NATURE 



55^ 



THURSDAY, APRIL i- 



.4 DOCTOR'S VIEW OF THE EAST. 

 The Other Side of the Lantern. By Sir Frederick 



Treves, Bart. Pp. xvi + 424. (London : Cassell 



and Co., Ltd., 1905.) Price 12s. net. 

 A N admirable book ; a book written in terse and 

 "^ epigrammatic style, as full of cleverness as any- 

 thing written by Kipling, and intensely interesting as 

 illustrative of the first impressions conveyed to a 

 highlv trained and observant mind by the familiar and 

 superficial details of eastern life. But there is nothing 

 deeper in the book than first impressions, and it was 

 perhaps inevitable that to the student of human nature 

 under those aspects of sorrow and suffering which 

 shadow the sick bed and the hospital, those first im- 

 pressions should be tinged with the pathos and sad- 

 ness rather than with the brightness and fulness of 

 the east, and that the general tone of the book should 

 be almost pessimistic. It is as if the lantern had 

 proved to be no better than a common " bull's eye," 

 with nothing on the far side but deep shadow and the 

 policeman. Not that the book is wanting in humour 

 by any means. On the contrary, some of the quaint 

 outlines of men and things sketched in by the artist's 

 hand are as full of humour as anything drawn by 

 Phil May ; but it is the grim humour of the man who 

 complained in South Africa of the " plague of women 

 and flies " rather than that of the ordinary holiday 

 tourist infected with the light and sunshine of the 

 eastern world. 



The fascination of the book lies in the strength of 

 it, and its appeal to ordinary experience. What Sir 

 Frederick Treves describes with a few powerful and 

 graphic touches of the pen is what we all know and 

 have seen thousands of times for ourselves, and it is 

 the reproduction of our own unwritten (and perhaps 

 unrecognised) sensations that gives such pleasure to 

 the understanding. The keen power of observation 

 possessed by men who are trained by medical ex- 

 perience to judge character by the small superficial 

 details of every-day action is sometimes almost un- 

 canny to those who have eyes to see but see not, 

 passing from country to country well wrapped up in 

 a layer of self-satisfied insularity, regarding the 

 changeful world of human existence as a sort of 

 variety show with no reality at the back of it. 

 Occasionally, no doubt. Sir Frederick permits an 

 artistic fancy to introduce embellishments into the 

 arena of actual observation ; but where this occurs one 

 cannot but recognise that he shares with Turner the 

 great faculty of rendering his picture all the more 

 truthful in realising the impression which he seeks 

 to convey. 



From the very start at Tilburv the author displays 

 a powerful conception of all those minor features of 

 the voyage eastward which are the framework and 

 making of the voyager's daily experience. He begins 

 with his fellow passengers : — " As an arena for the 

 display of the resources of selfishness a departing ship 

 has great advantages," and follows this up with a 

 r.-^cord of the mean little stratagems in which 

 NO. 1850, VOL. 71] 



travellers will permit themselves to indulge on such 

 occasions, and (it should be fairly admitted) on such 

 occasions only. If there .was anything of the usual 

 good fellowship and interchange of little kindnesses 

 which usually distinguishes the fellow voyagers of a 

 P. and O. ship (many of whom are necessarily well 

 acquainted w'ith each other). Sir Frederick does not 

 seem to have remarked them. He is impressed with 

 the aspect of selfishness only. He is deeply interested 

 in Gibraltar (the Rock of the past rather than of the 

 present) ; charmed with the vision of Crete ; inclined 

 to relieve Port Said from the weight of universal 

 anathema with which it is invested ; and disappointed 

 with India. At least, so one gathers from his book. 

 He is profoundly impressed with the multitudes of 

 India, and with the melancholy which tinges their 

 whole existence. Tlie truth is that the multitudes 

 would not so much signify if they were equally dis- 

 tributed over the whole continent; and a comparison 

 with France in the matter of population is ineffective 

 for the reason that France much wants more people 

 than she possesses. It is, however, the growing of 

 the multitudes (checked even though it be by periodic 

 famines over vast areas) that affords most serious 

 consideration to Indian administrators. 



The general prevalence of an atmosphere of 

 melancholy pervading native life in India is real 

 enough, and it is this which tends greatly to discount 

 the chequered pleasures of European e.xistence in that 

 country. For it is an undoubted fact that in spite of 

 isolation and exile in this " land of regrets " (the 

 land of " grim extremes " Sir Frederick calls it), and 

 the absence of so much that makes life worth living 

 under European skies, life in India has more in it of 

 pleasure than of pain. There are few who leave India 

 quite of their own free will, and many who would 

 gladly end their days there were it not for the dis- 

 jointing of all ties of friendship by the departure to 

 England of those whom they know best and love best 

 in their own social circle. 



Sir Frederick (perhaps naturally) appears to asso- 

 ciate melancholy with misery. The association is by 

 no means true of India whatever it may be in other 

 lands ; nor does he, with all his profound knowledge 

 of human nature and the effect of environment and 

 occupation thereon, quite appreciate the point of view 

 from which the native looks at the conditions of his 

 own existence. For instance, he finds in the Pahdri 

 (the hill men of the Himalayas) a class of people 

 condemned to work as beasts of burden all their lives. 

 Visiting Simla in the " off " season, he finds these 

 men of the hills pervading the Tibet road, toiling 

 painfully towards the Simla market loaded with 

 planks of sawn wood. " They move slowly and they 

 walk in single file, and when the path is narrow they 

 must move sideways. In one day I met no less than 

 fifty creeping wretches in this inhuman procession . . . 

 if there were but a transverse beam to the plank, each 

 one of these bent men might be carrying his own 

 cross to a far-off place of crucifixion." If the author 

 had waited until the " wretches " had stacked their 

 planks for the evening, lit their fires for cooking, and 

 gathered round for the day's ending, he would have 



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