The Bookshelf.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 23, 7 December 1910, Page 47

The Bookshelf.

By

DELTA.

BOOKSHELF FEUILLFTON.

Unique Journal ■fST OMEWHERE we have read of a ■ certain statesman peer who J might have been an eminent writer if he had not been an eminent statesman, expressing himself to the effect that “London Opinion” was unique, in the sense that it afforded the greatest maximum of variety of interest, information, and entertainment at the lowest minimum of cost, and that existence without this journal, would be shorn of a great measure of one of its liveliest interests. This opinion we cordially endorse, and also venture the belief that for smart, clever, political, and topical sketch and caricature, “London Opinion” has no peer. In its current issue, Mr. James Douglas, a persona grata in Fleet-street, has an amusingly (satirical article on “The Modern Girl,” anent the size of her head gear and the fbag she struggles under nowadays, and further details, with evident relish, how a man one day lunched by mistake with a' Miranda, instead of an Amanda, owing to the size of her hat making it impossible to see her face. F(om “London Opinion’s” “Maxims and nve select the following: “Make money and the whole nation will conspire to Cail you a gentleman.”—G.B.S. “Treat a inan with as much deference as you would a picture; look at him in his best light.”—Emerson. “When the right kind of person has too small a place he does his work so well as to make the place bigger.”—L. B. Briggs. Mr. T. McDonald Rendle is, in turn, pathetically and whimsically wise in “The Peep Show” columns of this journal, which on this occasion “wrestles” with the unequal conditions of life, the poor, some probable effects of the Coronation festivities on sea-side resorts, the snake in drama, and the hobble skirt. In “People pf the Week,” King George, the evergreen “Bobs,” Captain Adrian Jones [(the sculptor who is admittedly the finest living sculptor of horses), and Mr. [Lush, K.C. (who has lately been eleyated to the Bench), figure most prominently. “Round the Town" paragraphs Are emart, brief, satirical, humorous,

informative, and interesting In turn. In “Plays and Players,” much news is imparted concerning the theatrical world. Sporting news, stocks and shares, bric-a-brac values, etc., find a place in this magazine, which is easily the brightest and most wholesome of penny journals, and which, printed on better paper, would frankly be worth sixpence. “Little Folks.” In Mr. Roosevelt’s splendid record of African travel, he mentions that a strong tie between himself and one of his fellow hunters in East Africa lay in the fact that both of them had been readers of “Little” or “Young Folks” (we forget which). Nor is this to be wondered at, if the American journal for “ little folks” is as interesting as our English. Having received the October issue from Messrs. Cassell and Co., its publishers, we sat down and read it from cover to cover, and recommend it as most excellent reading for little folks, and extremely suitable in its annual form as a Christmas gift. There are simple, short and serial stories, easy and amusing poems, numerous black and white pictures, and a beautiful coloured frontispiece. Puzzles, too, and how to solve them, little folks correspondence columns, and the monthly report of the Little Folks’ Nature Club. In fact there is such a plethora of good things as to make it difficult to select those most suitable for mention. The December “ Life.” Wondering at the manifold attractions of “ Life ” for December, we suddenly remembered that it was the holiday number, which accounted for its exceptional interest. Aviation occupies a considerable share of its space both in text and illustration. Extremely exciting fiction is “The Flight of the Ricochet,” by Frederick Palmer, which We see is now announced in book form. “ The Mystery of Australian Rivers,” and how Sturt solved it. is the seventh of a series of papers on the triumphs and tragedies of Australian exploration. How Mayor Gaynor is revolutionising New York is the subject of a stimulating .article by James Creelman. The most important topical events are discussed in “The

Month,” and Sir Joseph Ward’s intention of abolishing the bookmaker finds considerable mention. Mr. D. K. Dow contributes an expert paper on Australia’s Fleece,” showing the output of fleeces of eleven countries. Australia heads the list with a balance of 30,000 odd over the Argentine, which ranks second on the list. “ What the \\ orld is Thinking ” embraces a number of topics, political, economic, and social. Some exceedingly clever, humorous sketches, reprinted from the “Cosmopolitan’ Magazine. will provoke both healthy laughter and admiration for Mr E. It. Kemble s art. In fine, our space is too limited to detail the aggregate attractions of Dr. Fitchett's popular monthly.

REVIEWS.

Babes in the Wood : By B. M. € roker. (London: Methuen and Co. Auckland: Wildman and Arey, 2/6 and 3/0). “Babes in the Wood” is the facetious term, given to the Anglo-Indian coni' munity that inhabit a real or ficticious outlying district in one of the central provinces of India, and named Chandi. Mrs. Croker is always at her best in Anglo-Indian stories, but she has utterly failed to show the horrors and hardships, suffered by English officials in this instance, as indicated by her, at the outset of this story. Phillip Trafford, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and with no special need to live the strenuous life, elects to go out to India on H.M.S., in the department of Woods, Forests and Freedom. Halting at a friendly bungalow about twenty-miles from Parhari, his station, he is invited by its hospitable inmates to stay with them for a while, that he may acquaint himself with his altered conditions, and provide himiself with the (furnishings he lacks. But with the ardour of youth he insists on starting straight away, and finds on arriving at Parhari, nothing prepared for his arrival by his subordinates. But in spite of a •horrible night spent in the room in which his predecessor had taken his own life, he is next day cheered by the visit of a colleague who assists him to evolve some measure of comfort out of decay and disorder. Inflexible in the performance of his duties, he is at first disliked, finding thieving, corruption, trickery, sloth and general good for nothingness rife among his subordinates. But, carrying matters with a high hand,

he dismisses the most incorrigible, an< effects the reforms of his department to the enriching of the Government revenue. Of course he has a love affair, which we are glad to say ends happily, at least we are led to infer that it does. There is an element of eeriness in this story, an eeriness peculiar to India, and we confess to looking over our shoulders more than once expecting to see something ghostly. Mrs. Croker’s descriptions of Anglo-Indian life and procedure, are always eminently readable, as she know? exactly where to lay her finger on the interesting points of social ami administrative life. In common with most Anglo-Indian's, she distrusts the Eurasian, so do we. Our copy has been received by the courtesy of Messrs. Methuen and Co. * The Glad Heart, by E. Maria Albanesi. (London: Methuen and Co. Auckland: Wildman and Arey, 2/6 and 3/6). “The Glad Heart” is essentially a novel of one characterisation. Had Miriam, Lady Noreliester, become a reformed character we should have thrown down the book in disgust as untrue to life. But the Glad Heart is anything but pleasant reading. We like Dick Framley and we like Ellen Milner, but with Betsey Prig, we do not believe that there is any such person a.s Panj (Mariller. Why he was brought info the story .we cannot imagine, since he is an absolute nonentity. Mrs. Mariller as a widow would have been much more interesting, and infinitely more convincing. Nevertheless the book will find admirers, though we much prefer Aladame Albanesi in the style of “The Invincible Amelia.” Tile “Mary’’ of the frontispiece is charmingly natural, both in pose and style. We arc indebted to Methuen and Co. for our copy of “The Glad Heart.” Ailsa Paige: By Robert W. Chambers. (New York and London: D. Appleton and Co. Melbourne: George Robertson and Co. Auckland: Gordon and Gotch and Wildman anij Arey. 3/6.) This is surely the finest book Mr Chambers has ever written. We thought we had exhausted our interest in tales of the civil war in America, and 10, Mr Chambers comes along, and, waving an jenchanter’s wand over this seemingly threadbare subject, it blossoms out into new meaning and interest. Phillip Ormond Berkley, the book's hero, is sud-

denly confronted with the double knowledge of his mother's shame (he had loved his mother to distraction) ami his own probable illegitimacy, and, without pausing to reflect, plunges into the paths of destruction trodden by the gambler, the drunkard, and the sensualist. But the faithfulness of a body servant, who persists ill serving him after he is financially ruined, and the love of “Ails* Paige,” the book's heroine, keep alive in him that tiny divine spark, which is slowly fanned into flame on his taking the field in the war betwixt the North and South. Of all wars, civil war is the most awful, flow awful, and how the eivil war in America not only estranged States, but wife and husband, parent and child, relations and friends, girl and lover, will be felt in this deeply moving chronicle. . Harrowing and deeply pathetic. too, are the scenes that visualise for the reader, the horrors, the sufferings, and the privations of war. Mr Chambers’ art, like good wine, does but mellow with age. ‘ Ails i Paige” is a novel no one can afford to miss. It is a noved to weep over, to be uplifted by, to read again ami again, to recommend to our intimates, to set rip on our bookshelves as a worthy companion to ‘‘The Fighting Chance.” We are indebted to Messrs George Robertson for a copy of this splendidly realistic ■tory. African Game Trails : By Theodore Roosevelt. (London : John Murray, Albemarle-street. W.. and •1! Dominion booksellers. Price, 18/ net.) “African Game Trails” is, without doubt, not only a valuable contribution to wild nature and wild sports literature, but interesting as revealing certain traits and characteristics of its author, hitherto unsuspected. The scope and trend of the work cannot be more pithily indicated than will be found in its felicitously-worded preface, where the author says:—“l speak of Africa anti golden joys; the joy of wandering through lonely lands; the joy of hunting the mighty and terrible lords of the wilderness, the cunning, the wary, and the grim. In these greatest of the world’s great hunting grounds there are moun-<tain-*>eaks, whose snows are dazzling under the equatorial sun; swamps where the slime oozes and bubbles and festers in the steaming heat; lakes like seas; skies that burn above deserts where the iron desolation is shrouded from view by the wavering mockery of the mirage; vast grassy plains where palms and thorn-trees fringe the dwindling streams; mighty rivers rushing out of the heart of the Continent through the sadness of endless marshes; forests of gorgeous beau'iy, where death broods in the dark and silent depths. There are regions as healthy as the Northland; and other regions, radiant with bright-hued flowers, birds and butterflies, odorous with sweet and heavy scents, but treacherous in their beauty, and sinister to human life. On the laud and in the water there are dread brutes that feed on the flesh of man; and among 'the lower things tiiat crawl, and fly, and sting, and bite, he finds swarming foes far more evil and deadly than any beast {•» reptile; foes that kill his crops and his cattle, foes before which ho himself perishes in his hundreds and thousands. The darkskhr.icd races that live In the land vary widely. Some are warlike, cattle-owning nomads; some till the soil and live in thatched huts shaped like beehives; some are fisherfolk; some are ape-like, naked savages, who dwell in the woods and prey on creatures not much wilder or lower than themselves. The land teems with beasts of the chase, infinite in number and incredible in variety. It holds the fiercest beasts of ravin, and llio fleetest and most timid of those UiingH that live in undying fear of talon and fang. It holds the largest and the smallest of hoofed animals. It holds the mightiest creatures that tread the earth or swim in its ’ivers: it also holds distant kinsfolk 6t these same creatures, no bigger than woodchucks, which dwell in crannies of the rocks, and in the treetops. There are antelope smaller than hares, and antelope bigger tnan oxen.” Creatures who are the embodiments of grace; others who are ungainly to the point of nightmare. The plains are alive with droves of strange and beautiful animals, whose like is not known elsewhere; and with others, even stranger, that show both in form and temper something of the fantastic, and the grotesque.” It is a neverending pleasure, continues this author, to watch these herds in their myriads;

feeding, fighting, resting, and making love. “The hunter who wanders through these lands sees sights which ever remain fixed in his memory. He sees the monstrous river-horse snorting and plunging beside the boat; the giraffe looking over the tree-tops at the nearing horsemen; the ostrich fleeing at a speed that none may rival; the snarling leopard and coiled python, -with their lethal beauty; the zebras, basking in the moonlight as the laden caravan passes on its night march, through a thirsty land. To bis mind comes memories of a lion’s charge; of the grey bulk of the elephant close at hand in the sombre woodland; of the buffalo, sullen and lowering; of the rhinoceros, truculent and stupid, standing in the bright. sunlight on the empty plain. These things can be told. But there are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm. There is delight in the hardy life of the open, in long rides, rifle in hand; in the thrill of the fight with dangerous game. Apart from this, yet mingled with it, is the strong attractions of the silent places, of the large tropic moons, and the splendour of the new stars; where the wanderer sees the

awful glory of sunrise and sunset iu the wide waste spaces of the earth, unworn of man, and changed only by the slow changes of the ages from time everlasting.” We offer no further apology for presenting the book's foreword almost in its entirety, other than lies in the fact that in the foreword is condensed nearly all the philosophy and sentiment of the book. For “African Game Trails” is above everything a record of big-game hunting, conducted on purely scientific lines, and with a scientie rather than a pleasurable object, though it served both ends. The inclusion of the Cairene and the Guildhall speeches is a deeply interesting addition for which readers have to thank Mr. John Murray, the publisher of the English edition of this admirable work. The gist of t<he Cairene speech lies in the depreciation of a too liberal secular education for the native, unbacked by equal moral or religious principles, while the famous Guildhall speech earnestly warns England against weakness of rule in Egypt. In a region remarkable for the difficulties, dangers, disagreeableness ami hardship of its travels, aggravated often by its adverse climatic conditions, its reflects the highest credit upon the author and the several members of the expedition that there is scarcely any mention of these. Nor do we read, as is common in records of like travel, of the continual defection of the Safari. AU of

which points to the fact that Mr. Roosevelt is a true leader of men and that he and his colleagues weri true sportsmen. The other members of the expedition besides Mr. Roosevelt and his son Kermit, were Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Edgar Mearas, U.S.A., retired; Mr. Edmond Heller, of California; and Mr. J. Alden Loring, of Owego, New York; Mr. R. J. Cunningham and Leslie Tarlton, an Australian, all of whom had won distinction as naturalists or mighty hunters. Mr. Roosevelt was specially fortunate in that his trip was chiefly arranged by Mr. Frederick Courtenay Selous, the greatest of the world’s big game hunters, and Mr. Edward North Buxton, also a mighty hunter. Leaving Mombasa uy that Uganda railway described with such precise and humorous detail by Mr. Winston Churchill in “My African Journey,” the • expedition made its first serious halt in East Africa at the Kapiti Plains, where the safari or caravan that was to accompany the expedition waited in readiness. Mr. Roosevelt took with him three rifles, an army Springfield 30 calibre, stocked and sighted to suit himself; a Winchester 405, and a double-barrelled 500-.450 Holland. The latter rifle, which Mr. Roosevelt seems

to have infinitely preferred, was a gift to him from some English friends, in recognition of his services on behalf of the preservation of species by means of national parks and forest reserves, and by other means, and it is pleasing to note that in the list of donors is included the names of the foremost scientists, litterateurs ami sportsmen of England. From the ornithology of the Kapiti Plains the writer next plunges into an enthusiastic description of the zebra in his native habitat. In this connection we take leave to refer to Mr. Roosevelt’s views on “ protective colouration.” With the views of Mr. Thayer in particular on this important subject Mr. Roosevelt entirely disagrees, and certainly makes out a good case against accepted authorities. The present accepted belief in “ protective colouration ” would seem to have been founded on primary and repeated error. Striking colouration or marking of coat or plumage, declares Mr Roosevelt is an added danger rather than a protection to its wearer. Other fallacies relative to wild animals are also exposed, after being submitted to the test of close observation. As to the relative danger attending big-game hunting, Mr. Roosevelt’s own opinion is that lion hunting comes first, then buffalo, elephant, rhinoceros, and leopard. The leopard is, in pluck and ferocity, more than the equal of thd other four, but his small size al-

ways Tenners it likely that he will mere!* maul, and not kill, a man. To attempt to give any adequate account of the immense variety of game met with, th« route travelled and the splendid descriptions given would exceed our space, ami we can only-recommend every sportsman naturalist, Imperialist and lover of travel to buy the book and revel in it, as wet have done. Enough it i& to say that Mr. Roosevelt himself bagged in tru<j sportsman fashion no fewer than 298 head of game for scientific purposes, besides constantly helping to keep the expedition and safari pot full. Mr. Kermig Roosevelt, who proved himself to be X true chip of the old block, managed to bag a total of 216, besides helping t<J plenish the pot with game, and bagging in addition other birds for specimens-. Contrary to Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. Roosevelt does not think Uganda a whiteman’s country. While admitting tho beauty and the wonderful productiveness of the -oil, and the superiority of tha Uganda native, he considers that a British Protectorate is sufficient. This opinion, while creditable to Mr. Roosevelt on more than climatic grounds, is bound ta find numerous dissentients among ths British people. The admirable and profuse illustrations of the book are front photographs taken by Mr. Kermit Roosevelt, and other members of the expedition, and from drawings by Phillip R. Goodwin. A capital map, showing then route taken bv the expedition, is also furnished, together with six appendices, and an index, alphabetically arranged. In these appendices subjects mentioned by the way in the text, are dealt with «C length. An interesting account of the now famous pigskin library, with interesting comments on literature in general, is given in appendix six, and we shall take occasion in a future issue, to refer to it. No library can be considered complete, which does not include this admirable work, which we have read with! keen pleasure and immense profit, and for which we thank Mr. John Murray, frond whom we have received our handsomd copy.