Some Books to Read in the Holidays.
by Herbert D. Geldart.
Volume 4, 1893/4, pgs. 744-746
How well I know what I mean to do
When the long dark autumn-evenings come;
. . . . . . . .
I shall be found by the fire, suppose,
O'er a great wise book as beseemeth age,
While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows,
And I turn the page, and I turn the page,
Not verse now, only prose!
R. Browning.
The Summer is gone, the long dark evenings are upon us, the time for reading has come, let us see what fresh books we can find. It is pleasant to sit by the fire and wander over the world in imagination, so we will begin with books of Travel, Adventure, and Residence Abroad.
Where Three Empires Meet. A narrative of recent travel in Kashmir, Western Tibet, Gilgit and the adjoining countries, by E. F. Knight. An excellent account of the "Happy Valley" of Kashmir, and of the "little war" which ended prosperously in the taking of Nilt and the occupation of Nagar and Hunza. The author reached a spot where in an undefined way on the high "Roof of the World " the three greatest Empires of the earth meet--Great Britain, Russia, and China. He also went to Leh, from whence he made an expedition to the Lamasery of Himis, where he witnessed a mystery play and devil-dance. He describes the tiniest independent state in the world of only twelve houses, where everybody is an M.P., and no measure can be passed unless all are unanimous.
The Danube from the Black Forest to the Black Sea. [by Francis Davis Millet] Three friends, two at least of them artists, started in canoes from the head waters of the Danube, and paddled and drifted down the whole length of that river, two of them reaching the sea, and having a good and jolly time of it. This book is charmingly illustrated with sketches of both figures and landscapes.
Wanderings by Southern Waters. Eastern Aquitaine, by E. Harrison Barker. Studies of the Valleys of the Dordogne, the Tarn and the Lot. The name of this book "conveys no idea of the freshness, originality and romance of its pages." The region described is one very rarely visited by English people even by rail. The author lived amongst the peasantry, and tells us of their common life. Rocamadour was an ancient shrine of pilgrimage when Henry II. of England went there, and is still visited by pilgrims, "as little changed from their ancestors whom the Plantagenet found there as is the physiognomy of the ancient town." Figeac is remarkable for its Gothic and Renaissance domestic architecture, whole streets remaining of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. At the Montagnes Fumantes near Cransac are beds of coal which have been burning for centuries, and to which belongs a legend that the English fired them out of spite when they abandoned Guienne. Mr. Barker is announced as being engaged on a further volume of Wanderings in the country extending from Auvergne to the Gironde. Two other books, not quite so recent, dealing with adjoining districts of France, The Roof of France, by M. Betham Edwards, and Our Home in Aveyron, by G. C. Davies and Mrs. Broughton, are almost equally interesting, and there is in Harper, for September last, a well illustrated article in "Rocamadour, Albert Durer Town."
Our Wherry in Wendish Lands, by H. M. Doughty. A pleasant cruise in a Norfolk Wherry through the canals and lakes of Northern Germany. Starting from Leuwardein, he went by way of Emden to Wilhelmshaven and Bremerhaven and thence to Hamburg, he particularly enjoyed his sail on the Mecklenburg Lakes little known to Englishmen, and he penetrated into Saxon Switzerland and Bohemia by the help of the Elbe; here again are plenty of good illustrations by some of the party.
Wild Spain, by Abel Chapman and Walter J. Buck. A most interesting book by thorough-going indefatigable sportsmen--naturalists. Mr. Chapman was the first Englishman who sketched a flamingo on her nest, and solved the problem whether she "sits standing," as the old writers thought she does. Though there is much about "sport" in it, this is not one of those books of interminable and senseless killing, which almost make one wish that the game could have a turn with the gun now and then (as the hare had in Struwwelpeter), and there are many observations of the habits of both birds and beasts--bustards, marsh birds nesting in the "marisma," eagles and vultures nesting among rocks, storks, ibex, feral camels imported from the Canary Islands and suffered to run wild, red deer, lynx and wild boar; also notices of the peasants and their ways.
Japan as we saw it, by Miss M. Bickersteth. In 1891 The Bishop of Exeter, accompanied by Miss Bickersteth, went to Japan for two months, to visit his son the Bishop of Japan. This is an admirable account of Japan from the missionary point of view, and there is a full description of the great earthquake of October, 1891, and, among other illustrations, two views of the destruction caused by the earthquake.
Life with Trans-Siberian Savages, by Douglas Howard. Is the story of a sojourn in Saghalien "the final destination of the unshot, the unhanged, the convicts and the exiles, who by frequent escapes or repeated murders have graduated perhaps from other prison stations throughout the vast territories of Russia and Siberia." Here the author became interested in the Ainu, the hairy aborigines. He lived for some weeks in an Ainu village, and describes their customs and mode of life, and his account of the Ainu under Russian government may be contrasted with that of the Rev. J. Batchelor, a missionary in Yezo, in The Ainu of Japan. In one respect, at all events, the subjects of Russia have the best of it, for no alcohol is allowed, but the Ainu of Japan are terrible drunkards.
In Savage Isles and Settled Lands, by B. F. S. Baden-Powell. Lieutenant Baden-Powell went out to Queensland as Aide-de-Camp to Sir Anthony Musgrave, and afterwards served in the same capacity with Sir Henry Norman; he visited Western Australia and also New Guinea, Borneo, Java, New Zealand, Samoa and many of the smaller and less known islands of the Pacific. Australia as a field for emigration is summed up shortly: "The labouring man will find it a paradise; the professional man will find his profession overstocked; and the man with money to invest will probably be ruined." Since Lieutenant Baden-Powell left the colony, even the labourer has ceased to regard the prospect as altogether Elysian.
(To be continued.)
Proofread by LNL, Jun. 2021