MIDDLE EAST expedition

Before us loom the Parnir, the trails thither cut by floods. Beyond the mountain barrier the China group of heavier, finer cars is toilsomely plowing its way across the deserts from Peiping toward the rendezvous at Kashgar, in the heart of Asia.

What is mystery to us will be fact to you long before this journal of our east-ward marches can be published. Kashmir spreads its seductions before our eyes or tempts us forth to watch the Jhelum River lift the houseboats high above the surrounding countryside. The long, long trail ahead leads our thoughts across the roof of the world. But the present duty is to relate what has gone before.

There come fond memories of those days before the start. My first thrilling interview in Paris with M. Georges-Marie Haardt, the leader of the Expedition, with all Asia spread before us in his treasure-trove of travel lore overlooking the Tuileries; the graciousness of President Doumergue toward the only representative of America in this French expedition; our chief patron, M. Andre Citroen, waving farewell to us at the Gare de Lyon; the Mariette Pacha, for the first time in her history, coming alongside the quay at Beyrouth, the Syrian seaport, so that our heavy cars can be landed rather than lightered ashore.

Fond memories, too, of that oriental city to which I first came as a teacher twenty years ago. The cordial and repeated hospitality of the High Commissioner of France and Mme. Ponsot; the reception by the American Consul and Mrs. Keeley and President and Mrs. Dodge at the American University; the Expedition's equipment inspection in honor of the arrival of the Vice-President of the National Geographic Society on the red sands of Bir Hassen, with the Tricolor and the …"