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戈壁沙漠
任何西方女性旅行家或任何現代作家對沙漠的了解，都比不上本書作者密德蕾‧卡柏和佛蘭西斯卡‧法蘭西。這兩位勇往直前、毫不畏懼的西方女性，偕同法蘭西的姊姊伊娃，合組了一個三人傳教團，在中國胡州(Hwochow)開設了一間女子學校。一九二三年，這三位傳教士得到前往戈壁沙漠中的野蠻部落傳教的允許\，於是在一九二六至一九四一的十五年間，三人進出戈壁達五次之多，旅行在這個可怕的蠻荒地帶，成為自六世紀後第一批進入這個區域的基督徒。 雖然她們的宗旨始終都是傳教，但是她們的作品跳脫了同時代的通俗劇框限，也沒有濃厚的宗教色彩，取而代之的是一種沉靜有力的沙漠氛圍，充分表現出所到之處的中心精神。 一九三六年，中日開戰前，她們三人被驅出，隨後即返回英國。離開中國後，這組三人行又前往紐西蘭、澳大利亞和印度傳教。甚至到了一九五○年，密德蕾已七十二歲、佛蘭西斯卡七十九歲、愛凡格琳八十一歲時，三人還進行了一次南美洲冒險之旅，不過，這也是最後一次。
436 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1942
About the author
Mildred Cable
57 books5 followers(Alice) Mildred Cable was a British Protestant Christian missionary in China, serving with the China Inland Mission. With her traveling companions Evangeline (Eva) French and Eva's younger sister Francesca, she traveled from Huozhou to Zhangye and settled in Jiuquan in 1923. Branching out from there they traveled extensively, giving away Bibles and Christian literature in Tibet, and Qinghai and Xinjiang provinces. After 1936, Cable and the French sisters were not able to return to Asia and retired to Dorset where they wrote about their experiences.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
October 16, 2020
For 13 years (1923 to 1936) Mildred Cable and Francesca & Eva French travelled the Gobi Desert in Chinese Turkestan as missionaries. They worked back and forward, to such a point that they continually crossed paths with merchants and traders, and became an accepted feature of the desert. "From Etzingol to Turpan, from Spring of Wine to Chuguchak, we had spent long years in following trade-routes, tracing faint caravan tracks, searching out innumerable by-paths and exploring the most hidden oases. ... Five times we traversed the whole length of the desert, and in the process we had become part of its life."[P276]
Although it doesn't receive a mention until near the end, their missionary work consisted of the massed distribution of bibles - "It was necessary to carry books in seven different languages in order that the Mongol, the Chinese, the Turki, the Tibetan, the Manchurian, the Russian and the Arabic reading Ahung should each be supplied with the gospel in his own tongue." [P277] Sounds more like a logistics job than a religious one! To be honest, I was pleased this book wasn't dominated by religion - I probably wouldn't have stayed the course. As it was, it was a slow read for me, finishing several books during my reading of this.
There can be no doubt it probably does more to describe the occupants, their way of life, their beliefs and culture than any other book I heave read about this area. There is also the history, archaeology, the monasteries and the oasis towns, so really is a thorough examination of life.
While they were, at times, hosted well, they were predominantly travelling and living rough.
Their hardships were extreme, and they reveled in it. Well read, there are many mentions of the discoveries by Sven Hedin and Albert Von Le Coq, as the ladies visit many of the sites themselves.
First published in 1943, this book is credited as authored by Mildred Cable with Francesca French. The prologue states: "The following record of what we saw and found in the Desert of Gobi may help others appreciate its unique charm. These experiences were shared by three people, but for obvious reasons the record is written in the first person singular."
The epilogue of the book refers to the Japanese invasion of China, the introduction of trucks on the Silk Roads bringing munitions to the Chinese - a new era for the Gobi Desert, and fittingly, the end of the authors' time in Chinese Turkestan.
My edition is a tenth impression, 1954 from Hodder & Stoughton and contains some 50 pages of black and white photographs. While the landscapes are grainy and forgettable there are many very fine portraits which are excellent.
I found some parts excellent and unputdownable. But for the most part it was just well written, very detailed, and interesting. The font and spacing is quite small, which possibly contributed to my reading it quite slowly - I must be getting old to mention this I suppose!
4 stars.
Although it doesn't receive a mention until near the end, their missionary work consisted of the massed distribution of bibles - "It was necessary to carry books in seven different languages in order that the Mongol, the Chinese, the Turki, the Tibetan, the Manchurian, the Russian and the Arabic reading Ahung should each be supplied with the gospel in his own tongue." [P277] Sounds more like a logistics job than a religious one! To be honest, I was pleased this book wasn't dominated by religion - I probably wouldn't have stayed the course. As it was, it was a slow read for me, finishing several books during my reading of this.
There can be no doubt it probably does more to describe the occupants, their way of life, their beliefs and culture than any other book I heave read about this area. There is also the history, archaeology, the monasteries and the oasis towns, so really is a thorough examination of life.
While they were, at times, hosted well, they were predominantly travelling and living rough.
Their hardships were extreme, and they reveled in it. Well read, there are many mentions of the discoveries by Sven Hedin and Albert Von Le Coq, as the ladies visit many of the sites themselves.
First published in 1943, this book is credited as authored by Mildred Cable with Francesca French. The prologue states: "The following record of what we saw and found in the Desert of Gobi may help others appreciate its unique charm. These experiences were shared by three people, but for obvious reasons the record is written in the first person singular."
The epilogue of the book refers to the Japanese invasion of China, the introduction of trucks on the Silk Roads bringing munitions to the Chinese - a new era for the Gobi Desert, and fittingly, the end of the authors' time in Chinese Turkestan.
My edition is a tenth impression, 1954 from Hodder & Stoughton and contains some 50 pages of black and white photographs. While the landscapes are grainy and forgettable there are many very fine portraits which are excellent.
I found some parts excellent and unputdownable. But for the most part it was just well written, very detailed, and interesting. The font and spacing is quite small, which possibly contributed to my reading it quite slowly - I must be getting old to mention this I suppose!
4 stars.
September 4, 2019
Brilliant. Mildred and the two French sisters did what most people today would find beyond belief, going as a trio into the Gobi desert for years, without any other Europeans and completely unarmed. Fantastic story. A woman of incredible inner strength.
February 19, 2021
This highly dated account records the adventures of two English female missionaries, Mildred Cable and Fransesca French, as they seek to bring their gospel to the nomads and oasis dwellers of China's wild west in the 1920s and ’30s. The intrepid pair journey up and down China’s old Silk Road, through the Gobi, Lop, and Taklamakan deserts. They document their encounters with warlords and the steady advance of the desert into former farm and pasture lands. They hoped to sow cultural seeds from Europe, partly by presenting themselves as examples of how Western women might live independently of men. But their sense of compassion involved a certain acceptance of the “official” context—that the role of the local women really was mere dependence:
"To the Tungan woman, home is the place where she is fed and clothed in exchange for bearing children, and where all that is required of her is entire submission to her husband, and that she put his pleasure before every other consideration." (p. 167)
"To the Tungan woman, home is the place where she is fed and clothed in exchange for bearing children, and where all that is required of her is entire submission to her husband, and that she put his pleasure before every other consideration." (p. 167)
February 11, 2018
Memories of a Vanished World
Around my neck of the woods, in eastern Massachusetts, on any Saturday morning except in winter, you can visit an endless number of yard sales. At malls or in specialty shops, you know what you are going to find---in fact you select a particular store to get what you need. Yard sales are different. You never know what you will find; you rummage around and maybe come up with a treasure. At least you can see what weird and wonderful items people have accumulated over a lifetime. Mildred Cable's book on the Gobi Desert reminded me of a yard sale---and I like yard sales.
After many years as missionaries in Shansi province, where they learned fluent Chinese and absorbed the majority culture, Cable and her two female companions, all three Englishwomen, received permission to venture into the deserts of northwestern Kansu and eastern Xinjiang, then still known as Chinese Turkestan. They spent around 13 years, from 1923 to 1936, wandering up and down the rutted desert tracks of this remote area, spreading Bibles and the word of God as known to Christians (and were not excessively denominational about it either). THE GOBI DESERT then, does not exactly cover the whole Gobi Desert, for most of that vast area lies in Mongolia, where the ladies never set foot. It is about the ancient civilizations and mixed ethnic groups (Chinese, Hui, Mongol, Kazakh, Uighur, Manchu, Russian) found in the territory between Suzhou and Urumchi, a breadth of country some 600 miles long, but much narrower due to the lack of water in most of it. The "yard sale" quality of the book lies in the fact that everything is mixed together, but it's all interesting. There are many photographs, but I must say that in my edition (Virago paperback), they were mostly of poor quality. From the history of Hsüan Tsang, who brought the Buddhist scriptures from India to China in the 7th century, to the art of hiring a proper carter, from the fantastic cavesful of Buddhist art at Dunhwang to a detailed description of the Muslim rebellion of 1930, it's all here. The ladies fought scorpions, heat, duststorms, thirst, and exhaustion. They met innkeepers, bandits, deserters, Muslim generals, abbots, princes, Russian refugees, nomads, lamas, and prostitutes. They visited the many fertile oases, remote valleys, mountain strongholds, and salt lakes of a region that has changed dramatically since those days. Though a committed missionary, Cable keeps preaching to a minimum in her book, which is a grab bag of impressions, adventures, and information that will keep your interest to the end. THE GOBI DESERT is the kind of travel book not often seen anymore. It is not an account of a "trip", but rather the winnowed result of thirteen years continuous travel in a particular region. Most of all it is an account of a now-vanished world, a world erased by roads, wars, Communism, and massive Chinese immigration. Read it.
Around my neck of the woods, in eastern Massachusetts, on any Saturday morning except in winter, you can visit an endless number of yard sales. At malls or in specialty shops, you know what you are going to find---in fact you select a particular store to get what you need. Yard sales are different. You never know what you will find; you rummage around and maybe come up with a treasure. At least you can see what weird and wonderful items people have accumulated over a lifetime. Mildred Cable's book on the Gobi Desert reminded me of a yard sale---and I like yard sales.
After many years as missionaries in Shansi province, where they learned fluent Chinese and absorbed the majority culture, Cable and her two female companions, all three Englishwomen, received permission to venture into the deserts of northwestern Kansu and eastern Xinjiang, then still known as Chinese Turkestan. They spent around 13 years, from 1923 to 1936, wandering up and down the rutted desert tracks of this remote area, spreading Bibles and the word of God as known to Christians (and were not excessively denominational about it either). THE GOBI DESERT then, does not exactly cover the whole Gobi Desert, for most of that vast area lies in Mongolia, where the ladies never set foot. It is about the ancient civilizations and mixed ethnic groups (Chinese, Hui, Mongol, Kazakh, Uighur, Manchu, Russian) found in the territory between Suzhou and Urumchi, a breadth of country some 600 miles long, but much narrower due to the lack of water in most of it. The "yard sale" quality of the book lies in the fact that everything is mixed together, but it's all interesting. There are many photographs, but I must say that in my edition (Virago paperback), they were mostly of poor quality. From the history of Hsüan Tsang, who brought the Buddhist scriptures from India to China in the 7th century, to the art of hiring a proper carter, from the fantastic cavesful of Buddhist art at Dunhwang to a detailed description of the Muslim rebellion of 1930, it's all here. The ladies fought scorpions, heat, duststorms, thirst, and exhaustion. They met innkeepers, bandits, deserters, Muslim generals, abbots, princes, Russian refugees, nomads, lamas, and prostitutes. They visited the many fertile oases, remote valleys, mountain strongholds, and salt lakes of a region that has changed dramatically since those days. Though a committed missionary, Cable keeps preaching to a minimum in her book, which is a grab bag of impressions, adventures, and information that will keep your interest to the end. THE GOBI DESERT is the kind of travel book not often seen anymore. It is not an account of a "trip", but rather the winnowed result of thirteen years continuous travel in a particular region. Most of all it is an account of a now-vanished world, a world erased by roads, wars, Communism, and massive Chinese immigration. Read it.
July 14, 2009
Absolutely fascinating distillation of 13 years travel in Central Asia (primarily between the Gansu Corridor and Turpan) by two intrepid female missionaries in the 1920s and 30s. I sincerely wish I had read this book before my first trip to the region. I've now travelled the Silk Road's northern and southern routes several times and still learned so much -- about sites now lost, its flora and fauna, original names, etc. A marvellous find, as fresh and entertaining as any newer work today on the same region.
April 5, 2020
I took me a long time to read this book, but it was well worth it.
The book details the journeys of 3 British women who traveled around the Gobi desert for 13 years (1923-1936).
There is such keen observation of life, terrain, food, people, history politics. I wonder if a book like this would ever be written today.
Although there were 3 people plus their carters & cooks, the book is written from a one person viewpoint. It does not detract from the flow.
I wonder how much of the caves and paintings and traditions are still left in the Gobi desert.
They were rarely afraid. They were welcomed in almost town/ oasis they went.
They endured dificulties and hardship but there is no complaining. In one part they talk about how thirsty you can be, it's so interesting. And that there were different types of water all over the desert, some which quenched the thirst and others wher it made you feel thirstier.
I'm glad I persisted, I'm sure if I ever reread it I would remember so many other things. The detail and depth are amazing but not dull, it doesn't drag.
The book details the journeys of 3 British women who traveled around the Gobi desert for 13 years (1923-1936).
There is such keen observation of life, terrain, food, people, history politics. I wonder if a book like this would ever be written today.
Although there were 3 people plus their carters & cooks, the book is written from a one person viewpoint. It does not detract from the flow.
I wonder how much of the caves and paintings and traditions are still left in the Gobi desert.
They were rarely afraid. They were welcomed in almost town/ oasis they went.
They endured dificulties and hardship but there is no complaining. In one part they talk about how thirsty you can be, it's so interesting. And that there were different types of water all over the desert, some which quenched the thirst and others wher it made you feel thirstier.
I'm glad I persisted, I'm sure if I ever reread it I would remember so many other things. The detail and depth are amazing but not dull, it doesn't drag.
June 2, 2008
I recommend this book for anyone who (like me) enjoys travel writing, loves deserts and their cultures, finds central Asia fascinating, or values glimpses of the ancient world before modernity intruded.
In 1926, three English missionary women became the first western women to cross the Gobi. This was before railroads made it easy to do so.
The author, Mildred Cable, was one of those women, and she wrote of the people they met and lands they explored with little of the condescension you might expect from the era. She was clearly a desert-lover, able to appreciate and find value in the cultures and lifestyles she encountered.
And to be clear, though the author was a missionary, this is not a religious book but a documentary-style depiction of Kazakhs and Uzbeks, Muslims and Buddhists, caravans and oases.
In 1926, three English missionary women became the first western women to cross the Gobi. This was before railroads made it easy to do so.
The author, Mildred Cable, was one of those women, and she wrote of the people they met and lands they explored with little of the condescension you might expect from the era. She was clearly a desert-lover, able to appreciate and find value in the cultures and lifestyles she encountered.
And to be clear, though the author was a missionary, this is not a religious book but a documentary-style depiction of Kazakhs and Uzbeks, Muslims and Buddhists, caravans and oases.
May 21, 2020
This book is an account of the years that three missionary women and their aides spent wandering the oases of the Gobi. There are keen observations on the different peoples and practices of the region, evocative descriptions of the natural environment and discussions on history and archeology. It's also tinged with sadness and sympathy at the plight of the various unfortunates they encounter, and righteous anger at the powerful men who inflict so much needless suffering, from warlords to..., well, more warlords. Nevertheless, it's an excellent read that will fill you with a desire to retread the steps of Mildred Cable and co., these one hundred years later. It's just a pity that Xinjiang being what it is, that's not really practical...
Want to Read
July 22, 2010I read this book--or skimmed it--as I traveled China in 1987. A joy to find my notes of discovery in the margins! 7/5/87--"from the air, the sunshine side of the dunes looks like neon!" Midlred Cable is a wonderful, delightful, incredibly knowledgeable travel guide after living in and traveling China as a missionary for many years. Her descriptions are precise and caring. This is not a proselytizing missionary at all. Instead, she's curious, enchanted, fully engage by speaking local languages and wearing local clothing.
But I'm going to put her down for a bit now to read about Freya Stark....
But I'm going to put her down for a bit now to read about Freya Stark....
Read
August 19, 2017I have a lovely copy of this from a charity shop. A gem. Of course it is in some ways marred by the colonial background of such a mission but they are gentle and open people and their observations are full of admiration. Transporting.
But usefully countered by the book I am currently reading - Other Routes, 1500 years of African and Asian Travel Writing with its erudite explanation of the context of 'discovery' travel writing as proposed by a Western colonialist starting point.
But usefully countered by the book I am currently reading - Other Routes, 1500 years of African and Asian Travel Writing with its erudite explanation of the context of 'discovery' travel writing as proposed by a Western colonialist starting point.
October 26, 2012
This is a little gem of a book. If you have read Sven Hedin, Eleanor & Owen Lattimore, Henning Haslund-Christensen, F.A. Larson, etc, you NEED to read Mildred Cable & the French sisters account of the same time, same places and same folks.
September 21, 2026
Beautifully descriptive, bringing the people, landscape and culture of the then Gobi desert so vividly alive
January 16, 2021
This is a fascinating book.
I got it second hand and did not realise just how well-known the author actually is. So far as I was concerned it was a cheap second hand book written at the time and so was likely to be an interesting contemporary view of an area of the world about which I knew little. Which it is in. In spades. Wow.
The book was written by a British missionary woman who traveleld for years around the oases, towns and out of the way hamlets of the Gobi desert to bring the word of Christ to the locals. Not that you would really know that from this book. The missionary activity is barely mentioned. And her two companions do not rate a mention at all except she occassionally says "we" when referring to herself indicating that somebody else was there at the time.
What this book is, however, is a marvellously compelling description of the Gobi as it was in the 1920s and early 1930s. It was a vanishing world, and the author is aware of that. The advent of aircraft and motor lorries was transforming the millennia old face of the Gobi with its camel trains, donkey transport and unsuface roads and byways. This was a Gobi where a wrong turn could spell a hideous, long-drawn out death from thirst
She describes the different peoples of the area, their religions, customs and habits. She looks at the ruins of the past and gives a bit of history, but mostly it is the contemporary that dominates this book. The crops, the minerals, the trade, the characters, the places, the road and the desert - always the desert.
The book ends with an account of the wars that broke out after the Chinese government annexed and then abolished the centuries old Khanate of Kumul, which had ruled the area for centuries under a dynasty that was descended from Genghis Khan. Those wars eventually saw the area collapse in to chaos and anarchy that costs tens of thousands of lives, destroyed the trade routes and ended with dozens of towns utterly abandoned. It also drove the author from the area in fear of her life
A great book. It is available in modern reprints, so go and get a copy.
I got it second hand and did not realise just how well-known the author actually is. So far as I was concerned it was a cheap second hand book written at the time and so was likely to be an interesting contemporary view of an area of the world about which I knew little. Which it is in. In spades. Wow.
The book was written by a British missionary woman who traveleld for years around the oases, towns and out of the way hamlets of the Gobi desert to bring the word of Christ to the locals. Not that you would really know that from this book. The missionary activity is barely mentioned. And her two companions do not rate a mention at all except she occassionally says "we" when referring to herself indicating that somebody else was there at the time.
What this book is, however, is a marvellously compelling description of the Gobi as it was in the 1920s and early 1930s. It was a vanishing world, and the author is aware of that. The advent of aircraft and motor lorries was transforming the millennia old face of the Gobi with its camel trains, donkey transport and unsuface roads and byways. This was a Gobi where a wrong turn could spell a hideous, long-drawn out death from thirst
She describes the different peoples of the area, their religions, customs and habits. She looks at the ruins of the past and gives a bit of history, but mostly it is the contemporary that dominates this book. The crops, the minerals, the trade, the characters, the places, the road and the desert - always the desert.
The book ends with an account of the wars that broke out after the Chinese government annexed and then abolished the centuries old Khanate of Kumul, which had ruled the area for centuries under a dynasty that was descended from Genghis Khan. Those wars eventually saw the area collapse in to chaos and anarchy that costs tens of thousands of lives, destroyed the trade routes and ended with dozens of towns utterly abandoned. It also drove the author from the area in fear of her life
A great book. It is available in modern reprints, so go and get a copy.
September 16, 2019
I enjoyed this so much more than expected. It is beautifully written, really evokes the desert, and there is so much here...from the characters, like the priest who guards the 1,000 Buddhas to the Baby General and everyone in between. This was written at a time when the pre-Western history of the era could be recorded but the change was already underway. It isn't without its problematic bits, but for missionaries of the era these women are remarkably accepting of other cultures and religions, although they definitely have a preference for the Chinese people they had spent years of their life with. They are very religious and approach their writing through the lens of faith but it isn't obnoxious or overdone. This is really just an excellent description of a one of a kind place and the many peoples who live there. I'd recommend it.
December 5, 2012
A very interesting read with a great deal of description of the people, environment, and history of the Gobi Desert.
January 17, 2013
A great adventure travel tale about 3 young French women who were missionaries in the remote Gobi desert in the 1920's. One of my all time favorites.
September 20, 2019
Expected better but was still an interesting read of that time period
May 6, 2023
This was a very in depth book but very good history of central Asia at the end of the nomadic era and beginning of the automobile, as well as political changes. It gives the reader a sense of the region and the various people in the area- a blending of cultures of the main religions on earth, from Russians, to Turks and Chinese. Cable, although a missionary, doesn't preach and it reads more like an adventure book as well as cultural. She and her two female companions spoke Chinese as well as it seemed some of the other languages of the area and lived with the people. I learned a lot. Highly recommended.
September 24, 2026
The authors were Christian missionaries but there's very little proselytizing to be found here. Instead they provide a wonderfully detailed description of yes, that eponymous desert, along with many other aspects of the vast territory once known as Chinese Turkestan. The flora and fauna, the archaeology, economics, architecture, politics, and superbly, the cultures of the various people who lived there are all vividly portrayed. If you don't have access to Gallifreyan technology and/or eighty year old 4K video recordings this is the best introduction to a little known but fascinating part of our world.
4.5 stars
4.5 stars
November 22, 2025
An excellent read. This book came to me in an older hardback edition by accident and I half expected it to be a dull read. It is not. The authors are female Christian missionaries in 1920s China, but show a surprising respect for (and knowledge of) traditional central Asian religions such as Buddhism, Taoism and Mongolian Tengri-ism. They are less flattering about Islam and explain why. More chaos and destruction came sadly to East Turkestan after these ladies' travels, but there is a lot to be learned here about this fascinating land-locked part of the world.
February 12, 2026
This is a beautiful account of a fabulous journey, full of wonderful descriptions of the landscape, its peoples, the settlements and their religion. The book captures the region just prior to travelling becoming mechanised. The author's and her companion's bravery, humanity and compassion shine out of their missionary work. There is history in the accounts of the relationships between China, Russia and the idegenous people. There is also fine account of the trading relations along the Silk Road routes and the characters they meet. It is great.
April 9, 2024
If you are interested in LOTS (and LOTS) of detail about travel in the Gobi desert, this is the book for you. I was more interested in learning about these women, who they were and what they did in their missionary journey, and I found this book short on those details. I thought the book was rather dry. I skimmed through it, looking for things that would catch and keep my attention, as all of the descriptions bogged down the story for me.
March 31, 2023
Detail of crossing the western regions of the Gobi Desert and the early ‘Stan’s just bordering China.
October 15, 2026
Intriguing book. Obviously dated but fascinating insite as to how things were in the Gobi dessert in the 1920s and how the indigenous people treaded women.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews