330 



DISCOVIIHY 



vegetable and mineral driips arc used, and the general 

 practice is apparently tlcrivcd, as \v;is much of the Medi- 

 aeval medicine nf I-'urope. from the writings and tradition 

 of the great Arab physicians of the schools of Cairo and 

 Tunis. 



Besides the regular medicine, magic and charms are 

 much used, not by the native doctors but by professional 

 sorcerers, important members of a community to whom 

 malevolent spirits and the evil eye are an ever-present 

 danger. J inns and demons are kept at bay by the carrying 

 of pungent and ill-smelling drugs, such as red pepper and 

 assafcctida, just as the latter and valerian used to be given 

 in English medicine to drive out the evil spirit of hysteria 

 by making his habitation intolerable. The practitioners 

 of magic among the Shawia tribes evidently wield con- 

 siderable powers of suggestion, for an eve-witness described 

 in detail to tlie author tlie old witchcraft miracle of 

 juggling the moon out of the sky into a bowl of water, 

 though in this case for no greater purpose than to make a 

 love-philtre. 



The romantic character with which some writers have 

 invested the Berbers is not substantiated by the author, 

 but we get a picture of a typical, sturdy, superstitious, 

 hospitable Highland people, playing the pipes, as all hill 

 people seem to do from Scotland to the Himalayas, keen 

 hunters and sportsmen (the national game is a furious 

 kind of hockey, plaj-ed with a juniper branch and a round 

 stone) ; and in the late war they showed themselves to be 

 as good fighters as they were in the days of the Romans, 

 who found it more convenient to pay them to defend the 

 Southern frontiers than to exact tribute from them as a 

 conquered nation. 



The book is well illustrated with photographs and 

 contains a useful appendix of hints to travellers ; and, if 

 sometimes we are inclined to look for more explanation 

 and discussion of unfamiliar customs from so experienced 

 an ethnologist, these may be expected in a later and more 

 technical volume in which the findings of the expedition 

 will be collected and analysed. Meanwhile the present 

 volume provides a popular and very entertaining account 

 of a little-known people and, for those who will be stimu- 

 lated to follow the author not in imagination only, a 

 practical guide to their country. 



F. A.H. 



The Heart of Nature, or The Quest for Natural Beauty. 



BvSirFr.AXCIS YOUNGHUSB.VND, K. C.S.I. , K.C.I.E. 



(John Murray, 12s.) 

 It is difficult to know what kind of attitude to assume 

 towards this book. We are on the whole inclined to con- 

 sider it as the embodiment of a philosophy, formed by 

 and during the life of a man of action, who for the purpose 

 of its expression has deliberately thrown to the winds all 

 knowledge of pre-existing philosophies and religions. 

 Early on in his book Sir Francis Younghusband describes 

 the delight that overcame him at discovering a great 

 solitary lily starred with flowers in the Sikkim Forests, as 

 " one of those experiences which most certainly make us 

 younger." because, as he adds, " we are once again children 



finding (lowers in a wood." This la.st sentence seems to 

 us to sum up the spirit of these pages. The great 

 explorer has sought to recapture " those first fine careless 

 raptures " of his youth and early manhood and to mould 

 them with the experiences, but not the increasing critical 

 faculties, of later life, into a philosophy. If this be the 

 case we can understand why Sir Francis skates, through 

 every page he has wxitten, on the thinnest sheet of ice 

 between him and the entangling waters of philosophy. 

 To mention only two small passages, in the description of 

 the poet as one who " works by spontaneous creativeness 

 ... is utterly original — a true creator," he comes 

 perilously near to involving himself in the Platonic 

 doctrine of innate ideas, and he approaches and dismisses 

 with extremely flimsy arguments one of the most debated 

 questions of ^Esthetics, that " whatever adequately 

 expresses a definite purpose is beautiful." 



Coming to the core of the book, which could have been 

 adequately developed in a quarter of the space used, we 

 find that Sir Francis is an advocate of a sort of pantheism, 

 somewhat on Shelleyan lines. He believes that the Spirit 

 of Nature permeates everything, lives in everything, 

 energises everything ; that Nature is not merciless or 

 hard, but that " in spite of the very evident struggle for 

 existence She does not care twopence whether the ' fittest ' 

 survive or not so long as what is best in the end prevails " ; 

 that " Nature is a Person, and a Person is a process. . . . 

 And actuating the whole process, determining the whole 

 great event, is an inner core of Activity which endures 

 through all the changes. ... It is what we should mean 

 when we speak of God." As William James pointed out 

 in his Varieties of Religious Experience, the rock with 

 which so many pantheists collide is the question of Evil, 

 which their philosophy logically tends to ascribe as having 

 its foundation in God. No very definite attention is 

 paid to the existence of Evil by Sir Francis Younghusband. 

 But the President of the Royal Geographical Society has 

 done a fine thing in these days of materialism by urging 

 on his readers the belief that Matter is not the " end-all 

 and the be-all ' ' of the Universe, but that there is Spirit 

 actuating it everywhere. 



To return to less important passages, the book is full of 

 truly-felt and nobly-e.vpressed sentiments, while there are 

 vivid descriptions of the approach to, and first sight of, the 

 Himalayas, of the vast, dark, luxuriant forest in the 

 Teesta Valley, and the uplifting qualities of nights spent 

 in deserts surmounted by starry skies. 



E. L. 



Modern English Drama: An Outline. By Patrick 

 KiRWAN. (National Home Reading Union, is.) 



The writing of a literary or dramatic history of one's 

 own times is beset with dangers. Any man. however 

 aloof and neutral be his mind, is bound to be influenced 

 to some extent by the consensus of contemporary opinion. 

 We doubt if Mr. Kirwan's perspective is always quite a 

 true one. He pays too much attention to the transient 

 charms of Barrie, and to the fantasies of Dunsany. beauti- 

 ful but too gossamer-like to be handed down as classics of 



