Books: Long Ride

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TSCHIFFELY'S RIDE—A. F. Tschiffely—Simon & Sclmster ($3).

Over & above flagpole-sitting feats and dance marathons there are still some records hung so high and in such out-of-the-way places that few will care to shoot at them. Fortnight ago English airmen flew over Mt. Everest (TIME, April 10). Not so publicized or so spectacular but every bit as jaunty was Aime Felix Tschiffely's recent (1925-27) 10,000-mile horseback ride from Buenos Aires to Washington, D. C.

Native Swiss Tschiffely (pronounced Shiffaily) had taught school in England, then served nine years in an Anglo-U. S. school in the Argentine. Young, fit, unwilling to be a schoolmaster all his life, he planned a glorified sabbatical. Friends thought him crazy; Buenos Aires' potent newspaper, La Nation, gave him good advice, took his picture when he was ready to start. With no companions but two stocky, middle-aged (15 and 16) Argentine Criollo horses, "thoroughbred in nothing except courage," Tschiffely headed north. Gato (the Cat), Mancha (the Stained One) and their master were two and a half years on the road. Gato came down with an infected leg in Tapachula, Mexico, had to be shipped to Mexico City by rail, but Mancha and Tschiffely made the whole trek (except for a short boat-ride from Cartagena to Colon, another around revolutionary Nicaragua) under their own power.

Through the Argentine to the Andes (he crossed them three times), to Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador. Colombia. Panama, Central America, Mexico, Tschiffely & beasts plowed through jungles, swamps, deserts, mountain passes, across swinging bridges, in fair & foul weather. Once Tschiffely, on a dark night, tried to drive his comrades over a precipice; their horse sense saved him. Once Gato refused to budge; Tschiffely found he was facing a quicksand. Tschiffely refuses to manufacture adventures, but admits that once he had to shoot in self-defense. He often had passport trouble and was occasionally taken for a spy, but by the time he reached Mexico City his fame had preceded him: he was given the honor of opening a bullfight. Though his kind of traveling was thirsty work, Tschiffely carried no water. "For my own use I had a flask of brandy, and another filled with lemon juice mixed with a little salt. This concoction was very stimulating but tasted so bad that I was never tempted to drink much at a time."

Tschiffely's civilized Argentine sensibilities were often revolted by what he saw in more backward South American countries. He disliked the way Bolivian Indians crawled up to white men on their knees, kissed their feet. In Bolivia he was an unwilling witness of the rape of a 13-year-old Indian girl. In Chiapas, Mexico, he saw a boy of 18 shot in cold blood by an officer, left to die in the street. Prudent Traveler Tschiffely, his eye on his goal, knew it was useless to interfere in such cases.