The sequel to the "Desert Road to Turkestan"
"High Tartary" is the sequel to the "Desert Road to Turkestan",from the 1927-1928 journey carried out by Owen Lattimore and his wife through Chinese Turkestan. While the first book dwells in depth on Lattimore's caravan trip through Inner Mongolia, High Tartary is focused more on the places than on the traveling method. Arriving in Urumchi and thinking the dangerous part of the voyage over, Lattimore beckons his wife Eleanor to reach him. With a seventeen day sledge journey through Siberia (that is object of the beautiful "Turkestan Reunion"), Eleanor reaches her husband and together they travel trough Tartary, a medieval country from the highlands of Tien Shan to the Pamir. Similarly to the Desert Road, Lattimore makes friends with all the people he travels with, he studies in detail all the places he visits with particular attention this time not only to the trade routes, but also to the relationship between Russians and Chinese in these border towns. Naturally we must remember that the book was written just about 10 years after the Russian revolution, so the political interpretations and the situation of those times was different from now, as is also pointed out by the Author in his introduction.
The most fascinating aspect of the book in my opinion is the description of all the human types and ethnicities the travelers meet. They are most fascinated with the nomads Quazaqs, Qirghiz, Chahar, Torgut, whose habits are described in detail.
After a long and apparently meandering trip full of hunting, reading, just simple staying (remember it was a honey moon trip!), the travelers go to Kashgar and then through the "Five Great Passes" to India, where their trip ends.
This is a great travel book, like those written in the 1920-40 (when the going was good), it has humanity, culture, humor, learning, and I would say love in it. Owen and Eleonore Lattimore's lives went on to other books and other feats, but this narrative jewel is still here to remind us of youth, enthusiasm, courage and curiosity.
