BOOK NOTES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 133, 7 May 1932, Page 9

BOOK NOTES

THE WAR CEMETERIES. “Crosses of Sacrifice,” by J-, C. AVaters, is tko story of the Empire s million, war dead and Australia s 60,000.' It deals mostly with the campaigns in which the Commonwealth forces participated, but because the New Zealanders were so akin to the Australians and so many fell and are buried together the interest is equally the Dominion’s. The book is splendidly illustrated. The photographs are wonderfully clear and expressive—most of them are of the cemeteries, kept with the reverential care due to those who foil. And the most striking of them is Tyne Cot, on Rasschendaele Itidge, the biggest of all British war cemeteries. It is a double-page illustration, and here there are 11,952 graves with their plain white stones ; with many of the fallen who are ‘ “missing” to this day, sleeping in the summer’s sun and the wintry blasts of Flanders, known only unto God. The author takes us through Anzac, the Holy Land, and Franco, and it is one ol the most interesting accounts of the campaigns in which the A.I.F. and the New Zealanders figured so valiantly one has ever encountered. It is certainly remarkably illustrated, and there will be a balm of comfort to mothers and relatives in the knowledge that the graves of lost ones are so well tended, it is splendid evidence of the work of the War Graves Commission. There are many pictures of beautiful cemeteries in Jerusalem, and rising from the gardens on the west bank of the Suez Canal at Port Said is the memorial to all the Australians and New Zealanders who lost their lives in the Palestine campaign. It faces eastward to the rising sun: toward the “Road to the Pharaohs;” the road along which the Diggers rode, with their comrades, to the conquest of the Holy Land. The book has a foreword by General Sir Henry Chauvel, which commends the work particularly to the youth of the Empire outposts.

AUSTRALIA’S BIRDS. A book with a high educational value is “What Bird is That?” It is a guide to the birds of Australia, and is by Mr Neville AV. Cayley, vicepresident of the Royal Zoological Society of New South \Vales. it will be of interest to New Zealand bird lovers and anything they would know of the hundreds of bush inhabitants in the Commonwealth will be found therein. The book has many distinctive and beautiful feathered specimens, and makes ridiculous the rather common belief that Australia is a country of “songless birds and beautiful voices. A perusal of this work, which is claimed to be the most comprehensive and informative bird book published in the Commonwealth, is interesting reading, and apart from the remarkable fund of knowledge it is a thing of beauty. There are numerous coloured plates, and many photographs of Australian open forest country. Australia has many interesting birds—the Lyretail, with its wonderful song mimicry; the Silver Gull, which visitors to Sydney may see flying lazily over the harbour; the Scarlet Honeyeater; the Blue AVren; the Grey Thrush; with its spring time song, and others. The book is sponsored by the New South AVales Gquld League of Bird Lovers, an association which was formed as far back as 1910, and which to-day has a membership of 600,000. Australians certainly take an interest in their bird life. “Education is more potent than legislation in the matter of bird preservation.” This is the League’s watchword.

SINAI AND PALESTINE. Mr lon L. Idriess is well-known to the reading public as the author of “Lasseter’s Last Ride” and “Flynn of the Inland.” His latest work, “The Desert Column,” deals with the campaign in Sinai and Palestine, and it is the author’s personal experience of stirring times as a trooper of the Fifth Light Horse, A.I.F. In the foreword, General Sir Henry Cliauvel, who commanded the Desert Camel Corps, says that it is, as far as he is aware, the only “soldier’s” book yet written on the campaign, and as the author expresses it. his diary was begun “as wo crowded the decks of Gallipoli and watched the first shells crash into Turkish soil.” That was in May, 1915. From then on is related a gripping, connected story of gallantry, comradeship, courage and sportsmanship, and it is told in the interesting literary stylo Mr Idriess has at his command. There are many typical Digger anecdotes and much humour, and fine descriptive passages of the fighting, a tribute to the Turk —“He is rather wonderful”—records of the doings of New Zealanders, accounts of the writer’s many thrilling experiences in the more than three years he spent with the Desert Column, and vignettes of life behind the firing line when the guns had quietened down. In typical Digger fashion the final entry in the diary, on January 2, 1918 —Port Said Hospital—is as follows: “I am to be returned to Australia as unfit for further service, Thank heaven I” The mounted fighting in the desert makes fascinating reading. Australians and New Zealanders do not realise what a great part wns taken by our troops in this phase of the war.

AUSTRALIA’S “OUTBACK.” One realises the vastness of Australia and the debt Australians owe to those great pathfinders of the “outback” after reading “Flynn of. the Inland” by lon L. Idriess. This is truly a fascinating story, the work of the Australian Inland Mission, and the names of John Flynn and the faithful band associated with him in the labours of the A.I.M. will be ever remembered with sincere gratitude by the outback settlers, and workers of Australia, who have been helped by the kindly ministrations of this wonderful organisation. John Flynn had started his work in the land of frightening distances before the war, and in 1927 the A.I.M. had grown to a farspreading organisation. His was a hard task, hut his dreams came true — hospitals, the Flying Doctor Service, padres and nurses, all helping in relieving suffering humanity in isolation. Tlie claims of the A.I.M. for support and encouragement could not have a stronger case. The aerial services and the success of the wireless experiments were epoch-making events. There are good descriptive accounts of the Inland centres, and readers whether they know or othervyise the life in the “Never-Never” will be taken with John Flynn, the Dreamer, and read with much delight the story as set out by Mr Idriess —a story of daring and courage and great resourcefulness; the story of a dream that came true. (All the above books are from Messrs Angus and Robertson, Sydney).