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is only a desert waste; he settled a controversy which for years has divided the geographers of Europe into two camps. And as the accomplishment was far greater than he had expected or hoped for, so also were the difficulties and dangers incomparably more formidable than he had anticipated. It fell to him in his journey across the Takla-Makan Desert to undergo sufferings which assuredly beat the record of human endurance; and had his journey had no other result than to show how a man by sheer strength of will and determination to save his life can fight death and triumph over it, Sven Hedin's story would be full of direct encouragement to every one who heard it told.

It was in his study, on the third floor of a house in the Norm Blasieholmshamnen, in Stockholm, that Sven Hedin related to me this wonderful story. The study, which is both his workroom and bedchamber, tells one about him much that the sight of his athletic frame; his firm, strong face; and vivacious, even restless, manner,