Sven Hedin: Truth is Stranger than Fiction

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Truth is Stranger Than Fiction The extraordinary life story of Swedish adventurer Sevn Anders Hedin would be laughed off as outrageous fiction if it weren’t true. Roderick Eime rediscovers this flamboyant Scandinavian.

Once a world-wide bestseller in the 1920s and translated into numerous languages, his most famous and now rarest book, “My Life as an Explorer” demonstrates Hedin’s ability to travel, discover, chart and become one with totally foreign civilizations while mounting breathtakingly daring expeditions into hostile and dangerous lands.

Just why Hedin has all but vanished into the annals of history is perhaps due to his controversial political views and aspirations.

While he was a consummate traveller, writer and geographer, his allegiance and unwavering support of Germany at totally the wrong time in history probably cost him his place in the Hall of Fame.

Fluent in nine languages including Persian, Russian, Turkish, Tibetan and Mongolian, his linguistic gift certainly went a long way to enabling him to complete some of the most hazardous overland journeys imaginable. He was erudite and relentless, overcoming not only physical hardships, but uncooperative governments, bandits and horrendous terrain.

Anthony Brandt, a regular National Geographic Magazine columnist and adventure literature expert believes Hedin’s work rates among the world’s greatest adventures.

“Hedin was not a man to turn back or give up,” writes Brandt, “He spent more than two years searching for and ultimately discovering the sources of the Indus and Brahmaputra Rivers, mapping huge areas hitherto unexplored in the mountains north of the Himalaya, crossing 18,000ft mountain passes in all seasons, while either charming or dodging government officials.”

Over the course of three decades, Hedin travelled the ancient Silk Road, discovered long-lost cities, mapped previously uncharted rivers and saw more of “the roof of the world” than any European before him. His epic memoir captures the splendour of now-vanished civilisations, the excitement of unearthing ancient monuments, the chilling terrors of snow-clogged mountain passes and the parching agony of the desert.

One of the reasons Hedin was able to achieve so much during his life, was that he started remarkably early. Although he had already read widely the works of Jules Verne, Livingstone and Franklin, he claims that when, at the age of 15, he witnessed the triumphal return of the Arctic explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld after his first navigation of the Northern Sea Route, his path in life was firmly set. It was April 24, 1880.

82 o ut er edge

“Happy is the boy who discovers the bent on his life-work during childhood” Hedin wrote at the opening of his book, “That, indeed, was my good fortune.”

Hedin dreamed of becoming the next great Arctic explorer, but fate sent him in another direction. In 1885 his school principal asked him if he would like to tutor a son of a Nobel employee based at Baku, on the Caspian Sea. At the tender age of 20, he set out from his native Sweden for the vast journey across the Russian steppes to the Caucasus.

From the window of his train he observed “the poor, undrained roads, which harboured no dream of American automobiles then, troikas (three-horse teams) dashed by like a streak, pulling telegas and tarantasses, to the accompaniment of jingly bells.”

Instead of returning home like a homesick child after his term of service, Hedin planned his first great adventure. “I decided to spend the three hundred rubles I had earned on a horseback journey, southward through Persia, and thence to the sea.”

The journey took him across the Elburz Mountain Range on horseback in a snowstorm with only a local to guide him. He travelled a total of 900 miles through the wild lands of Persia,

to Baghdad, and back to Persia. Down to just 15 cents, his daring, charm and command of the language found him as the guest of the wealthiest merchant in Kermanshah. He returned home at the tender age of 22 and wrote and illustrated his first book, earning the then staggering sum of 600 dollars.

Hedin then completed his education in Berlin, studying under the famous Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen, known as the greatest authority of the day on the geography of Asia. By 1892 he had earned his doctorate and more fame as a skilled linguist and translator. He had gained favour with the King of Sweden and the eminent Nobel brothers who were able to finance many of his early wanderings.

In 1895, however, his journeys took a sinister turn. In February, his caravan headed out through Kum-darvaseh, the ‘sand gate’ of Kashgar, in today’s far west of China into the vast Taklamakan Desert and within a whisker of disaster.

“Early in the morning of April 28, a sandstorm, the like of which we had never seen, broke over our camp.”

The storm devastated their camp, sent their belongings flying and left them half buried. With little option but to continue their trek, the team forged on.

“The gale grew into a hurricane. The velocity of the wind was 55 mph and during the most violent blasts, we nearly choked. Sometimes the camels refused to walk, but lay down and stretched their necks along the sand. Then we also threw ourselves down, pressing our faces against their flanks.”

As the caravan moved on, their suffering continued and they discarded more and more items as they and their animals grew weaker from exertion and thirst. After two days things were looking bleak.

“Hardly one cup of water remained. I told the men that at noon I would dip the corner of a handkerchief in it and moisten my lips and theirs, and that the last drops would suffice for a small mouthful for each.”

At this point, things were decidedly grim for our young adventurer and his companions, but matters would continue to worsen. That night he wrote what he fully expected to be his last words.

“Halted on a high dune, where the camels dropped. We examined the east through the field glasses; mountains of sand in all directions, not a straw, no life. All - men as well as camels - are extremely weak. God help us!”

But still they forged on, slaughtering the few animals that were left to drink their blood and

The adventure, the conquest of an unknown country, the struggle against the impossible all have a fascination which draws me with irresistible force.” Sven Anders Hedin

slowly going mad with thirst. Two of the men drank a vile concoction of camel urine, sugar and vinegar and were quickly incapacitated. Rendered helpless, they writhed and groaned on the sand in painful cramps, vomiting and convulsing.

Hedin was convinced it was the end.

“I removed a suit of clean clothing from the pile of discarded things and changed everything from head to foot, for if I was to die and be buried by the sandstorms in the eternal desert, I would at least be robed in a clean, new shroud.”

Hedin found the strength to somehow continue as his companions and beasts fell away. He knew that if they had any chance of survival, the strongest must continue to search for water and try to save the others. Finally, he and his last companion spied a strip of green on the horizon. “The forest! … the Khotandaria! Water!” But they were still a long way from salvation. After another struggle they reached the shade of the forest, but no water was to be found.

“Again I urged Kasim to accompany me to the river to drink. He signaled with his hand that he could not rise and he whispered that he wanted to be left to die under poplars.”

Hedin forced his way through the forest for hours, but found only a dry river bed.

“Was I to die of thirst in the very bed of the river I had fought so successfully to its bank?

No!” By a stroke of luck he took the correct turn and stumbled upon the last pool of water in the drying river and by moonlight “drank without restraint.” Removing and filling his boots with water, he returned to rescue his remaining friend.

Such was the colour and vitality of his travels, that his books captivated a whole generation.

Hedin is credited with more than 50 titles, some of which were translated into 30 languages, but is foray into politics dictated that his path would end in a dim corner of a forgotten library.

While he was strongly pro-German during both World Wars and an acquaintance of Adolf Hitler, he nevertheless spoke out unreservedly against the Nazis’ harsh treatment of the Jews and was responsible for rescuing numerous prisoners from concentration camps and certain death. Despite his international fame and multiple awards, his continued unfortunate and dogmatic stance saw him struck from both the British Royal Geographical Society and from the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. He was

also a monarchist who stood against the move to democracy in his homeland. Hedin just couldn’t back a winner and died in relative obscurity in his home city of Stockholm in 1952 at the ripe old age of 88. His entire estate was donated to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences who, that same year, created the Sven Hedin Foundation (http://www.etnografiska.se) Despite his appalling lack of political judgment, his thirst for adventure makes the mere reading of his accounts both exhausting and exhilarating.

A reprint of My Life as an Explorer is available from National Geographic Adventure Classics ISBN13: 978-0792269878

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