BOOK NOTES

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 223, 16 August 1930, Page 7

BOOK NOTES

(By “Pakeha.”) “Stories 'East and West” is the title of an exotic bunch of quaint stories of men and women from the pen of the versatile H. de V. Stacpoole. He takes us a long and roundabout ocean-voyage, first to Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia, France’s convict settlement, thence to Soma, Sava and Mamu, copra islands with cunningly-coined quasi-Polynesian names, mint/new from the novelist’s brain, tiny spots in the Pacific’s blue immensity, wherein lie so many sharply contrasting types of black and brown humanity, as well as so widely differing fashions of geological formation. Of the somewhat nebulous ideas upon such matters still prevailing in the mind of the general reader, in spite of the great advance made during the past decade in the broadcasting of more accurate knowledge of this vast water-region, Stacpoole remarks, with rather a happy turn of witty irony: “A\ 7 hen a man talks to you of the South Sea Islands, favourably or unfavourably, as though they were all contained in a hat,- and all alike ! ask him which South Soa Islands precisely he means. Most likely ho won’t be able to, unless hS has boen east and west, and sampled both.” For, between the courtly Samoan and the truculent Solomon Islander —the gentle Tahitian of the Far East Pacific and the sturdy independant Gilbert Islander of the Torrid Equatorial belt, between the care-free, Marquesian and the dourly-religious, thrifty and industrious Mangaian, the business-like, proud, intellectual Tongan and the wild, rough and ready Caroline Islander, still half-tamed only by the mosj well-meant efforts of successive Spanish, German and Japanese rulers —there is a great gulf fixed, a very strongly marked variation in character and racial type, and a very appreciable difference in environment and conditions of life according to habitat, whether low coral atoll, island of higb basaltic formation, or isle of mingled limostono and basalt composition —tbeir types respectively, the waterless, the woll-watered and the scantily-water-ed. “Quot insulae, tot mores, tot sentenCae.’? “Different islands, different morals, different fancies and opinions.” There is a phrase, “Tangata Tonga Kai-solofanua” —“Tonga-man eat horse” — which the Tongans do not like to hear from the lips of (their more fastidious Samoan neighbours. In the eastern valleys of the great island of Hiva-Oa in the South Marquesas, the flesh of the dog (“Nuho”) is devoured with delight, but on the western coast til's faithful fourfooted friend of man goes scot-free, and plunges his nose at will all unrebuked in the great communal village bowl of “poi” or acid bread fruit paste, the tropical understudy of oatmeal for breakfast amongst these still highly primitive children of Nature. “The Case of Mrs Keller,” or the tragedy of the wife of a wealthy naturalist all-absorbed in scientific researches and all too neglectful of his beautiful, wilful spouse, is somewhat startling, not to say disconcerting reading to the sober, prosaic, stay-at-home citizen. “The Ten Franc Counter” switches U 3 off from the Far East to Monte Carlo and its tisino, the Temple of tbe Demon of Play, whom national public opinion licenses year in, year out, to kill on an average one ruined man a day by his own hands. Thus Craft and Folly play their games, and Common-Sense amazed exclaims, “How long?” “Where the Great 'Stars Burn” is a romance of passion and penitence, laid in the forest-fairyland where the Maranon River joins the gliding mirror of tUb giant Amazon-lapping shores where, amidst bowers decked in Nature’s prodigal splendour, amongst a riot of gorgeous, fragrant bloom, lurks the ringed asp of red and black and yellow, glides the stealthy grey-black Jacaraca, the most vicious, the deadliest of all serpent-kind. The tale of “Chattering Jimmy” leads us on shikar to South-East Africa, and tells us how two Yorkshire cousins went a-liunting together after big game, and how one only came back home to bis ancestral acres, escaping treacherous murder at the hand of his kinsman by tho cunning device of a faithful black-boy guide; the would-be murderer, “hoist”

like Shakespeare’s engineer “ivith his own petard,” mortally-wounded by the bursting of his own breech-block, left behind as he lay in the jungle to feed the leopards and the “Aasvogels.” In these days of seditious political propaganda in Egypt, voicing a profound popular distrust of British influences, a very base ingratitude for the labours of Lord Cromer and his successors, and a disapproval of the results of the late Lord Kitchener’s magnificent administration of tho Sudan, the recently published collection of Egyptian and Arab tales by E. R. Morrough, entitled “The Temple Servant and Other Stories,” will throw a very interesting side-light upon the character of tho people of the Land of the Pharaohs. They illustrate - the inborn shiftlessness and viciousness of the upper and tho mercantile classes. tho superstition, the ignorance and the degraded wretchedness of the “fellahin,” and the proneness of these, impulsivo chiidron of the soil to rush, at the slightest provocation, into riot and murderous violence. ’Let “Little Britons” say what they will, Egypt and the Sudan, for fenerations to come, need British inuonce and close British supervision to aid in tho enforcing of law and order and the encouragement of organised industry. Political as well as ethical considerations infinite, moreover, make mightily against any idea of tho abandoning of British, interests and any indifference to the rigid safeguarding of that vast artery of western civilisation and commerce —the Suez Canal. The archaeological interest of Egypt is skillfully expatiated upon in certain of Mr Morrough’s tales, and he does not fail to thrill us with some artful touches of the supernatural. “Naam” is a grim sketch in the werewolf style, of Egyptian village-life, asking us to believe that the curse of a crabbed old “Shiah” pilgrim brought about the ravaging of a hamlet with a human-hyaena, an Arab servant, suddenly smitten by tbe mysterious malady of lycanthropy. The most striking “tour-de-force” of all, perhaps, is the surprising tale of Phronymus, a patriarch of simply incredible age, dwelling in rags and filthiness indescribable in an obscure Coptio Monastery. A truly marvellous bit of “sympathetic Black-Magic” thrown up against the background of up-to-date society life is given us in “The Fifth of November.” Very sad reading is the description of the adventures of a distinguished European scientist “gone Bedouin,” also of the mishaps of an ill-starred expedition after big-game by a domineering and irritable British army officer and the picture of his fearful end at the Bitter Waters of “Bir Murr,” “The Well of Brackishness.” Mr Morrougb’s interesting little volume ends with a group of traditional Arab tales, as told in one of the black goat

and camel-hair tents of the Bedawi. In tbis collection we have a portrayal to view, a miniature picture-gallery of the Near East, where self-control and plain daylight commonsenso, and ordered industry and clean, healthful living, are esteemed, to all seeming, all too lightly; where tbe Ten Commandments and the King’s Word run but slowly, and the poor deluded folk alas ! are but too well content) to have it so. In “The Vantine Diamonds,” ’by “Seamark,” we 'find a stirring detective romance. The leading “dramatic personnel” are: (1) Chris Cartery, of New York, skilled tracer of stolen property, athletic, adventurous, cool, debonair, and unfailingly resourceful. (2) Dimble, a benevolent old commercial traveller, of trustful and ingenuous disposition. (3) Sir Elroyd Horle, of Glaire Hall, an assiduous amateur collector of valuable pieces of jewellery, most .of them none too honestly come by, historic sets of opals, emeralds, diamonds and rubies. —- fifteen, several small fortunes in themselves. . . r (4) Cyrienne, his lovely, innocent daughter, upon whom the shadow of her father’s secret crimes falls darkly and heavily. (5) Manello, Sir Elroyd’s private secre-. tary and eventual betrayer, and, lastly, “Slugger” Williams and sundry other robbor-ghouls of the underworld, mere pawns on the board, who get more, hard kicks and blows than hard cash in tho course of tho exciting game of hide and seek over tho frequently-vanishing set of famous diamonds. The iron-muscled Chris Cartery wriggles wondrously out of several uncommonly tight places, performing an incredible exploit of hardihood in breaking out of tho underground cellar of an ancient public house, the haunt of some of the most dangerous “crooks” ip London. Singlehanded he beats up most frightfully no less than four huge gorilla-like* thug* who seek to arrest his progress, and makes his exit in triumph, leaving the crazy old “Hell’s Kitchen” wrapped in a sheet of roaring flame' from a kerosene lamp which he thoughtfully tips over to cover his retreat from the horrible den. Needless to say, the insoucient “Chris” comes safely through all, carries off sundry batches of stolen historic gems from their hiding-place, achieves a colossal “rake-off” in percentages on jewel salvage, and marries tbe lovely Cyrienne. A detective story, snappy in dialogue, bewilderingly rapid in action, coruscating with verbal fireworks, and culminating in a brilliant set-piece of glittering and truly drastic dramatic justice.