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” Why Lake Tana?” They asked. ” Why not?” We said rather weakly.

In this slightly inconclusive frame of mind five Cambridge undergraduates—three geographers, an historian and an economist—set off during the long vac for Lake Tana—source of the Blue Nile. The expedition’s object was to make a geograph­ical survey of the people who inhabit a plain to the north of, and adjacent to, the Lake, by all accounts little known. But inevitably the chief obstacles, the greatest anxieties and the greatest rewards were to be encountered on the journey there and back. Not for nothing is Stevenson’s phrase about travelling hopefully so often quoted. Into the Blue is the story of an expedition of five men who, for want of a better means, motored through Western Europe and North Africa to Eth­iopia, and it is told by a founder-member of the party, Lionel Ferguson. It is a lively account of a long vacation of high adventure. The unforeseen difficulties, the red-tape at frontiers, the strange requirements of “Winnie,” the expedition veh­icle, and above all the hazards of motor travel in the desert provide excitements enough.   In the event it was a considerable achievement to arrive at Lake Tana at all, still more to make the planned survey.   The journey back was a race against time, with continents of mud and sand between the expedition and Cambridge. By a combination of luck, determination, hard driving and the minimum of sleep, the return journey   through   Syria,   Turkey   and South Eastern Europe was safely accomplished. Sir Brian Robertson comments in his Foreword : ‘ To travel hard and far on little money and in limited time is first-class education’; and, vicari­ously, it is first-class reading.

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INTO   THE   BLUE

General Sir Brian Robertson writes

in his foreword:

I met these five young men at the Embassy at Cairo in August, 1953, I was engaged at the time in negotiations with the Egyptian Government, and I was glad to have my mind diverted for a while from my own frustrations to those of others.

Their expedition was a success and has resulted in the pub­lication of this excellent book. To congratulate the members of the expedition is proper and I do it with pleasure. But I also congratulate the University of Cambridge for arranging her affairs in such a way that the undergraduates are encouraged to make expeditions of this kind. To travel is always good, but to travel hard and far on little money and in limited time is first class education.

I am. sure that those who read this book will enjoy it. I hope that some may be encouraged by it to go forth and seek knowledge themselves by the same though strenuous method of travelling ‘hard’.”

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