A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

s the Museum of Man and Nature , an interpretive museum with life-like reconstru

ctions of Indians hunting buffalo and planetarium for the star-gazers among us .

 One of the more interesting replicas is of the Nonsuch , a two-masted sailing v

essel called a ketch . The ship arrived in 1668 and was the first European ship 

to sail into Hudson Bay . It sailed out again to England with a cargo of furs , 

and it was that incident that eventually led to the founding of the Hudson 's Ba

y Co. , the trading company that still exists and is most familiar in the form o

f its department stores . Last March , that same company donated its entire hist

oric archives collection to the museum , which will house it in a new $ 2.2 mill

ion wing to be completed next year . The collection , which is said to be among 

the most extensive and detailed private historical resources ever maintained , p

ortrays more than three centuries of the company 's history , including the ques

t for the North West Passage the water route from the Atlantic to the Pacific th

at took explorers 400 years to get right . ( End optional trim ) Winnipeg may no

t offer the night life of New York or the glamour of Paris . But for a low-key ,

 relaxing and safe place to visit , it is a very pleasant discovery .

 One of the big doings in London this summer is the 100th anniversary of the Tow

er Bridge , marked officially on June 30 with fanfare and fireworks on the banks

 of the River Thames . Created for the centenary , `` The Celebration Story '' e

xhibit in rooms and passages inside the bridge recounts the story of this Victor

ian engineering marvel and city life 100 years ago ; for info , call ( 800 ) 781

-6088 . Nearby , at the Tower of London , dating to at least 1066 , the Historic

 Royal Palaces Agency says it willn't be refilling the big moat this year . The 

moat 's been dry for about 150 years , when it was declared a health hazard and 

drained . Although there 's a new cafe opening on the wharf outside the tower , 

the new $ 10 million jewel house for the royal baubles that opened in March is s

till the big draw . For tower info , call ( 011 ) ( 44 ) ( 71 ) 709-0765 . The Q

ueen 's digs at Buckingham Palace will again be open to the public from Aug. 7 t

o Oct. 2 . London 's Stafford hotel is offering a special pass for its guests th

at 'll take them to the head of the daily ticket queue ; ( 800 ) 525-4800 . Othe

r notes : Say double-double toil and trouble in double-double time : `` Instant 

Macbeth , '' a 30-minute version of Shakespeare 's tragedy , just opened at the 

Waterside Studio Theater in Stratford-Upon-Avon , where down the street the Roya

l Shakespeare Company is presenting the unabridged play in about 2 hours . For `

` Instant '' info : ( 011 ) ( 44 ) ( 78 ) 929-5623 . It 's not four-legged jogge

rs that you might be seeing at night crossing the roads near Westwood pasture in

 the northeast English county of Humberside . Environmentalists have proposed pu

tting fluorescent leggings on local cows so motorists will able to moo-ve over b

efore they hit them . -0- GLOBAL WHEELER : Although she 's been in a wheelchair 

since she was 2 , Annie Mackin is an intrepid traveler who 's logged four trips 

to Europe since 1978 . During her five weeks there last summer , the 40-year-old

 woman decided to write a guide for other disabled travelers , `` Wheelchair thr

ough Europe . '' Many hotels that are accessible to the disabled are top-of-the-

line , Mackin says , so she wrote her book with a budget in mind , seeking out a

ccessible lodging from $ 90 to $ 110 a night , double . Although she traveled wi

th an attendant , Mackin found many places accessible to those with good upper b

ody strength . Some tips : Take the narrowest wheelchair you can find and jell c

ell batteries that willn't tip over and spill , and remind the airlines to pack 

the chair carefully . Also , try to fly into London or Amsterdam where there 's 

accessible mass transit from the airport to the city so you willn't have to pay 

for a cab . European travel , she says `` can be difficult , can be challenging 

, but it 's not impossible . You miss a lot if you stay home . '' Send check or 

money order for $ 12.95 to Graphic Language Press , P.O. . Box 270 , Cardiff by 

the Sea , Calif. 92007 . Arizona-based Wheelchair Inc. has signed a contract wit

h Avis to provide wheelchair-accessible minivans at 47 on-and-off airport Avis s

ites in 29 states . Many locations are available now , but they all will be in t

he next four months , company President Tammy Smith said . Rates range from $ 71

 to $ 89 a day ; ( 800 ) 456-1371 . Another company , Wheelchair Getaways , rent

s and sells specially equipped vans and other equipment in 80 cities , with rate

s from $ 75 to $ 95 a day ; ( 800 ) 642-2042 . -0- QUICK TAKES : More Americans 

are planning to take more vacation trips this summer but for shorter periods of 

time than they did last year , according to an annual survey of 1,500 conducted 

by the Travel Industry Association of America and the Automobile Association . M

ost popular activities : going to the beach , visiting friends or relatives , vi

siting historic places and camping/hiking/climbing . Top destinations : Florida 

, California , Hawaii , New York and Texas . Apple Vacations is offering new pac

kages to Las Vegas with nonstop service from Newark , N.J. , Mondays and Fridays

 ; ( 800 ) 727-3400 . Western-Union is setting up a temporary international mone

y transfer agent location in Colleville-Sur-Mer in Normandy , France , through J

une 13 to accommodate D-Day travelers ; ( 800 ) 325-6000 .

 can't stand the heat ? Try the kitchen at the Villa d' Este Hotel on Lake Como 

, Italy , for daily cooking demonstrations . Six-day trips begin Oct. 1 , 8 or 1

5 . Each morning , the hotel chef will prepare lunch ; participants can help or 

just watch . After lunch , guests can take optional excursions to food markets ,

 vineyards , and cheese- and salami-making shops . Cost : $ 1,688 per person , i

ncluding hotel for six days , breakfasts and lunches . Not included : round-trip

 air fare to Milan and ground transportation . Contact : MSW Columbia Travel , 6

30 Fifth Ave. , Suite 3070 , New York 10111 ; telephone ( 212 ) 332-8900 . -0- H

ABLA EN PUEBLA : Two-week language programs in Puebla , Mexico , run June 26 thr

ough Aug. 20 . Guests stay with selected families , participating in daily activ

ities . After morning Spanish classes , participants have their afternoons free 

to explore open markets , the Great Pyramid of Tepanapa and the battlefield site

 of the 1862 Cinco de Mayo victory over the French that gave rise to a national 

holiday . Evenings are spent with the host family practicing language skills . W

eekend excursions to Mexico City are available . Cost : $ 595 per person , inclu

ding lodging , meals , ground transportation to Puebla ( 80 miles southeast of M

exico City ) and Spanish classes . Not included : round-trip air fare to Mexico 

City . Contact : Language Experience Programs , 2432-F Moon Dust Drive , Chino H

ills , Calif. 91709 ; tel . ( 800 ) 726-6644 . -0- HALLOWEEN JAZZ : An eight-day

 Halloween jazz cruise leaves Oct. 30 from New Orleans aboard Holland America 's

 Noordam for stops in Grand Cayman ; Ocho Rios , Jamaica , and Cozumel , Mexico 

. Round-the-clock , live , on-board jazz performances feature Diane Schuur , Bud

dy Montgomery , Pete Candoli , Ernie Watts and many other musicians . Cost : $ 1

,165 per person , double occupancy , including all meals and shows . Not include

d : round-trip air fare to New Orleans . Contact : Labadie Productions , 303 Pot

rero St. 19 , Santa Cruz , Calif. 95060 ; tel . ( 800 ) 350-7464 . -0- UMBRIAN R

AMBLE : An eight-day easy walking trip in the Umbrian countryside of central Ita

ly leaves Sept. 10 and Oct. 1 and 22 . The tour begins in the ancient city of To

di , where participants stay in a converted Benedictine monastery . Each day , g

roups walk to a new village , stopping frequently to visit wineries , churches a

nd museums . Van assistance is always available and will carry luggage to the ne

xt lodging , from a family-run hotel to a converted villa . Guests will stop to 

see frescoes at the church of San Francesco in the walled town of Montefalco , R

oman ruins in Spello , and museums and churches in Assisi . Picnic lunches are p

rovided by the guide en route , and dinners are eaten at local restaurants . Cos

t : $ 1,720 per person , including accommodations , continental breakfasts , mea

ls and guides . Not included : air fare to Rome and ground transportation . Cont

act : Alternative Travel Group , 575 Pierce St. , Suite 604 , San Francisco , Ca

lif. 94117 ; tel . ( 415 ) 431-6789 . -0- GREEK ISLES : A 45-foot sailing yacht 

takes up to seven guests through the Saronic Gulf south of Athens , stopping at 

Hydra , Aegina , Poros and Epidavros . Participants on this 15-day journey leave

 Los Angeles Oct. 7 , tour Athens the following day , then board the yacht for a

 week ; they can sit back or actively participate in the sailing . Afterward , g

uests board an overnight deluxe steamer to Irakleion , Crete , to visit the anci

ent ruins of Cnossus , the White Mountains and archeological sites on the wester

n side of the island . Cost : $ 1,975 , including breakfasts , lunches while sai

ling and two dinners , ground transportation and a guide . Not included : air fa

re to Athens . Contact : Guides for All Seasons , 202 County Road , Calpine , Ca

lif. 96124 ; tel . ( 800 ) 457-4574 . -0- MAYAN JOURNEY : Visit the mysterious M

ayan ruins without breaking a fingernail on a 15-day deluxe train/cruise tour le

aving Los Angeles Union Station on Oct. 9 . Participants will travel by private 

train in Pullman sleeping cars to New Orleans , where they stay two nights at th

e Riverside Hilton hotel and tour the city . They board Holland America 's Noord

am to cruise to the Yucatan and the West Indies , stopping at Cozumel , Mexico ,

 for a day trip to the Mayan ruins of Tulum ; Grand Cayman ; Cartagena , Colombi

a , and Jamaica . The ship returns to New Orleans for the flight home . Cost : $

 2,895 per person , including ground transport , meals and guides . Contact : Un

common Journeys , 1529 Cypress St. 103 , Walnut Creek , Calif. 94596 ; tel . ( 8

00 ) 323-5893 .

 Richard Dooling is a traveler in two drastically different territories : the la

w he practices today in Nebraska , and the folkways of the Mende people in the b

acklands of Sierra Leone , where he once stayed . In his sardonic and decidedly 

untidy novel , `` White Man 's Grave '' ( Farrar , Straus & Giroux , $ 22 , 386 

pp. ) , he pits the tribal magic of each against the other . There is no questio

n who wins . Dooling has something of the beady , comical glitter of Evelyn Waug

h though not his formal perfection but only in one eye . Waugh traveled in Sierr

a Leone and wrote nastily about both whites and blacks . Dooling 's parody wicke

dly impales his Americans ; his ingenious sympathies lie with the Mende villager

s , giving his book an aspect beyond parody . The story goes roughly like this :

 Randall Killigan , a maniacally hard-charging lawyer in Indianapolis , has a st

raying son , Michael , who went to Africa with the Peace Corps for two years , s

tayed for four and has disappeared . While Randall fulminates , mobilizes his se

nator and the State Department and offers large rewards , a second effort goes o

n . Boone , an artist friend of Michael 's and a fugitive from an equivalent bul

l elephant of a father , treks into the Sierra Leone bush . Eventually Michael t

urns up along with an explanation for his disappearance . Most of the African pa

rt of the story , which is most of the book , concerns Boone 's painful and illu

minating encounters with a primitive village civilization . Painful for him , il

luminating for us . The young man 's artistic veneer quickly burns off , disclos

ing a hereditary , stiff-necked American prig . The priggishness , though , allo

ws the author to show us what Boone refuses to see : how supremely and winningly

 , in the notion of primitive civilization , the noun demolishes the adjective .

 Dooling gives us a bravura display of satire with Randall Killigan , in war pai

nt and tribal regalia , as a legal chieftain whose ambition is to be `` the syno

nym for bankruptcy in the Seventh Circuit . '' He demolishes the lawyers for ban

krupt firms . He lays the reeking carcasses of his victims upon his conference-r

oom table , apportioning bits to the rival creditors ' lawyers . He is the most 

virile tiger in the jungle : the electronic notebook he carries into negotiating

 battle has twice as many bytes as anyone else 's . It contains for instant refe

rence the entire Federal Bankruptcy Code , annotated . The imagery , of course ,

 is purposeful as well as comic . As the search for his son goes on , with Boone

 encountering witches , shape-changers , juju medicine , the dumbstruck regard o

f young villagers and the cryptic though essentially benevolent maneuvering of t

he elders , Africa leaks into Indianapolis . Randall mysteriously receives a hid

eous , skin-wrapped package that drips blood ; now and then it turns into a bat 

. For a while he wonders if he has a brain tumor ; gradually he realizes that it

 is witchcraft . It will turn out to be self-inflicted : he , we will learn by t

he end , is possessed by a witch-spirit and has , in effect , become one . As on

e character points out , the American counterpart of voodoo is lawsuits : Both a

re used to kill , sicken or otherwise ruin one 's neighbors . The Mende hire wit

ches , we hire lawyers . Dooling brings off his satiric parallel , which might o

therwise seem forced , with a wit and outrageousness that make it work . His suc

cess has large holes in it , though . He can satirize his countrymen but he is p

lain awful when he attempts anything more inward with them . When Randall goes t

o Mass and confession to try to stave off the witchery , his mental flailing is 

written in flamboyant cliche and interlarded with more cliche : lengthy quotatio

ns from the liturgy . Satire has sunk out of its depth to become the mawkish thi

ng it satirizes . In the African chapters , the author 's sympathy and responsiv

eness produce writing whose humor is carried on a current of discovery and aston

ishment . Only the Americans are flat . Michael , when discovered , is simply an

 American overachiever gone native . Boone 's cultural obtuseness has a narrativ

e usefulness it allows the delicate complexities of the villagers to emerge more

 clearly but it turns him into a null character . An anthropologist who has live

d with the Mende for years and has , in effect , become one of them , is conside

rably less interesting than what he has to say . He is a good explainer but not 

much else . Oddly , the only American with any roundness or allure is a thorough

ly reprehensible Peace Corps veteran , infinitely cynical about the villagers an

d mainly in it for the adventure and the beer . He is alive , though , and authe

ntic . And it is in evoking the life of Africa and in suggesting the wisdom and 

forbearance that underlie the `` superstitions '' of the Mende villagers that Do

oling is at his best . There is , first of all , a vivid presentation not just o

f what his Africa looks , feels and smells like but of the emotions of unease an

d beguilement they can produce . The vast landscape seen from the descending air

plane looks like `` an empire of solid broccoli tops stretching inland to the ho

rizon . '' Boone rides a rickety truck into the interior ; people , animals and 

cargo are so jammed together that the passengers practice a kind of metabolism-l

owering trance state . The villagers live in a fearful world of uncontrollable e

vents : hunger , disease , the depredations of white settlers and diamond seeker

s , and the arbitrary incursions of warring political factions whose maneuvering

 in the capital is felt 200 miles down-country . Dooling portrays the rich cultu

re that can evolve from powerlessness to command one 's environment ; as opposed

 to Western culture , which has evolved from just the opposite . From command , 

that is , or a sense of command or look at our cities an illusion of command . T

he suggestion is there without being explicit . It is fleshed out in countless s

cenes in which Dooling gives life to a village that manages dignity and a subver

sive humor in the teeth of what seem to us like invincible odds . The witchcraft

 , the magical secret societies , the shamanism , the taboos are ways of coping 

with unmanageable dangers both outside and within . In his portraits a visiting 

witch cleaner who runs a cotton thread around the village so nobody shall leave 

or enter until the place is cleaned ; the poignantly striving third wife of a lo

cal political thug ; and above all , the elder who adopts Boone as his son so th

at the villagers can see him as a real person , albeit an odd and misbehaving on

e Dooling evokes the humane checks and balances of a deep world ; the logic , yo

u might say , of its magic .

 WASHINGTON The fight for a tougher human-rights policy toward China was lost lo

ng before President Clinton announced surrender last week . Clinton 's decision 

to throw aside his own campaign commitments on the issue bodes very badly for th

e future of human rights as a core concept of American foreign policy . From now

 on , it seems , the United States ' human-rights policy will amount to talk , t

alk and more talk . The battle to impose trade sanctions on China 's dictators w

as lost , first , within and by the Clinton administration itself . Because of a

 lack of internal discipline , the administration couldn't even manage a coheren

t effort to bluff the Chinese leadership into making at least some serious human

 rights concessions . Even administration officials concede that while some in t

he State Department were trying to tell China 's leaders that the United States 

was prepared to be tough , the Treasury , Commerce and Agriculture departments o

f the same administration-as well as many who occupy the economy policy precinct

s of Clinton 's own White House-were sending the Chinese clear signals that said

 : Never mind . Ignore the State Department 's claptrap . There 's no way we 'll

 impose serious sanctions . The Chinese sat tight waited for the inevitable cave

-in and the renewal of most favored nation trade status . That cave-in was made 

all the more inevitable by the behavior of the American business community . Bus

iness leaders are , of course , free to lobby for whatever policy they want . In

 the United States , you don't face torture or prison for opposing government po

licy , as you do in China . But if we 're counting on American business to be th

e conveyor belt of human rights to China , we may be waiting a very long time . 

Every signal the business community sent to the Chinese government was that mone

y and trade mattered a lot more than the rights of political dissidents rotting 

in jail cells . Why ruffle the feathers of the very people you 'll be doing deal

s with ? `` The business community was shameful in the way they conducted themse

lves , '' said Rep. Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif. , a leading congressional advocate o

f human rights in China . `` They told the Chinese government , `` you hang toug

h , they willn't revoke MFN . ' They associated themselves with the regime , and

 that was shameful . '' It can be argued , as Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen d

id , that unilateral trade sanctions were the least practical way to advance the

 cause of human rights . Unilateral sanctions , he said , were more likely to hu

rt us than the Chinese , since other countries would pick up the contracts the U

nited States walked away from . But if ever there were a practical time for sanc

tions , it is now , when the U.S.-Chinese trade balance is heavily in China 's f

avor . Some serious human-rights advocates also opposed sanctions on the ground 

that increased trade and prosperity would inevitably make China a freer society 

. `` Not only does such trade help produce a middle class , with increasingly so

phisticated political and social views , '' said James Finn of Freedom House , w

riting recently in Commonweal magazine , `` but it introduces new information an

d values into an insular society . '' Maybe so , but the relationship between ma

rkets and freedom is far from automatic . China 's markets , after all , are not

 really `` free , '' given the large role played by the political and military l

eadership in determing who will get rich . And as George Black of the Lawyers Co

mmittee for Human Rights argued in the Los Angeles Times , China may be developi

ng a system that he called `` market Stalinism . '' The government will let mark

ets develop as long as there is no challenge to its political authority . It 's 

quite possible to say yes to Ronald McDonald and no to the Statue of Liberty-and

 to make that decision stick for a long time . But even assuming that Bentsen an

d Finn are right , Clinton had a problem in renewing MFN that George Bush did no

t . Bush actually believed sanctions were a mistake . Clinton , on the other han

d , accused Bush of having `` coddled the regime , pleading for progress but fai

ling to impose penalties for intransigence . '' The people of China , Clinton sa

id in 1992 , `` are still denied their basic rights and liberties . They are den

ied the right to choose their own leaders ; they are still imprisoned for simply

 calling for democracy ; they continue to suffer torture and cruel , inhuman and

 degrading treatment and punishment . '' And on and on and on . All those condit

ions still apply . Yet Clinton , after so many threats and promises , was forced

 to back down . In doing so , he sent a message about all future American statem

ents and undertakings about human rights : We may not really mean them . Forced 

to confront a contradiction between his stated commitment to human rights and hi