Adventure Magazine Cover — page 183: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Camp-Fire with the kettles, the scouting of Crist and Floyd, the Indian attack, the bravery of Fossett and the others, and then Crist’s remarkable journey are all told in my story with a tolerable close adherence to facts. I have fictionized most with respect t6 the unfortunate woman on the boat, whose name and previous history are, as a matter of fact, un- known to us; but I have told her subsequent adventures with a little closer approximation to the few known facts. She was actually taken by the Indians to Detroit, as I relate herein, and was brought back by Kentucky soldiers several years later. The whole affair proves that truth is some- times quite as strange and as interesting as fiction, especially in American pioneer history.—ALVIN F. HARLOw. BEE ORE letting Talbot Mundy talk at Camp-Fire in connection with his new serial beginning in this issue I want to say that this magazine is in no way sponsoring the opinions he offers. If you don’t like them, settle it with him, not with the magazine or with me personally, and don’t think for a minute that Camp-Fire is going to use any of its time or space for arguments pro and con. No religious dis- cussions at our blaze. The only reason for allowing Mr. Mundy to express his opinions among us is because they seem a legitimate support of his story and of his sincerity in handlng its material. As opinions they are merely Mr. Mundy’s not the magazines, and have place in our pages solely because the author had, in at- tempting to present and make real another religious world, an extremely difficult task in which he is entitled to a Camp-Fire hear- ing. For most of us reared in the Christian faith almost automatically react with scorn and hostility to any other religion that claims superiority over ours as ours does over it. And it is part of that scorn and hostility to doubt even the sincerity and good intent of the other faith’s followers. This, in the case of the Lama of the story, seems an unfair handicap on the author, before even a word of the story is read, and should entitle him to opportunity to offset this handicap—if he can—and to do so also before the story is read. “OM” explores two fields that have been hitherto untouched, so far as I know; and a third that has not been much investigated, at any rate in fiction, from the view point that there may be something in it. The Abor Valley, of course, is a real place, but that is about all that is actually known about it, although plenty of people have been within thirty-five miles of its border. On the north it touches Tibet, where the Tsang-po River goes tumbling over wide, but only moderately deep falls, a I8t into the Valley, to become the Brahmaputra lower down. ‘Those falls have been seen and their height variously estimated at from thirty to three hundred feet; but somewhere in the Valley the river descends ‘several thousand feet and, because of the com- paratively short distance, it is calculated that there must be other falls immensely greater than Niagara. S MANY of the facts as are actually known about the Abor Valley are given in the story. My latest informant was Sven Hedin the explorer, but, although he has been probably nearer to the Abor Valley than any other white man, he could tell me no more than is to be found in some of the Indian Survey reports. For more than a hundred years the Indian Government has been trying to get information about the Abor Valley, but has signally failed, the mountains being unclimbable, the river unnavigable, the jungle impenetrable, and the Abors themselves being fiercer and more secretive than any other people in that part of the world. All of the numerous spies sent into the Valley have vanished and nothing has ever been learned of their ultimate fate; it is supposed thay have been killed or sold into slavery. Samdrup, the most famous member of the Indian Survey force, spent several years trying to get into the Abor Valley, but failed, although he was as faithful, persistent and reliable as any spy who ever lived. He saw the upper falls, reaching them from Tibet, and actually threw a hundred marked logs into the river—none of which, however, was seen at the lower end by the people set there to watch for them; so that even today it has not been actually proved that the Tsang-po and the Brahma- putra are the same river. In the course of his great adventure Samdrup was sold into slavery, but escaped and was finally pensioned by the Indian Government. He made no notes during his wanderings, because to have been caught with them would have meant instant death; nevertheless, relying solely on counted footsteps, his estimate of distances has since been proven accurate within a few miles in almost every instance. | HE ‘‘Mahatmas” or ‘“‘Masters” are mentioned in the story more than once, although none of them appears. Personally, I have never met one to my certain knowledge. although this may be due to the fact that no one who really was a Mahatma or Master would dream of admitting it. I have met several men who claimed to be “‘Masters,”’ but in each instance I have been quite sure the indi- vidual was an imposter (of which breed there are all too many); and I have met one man who, to judge by his conversation and his conduct, might have been one of them, but as he did not admit it, and I have no other means of proving who or what he was, I can not lay claim to having seen one. Nevertheless, I am convinced they exist. Rumor never dies concerning them. About half of the population of the world believes implicitly in their existence, and much nonsense is talked and written concerning them. But they are supposed to be men who, having gained in past lives, through experience, a fuller knowledge of what Jife means than has yet been attained by the rest of us, are born into the world on a somewhat higher plane of consciousness than we are. Their duty and delight is said to be to watch over the world and, from time to time, as opportunity offers, to release a little of their wisdom Co DOO) (-) (C@