Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



293 



NANSEN ON YOKING POLAR BEARS. 



Fridtjof Nansen writes in Scribner's for March 

 on the race for the South Pole. He estimates the 

 advantages first on the side of Captain Scott of the 

 British e.xpedition, and then on the side of the Nor- 

 wegian expedition under Roald Amundsen. Nansen 

 does not think that modern invention has been of much 

 importance for Polar exploration. Peary's great 

 achievements were chiefly attained by employing 

 Ivskimos. with Eskimo methods, Eskimo dogs, and 

 Ivskimo sledges — methods used by Polar tra\ellers 

 thousands of years ago. There has been an impro\e- 

 ment of late years in working out systematically in 

 detail beforehand what was necessary for an Arct c 

 expedition. The motor-car does not appeal to Nansm 

 as likely in its present stage of de\elopment to be of 

 much service. The airship and the aeroplane may in 

 time come to be of value. But perhaps the most 

 picturesque suggestion is as follows : — 



II l.a> lieen stiggested tlial ihe polar bear miyht possibly be 

 l;irntd lo actounl as a draught animal for polar expeditions. 

 I .iplain .\ii undsen at one lime considered the advisability of 

 iryint; lo btcnk in polar bears for the purpose, and men- 

 lioncd it to the well-known Ilerr Hagtnleck, of Hamburg. 

 Il3j,enbeck con-idercd il very po sible, and actually started 10 

 break in st me bears, and, actording lo what I have heard, xcA y 

 'o some extent succeeded. .-Viiyhow, this experiment has rot 

 been made in the polar region*, but if it really were possib!e to 

 train the polar bear for the purpose, he would naturally be 

 an ideal draught animal for these regions: his sirengh and 

 endurance are wondirfid ; like the dog, he can live on conccn- 

 tiated food ; and, better than the dog, he has remarkable reserve 

 poweis, f n.ibling him to live for a long time without any food. 

 1 ;im, however, afraid that the polar bear would be a somewhat 

 lisky and tioublesonie draught animal to use, as he might not 

 dways be very easy to manage. 



DANCING DERVISHES IN DAMASCUS. 



l.N March Corn/iill .Mr. T. C. Fowle describes the 



|)arweeshes (as he calls them, according to the nati\e 



pronunciation of the word) of Damascus. He entered 



building crowded, excepting in a centre place, that 



'.oked like a prize-ring. After ^ short Moslem service, 



he darweeshes walked staidly round in a circle, 



Muntcr-dockwise. .Music wa.s playing, the instruments 



cing drurn, fiddle, and a pair of cymbals : — 



The darweeshes again began their slow procession round, but 



- each reathed the sIm ikh, who now stood still at his prayer mat, 



, change occurred. The sheikh l>enl forward and kissed the 



•ip of each darwcr-h, which was inclined for his salute, and no 



ooncr was this done than, as if moved by some sudden and 



Kvisible machinery, the darweesh himself spun away, whirling 



iildily around. ,\l first his aims wouhl be crossed on his 



ircasi, his hands clasping his shoulders, but as his momentum 



increased, .as though shot out by centrifugal force his aims would 



' xlend Ihcinselvcs unlil they were at right angles to his boiiy. 



1 he next darweesh would go through the same slow, digniliid 



{iproach, the ^ me salutation from Ihe sheikh, Ihe same sudden 



rotation ; and the next, and Ihe next, unlil the whole company 



of them, to the numUrr of about fifteen, were whirling liclow 



inc like so many gigantic while lops. It was j sirangc sight, 



rid moreover a not ungraceful sight cilhi r. In fact, I have 



• en far more awkward expositions of the " poetry of motion " 



in a Wotcrn ballroom than I did that day in a daiwccsh 



I ikeeyeh. 



After about ten minutes the music ceascl, the darwrcshes 

 leased spinning, coming to a standstill with tlicir hands on iheir 



shoulders, their arms crossed before them ; and the sheikh, 

 coming out into the centre of the circle (he had not as yet taken 

 part in their whirling), bowed gravely lo ihem. The darweeshes 

 returned his salutation, and took rest for a short while. Again 

 Ihe music commenced, again the darweeshes whirled in ihe same 

 manner, and after almost the same space of lime slopped, when 

 once more ihe sheikh towed and was bowed to. The third and 

 last bout of whirling was remarkable for the fact that the sheikh 

 look part in it himself — that is, in a modified manner. 



Looking back on the affair, one finds in it ^.physiail as well 

 ,TS an ethnological interest. I mean it seems extraordinary that 

 men could go through three bouts of whirling, such as I have 

 described, wilh only a short interval for rest in beiwccn— and 

 that rest taken standing, not sitting down. 



SANDHILLS MOVED BY WIND. 

 '■ TiiF. .Automobile in Africa ' is the title of 5;ir 

 Henry Norman's sketch in Scribner's of his tour from 

 .Algiers into the Sahara. Sir Henry says that the 

 Sahara is not a vast plain of sand, as is generally 

 understood, but an undulation, varying in height from 

 considerable depressions below sca-k\el to heights of 

 thousands of feet. The average height of the Sahara 

 is one thousand f\\c hundred feet above sea-level, 

 more than five hundred feet higher than Europe. 

 But though not a .sandy plain, il is spread over with 

 great or little spreading mounds or dunes of golden 

 sand, called " barchans." 



These, wind-created and wind-impelled, move forward almost 

 like live things. Engineers employed in laying out desert 

 railways have made costly, and even fatal, mistakes by not recog- 

 nising the fact, now established, that "desert dunes are not 

 anchored or stationary hills of sand, but mobile mas.ses, 

 advancing at a VKxy appreciable rale in a definite direction." 

 These dunes begin to move, according to another scientific 

 observer, as scon as a light breeze blows : the air is perceptibly 

 charged wilh sand in a moderate breeze; and during storms 

 their progress may be nearly two inches an hour, while ihcir 

 average advance is fifty feet a year. Many a once flourishing 

 oasis is now buried forever beneath the great sand-dunes, which, 

 "ever slowly widening, silence all"; nothing stops their 

 insidious advance ; " in some localities extensive and prosperous 

 setllemenis have been overwhelmed and blotted out of exist- 

 ence." They form, however, but a minute part of the surface 

 of the desert. 



It is not the soil of the Sahara that makes it sterile^ 

 but simply the want of rain. 



A ROBIN STORY. 



In the Atlanlii- Monthly for I'ebruary Mr. John 

 Burroughs writes on animal wit indoors and out. He 

 insists that the experimentalist of the laboratory 

 removes the animal frcni its natural surroundings, and 

 that his conclusions are therefore vitiated by the un- 

 ac( uslomedncss of the animal to its unnatural surround- 

 ings. He urges that the fieUl naturalist is the true 

 investigator. He tells this pretty story of two 

 robins : — 



I heard of a well-aulhentiealed case of a jair of robins buiUI- 

 ing Iheir nest under Ihe box on ihe running gear of a farmer's 

 « agon which slo<xl under a shed, and with which the farmer 

 was in liie habit of miking two trii>s lo the village, two miles 

 away, each week. 'I'lic robins followed him on these trips, 

 and the mother bird went forward wilh her incubation while 

 the farmrr did his errand', and ihe binls relumed wilh liim 

 when he drove home. An.i, strange lo say, the broo.1 was didjr 

 hatched and reared. 



