602 
NALORE 
[APRIL 25, 1907 
In his own judgment Mr. Muir is quite unable 
to attempt the task; but his estimate is too modest. 
It must certainly be acknowledged that he has dis- 
played great learning and much literary ability. As 
to the audacity, it is for himself to judge. W. R. 
DELTA NEGROES. 
The Lower Niger and its Tribes. By Major Arthur 
Glyn Leonard. Pp. xxii+564. (London: Mac- 
millan and Co., Ltd.) Price 12s. 6d. net. 
HERE is about this book, which is undeniably 
interesting, a certain haziness in its preliminary 
observations, a lack of sharpness in its detail, in the 
geography and natural history, which suggests a 
photograph slightly out of focus. You get a general 
idea of the scene, but you cannot be quite sure as 
to the species of the trees or flowers, or whether it 
is horses or cows that are feeding in the distant fields. 
This want of exactitude is probably due to the fact 
that the author has seemingly allowed several years 
to elapse since his departure from the Niger delta 
before transcribing his remembrances from his notes. 
The book, in its good features and in its faults, is 
a rather striking example of the new school of litera- 
ture dealing with negro Africa which has arisen since 
the publication of Mary Kingsley’s West African 
studies. This remarkable woman founded a new 
school in African studies which in some directions— 
politically more especially—has wrought much good. 
In convincing the British white man—official, 
missionary, or merchant—that the black is not the 
half-animal savage which many unthinking people 
had considered him to be, that there is much good 
in his native ideas of religion and social economy, 
Mary Kingsley came near to being a genius, for she 
grasped and expressed many truths about the negro 
of West Africa which had been perceived by those 
who did not write or speak, and had been over- 
looked by many who did both. Her gift of intuition 
enabled her to arrive at these conceptions with 
very little help from language. In her two or 
three years spent on the West Coast of Africa she 
never mastered a sentence in any African language, 
and all her inquiries were conducted through English- 
speaking interpreters. Those, therefore, who have 
had more scientific training in the affairs of Africa 
cannot always bring themselves to agree with Miss 
Kingsley’s statements or with the deductions drawn 
therefrom; but she carries conviction in so much of 
her work that it is not necessary to attack it as a 
whole. In a journal of exact knowledge like Nature 
it is as well, however, to put ethnologists on their 
guard, to demand the utmost precision of statement 
from new writers on African subjects, even perhaps 
to beg of those writers to furnish an array of accurate 
and useful facts and not attempt to add their own 
deductions, which may be based on a very limited 
knowledge either of Africa or the human race in 
general. 
Miss Kingsley’s disciples are too fond of coining 
words in ‘“‘’ism”’ and ‘’ality,’? and out of these 
they create a windy philosophy of German nineteenth- 
NO. 1956, VOL. 75} 
NIGER 
century type which they then declare to be the true 
meaning of African religious ideas. In one book— 
not that under review—much of this philosophy is 
based on a series of sentences in a native language, 
the words for which, though correctly taken down, 
are followed by a translation which is often incorrect 
and misleading. Major Leonard in one chapter has 
cited a number of interesting proverbs and several 
fables, but he does not tell us from which tribe each 
is drawn, and his work would have carried more 
conviction if he had given the actual rendering in the 
native language, so that specialists could have 
satisfied themselves as to the correctness of the 
translation. 
There is a good deal more accuracy and definite- 
ness in the way the author traces the history of the 
Ibo and Jelri and Efils peoples, and he imparts much 
useful and novel information regarding the Ijo tribe, 
which, not differing physically from the other negro 
inhabitants of the Niger delta, nevertheless possesses 
a language of very isolated type with no clear 
relationships. The descriptions of the native gods and 
the spirits who are believed to exist in trees, earth, 
water, and sly are valuable, and, so far as the re- 
viewer can judge, accurate; moreover, they are given 
in a manner and style certain to arrest and retain 
the reader’s interest. ‘‘ Horrors ’’ are dealt with in 
sober language, but some of the incidents cited might 
be the nucleus of powerful stories such as Grant 
Allen used to write. To those writers of fiction who 
place their stories in Africa, Major Leonard’s bool: 
will supply many a sensational episode, while at the 
same time keeping within the limits of actual fact. 
Much interesting matter is also included dealing 
with the languages of the Niger delta and of Old 
Calabar. The reviewer, however, cannot quite 
endorse Major Leonard’s theories as to etymology 
and the inter-relationship of certain language groups, 
but these theories are presented without dogmatism, 
and are worth consideration. 
The book is therefore interesting, and more than 
half of it consists of a well-presented statement of 
the religious beliefs, manners, and customs of the 
Ibo people more especially, and also of the Ijo, Jekri, 
Efik, and Ibibio. If Major Leonard could have 
omitted some of the preliminary chapters dealing 
too much with speculative philosophy and have con- 
fined himself to the interesting statement of his own 
personal observations, he would have produced a 
work: of compact value. Even as it is, those engaged 
in African research will find it an excellent guide in 
studying the negroes of the Niger delta. 
PRACTICAL PLANT-PHYSIOLOGY. 
Vorschule der Pflanzenphysiologie, eine  experr 
mentelle Einfiihrung in das Leben der Pflanzen. 
By Prof. L. Linsbauer and Dr. K. Linsbauer. 
Pp. xiv+255. (Vienna: Carl Konegen, 1906.) 
HIS book consists of instructions for the per- 
formance of 295 experiments in plant physi- 
ology in the widest sense. It includes, not only the 
physiology of nutrition and movement, but also a 
