BOOKS WITH PICTURES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17954, 5 June 1920, Page 2

BOOKS WITH PICTURES.

THE PR.ETTINESS OF JAPAN AjSTD I THE WTLDNESS OF CANADA.. j .By Constant Reader. Certain books naturally lend, themselves to illustration. Their value and attractiveness is correspondingly enhanced. Besides, an illustrated edition often gives new life to an old book, and this is the case with ; Pierre Loti's " Madame Prune," recently re-issued in sumptuous farm with eight illustrations in colour by Mr Mortimer Menpes. It >is, probably, Captain Viand's misfortune to bo known so wideiy ae the aait&or of " Madame Chiysantheme," since the_ popularity of that story has inseparably wrapped up Pierro Loti's name and fame with that little Japanese lady. Thus, his vivid impressions of Constantinople, Tahiti, Algeria, Brittany, Iceland, Morocco, Syria, Palostino, j China, India and Persia axe scarcely known amongst the English-reading p-uolio, although such works as "Roman d'un Spahi" and "Le Psc&ur d'Mandc" possess alngiicr literary merTt tihan the better-known " Ala- j dame Chrysantheme." This last mentioned story, whioh first appeared in 1887, was the outcome of tho author's initial visit to Japan. Thirteen years" later, while on a cruise in tho Redoubtable, Pierre Loti revisited Japan, and taking Nagasaki as the -scone, he wrote a sequel to " Madame Chrysantheme" under tho title "La Troiseme Jeunesso ds Madame Prune" a book which, is even less of a novel than ths original and much more of a satire. This was in 1900, but, owing to the Russo-Japanese war, pub-, lication was delayed urrf.il five years later. Now, after an interval of another fifteen years, the book Bees tho light in an English translation—the work of Mr S. R. C. Plimthe enhancement of Mr Menpes's woncierful illustrations in oolour. In this ne-sV guise "Madame Prune" is likely to have a freA access of patrons. Although the story is of the slightest, yet that description- which is the oharm of all Pierre Loti's works exerts all its old fascination. It is especially true of Madame Pruno that "beneath the artist hoaid the whole Japanese environment has become real, not externally in photographic pictures, biit in its inner nature. Loti give<s us the impression less of a country than of a life, & mode of mental and moral living unlike any we have known." As with all great artists in words, tho means by which Pierre Loti produces these remarkable effects are extremely simple. His style is direct, his vocabulary small, the situations familiar, the characters nift complex. This very simplicity strikes tho keynote of the semi-civilisation he describes and aids that approximation of tho primitive and the present, of Western complexity with Oriental simplicity which gives Pierro Loti's work its indefinable riharm. The keynote of this writer's work, strongly discernible in " Madame Prune," is his hatred of modern civilisation and his love for those countries -which have remained untainted by its blight. He exhibits a hostility against Japan because of its enthusiastic "conversion to Western progress, and he continuously laments the gradual disappearance of Old Japan. Tho revival of interest in Japan, owing to tlie difference of opinion in regard to the renewal of the AngloJapanese treaty should tend to send readers to "Madame Pruno." Too much praise cannot be given to the beautiful representations in colour of Mr Menpes's wonderful pictures—in themselves worth more than the price of the whole book. "Do you not crave again for tho freedom of the backwoods; for tho great silence; for the peace of the camp fire?" Tlieso were the words addressed by Captain Angus Buchanan to Joe Ryan, riverman and lumberjack, when inviting him to make one of an expedition into that great unpeopled north, which comprises more than half of the dominion of Canada. "So gTeat ;s the far north territory," writes Captain Buchanan, "that there is many a hundred mile on which no white man has yet set foot, and even where _ the _ white man has been, in the distant interior near to the barren lands, in many cases the _ footprints have been so few that an old Indian inhabitant of a district could easily count those who had pa?sed in a lifetime on his 10 finger?,." Under the title "Wild Life in Canada," ' Captain Buchanan has set down in racy language, and with a fund of information about a hitherto unexplored land, his experiences or. a tour, thus outlined by an eminent Canadian scientist, Mr J. 11. Fleming:

W'hen the boundaries of Saskatchewan were in 1912 extended north to include a part of the old north-west territory, so little was known by the Provincial Government of thp natural history of the northern part of the country that AngAs Buchanan determined to investigate the country lying between the Saskatchewan River <" nd the Barren Grounds. He left P.-ince Albert on May 6, 1914, and descended tho Beaver River to Lake He a la Crosse 4nd the Churchill River, thence continuing upstream on Reindeer River and Reindeer Lake, entering the Cochrane River on July 18 and Lake Du Brochet on August 1. His bi.se camp was made north of this lake, and here he proposed to winter, but hearing of t'%e outbreak of the war in late October ho decided to to the south, and reached Regnia on January 15, 1915, after an absence of eight months and a-half, curing which ho travelled nearly 2COO miles by canoe and dog-sleigli. It is the story of these 2000 miles of travel over country scarce ever trod before by the foot of man that Captain Buchanan, has told in the 250 odd pages of "Wild Life in Canada," and tho book is rendered nil tlio more attractive by the inclusion of tho numerous photographs taken by the anthortravellef, and which are exceedingly well reproduced. While there is much in the narrative to delight the general reader— especially those whose lovo instinctively turns to the great solitudes of tho wild,— tho book makes especial appeal to the naturalist and to him who delights in "all living liv=e things." , The Indians, tho Eskimos, the b<rds. beasts, and fishes of that wonderful northern region all come under tho close observation of the eye of a trained naturalist, and tho information conveyed as to the habits, characteristics, and life of the men and animals native to those parts make instructive read in tj. It is a book for the voung, and dedicated to "a great. lover of Nature and cverv asnect of the clean, broad, outdoor world in fair weather and foul," it lifts the curtain nnon another and little known corner of the all-embracing British Empire.