554 



NA TURE 



[April 13, 1905 



found no cliperior, happier honrled folk on the face 

 cif ihfi earth Ihan they. There is nothinj; melancholy 

 :,l>out the Pah/iri. It'is jjerhaps cxlraortlinary that any 

 people who are conlcnt (for (here is no necessity in 

 this case) to take the place of beasts of burden should 

 be so absolutely unaware of the depth of ilnir own 

 miserable def^radation. But so it: is, ;iik1 ihc y would 

 no more thank Sir Frederick for drriwitiK' ihem as 

 central figures in a picture of n " circle in Pur^jalory " 

 than would the bare-backed inhabitants of the bazaar 

 thank the K"od missionary for callinj; them indecent. 

 It he tried to turn a PahAri into a hospital orderly, 

 and to wean him from his mountains and his planUs, 

 the contract would not last for a week ! 



But it is necessarily only with the outward aspeiK.f 

 thinf^s Indian that the casu.al traveller can possibly 

 d<al, and it is the freshness and vij^our of Sir 

 Frederick's descriptions of native life, his love of 

 colour and nature, that make the charm of 

 his book. Can anything be better than his 

 description of the small shopkeeper of the bazaar? 

 He " lives in the street coram popido, and his inner 

 life is generously laid open to the public gaze. In 

 the morning he may think well to wash himself in 

 frnni of his slinp. .iiul 10 clean his teeth with a stick 

 while he douilies amongst his goods and spits into 

 the lane, lie sits on the ground in the open to have 

 his head shrived and w;itehes the flight of the barber's 

 razor by means of a han4 glass. The barber squats 

 in front of him and from time to time whets his 

 blade upon his naked leg. The shopkeeper will 

 change his clothes before the eyes of the world when 

 so moved. He also cats in the open, and after the 

 meal he washes his mouth with ostentatious publicity 

 and empties his bowl into the road." 



In moving amongst the historical cities of India 

 and in describing them in detail there is, of course, a 

 danger of treading on the skirts of the guide book. 

 .Sir Frederick only escapes the peril by the strength 

 .ind beauty of his des<.-riptions of these relics of the 

 p.ist and his keen appreciation of the stories that these 

 .stones can tell ; his power of investing palaces and 

 forts with all the movement and glitter, the coming 

 .■md going, of past races of kings, m.iking these old 

 w.ills live once more under the light of an Indi.i which 

 -shall never be again. It is all delightlul reading, and 

 the stirring India of Sir Frederick's imaginings owns 

 .•ui enchantment which is wanting in the shadowed 

 India of his latter day observation. There is not much 

 s.iid .-ibout Calcutta. The flavour of the place, that 

 " essence of corruption which has rotted for a second 

 time " (Kipling), seems to have been too much for 

 the author; and yet we know that Calcutta is reckoned 

 {statistically, at least) to be one of the wholesomest 

 cities of the world, even when judged by the Euro- 

 pean standard. 



Passing from India to Burma one is not surprised 

 at the ;iir of relief which pervades his book when deal- 

 ing with ihal bright and laughter-loving land. Not 

 even the stiin diticof woman's mission in camp and 

 hospital c.in resist the fascination of the Burmese 

 coquette ; and his description of Burm.i and Ceylon 

 (where, en pitssuiil, the eminent surgeon was intro- 

 NO. 1850, VOL. 71 J 



duced to the devil of .appendicitis and found him 

 " unreasonably noisy ") includes thi' best and 

 brightest chapter in the book. 



China falls again within the shadows cast by the 

 far side of the lantern. The " nightmare city of 

 Canton," where " such peace as is to be found in 

 the city lies only on tin- green hill side without the 

 walls, where the dead .arc sleeping," gives the key 

 note of the almost morbid view of Chinese social 

 existence which is t.akeii by the author; and yet 

 throughout his story of China and Japan (which 

 country he also finds somewhat disappointing) there 

 is the same brilliancy of description, the same fertile 

 |X)wer of supplying prei isely llie right touch that is 

 required to complete the sketch, that marks the work 

 .IS original from beginning to end. It is almost 

 Kiplingesque (to coin ;i word) in its epigrammatic 

 summary of the usu.illy complicated view of eastern 

 humanity and its enviroiimejit. It is the best book 

 of travel that has beeji written for years; and yet 

 when one lays it down regretfully (regretfully because 

 it has come to an end), ,-i feeling of thankfulness 

 ste.ils over one that the endless procession of human 

 life and all the sweet variety of nature in the east 

 is usu.illy ranged for view before our eyes unlinted by 

 the ineiliimi of medical spectacles. '1". II. II. 



A BOOK ON MUSEUMS. 

 Miisciiitis, their History and their Use; with a 



Hibliography and List of Museums in the United 



Ki>igdom. By D. Murray. 3 Vols. Vol. i., pp. 



XV + 339; vol. ii., pp. xiii-l-33t); vol. iii., pp. 363. 



(Glasgow : MacLehose .ind Sons, 1904.) Price 32s. 



net. 

 \X/'I'2 have read the text of the first volume of this 

 work (the second .and third are devoted to 

 bibliography, &-c.) from title-page to index with the 

 greatest pleasure and satisfaction, and can therefore 

 recommend it to the best attention of those interested 

 in the history and progress of museums. The book 

 itself offers an illustration of an evolution somewhat 

 similar to that of many of those institutions, for it is 

 based on ;in address delivered by the author, in his 

 capacity as president, to the Glasgow Archa;ological 

 .Society so long ago as the winter of 181)7, and from 

 this slender foundation il has gradually grown to its 

 present dimensions. .Mmli of the original address 

 appears to remain in the llnal chapter of the text, 

 where we find the author comparing the state of 

 museums in 181)7 to what il was half a century earlier, 

 and what he presumes it will be in the future. 



The work, which claims to be the first really full 

 and .approximately complete account of museum his- 

 tory in general, is confessedly written from the stand- 

 point of an archaBologist r.ither than of a naturalist ; 

 and it is none the worse for this, although, as we 

 shall point out, there are a few instances where it 

 would have been well had the author taken counsel 

 with his zoological colleagues. Before proceeding to 

 a brief notice of soine of the leading features of the 

 text, il may be well to mention that the list of 

 museums in the British Isl.inds is based on the one 

 prepared by the Museums .Association in 1887, and 



