Art. 13.-SOME RECENT BOOKS.

IN the drift of published volumes that passes across an editorial table a surprising number of books-surprising because of the evident costliness of their productionprove not worth while. Such Biblia a-biblia are not only strangely numerous, but are also far more diverse of character than Elia recognised when he made his famous classification. Yet not all in this persistent and considerable flow are unworthy of attention; and for the guidance of the serious reader we select a few that call for notice.

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In the glowing days of summer, when the wish, if not the opportunity, is to be active in the open, the earliest inclinations turn to those volumes which carry one to the untravelled pathways, the hunting grounds, the primeval forests and mountains of adventure, which remain abundant although the world is shrinking. that reason, fortified by another, we turn first to Mr Bernard Ellison's big record of The Prince of Wales's Sport in India ' (Heinemann), which comes appropriately at a time when His Royal Highness is winning, and in some cases converting, the hearts of the people of a great Dominion. This volume has a scientific as well as a sporting interest; for the author, who accompanied the expedition as a naturalist, was able to record many notes of fresh botanical and zoological interest; although we could have spared the photograph of the unborn rhinoceros, in a book which is mainly sporting and personal. Personal! That really is the main interest of these pages; and we cannot help quoting the opinion of an unnamed observer, relating to the charm of the Prince, which has proved, and is proving again in South Africa, an immeasurable factor of imperial unity. 'If his pluck, his keenness, his unselfishness, had not been part of his very nature . . . he must have been found out. It is not in the least surprising that H.R.H. is so enormously popular, or that he left among sportsmen all over India the reputation of being one of the best.' The Prince, as always, was uncommonly active; but keen as he was in his out-of-door doings, he was at all times unfailingly sympathetic with those he met, the royal, the noble, and the simple; and that is why this

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volume has an exceptional value, as it brings out the fine manhood of him who, under Providence, is destined to attain the highest position of any mortal in these days, the Kingship of the Commonwealth of Nations which, through his example and princely humanity, he has helped so greatly to consolidate.

We pass to another hunting expedition, this time in the region of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, at the other side of the Sudan. It is not the first time that Mr John G. Millais has heard the call of Africa, though on the earlier occasion it was the Veldt which lured him. In Far Away Up the Nile' (Longmans), in the company of his son Raoul, who has inherited the family gifts for sport and art, he visited forests and swamps, still happily thronged with curious wild animals, with even the legend of a land version of the sea-serpent to touch the dizzier imaginative heights. The rarest creatures met by those hunters were a water rhinoceros, and that very graceful animal, Mrs Gray's Kob. The other wild beasts of that region apparently still are legion, and long may they remain so; for although good sportsmen discriminate and spare the female and the immature, yet with disease, such as that of the tsetse-fly, co-operating, the effects even of discriminate hunting have brought a serious lessening of the legion, and the diminution of species which ought, if possible, to be preserved. And all are not good sportsmen, as Mr Millais points out in the example of the six foreigners who hired a riversteamer to shoot game on the Upper Nile. The cost of their entire outfit, including drink, was 57001. for two months. Among the results of the expedition were over a hundred head of antelopes, mostly immature, three cow elephants, one gun-bearer, and two lions shot from the deck of the steamer by 'column of massed batteries.' It is not surprising that Mr Millais, who occasionally works his sense of humour a little hard, puts such pests as those 'sportmen' into his gallery of pet abominations, which include vegetarians and labour members! And that reminds us of the wise words he utters in this book on the government of the Sudan; for he visited the region before the murder of Sir Lee Stack, and makes it clear how wrong and foolish, weak and wicked, it would be to yield up to Egypt. or any other Govern

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bring ment, the responsibility which Great Britain has underce, taken for that vast tract of country she has redeemed orali from tyranny, brutality, and ruin.

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of! The next book brings us to a subject not so far umar removed, at least geographically, from the Sudan; a

subject which, however quiet and unexcited it may seem his to be at present, is almost as sure to spring up again and side become difficult and dangerous as the old Adam is an GI essential part of the natural man, and therefore apt to be naughty. 'Modern Turkey' (Macmillan) is a composite volume, inspired and mainly written by Americans who for years have resided and worked in Asia Minor and the Near East; it is of unquestionable importance, as it studies frankly the racial, economic, religious, and other crucial problems of post-war, and a much altered, Turkey; is strengthened with valuable appendices, containing official documents and a chronological table never before completely compiled; and endeavours to look honestly at the future. Mr Eliot Grinnell Mears, the editor of this work, has chosen well his team of writers and has himself contributed excellent chapters. A new Turkey is arising from the ashes of the old. It is significant that Angora in Asia Minor, and not Constantinople with its bloody record and atmosphere of intrigue, is the centre of the new National Government; for it suggests that the old deathly régime is done with, and that a new impulse, exemplified by the release of the women from the obliterating dominance of the veil, is to place Turkey among the modern and more sanely vigorous nations. But you never can tell! So long as this power occupies probably the most valuable site in the world, with those intolerant Balkan States so near to it, it is impossible to feel certain over its destinies. This book brings out clearly-what of course was generally well known, though the independent position of these observers makes it prominent-the evil caused through the rivalries of the Balkan kingdoms, especially as it allowed the statesmen of Central Europe, generally for selfish national interests, to interfere, dispute, and spoil. Although Great Britain comes out pretty well from the examination, there were times and episodes which might have been better used. Modern Turkey, it is made clear, has great scope for progress. Her financial position,

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comparatively speaking, is unusually good, and is the
best of any of the countries that were involved in the
War; for she has to make no compensation for repara-
tions and has no national debt to speak of. If she plays
fair, and if the older nations help, without hindering,
her national developments, she might even become an
element of stability in that part of the world which
hitherto has been the least secure. But will that
that be so? History suggests No; and yet modern
Turkey already is rejecting some of the evil courses which
had been regarded as characteristically Ottoman. Mr
Mears accepts Mustafa Kemel as a master-spirit with
good intentions and the will to carry them through. On
the whole his period of authority has been admirably
ordered, his passing relations with his Soviet neighbours
are easily explicable; and, in the East, the personal
example, when it has strength with it, can generally do
more than a Government which almost inevitably is
soon undisciplined and corrupt. The darkest outlook in
the Near East remains that of the Armenians. Decimated,
deceived, and ruined, that pathetic remnant of an ancient
race appears to have no hope of a future-but yet again
there is Mustafa Kemel, the strong man who may do
what Concerts of Europe have muddled. This volume
is a serious, authoritative contribution to one of the most
difficult of national problems, and should be studied not
only by politicians (if they ever read the books that
matter to them), but also by the thoughtful man of the
street who, at least, is a politician sometimes, with the
power and responsibility of the vote in his possession.

Incidentally, the book we have just examined brought out the culpability of Germany for the ruin which came to Turkey. She misled, she misrepresented, and, working with complete selfishness, she was untrue. The unreliableness of her historians over the origins and details of the Great War is reflected in the volume on 'The German Secret Service' (Stanley Paul), which has come from the pen of Colonel W. Nicolai, the chief of the German Intelligence Department during the War, A certain amount of bias is to be expected in works written shortly after an event of the catastrophic order of the recent conflict, and it is the function of historians to revise and remove that natural prejudice; but when

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we are given a picture of the blameless Kaiser, 'confronting with incomparable tact, keen understanding, great calm, and proud determination the often contradictory views of his chief advisers,' and apparently waiting for the assault of the embattled Allied Armies upon his blameless people, it makes one look with doubt upon the assertions and revelations of this official, and of every one else who endeavours to tell the sort of political truth that is Teutonic. This book belongs to the many that are not worth while.

Far better is that which follows. The amazing, the tremendous, times of the first Napoleon were frequently described by the lesser men-soldiers, functionaries, and statesmen-who took part in them. Admiration for the new Cæsar, who carried the eagles of France triumphantly over the prosperities of Europe until disaster fell and crushed him, aroused in many witnesses the itch to write diaries. The Memoirs of a Napoleonic Officer' (Allen and Unwin) recorded by Jean-Baptiste Barrès, in dozens of little note-books, tattered and soiled, which he carried about with him, in his haversack, for twenty years, over half the highways of Europe,' have their value, especially when it comes to the years after St Helena, when little men, the lesser kings, in rapid succession endeavoured to rule the France which, in many meanings of the word, Napoleon had spoiled. Barrès adored the Emperor. To him he was 'the master of the world, the man of destiny, the conqueror of kings'; so that when, twenty years afterwards (and just one hundred years ago), he stood on duty in Reims Cathedral at the coronation of Charles X, he recalled the crowning in Notre Dame of Napoleon by the Pope, and felt the pathos and the fierce irony. Necessarily, the earlier pages of these memoirs were scrappy. In the days of Ulm, Jena, and Austerlitz, when victory was raging, as well as in the retreat from Moscow, when the first necessity was to keep moving and alive, there was little time for note-taking by the most eager of diarists -a few words only could be given to a campaign, and less than that to a disaster. When, however, Colossus had fallen and the star of destiny was set behind St Helena, then this loyal and dutiful soldier wrote out his memories and his sad thoughts; and incidentally