Book Reviews 



215 



"The Carolina What a charming companion Margaret Morley must 

 Mountains "* be in the wilderness ! In her "Carolina Mountains," 

 with its lovely photographic reproductions, one feels 

 her sympathetic love for all that is beautiful in Nature. The reader, 

 also, is inspired with the romantic suggestion of the enchanted East, 

 as he views the magnoHa and tulip-trees in full flower in the forest and 

 catches the magic spice of plants whose only other habitat outside of 

 the southern mountains is in eastern Asia. We see with her the blood- 

 red mud staining the legs of the snow-white mules, the red wasp nests 

 and the fiery red rivers running by, laden with their sediment of 

 red soil. We enjoy the encounters with the furred and feathered beasts. 

 We laugh at the rage of the ruffed grouse whose anger is "one mass of 

 irate feathers on end." 



The villages are picturesque with their gaily painted houses, of which 

 no two are arranged at the same angle. The people are a quaint sur- 

 vival of that simple civilization when man was content to live on the 

 products of his own land. Many of them have never been more than 

 ten miles from home. They have never been in a train nor even seen an 

 automobile. Their language is so old-fashioned that it more nearly 

 resembles that of Chaucer than the breezy modern English, so full of 

 foreign influence. The children always call flowers "pretties." The 

 fork of a river is more correctly called a "prong." One refers to "yon- 

 side" of the mountain. So simple and natural and hospitable are these 

 naive, trusting people that we are almost tempted to regret the purchase 

 of an enormous territory by one of the Vanderbilts and the establish- 

 ment of model industries. 



About 18,500 acres in North Carolina,, in the vicinity of Mt. Mitchell 

 (the highest mountain in the United States east of the Mississippi) 

 have already been bought by the government as a national pleasure- 

 ground, while further purchases are under consideration. And so 

 future generations will continue to enjoy what is rightfully theirs in this 

 "enchanting Holiday of Dreams." L. M. R. 



"African British East Africa is the scene of "African Camp 



Camp Fires"! Fires," an absorbing book of hunting and camp ex- 

 periences. From Mombasa, Mr. White followed the 

 railroad northwestward to Nairobi, where he outfitted for his journeys 

 into the wilderness. The trips were often arduous. Long treks across 

 sandy, waterless wastes or steep hill-climbing through almost impene- 

 trable brush were stern tests of endurance under the tropic sun. Camp 

 life was made easy, even luxurious, however, by the small army of 

 native guides, porters and servants which accompanied him. Lion- 



* The Carolina Mountains. By Margaret W. Morley. Houghton, Mifflin & 

 Co., Cambridge, 1913. 397 pages. Illustrated with photographs by the author and 

 maps. Price, $3.50 net. 



■\ African Camp Fires. By Stewart Edward White. Doubleday, Page & Co., 

 New York, 1913. Illustrated from photographs. 378 pages. Price, $1.50 net. 



