GUIDE BOOKS.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10263, 4 February 1899, Page 7

GUIDE BOOKS.

We have received from the Lands Department a series of official guide books to various parts of the colony, such as Mount Cook, the Rotorua district, Southern Lakes, &c. The intention is excellent, but the execution is not all that coufd be desired. The Department seems to have wished both to advertise our scenery and to provide guide books for the use of visitors, and it has fallen between two stools. As advertisements the books are not very attractively got up, the pictures being especially poor. As guide books they are of the cheap and order. People who can afford to do the New Zealand tours would prefer to pay a little Inore for a book tliat" would open easily, and that was attractive enough to keep as a memento of their trip. The books contain a good deal of useful information, but it is not so well arranged as it might be. We have also received, through Messrs Heywood and Co., a little brochure entitled "A Trip Round New Zealand and the West Coast Sounds," by Mr T. W. Whitson. The pictures in this are better done, and tne work ought to serve a very good purpose in setting forth the attractions of some of the chief beauty spots in New Zealand.