AMONG THE BOOKS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1918, 24 August 1888, Page 30

AMONG THE BOOKS.

"DAYS ASD NIGHTS BY THE DESERT." Bx Parkeb Gillmour ("Übique"). The desert is the Kalihari, in South Africa; the book the rattling record of a brilliant, hunting expedition, on its confines. Its writer is as well known to our readers as any man living. He is the most insatiable and omnivorous of all English sportsmen ; he has shot the wide world over, and longs to shoot, again. As a universal sporling directory he' has no equal. Ask the Colonel a question about what to shoot in China, India, the Colonies, North, South, Central Africa, America, Great Britain, or Ireland, and he will immediately tell you, speaking from practical experience, and enriching his answer with all sorts of information as to ways and means. Though " Übique "is his nout dc guerre, very justifiably adopted, Africa, south of the Zambesi, is his hunting-ground-/Ze predilection. It is here that he is most at home, and here that he locates musl of the stones and chronicles of sport andtravel that issue from his prolific pen. For, in addition to being an incorrigible sportsman, lusqxCa hi moclle % dcs os, Colonel Gillmour has also all the author's requisites of writing — an easy style, a broad sense of humour, keen powers of observation for the habits and peculiarities of man, bird, beast, and plant, a wonderful memory to retain the wonderful incidents of his globe-wide experience, and, be it written with the very point-tip of our pen, spoken with the faintest whisper of our voice, a wonderfully vivid and fertile imagination to aid and refresh that aforesaid memory should it ever prove at fault. Occasionally, it is true, the hand accustomed, most to hold the rod or reins drives Mie quill' into some little inelegance of expression ; but this we can forgive the more readily when we remember that these same peccantfingers have stiffened for long years on the trigger rather than the pen. Nor would a chronicle of sport prove half so interesting to us if drawn up with the flowing facility of a Matthew Arnold, as if rolled off with the rough-and-ready velocity of our author. " Days and Nights'' is full of exciting incident. From beginning to end the saga that Colonel Gillmore sings is accompanied by a leonine obbligato. Lions, five, six, seven, or eight of them, over-bold prowl growlingly at night around his camp fire, old lions dash across his enclosures at night, harmlessly bowling over his henchmen in the dark as they spring the low paling, where gate there was none, with ravished goats in their jaws; lions, baby lions fight encaged in the Colonel's ircn waggon, and like an inverted Romulus and Eemus suck the foster teat of his goats, whilst every time he sallies forth the death roar of a wounded desert king-proclaims the unerring aim of the mighty hunter. Besides the lions slaughtered we have a full orchestra of gemsbok, steinbok, antelopes, zebras, chitahs, leopards, and kingfishers ; nothing escapes bis gun, eye, or pen. Every here and there a curious question is raised as,

DO SNAKES SCENT THEIK PREY? or an important fact noted, as that in the hot interioj,the graminivorous animals will

often gallop away sorely wounded and recover, whilst the carnivorous beasts, doubtless on account of their diet, die sooner or later from a mere scratch. This volume, as fresh, exciting, and rapid as any schoolboy's book cf adventure, and yet bearing on its every page the undeniable evidence of reality, strikes us as the best its author has produced since his " Great Thirst Land." It will prove a veritable storehouse for Mr Rider Haggard from whence to draw unacknowledged discoveries, as he has before now done from this author. It bears traces of much more care in revision than the last of this writer's works we had under review. It is profusely illustrated with engravings of the various animals, and must prove an invaluable text-book to the big game of South Africa ; and its closing sentence is, in this connection, worth quoting: — " I would say, for the information of those who do not crave for the destruction of elephants and kindred mammoths, that there are few places where they will find greater varieties of game, a prettier country, and a more delightful climate than are to be met with at Honey Vley, on the eastern margin of the Kalihari Desert."

The Colonel's little^idiosyncracies quaintly crop out from time to time. He loses no opportunity of pouring out the vials of his contempt on the Boer, or extrolling the native, and although South Africa is far from the Kingdom of Parnell, he causes poor Pat to make the long journey expressly that he may telabourhim with his ridicule. As for the ladies, whether human, black, white, or brown, feline or vaccine, the gallant soldier frequently shows such bitterness towards them that one wonders whether tho dusky daughters of Africa were too kind or not kind enough to him during his last visit. Somewhat incongruous, but written with evident sincerity, are the outbusts of religious exaltation; but these sudden realisations of the omnipotence of the Unknown are common with those who visit Nature in her unfrequented solitude and grandeur. Lastly, the book is very satisfactorily got up; bound in green, and a head of a lion, with its hair standing on end, very appropriately stamped in gold on the cover. — Land and Water.