A Ride Along the Great Wall

Once British author/explorer Hanbury-Tenison and his wife Louella had completed their journey on horseback from the south of France to their farm in Cornwall (recounted in White Horses over France), they decided to broaden their horizonsto a 1000-mile expedition along the Great Wall of China. Having received the complex permissions necessary, they became the first Westerners in modern times to traverse the length of the wall. They spent blissful moments in oases of great natural beauty, experienced the exhilaration of exploring areas few Europeans had visited and enjoyed the open curiosity of the many Chinese who had never seen Westerners. But they also came upon industrial centers of unchecked pollution, jerry-built modern housing and a grinding bureaucracy that caused them interminable delays. The author was left with a troubled impression that, in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, disdain for esthetics has supplanted a 5000-year-old artistic tradition. Photos. (March)