BOOKS REVIEWED

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 85, 1 July 1927, Page 14

BOOKS REVIEWED

AN AFRICAN ODYSSEY f’pHIS is the day of feverish anxiety A to secure a record in the geographical field before all the plums have been captured. Moved by this spirit, and the wanderlust that is in most of us to a great or lesser degree, Major and Mrs. Court Treatt set out from Capetown, one fine day, with a small party of companions, to make their way through the Transvaal, Matabeleland, Tanganyika, Kenya, and the Sudan, to Cairo. It was a hazardous venture, and particularly so with a woman in the party, but Mrs. Treatt, the author of “From Cape to Cairo,” although a slim and, judging from her photographs, essentially a feminine woman, appears to have had an iron constitution and the grit of a veteran fighter. “You are brave,” said an Egyptian prince to Major Treatt at Assouan, “but your wife—she is a heroine.” The journey, which was a succession of mishaps and difficulties, called for the utmost initiative and the possesion of indomitable pluck. Rivers, swamps, deserts, seas of mud—all had to be navigated. Sometimes what was normally a day’s stretch would, through the torrential rainfall, take a month to accomplish—a month of heartbreaking, back-breaking labour, on short rations, and with a complete absence of comfort. Scorpions, leeches as big as tadpoles, ants that were big enough to bark, plagues of fleas, the ever-present fear of alligators and snakes, helped to give that spice to life which variety is said to lend. Mrs. Treatt gives us interesting glimpses of native and jungle life, and -is to be congratulated upon her graphic presentation of a perilous enterprise, that took o\ er a year to complete. Readers will echo the Earl of Clarendon’s remark in a foreword to the book: “You will appreciate why at present there is no traffic congestion on the Cape to Cairo route.” The book carries 60 excellent illlustrations. "Cape to Cairo.’*—George G. Harap and <*o., Ltd., London. Our copy comes from Angus and Robertson, Ltd., Sydney. Great Reading Thrilling reading—wliat the dear oldtimers would have called a “vivid human document”—is provided in "War Birds: The Diary of an Unknown .We have read so much of

this book in American reviews that we might reasonably have expected to be disappointed in the actual reading. Not so. Here is a glorious mixture of life and love, crashing planes, roaring parties, beer, broken leave, smashed vows, Veuve Clicquot, banging pianos, smoke-laden back rooms, the hell of war and the tawdry, pleasures in its train ... in other words a book that will appeal with a hundred per cent, appeal to all who took ah interest in those turbulent, crazy years, 1914-1919. This diary was kept (or is alleged to have been kept) by an American airman, a cheery soul, with something of the poet in his constitution, who met his death flying behind the enemy’s lines. For a rip-roaring recital of lively parties and an exposition of the camaraderie of the time: the hedonism and paganism and fatalism of the war years, we have read little to surpass it. The book is admirably produced and is illustrated with striking designs in colour. ‘‘War Birds.” George H. Doran and Co., New York. Our copy comes from Angus and Robei-tson, Ltd., Sydney. Woodhouse Humour P. G. Wodehouse had one eye on the cinema when he wrote "The Small Bachelor.” which has all the ingredients for an excellent farce. Of course, we meet all the familiar Wodehouse folk

again—George Finch, amiable ass of the Bertie Wooster persuasion; Mullett, a Jeeves-like person who, in addition to butling experience, has a working knowledge of the jemmy, and who is engaged to a lady of some eminence in the pickpockets’ world. Then there is Mrs. Sigsbea H. >Vaddington, a lie-

man woman, and her husband with yearnings for the West where men are men (let him loose for three minutes with a Zane Grey novel, and lie has a week’s nostalgia); to say nothing of Lord Hunstanton, the typical Woclehouse nobleman, and Hamilton Beamish, the apostle of 100 per cent efficiency. Stir this mixture well over a running fire of Wodehouseisms—some of them particularly amusing this time —and you will have “The Small Bachelor” cooked to a turn. “The Small Bachelor.”—Methuen and Co., Ltd., 36 Essex Street, London, W. 0.2. The Maker of Flo'wers “How is it possible that cells, apparently of the same material and constituent elements, may grow into. a flea or a buzzard, a crane or a horse, a pansy or a redwood tree, a bit of scum on a stagnant stream, or a beautiful child?” This is a question propounded by Luther Burbank, the great naturalist, whose death left a definite blank in the world of practical science. His philosophy and liis aspirations, his gentle outlook on life and his abhorrence of the shams of civilisation are admirably set out in “The Harvest of the Years,” written in collaboration with Mr. Wilbur Ilall. Burbank, without doubt, was one of the most interesting men America has produced. "Wizard” was the word most frequently used in the American Press in describing the results obtained by him through intensive selection and hybridisation of plants; results which gave the world new fruits, new flowers and a cactus without thorns! Burbank can claim to have been the first man definitely to take an order for a new plant variety much in the same way ns might a contractor or an architect. It was an order to produce, within eight years, a small succulent pea which would be well formed and of uniform size when still not entirely matured, so that canners might compete with the French variety of pea which, “caught young” and picked by hand, was sold in tins at a high price. In three years Burbank fulfilled his contract! Childlike in his ways, Burbank loved nothing better than a romp with children and claimed that he had never aged. Famous people made pilgrimages to his home and his mail bag—always a delight to him —was filled daily to bursting point. Yet Burbank seldom moved away from his beloved home and plants. It is fitting that so interesting a record of his fascinating work and experiences should be placed in circulation. “The Harvest of the Years.” Our copy comes direct from Angus and Robertson. Ltd., Sydney.