Informant38

Central Asia: Early travelers
Part 2: Sven Hedin, a lifetime of exploring

His mapping skills - which he developed, basically, I think, without a huge amount of formal training - really became quite extraordinary."
In one expedition, Hedin traveled across Russian Central Asia, crossing the Pamirs, exploring and attempting to climb the peaks, and then crossing part of the Taklamakan desert, where he nearly lost his life for lack of water. Hedin was taken by local guides to a ruined city in the desert northeast of Khotan where he found not only the remains of buildings, orchards and avenues preserved in the sand, but also Buddhist stucco figures and wall paintings. Hedin was no archaeologist, but he realized that he had been brought to one of the old cities of the Silk Road.
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Professor Uli Schamiloglu, a professor and historian at the University of Wisconsin, commented to RFE/RL on the life of Sven Hedin, "Sven Hedin, who was born in 1865 and died in 1952, is considered to be one of the leading explorers and geographers of Central Asia, not just thinking of the five republics of Central Asia today, but in his contributions to the study of the sources of the Brahma-Putra-Indus rivers, his explorations in Tibet, in the Gobi Desert, and other places that are really well-known.
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In Sinkiang, Hedin had been overwhelmed by the "liberal doses of fiery spirits and the 46 courses" through which he had been obliged to sit. In his book Through Asia, Hedin described a few dishes typical of such feasts, "The skin, fins and cartilage of different varieties of fish found in the seas and rivers of the Chinese empire, fungi, salted mutton fat cut into oblong strips, lizards, ham with a great variety of different adjuncts, besides a multitude of strange preparations, the real constituents and names of which remained mysteries to me."
�Charles Carlson /Asia Times 09.06.03