GEOGRAPHIC LITERATURE 369 



Of all letters of American travel Mr Kipling's are distinctly the most 

 entertaining, and with the same " cocksureness " of which he accuses 

 " the hideously versatile American " he settles conclusions as to our police 

 and politics, commercial morality, social customs, railroads, and army. 

 Regarding the latter, some of the visitor's comments are most truthful 

 and the more cutting and hurtful to American vanity. The citizen's 

 scorn and contempt for the soldier he had instance of daily in Yellowstone 

 Park, where he saw good examples of "that Regular Army, which is a 

 dear little army. . . . It's too tiny to he a political power," etc., etc. 



His sketches of the headquarters settlement of the East India railway, 

 of its coal fields and shops, of the Ghazipur opium factory, and of the 

 sample sitting of the Calcutta municipal council are such perfect bits of 

 his own best vein that one only complains that the volumes are so small. 

 One must wish that he would write more letters of travel, more letters 

 from Burma, from China, from Japan, from America, since these few are 

 but foretaste and aggravation to the admirers of the greatest genius ever 

 cradled by the Allahabad Pioneer, that nursery of talent in whose col- 

 umns Swinett and Marion Crawford and others in an earlier day first 

 tried their wings. E. R. S. 



Porto Rico and the West Indies. By Margherita A. Hamm. New York: 

 F. Tennyson Neely. Pp. 230, with half-tone illustrations. $1.25. 

 Among the many hastily published books on Porto Rico this excels all 

 others in its descriptions of the social and domestic life of the people of 

 the island. If one will overlook the cheap press-work and inferior illus- 

 trations and close his eyes to a few glaring misstatements, he will find this 

 to he a charming and readable work. Miss Hamm possesses strong literary 

 and descriptive ability and the feminine art of seeing those little traits of 

 domestic life and human nature which have escaped the observation of the 

 scientist, soldier, and newspaper correspondent in Porto Rico. Further- 

 more, her tone is sympathetic and appreciative. She has made an ex- 

 cellent compilation of the natural features of the island, but this is un- 

 fortunately marred by many mistakes which careful editing would have 

 avoided. Sheadds some 2,000feet to the height of the mountain summits, 

 tells us that the island has been uplifted 25 feet in 25 years, talks about 

 " mineral gnano of the Tertiary period" and ''the granite rocks of the 

 island," which do not exist ; described the aborigines as Caribs, and rein- 

 troduces us to our quondam friend, "the coral insect." These defects 

 are fully compensated for, however, by her most entertaining and charm- 

 ing descriptions of the habits and customs of the Borinquenians. 



Robert T. Hill. 



Hawaii : Om- New Possessions. By John R. Musiek. With Fifty-six Full- 

 page Plates. New York and London : Funk and YYagnalls Company. 

 Pp. v + 534. $2.75. 

 This addition to the growing literature on Hawaii is a sumptuous spec- 

 imen of the bookmakers' art, being well printed, fully illustrated, and 

 tastefully bound. The volume is largely a record of personal experiences 

 on the part of the author, and is written in an agreeable vein by onepos- 



