REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS. 



A Tour in Mongolia. By Mrs. Beatrix Bulstrode. Methuen & Co., 



Ltd., London. 

 This lively account of two attempts to reach Urga made in 1913 

 should not suffer because of the over-emphasis laid on its importance 

 by the publishers' note and the "Times" correspondent's introduction. 

 The authoress endured the inevitable discomforts of her journeying 

 with sufficient courage and records its incidents, rarely serious as 

 these were, with cheery good nature. The photographs that illustrate 

 the volume are many and interesting, especially to the untravelled 

 public in China or elsewhere. It must be confessed that the former 

 half of this rather imposing volume proved somewhat trivial ; but 

 from page 120 onward the reader becomes considerably interested. 

 The ceremonies and sports before the Hutukhtu are as worthy of 

 record as they are graphically recounted ; the horrors of the Urga 

 prison in 1913 were indeed incredibly abominable. Mrs. Bulstrode 

 writes with vigour about the hats and clothes of the Mongols and their 

 dwellings and she was duly impressed by their famous fierce dogs. 

 She is to be congratulated on refraining from political dissertations 

 which would, owing to the belated publication of her work, have been 

 more than usually out of place in such a story. 



A map of "Mongolia" graces the inner face of the cover. The- 

 fact that it includes the Yellow Sea and the Altai Mountains, Kokonor 

 and Krasnoyorsk, adds no doubt to its value to the general reader 

 who can with a little diligence trace Mrs. Bulstrode's course on her 

 two sallies from Peking. 



The "Chinese proverbs" that head many of the chapters are mostly 

 unfamiliar to this reviewer, where they do recall genuine proverbs, and 

 in one case, a saying of the Sage's, the translator must have taken undue 

 liberties with the text. <J>. 



Commercial Handbook of China. Volume II. By Julean Arnold, 

 American Commercial Attache in China. Published by the- 

 Department of Commerce at Washington, 1920. 

 Notwithstanding the number and variety of books and reports that 

 have been written on "Things Chinese" in recent years the general 

 knowledge of the average British and American citizen concerning; 



