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The Review of Reviews. 



Trackless Labrador (Heinemann. 15s.). This 

 handsome octavo volume, copiously illustrated 

 and excellently written, describes regions which 

 are kept sealed against human intrusion by a 

 standing army of billions upon billions of the most 

 merciless mosquitoes. However Mr. Prichard 

 got through this realm of Beelzebub is a mystery. 

 But, apart from his vivid narrative of his adven- 

 tures, the gem of the book is the account which 

 the author gives of the silent, unnoticed heroism of 

 the Moravian missionaries, whose self-sacrificing 

 labour of love and devotion make us proud to belong 

 to a race which is capable of producing such saints 

 and martyrs. Everyone who is tempted, as all are 

 tempted at times, to feel disgusted at the squalor and 

 meanness of human life should read this book as a 

 spiritual tonic. 



Mr. Harold Begbie's " Broken Earthenware " 

 achieved, as it deserved, one of the greatest suc- 

 cesses of the last few years in the wide field of 

 religious literature. It was human, it was vivid, it 

 was full of sympathy and spiritual insight, and its 

 immense circulation — of one hundred and fifty 

 thousand copies — was a reassuring sign of the 

 times. His companion volume. Other Sheep (Hodder 

 and Stoughton. 6s.), is devoted to a rapid study of 

 India from the point of view of one who took Com- 

 missioner Tucker, alias Fakir Singh, as his guide on 

 his quest to study the problem of the future of 

 Christianity in India. Commissioner Tucker Mr. 

 Begbie describes as the Christian Don Quixote of our 

 time. Mr. Begbie's own religious standpoint is not 

 that of the orthodox Salvationist. He rejects much 

 that they believe, for he is of the school of rational 

 Christianity, which replaces the religion of sorrow by 

 the cult of joy. But this only gives a greater value 

 to his book. The reader may not altogether accept 

 nil Mr. Begbie's conclusions, but no one, be he 

 I'agan, Hindoo, Buddhist, Catholic, or Materialist, 

 can put down the book without being helped, in- 

 spired, and strengthened by its perusal. 



A pleasant, beautifully illustrated (in colours) book, 

 which should be in every church and Sunday school 

 library, is Mr. Artluir E. Copping's A Journalist in 

 the Holy Z(r;/^ (Religious Tract Society. 5s.). 



Underground Jerusalem ; or, Discoveries on the 

 Hill of Ophel, by H. V. (Harold Cox. 7s. 6d. net), 

 is a record of modern research in the Holy City, the 

 excavations resulting from the interesting discovery 

 about thirty years ago of the ancient Pool of Siloam. 

 The more recent discoveries are studiously and 

 categorically described in this volume, of which the 

 illustrations, maps, etc., are very carefully finished. 



Filgrim Life in the Middle Ages (Sidney Heath, 

 los. Fisher Unwin) is not exactly a travel book. It 

 is rather an historical study of a vanished mode of 

 saving the soul. But in order to describe Pilgrim 

 Life the author travels up and down along the 

 pilgrims' ways, revisiting with pious diligence the 

 most famous English shrines. To most of us the 



pilgrim way from Winchester to Canterbury is as 

 much an unknown land as Trackless Labrador. 



In Northern Mists Dr. Nansen tells us, in two 

 portly octavo well illustrated volumes (Heinemann. 

 30s.), the story of the gropings of the children of men 

 towards the Pole. It is an elaborate historical study 

 of all the records of exploration in Arctic regions 

 from the earliest days. The lure of the unknown has 

 always proved irresistible. For men love danger as 

 a bride. Ambition tempts them on, and hope of 

 gain flashes its illusive and alluring ray over the 

 wildest icebound waste. Dr. Nansen has done his 

 work like an expert and scholar. The book will 

 become a classic. 



John Boyes : King, is the title of a fascinating 

 story by Mr. John Boyes (Methuen. 12s. 6d. net) of 

 his adventures in East Africa. Mr. Boyes ran away 

 to sea when thirteen ; eight years later he landed at 

 Durban, and has been in Africa ever since. His 

 narrative is straightforward and simple — a record of 

 indomitable will and ready resource. He spent some 

 time in Rhodesia, and arrived at Mombasa in 1898. 

 He must have a wonderful knowledge of the natives, 

 for he soon became practically a king amongst them, 

 and ruled over half a million people. But, like so 

 many others who come into contact with red-tape 

 officials, he appears to have had a bad time with the 

 early administrators under British rule. Without 

 bitterness he tells how he was arrested by them, 

 was tried for his life, and triumphantly acquitted. 

 Mr. Boyes bitterly regrets the hostile attitude of the 

 governing class to the commercial and hunting 

 element in East Africa, and contends that the petty 

 spite, official arrogance, and inefficiency of certain 

 individuals undid all his work of peaceful settle- 

 ment. 



In reading 77ie Dam/be, by Walter Jerrold, with 

 thirty illustrations by Louis Weirter (.Methuen. 

 I OS. 6d. net), one feels the luxury of a personally 

 conducted trip as the author follows the course of the 

 Danube from its source to the sea. Even to -suggest 

 a description of some hundreds of towns and villages 

 is to wander into the precise domain of the guide- 

 book, and Mr. Jerrold, in avoiding description, has 

 overloaded his pages with narrative " about " rather 

 than "of" the river as a real and living thing. Yet 

 every page is interesting. 



SOME NEW NOVELS. 



One feature of the publishing season which has 

 attracted special notice is the exceptional output of 

 successful novels. Mrs. Humphry Ward's The Case 

 flj Richard Meynell, Mr. Arnold Bennett's J/iltla 

 Less7C'ays, Mr. Conrad's Under Western Eyes, Miss 

 Corelli's Life Everlasting, and several others, are all 

 selling among the really successful novels of the day, 

 and there are others, like Mr. W. W. Jacobs's Shifs 

 Company (Hodder. 3s. 6d.), in the same category. 

 " Ship's Company " is a book of short stories which 

 have appeared already in the Strand Magazine. 



