих посреди свой маньчжурской авантюры, собирает монголов под желтое знамя паназиатизма с собой во главе, но явно по заданию НКВД. В Тибет его больше не пускают как агента коммунизма. В то же время скромный (в смысле отсутствия амбиций) журналист широкого профиля (ну и отчасти шпион, куда же без этого) Флеминг без особых проблем отправляется из Пекина в Синцзян, слегка огибая Тибет, в поисках «новостей из Татарии», где вовсю свирепствует советизация. Читая эту книжку, получаешь эффект практически полного стерео.
Поскольку у нас все не как у людей, я продолжил не хронологически: этой книге должно предшествовать «В Пекин: забытое путешествие», но она мне в руки попалась позже. Именно в том дневнике он рассказывает о своем посещении Владивостока в 1934 (!) году, на пути к своим дальнейшим приключениям. В «Татарии» же родной город удостоен краткого описания: «гарнизонное убожество Владивостока».
Пару слов о его спутнице: Элла Кини Майяр, про которую можно рассказывать долго, если кто не знает, в частности добилась того, чего не удалось Сэмюэлу Бекетту, — она училась в Москве у Пудовкина; а помимо этого примечательно, что о ней сняли документалку братья Дубини, известные, в первую очередь, своим фильмом, вошедшим в канон пинчоноведения, «Путешествие в разум П.». они, как видим, тщательно выбирают себе героев.
Ну и вот здесь (http://labas.livejournal.com/784761.html) Игорь Петров пытается выяснить историю и судьбы еще нескольких персонажей этой книжки — Бородишина и Смигуновых. Хотя ему не очень много чего удается, это полезное дополнение: Бородишин, в частности, уже не выглядит таким котиком, каким представал перед Флемингом.
Поскольку у нас все не как у людей, я продолжил не хронологически: этой книге должно предшествовать «В Пекин: забытое путешествие», но она мне в руки попалась позже. Именно в том дневнике он рассказывает о своем посещении Владивостока в 1934 (!) году, на пути к своим дальнейшим приключениям. В «Татарии» же родной город удостоен краткого описания: «гарнизонное убожество Владивостока».
Пару слов о его спутнице: Элла Кини Майяр, про которую можно рассказывать долго, если кто не знает, в частности добилась того, чего не удалось Сэмюэлу Бекетту, — она училась в Москве у Пудовкина; а помимо этого примечательно, что о ней сняли документалку братья Дубини, известные, в первую очередь, своим фильмом, вошедшим в канон пинчоноведения, «Путешествие в разум П.». они, как видим, тщательно выбирают себе героев.
Ну и вот здесь (http://labas.livejournal.com/784761.html) Игорь Петров пытается выяснить историю и судьбы еще нескольких персонажей этой книжки — Бородишина и Смигуновых. Хотя ему не очень много чего удается, это полезное дополнение: Бородишин, в частности, уже не выглядит таким котиком, каким представал перед Флемингом.
May 28, 2012
A must-read for anyone interested in Central Asia or the Silk Road, and a classic of British travel writing. Peter Fleming (Ian's brother) decided at age 27 to travel from Peking to Srinagar in order to learn more about the closed region of Sinkiang (now known as the Western Uighur Autonomous Region of China). The political bits are confusing and not that interesting, but luckily most of this is about the journey. Along with Swiss traveler and adventurer Ella Maillart(and there's someone to learn more about), Fleming traveled by train, on foot, on horse, by camel and donkey through several deserts, an endless marsh, and mountains including the Himalayas. On the way they met with suspicious bureaucrats (their passports were never quite right, it's amazing they completed the journey), locals who were often kind but sometimes brutal, and some memorable animals, a few of which they had to leave behind when the animals became too weak to continue.
How does this journey differ from any of mine (besides everything, especially his incredible endurance, of course? Whereas I wear my special liner socks plus my socks to take a three-mile hike, Fleming wore out his last pair of socks and did the last several hundred miles in his bare boots!)? It's all in the preparation. As he writes,
"Our ignorance, our chronic lack of advance information, must be unexampled in the annals of modern travel. We had neither of us, before starting, read one in twenty of the books that we ought to have read, and our preconceptions of what a place was going to be like were never based, as they usefully could have been, on the regions...This state of affairs reflected discreditably on us but was not without its compensations. It was pleasant, in a way, to be journeying always into the blue, with no Baedeker to eliminate surprise and marshal our first impressions in advance..."
In one favorite episode, they arrive in Kashgar, where they expect, after months of traveling in the remote hills, to dress for dinner. But they find that Fleming's tropical suit, neatly folded in the bottom of his suitcase for all these months, is not only dripping wet and oozing mud, occasioned by the handler dropping the suitcase into the river, but has turned bright green because of a scarf packed right next to it. "It seemed to me that, if there is one thing worse than wearing bright green clothes, it is wearing bright green clothes which are also soaking wet; I therefore sadly resumed the shorts and shirt of every day and prepared to let down the British Raj." Luckily, the cheerful young man from the Consul-General's staff is unfazed, greeting him with "I don't know whether you drink beer.." It made me thirsty just reading about it.
His perspective on the locals inevitably reflects the time and place, though his descriptions are usually shrewd. I'll be interested to read Maillart's acount of the same trip, "Forbidden Journey - From Peking to Cashmir" and see what she thought of Fleming and the locals. Highly recommend.
How does this journey differ from any of mine (besides everything, especially his incredible endurance, of course? Whereas I wear my special liner socks plus my socks to take a three-mile hike, Fleming wore out his last pair of socks and did the last several hundred miles in his bare boots!)? It's all in the preparation. As he writes,
"Our ignorance, our chronic lack of advance information, must be unexampled in the annals of modern travel. We had neither of us, before starting, read one in twenty of the books that we ought to have read, and our preconceptions of what a place was going to be like were never based, as they usefully could have been, on the regions...This state of affairs reflected discreditably on us but was not without its compensations. It was pleasant, in a way, to be journeying always into the blue, with no Baedeker to eliminate surprise and marshal our first impressions in advance..."
In one favorite episode, they arrive in Kashgar, where they expect, after months of traveling in the remote hills, to dress for dinner. But they find that Fleming's tropical suit, neatly folded in the bottom of his suitcase for all these months, is not only dripping wet and oozing mud, occasioned by the handler dropping the suitcase into the river, but has turned bright green because of a scarf packed right next to it. "It seemed to me that, if there is one thing worse than wearing bright green clothes, it is wearing bright green clothes which are also soaking wet; I therefore sadly resumed the shorts and shirt of every day and prepared to let down the British Raj." Luckily, the cheerful young man from the Consul-General's staff is unfazed, greeting him with "I don't know whether you drink beer.." It made me thirsty just reading about it.
His perspective on the locals inevitably reflects the time and place, though his descriptions are usually shrewd. I'll be interested to read Maillart's acount of the same trip, "Forbidden Journey - From Peking to Cashmir" and see what she thought of Fleming and the locals. Highly recommend.
November 14, 2014
China, 1935. Communists wage civil war. The Soviet Union supports them and hunts down White Russian refugees. A dusty patina of poverty and disease settles everywhere. Of course, the very thing for a British newspaper reporter and his photographer friend to do would be a personal jaunt 3,500 miles west from Peking to Kashmir. Sort of informs the phrase “mad dogs and Englishmen.” The author was an experienced traveler having just been to the Caucasus, Ukraine, Samarkand, the Amur frontier, Vladivostok, Mongolia, Japan, and the Yangtse. Even so, this trip nearly smothered him, body and spirit.
Why are three old beggars wearing gauze boxes of lice on their calves? Answer: culturing anti-typhus serum. Thirty lice per dose. “Petty martyrdom” for twelve Chinese dollars a month. What passports and other permits are necessary? It is never certain and getting them is unknowably long. Inscrutable bureaucracy competes with lorry driver greed. The best strategy was never to reveal the ultimate destination, just the next one.
After an initial few days among piles of people in railcars, they traveled by foot, or mounted on camel, donkey, pony, or yak and were never comfortable. You’d be right to assume their caravan across China’s mountains and deserts was painfully cold. “For the first two or three hours it was always cold, and we would walk to restore the circulation in our feet. Sooner or later, every day the wind got up. It came tearing out of the west and scourged us without mercy. It was enough to drive you mad. You could not smoke, you could not speak (for nobody heard you), and after a time you could not think consecutively...The wind...played the same part on the Tibetan plateau as insects do in the tropical jungle.”
It took six full months in China – having three baths in that time frame – all the while cheated by Chinese, Mongol, or Turkic (Turkistani, that he called “Turki”) guides. Then, after one more month, Bandipur, Kashmir, in British India. The trip cost “roughly £150 each,” unimaginably cheap by today’s standards. Throughout, Fleming speaks in facile King’s English, such as his description of the entry at their destination hotel, “A hush, through which on all sides could be heard the fell epithet ‘jungly,’ descended on the assembled guests.” This is a remarkable and pleasurable read.
Why are three old beggars wearing gauze boxes of lice on their calves? Answer: culturing anti-typhus serum. Thirty lice per dose. “Petty martyrdom” for twelve Chinese dollars a month. What passports and other permits are necessary? It is never certain and getting them is unknowably long. Inscrutable bureaucracy competes with lorry driver greed. The best strategy was never to reveal the ultimate destination, just the next one.
After an initial few days among piles of people in railcars, they traveled by foot, or mounted on camel, donkey, pony, or yak and were never comfortable. You’d be right to assume their caravan across China’s mountains and deserts was painfully cold. “For the first two or three hours it was always cold, and we would walk to restore the circulation in our feet. Sooner or later, every day the wind got up. It came tearing out of the west and scourged us without mercy. It was enough to drive you mad. You could not smoke, you could not speak (for nobody heard you), and after a time you could not think consecutively...The wind...played the same part on the Tibetan plateau as insects do in the tropical jungle.”
It took six full months in China – having three baths in that time frame – all the while cheated by Chinese, Mongol, or Turkic (Turkistani, that he called “Turki”) guides. Then, after one more month, Bandipur, Kashmir, in British India. The trip cost “roughly £150 each,” unimaginably cheap by today’s standards. Throughout, Fleming speaks in facile King’s English, such as his description of the entry at their destination hotel, “A hush, through which on all sides could be heard the fell epithet ‘jungly,’ descended on the assembled guests.” This is a remarkable and pleasurable read.
July 16, 2016
More three and a half stars really. An interesting, understated travelogue by Ian Fleming's brother, a Times correspondent, who crossed China in 1935. Along with Kini Maillart - who was an amazing woman in her own right - they travelled by train, yak, horse and camel across deserts, plains, oases and mountains to record the state of the country from Peking to Kashmir in India.
Allowances need to be made for the era in which it was written. The sympathetic way in which the fate of the various livestock is written in comparison to the local help would be funny if it wasn't so shocking. He talks of 'replacing' a Mongol at one point. It is an undoubtedly colonial narrative.
There is a lengthy description of the political instability of the area part way through the book, as a background to their travels, their purpose and their difficulties. That too was a forcible reminder of the time period.
The true beauty of this work though, is the observations he makes about the people and their lives, about the landscape he travels through. The more domestic observations about the hardships he and Kini shared keep it humble and human.
Allowances need to be made for the era in which it was written. The sympathetic way in which the fate of the various livestock is written in comparison to the local help would be funny if it wasn't so shocking. He talks of 'replacing' a Mongol at one point. It is an undoubtedly colonial narrative.
There is a lengthy description of the political instability of the area part way through the book, as a background to their travels, their purpose and their difficulties. That too was a forcible reminder of the time period.
The true beauty of this work though, is the observations he makes about the people and their lives, about the landscape he travels through. The more domestic observations about the hardships he and Kini shared keep it humble and human.
November 17, 2020
It's a travel classic for a reason. The foreword rightfully takes some of the unnecessary shine off of Fleming and Maillart's trip, because for the people who live there, this perilous Silk Road route was just their normal commute. It is rightfully positioned as a mildly crazy whim of a trip for an Englishman and the Swiss he picks up on the way.
Fleming writes beautifully to cover the more boring aspects of the trip. I'm sure much of it was a frustrating grind, especially the first part which involved maneuvering through the twists of the distant yet ultimate Chinese bureaucracy. Once they secure permission to travel, even if that permission doesn't extend very far, you can feel the sigh of relief and eagerness to get the hell out of town. Occasionally his life is in danger, particularly when water resources are scarce. I wonder how much more scared he was than he lets on?
I will warn the reader (without spoiling anything) that animal cruelty is discussed. Pack animals aren't treated well, and Fleming does put a bit of light on this subject in the book.
Fleming writes beautifully to cover the more boring aspects of the trip. I'm sure much of it was a frustrating grind, especially the first part which involved maneuvering through the twists of the distant yet ultimate Chinese bureaucracy. Once they secure permission to travel, even if that permission doesn't extend very far, you can feel the sigh of relief and eagerness to get the hell out of town. Occasionally his life is in danger, particularly when water resources are scarce. I wonder how much more scared he was than he lets on?
I will warn the reader (without spoiling anything) that animal cruelty is discussed. Pack animals aren't treated well, and Fleming does put a bit of light on this subject in the book.
April 9, 2012
A vivid account of a spectacularly tedious journey, pace landscape. I think Peter Fleming was a better writer than his brother, and it is easy to see how he might have served as a partial model for James Bond.
August 12, 2014
In 1935, while his brother Ian was comfortably back in England (James Bond just a twinkle in his eye), Peter Fleming was making a career of adventure-writing and travel journalism. In those final hours of the Great Game era in Asia, one could still become a celebrity explorer in the service of the crown, and even plausibly walk in the footsteps -- or be perceived as walking in the footsteps -- of a certain Sir Lawrence. Peter Fleming's life, at the time, was thought by his contemporary readers and fans to be something akin to our idea of an Indiana Jones; however, by modern sensibilities the greatest strength of his writing lies in his disarming British taste for understatement, his wit and nonchalance in the face of outrageous discomfort and danger, and his general sense of being unimpressed with his own exploits.
The tale itself is amazing. He spent seven months crossing from Peking to India in 1935 -- just as China was in a state of pre-WWII, pre-Civil War collapse. He could hardly have picked a more dangerous time in history to make the trek. The book primarily chronicles the second half of the trip: his passage through modern-day Xinjiang (which very roughly corresponds to the original notion of "Tartary"), a journey made almost entirely on foot. At the time the region was a black hole to Westerners, with none having set foot in or come out of central Tartary in several years -- and in fact, most Chinese and Russians had little idea what was happening there at the time either. Hence, the title: News From Tartary. The quest was essentially an intelligence gathering mission in the guise of a journalistic endeavor. Or, was it the reverse? Regardless, the results remain a delight, even today. The quality of the writing is what makes it worth reading, but the historical value makes it nearly priceless.
Highly recommended for those seeking perspective on that vast land of Western China causing so much trouble to the dictators in Beijing even today.
The tale itself is amazing. He spent seven months crossing from Peking to India in 1935 -- just as China was in a state of pre-WWII, pre-Civil War collapse. He could hardly have picked a more dangerous time in history to make the trek. The book primarily chronicles the second half of the trip: his passage through modern-day Xinjiang (which very roughly corresponds to the original notion of "Tartary"), a journey made almost entirely on foot. At the time the region was a black hole to Westerners, with none having set foot in or come out of central Tartary in several years -- and in fact, most Chinese and Russians had little idea what was happening there at the time either. Hence, the title: News From Tartary. The quest was essentially an intelligence gathering mission in the guise of a journalistic endeavor. Or, was it the reverse? Regardless, the results remain a delight, even today. The quality of the writing is what makes it worth reading, but the historical value makes it nearly priceless.
Highly recommended for those seeking perspective on that vast land of Western China causing so much trouble to the dictators in Beijing even today.
August 26, 2010
My goodness, I liked this book.
Peter Fleming was brother to the James-Bond-famous Ian Fleming. Peter was a journalist, a world traveler, and an occasional spy. In 1935 he traveled from Peking to Srinagar. He traveled with a Swiss journalist, Kini, by truck, donkey, horse, camel, and foot through Siankiang, now known as the Western Uighur Autonomous Region of China. In 1935 it was under contested rule by China, an independence movement, and the Soviet Union. When Fleming and Kini set out, no one had heard anything from the interior of the province in six months. There was a likely chance that they would be arrested or killed as spies.
Yet Fleming's book is a light, wry, acerbic, self-deprecating narrative of the trip. Fleming highlights his own errors and failings, while praising the competence and humor of his traveling companion Kini. While the book does deal in ethnic stereotyping -- particularly of the Turkis, an ethnic group whose possible relation to the Turks I never actually understood -- Fleming manages to see most of the people encountered as individuals, not types.
Do be warned that the ethnocentrism and racism of the British in the 1930s is the lens through which the story is told. If that is a deal-breaker for you, avoid this book. But if you can read a book with that tone, and you like travelogues, history, and wry British humor, this book is for you.
Peter Fleming was brother to the James-Bond-famous Ian Fleming. Peter was a journalist, a world traveler, and an occasional spy. In 1935 he traveled from Peking to Srinagar. He traveled with a Swiss journalist, Kini, by truck, donkey, horse, camel, and foot through Siankiang, now known as the Western Uighur Autonomous Region of China. In 1935 it was under contested rule by China, an independence movement, and the Soviet Union. When Fleming and Kini set out, no one had heard anything from the interior of the province in six months. There was a likely chance that they would be arrested or killed as spies.
Yet Fleming's book is a light, wry, acerbic, self-deprecating narrative of the trip. Fleming highlights his own errors and failings, while praising the competence and humor of his traveling companion Kini. While the book does deal in ethnic stereotyping -- particularly of the Turkis, an ethnic group whose possible relation to the Turks I never actually understood -- Fleming manages to see most of the people encountered as individuals, not types.
Do be warned that the ethnocentrism and racism of the British in the 1930s is the lens through which the story is told. If that is a deal-breaker for you, avoid this book. But if you can read a book with that tone, and you like travelogues, history, and wry British humor, this book is for you.
September 20, 2012
Rereading of a favourite travel book.
I first read this in a lovely 1930's hardback edition some 30 years ago and found the writing spellbinding and very evocative. Having not looked at it for a number of years, I have just re-read it (after having re-read Brazilian Adventure and One's Company).
The writing is still well paced and very evocative of a long and sometimes tedious and arduous journey. The description of the people and places are fascinating, particularly as the world described almost certainly no longer exists in this form. Make sure that you get an edition that has all the photographs - although the quality of some is not brilliant, they help add an extra dimension to the book and the people and places described.
Whilst there are some dated phrases and terms, they can be easily ignored or skipped over.
Overall, a classic piece of travel writing.
I first read this in a lovely 1930's hardback edition some 30 years ago and found the writing spellbinding and very evocative. Having not looked at it for a number of years, I have just re-read it (after having re-read Brazilian Adventure and One's Company).
The writing is still well paced and very evocative of a long and sometimes tedious and arduous journey. The description of the people and places are fascinating, particularly as the world described almost certainly no longer exists in this form. Make sure that you get an edition that has all the photographs - although the quality of some is not brilliant, they help add an extra dimension to the book and the people and places described.
Whilst there are some dated phrases and terms, they can be easily ignored or skipped over.
Overall, a classic piece of travel writing.
Read
February 12, 2013I found this a compelling read - in short bursts - despite nothing really momentous actually happening.
However, the writing captured the sheer monotony of the journey day after day as well as highlighting the different cultures and sub-cultures encountered by Peter and his companion.
It was descriptive and engaging, you really did want them to succeed against all odds. I felt quite sorry when I finished it as it had been a comforting read, suitable to be picked up anywhere and anytime for any length, although I never managed more than 3 of the short chapters at a time.
I'm even tempted to read some more of his travel writing.
However, the writing captured the sheer monotony of the journey day after day as well as highlighting the different cultures and sub-cultures encountered by Peter and his companion.
It was descriptive and engaging, you really did want them to succeed against all odds. I felt quite sorry when I finished it as it had been a comforting read, suitable to be picked up anywhere and anytime for any length, although I never managed more than 3 of the short chapters at a time.
I'm even tempted to read some more of his travel writing.
February 7, 2020
A Good Book. Not one that captivated me and I continuously picked it up and put it down. Perhaps because of the mundane nature of the journey itself. Gives a really good insight of the state of Kashmir pre-WW2 which only few books could do.
September 5, 2015
This is an interesting book that details the journey of Fleming and his partner in 1935. The book has its ups and downs in turns of flow, but is interesting.
July 11, 2016
A bit dry and the map was useless, so it was hard to understand where they were during the whole adventure.
February 11, 2025
For me, the appeal of classic writing is what you learn from it. Not just how things were way back when, nor the dated attitudes, but tidbits sprinkled into the book which were obviously common knowledge in 1935. This book provoked me to research, amongst other things, the geography of Central Asia, the meaning of 4th June to Eton, Ella Maillart, hats, the Fleming family tree, and Yakub Beg.
This is an account of Times journalist Peter Fleming's (brother of Ian Fleming) 1935 journey from Beijing (Peking as it was then) through what are now Qinghai and Xingjiang provinces of China, and over the Himalayas to Srinigar in India with travelling companion Kini (Swiss explorer Ella Maillart). At the time, there were no roads west of Xining (Sining as Peter Fleming calls it) in China, and most of their seven-month journey is conducted by trekking on camel, donkey, horse, or yak. Right at the end we learn that the journey cost £150 each - in 2025 money, about £13,500.
One thing that hasn't changed since 1935 is the red tape and power wielded by border officials. 1935 was a challenging time to travel in western China, as warring factions had just swept through the provinces, and foreigners had been unable to traverse the area for a number of years. Fleming's journey only happened because they were able to leverage the unwillingness of border officials to lose face.
Border struggles aside, there are the travel challenges you would expect in deserts in summer, communication problems, and disputes and disagreements with their guides. At one point reading I summed up the situation as: 'they're lost and the camels are dying'. Seven months of privations, eating little except tsamba, sour milk and whatever he can shoot with his 'rook rifle' but both Fleming and Maillart seem to have had a roaring good time.
Apart from a boring section in the middle where Fleming heroically tries to summarise the political situation at the time, and the various chieftans in area (now difficult to care about, but which must have been the prime justification for the journey), this is an entertaining extended travel journal. I find it easy to imagine the delight felt as (with no expectations) Fleming and Maillart arrived in the tree-lined oasis town of Cherchen (now known as Qiemo County) after four months on the road and near-starvation, or the offer of a beer by the topee-wearing British Vice-Consul as they arrived in Kashgar. Himalayan India, and Baltit in particular also sounds delightful. I'd love to visit this area one day.
Much of the book concerns contrast. Here is a passage near the end where Fleming worries he is underdressed to meet the Mir (ruler) of Baltit.
The Mir, very erect in spite of his age and wearing a dark blue uniform and a turban, walked between the two Englishmen. Both of them, to our infinite relief, were dressed informally in jodphurs.
The very end of the book contrasts that odd feeling when you have lived an extreme experience and rub up against people who have arrived in the same place by completely different means. Like when you hike for days to a remote beach only to find a cruise ship there. We leave the travellers, dumped into a hotel in Srinigar with tourists in evening dress, feeling that no-one understands them:
With a last poor attempt at swagger we both wrote, in the 'Where from' column, 'Peking', but it might have been 'Poona' for all the impression it made on the babu. We turned back to the alien and hostile lounge.
'That's that,' said Kini; and sighed. The journey was over.
This is an account of Times journalist Peter Fleming's (brother of Ian Fleming) 1935 journey from Beijing (Peking as it was then) through what are now Qinghai and Xingjiang provinces of China, and over the Himalayas to Srinigar in India with travelling companion Kini (Swiss explorer Ella Maillart). At the time, there were no roads west of Xining (Sining as Peter Fleming calls it) in China, and most of their seven-month journey is conducted by trekking on camel, donkey, horse, or yak. Right at the end we learn that the journey cost £150 each - in 2025 money, about £13,500.
One thing that hasn't changed since 1935 is the red tape and power wielded by border officials. 1935 was a challenging time to travel in western China, as warring factions had just swept through the provinces, and foreigners had been unable to traverse the area for a number of years. Fleming's journey only happened because they were able to leverage the unwillingness of border officials to lose face.
Border struggles aside, there are the travel challenges you would expect in deserts in summer, communication problems, and disputes and disagreements with their guides. At one point reading I summed up the situation as: 'they're lost and the camels are dying'. Seven months of privations, eating little except tsamba, sour milk and whatever he can shoot with his 'rook rifle' but both Fleming and Maillart seem to have had a roaring good time.
Apart from a boring section in the middle where Fleming heroically tries to summarise the political situation at the time, and the various chieftans in area (now difficult to care about, but which must have been the prime justification for the journey), this is an entertaining extended travel journal. I find it easy to imagine the delight felt as (with no expectations) Fleming and Maillart arrived in the tree-lined oasis town of Cherchen (now known as Qiemo County) after four months on the road and near-starvation, or the offer of a beer by the topee-wearing British Vice-Consul as they arrived in Kashgar. Himalayan India, and Baltit in particular also sounds delightful. I'd love to visit this area one day.
Much of the book concerns contrast. Here is a passage near the end where Fleming worries he is underdressed to meet the Mir (ruler) of Baltit.
The Mir, very erect in spite of his age and wearing a dark blue uniform and a turban, walked between the two Englishmen. Both of them, to our infinite relief, were dressed informally in jodphurs.
The very end of the book contrasts that odd feeling when you have lived an extreme experience and rub up against people who have arrived in the same place by completely different means. Like when you hike for days to a remote beach only to find a cruise ship there. We leave the travellers, dumped into a hotel in Srinigar with tourists in evening dress, feeling that no-one understands them:
With a last poor attempt at swagger we both wrote, in the 'Where from' column, 'Peking', but it might have been 'Poona' for all the impression it made on the babu. We turned back to the alien and hostile lounge.
'That's that,' said Kini; and sighed. The journey was over.
June 14, 2021
Excellent account of a journey from Peking (as was) to Srinagar. As I recall, the most hostile reception Fleming received in his 3,500-mile trip through the most dangerous lands on Earth was at the end: from his fellow Britons in India.
December 4, 2021
Excellent travelogue and wonderful writing. Unfortunately this edition has no map or photographs. These can however be found on the net quite easily. Fleming did this trip in the company of Ella Maillart who also published an account, 'Oasis Interdite'. Looking forward to comparing the two.
June 27, 2018
This is a great adventure that spans 3500 miles from Peking to Kashmir. The author captures the landscape in a great way that makes the reader feel they really have been asked to join the journey.
November 8, 2021
Ah, how lucky Fleming is to have been born in a time when adventure was still readily available - and how lucky again to be blessed with incredibly writing skills to put it all down in book form. So the read is enjoyable throughout, even if in the later chapters it becomes a bit long and repetitive (although to the author's credit, long and repetitive is probably EXACTLY what half a year on donkey/camel/horseback through the desert is like).
June 4, 2018
Peter Fleming was not a great writer. His choppy, scribbling style do not hold up either. But a monkey could have written about such an adventure and kept me engaged.
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