Abstract
SUPERFICIALLY, telephone and motor-car may seem to have transformed travel in inner Asia, but all they have done is to speed it up—in some ways only. Fundamentally it remains the same, especially where the human factor -acts as grit in the machinery. Hence Mr. Byron failed to reach the Oxusthe objective of his journey. In this journal of travel in the Middle East, the villain of the piece, though not in the final obstruction, is "Mr. Marjoribanks", a synonym for the ruler of Persia, though perhaps this name ought to be interpreted as a generic term for all the many incongruities, restrictions and uncongenial elements which the author encountered in the 'modernized' life of the country. In Afghanistan and among its people Mr. Byron was much more at home, even though political exigencies were invoked to debar him from the riverine frontier of Turkestan. International policy and the British Foreign Office receive treatment which the author considers their due.
The Road to Oxiana
By Robert Byron. Pp. ix + 341 + 16 plates. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1937.) 10s. 6d. net.
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The Road to Oxiana. Nature 140, 788 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/140788d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/140788d0
