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No. 4397, FEB. 3, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
119
It is to be hoped that this incomparable dipped down from Kumasi, its capital, to towards the theory of a benevolent
Dictionary will not encourage the use of the Atlantic seaboard at Sekondi, where despotism. ” That depends for its validity
many unnecessary terms. Rather, while her route ended.
on the temperament of the despot, with
vastly increasing our grip on ideas and
Like another district, which we deal with whom unlimited authority is hardly
words, it should relieve the ever-increasing elsewhere, much
of this country
had not favourable to the growth of sympathy and
strain imposed on the national memory been traversed before by a white woman.
understanding, and is apt to become
by the rapid and inevitable growth of our Mrs. Gaunt's facile and rather gusty style inoculated with the virus of Cæsarism.
vocabulary.
never drifts into mere enumeration of Such are the scope and achievement of
A further portion of T by Sir James peoples, places, and incidents. Her versa- Mrs. Gaunt's book-one fertile in sugges-
Murray is announced for April 1st. tility is such that, wherever she goes, she tion, felicitous in style, though not with-
kindles her narrative with patches and out its mannerisms, but imbued with the
splashes of colour. Particularly illu- saving grace of personality.
minating are her hard, penetrating com-
Alone in West Africa. By Mary Gaunt. ments on the prevailing fetishism con-
(Werner Laurie. )
cerning the West African climate. The
theory current as to its unredeemed vile-
NEW NOVEL.
The avidity with which travel books are
ness has, she observes, crystallized into
sought after by the public is apt to thrust superstition. Officials go there in con-
Roddles. By B. Paul Neuman. (John
into the market a type of descriptive work fident expectation of having their energies
Murray. )
which wilfully trades upon the reader's enervated and paralyzed by its humidity, MR. NEUMAN has written another notable
curiosity. The principle of “omne igno- and in a spirit of calculated disgust. They novel, which has no other continuity with
tum pro magnifico focuses attention flout Nature by burning the candle at his previous work than that provided by
on the unknown country rather than the both ends, by falling into sedentary habits an entirely wholesome sympathy with his
qualities that go to the visualizing of and a dumb mental resentment opposed
fellows.
it, and tends to submerge critical acumen. to physical well-being. So the consequent
To avoid careful study becomes an acute ill-health is as much the result of internal
The characters stand alone, by
temptation. For this reason, and on
as extraneous causes. It may be readily
their own inherent vitality, without any
account of the multiple and disconnected imagined how much the administration of the verbal explanatory props, so
impressions left by a book of this nature, of the country suffers when activities but necessary to the average fiction-maker.
personality is invaluable in supplying unity half-hearted and almost morose are applied For once the well-intentioned critic can
and distinction and fixing a rallying.
point for the reader. Mrs. Gaunt's new
gance and take the part of appreciator,
book fulfils this demand. It is not so
Mrs. Gaunt's picture of the Germans trying to show more clearly the reflection
much that her personality is virile and
as colonizers of Togo is in striking of light from the many facets presented
commanding, as that it is sufficient to cut
contrast to the verdict just given. Of to view. Artistry is here from the very
a way for the reader through the jungle their alertness, regularity, and cheerful. title, which centres our attention once
of her journeys. Her salient capacity is a
ness she speaks in terms of ungrudging and for all on the chief character—though
surprising and quickening common-sense ;
admiration. Their keen and trenchant intermittently Roddles may appear to
she refuses to take things on
methods of organization she opposes to have no more to do with the tale than
trust,
alert enough to test all she hears and the British lack of plan and casual attitude.
others. It is Roddles, the little drunken
sees by her own experience.
Our sole Without attempting to draw invidious tailor whom we think of when away from
objection to her lucid and conscientious comparisons, she speaks of the presence of the book-Roddles, the individualist who,
narrative is that she tends to lapse into broad, long roads, the facilities for transit, acknowledging his own responsibility to
impressionistic journalism. The purely the instinct for governing, the scientific society for his offspring, sees
descriptive portions of her adventurous warfare against sleeping sickness, the sponsibilities involved by his own exist-
jaunt through little-known districts in insistence on cleanliness and order, and
-Roddles, who shows the first joint
West Africa do not call for detailed treat-
the anxiety to preserve natural beauties, in his armour of self-sufficiency by failing
ment. Mrs. Gaunt started up the Gambia where “ England seems indifferent if the to thunder forth his lack of faith in the
from Bathurst through the ground-nut beautiful spot be not within the narrow spiritual when his stricken boy fearfully
colony,” a land of promise so far as
asks for confirmation of his father's
productivity is concerned. She skirted German women, too, live with their disbelief.
Sierra Leone“ the white man's grave husbands in Togo, their helpmeets there as We can permit ourselves the pleasure
staying a short time at its dirty, ill. at home. Englishmen, on the other hand, of only one quotation, that in which
kempt capital, Freetown, and spent some regard such itinerant companionship as Roddles sums up for his friend's benefit
interesting days in Liberia, autonomous akin to sacrilege. The tropics are no his life's philosophy :-
since 1822, through the courageous experi- white woman's country. Immorality
ment of America.
“ There, there, he left the first sentence
and discontent are the outcome.
unfinished, 'when a man 'as blasted luck
For the semi-cultured native she has So far as Ashanti is concerned, however, all 'is life, it's no good whining about it.
scant praise, insisting on his boorish- Mrs. Gaunt is less dispiriting. There a There 's luck, there's no luck, and there 's
ness, his arrogance, his raw and blatant succession of zealous administrators have blastod luck. They 've got luck, you've
egoism.
Passing through the Guinea rescued the country from internecine strife. got no luck, and I've got the rest. "
Coast, almost fabulous in its natural Strong measures have had the stimu- If the middle of the book is the less
beauties, she reached Half Assinie lating effect required. Concerning the entrancing, it is merely a case of partially
and the French border. From Elmina, vexed and seemingly inscrutable problem suspended animation while we watch the
the old Portuguese mining settlement, of the native population Mrs. Gaunt is fulfilment of the father's training of his
her pilgrimage took her to Accra, the more reticent than we could wish. Her Offspring, softened as it is by contact with
capital of the Gold Coast Colony; up the conclusions are enigmatic, varying in womanhood. The lessening of tension
Volta to the Krobo Hills, infamous for
accordance with the different status of the also serves to add poignancy to the
the mystic blood - orgies there practised aborigines in different parts. The half- dénouement-the conversion of Roddles
by the nearly savage inhabitants ; over emancipated native, with his veneer of and his Jonathan, a broken-down law.
the Eketo range, and so to the border culture, still, she declares, retains the writer, through the instrumentality of a
into the German colony of Togo. Thence rudiments of barbarism, combined with Salvation Army girl. The reader need
she travelled along the coast to the best the less agreeable characteristics of civi- not fear sermonizing--there is none;
point of vantage and turned inland into lization. His isolation from both white and but there is a true exposition of the self?
Ashanti which has cost England so much black, and his incapacity are complete. evident failure of lives whose only aim
money and so many lives; and finally For the primitive majority she veers I is an exclusively materialistic success.
no
re-
ence
seas. "
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## p. 120 (#102) ############################################

120
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4397, FEB. 3, 1912
6
book "
>
on
; that on the ‘Sussex Downs' is included in the survey; and as, in spite of
TRAVEL AND TOPOGRAPHY.
oddly prosy; while the occasional notes on the width of his knowledge, omniscience is
landscape elsewhere lack the vivifying touch. not one of the author's foibles, he has properly
To some degree the latter defect might have called in such experts as Mr. Salzmann, Mr.
been overcome by a closer attention to the Reginald Smith, and Mr. Clement Reid to
ENGLAND.
style, which is so loose and rambling that check his conclusions in their several pro-
MR. IAN HANNAH's book on The Sussex | it frequently defeats the writer's best vinces. It is not a little surprising that any
Coast--in “The County Coast Series attempts at vivacity. In so far as this is one man can write with such intimacy on so
(Fisher Unwin-may be heartily recom-
the case it might be remedied without much many subjects as the author of this sumptu-
mended to all lovers of Sussex, as well as,
trouble by revision in a later edition.
ously furnished volume. The discovery
in general, all lovers of antiquities. It
(p. 119) in Chichester Cathedral in 1891 of
makes a guide-book of much more than In of the Beaten Track in Sussex : a long-lost Anglo-Saxon charter of Oslac
ordinary value ; it contains enough informa- Sketches, Literary and Artistic (Hove, Com- | (A. D. 780) is significant evidence of the need
tion to serve as an adequate book of reference bridge), Mr. Arthur Stanley Cooke has for antiquaries thoroughly to examine their
for ordinary purposes; and it is calcu- made a book which will delight all true
own immediate surroundings.
lated to form an excellent starting point men of the county. These pages represent
for any one taking up local archæology as
artistic and literary impressions of nearly The “ Flower of Gloster. ” By E. Temple
a hobby. Every church in the tiny, almost two score rambles. The descriptive text is Thurston. (Williams & Norgate. ) – It is
forsaken villages beside the inconsequent lively and adequate, but the 160 illustrations not a very common way of taking a holiday
little streams which run down to the sea by Sussex artists, all reproduced from original to hire a canal bargo, its horse and man,
from the Downs is most carefully described ; black-and-white drawings, are the real and go up and down the most secluded
nor will the wanderer who follows this book feature of the book. The author himself
waterways. This is what Mr. Thurston
miss any house, or fragment of a house, of contributes some 40 of them, Mr. Arthur has done and written about.
antiquarian importance within some fifteen
Packham nearly as many more
, and the guide-book? horis horrified at such things ;
miles of the shore between Chichester and Rye. rest are the work of members of the Brighton
so he gives no hints about the practice of
As is promised in the preface, the historical Arts Club. These illustrations are very his art, and is not too accurate concerning
and literary interest predominates over the pleasing, and make the largest collection of the places he has seen. Thus he is rightly
topographical, and one feels oneself, as one Sussex views published in any book we are proud of taking us through Warwick with-
reads, journeying about ancient Sussex aware of. From Brighton as a centre Mr.
out a word on its history, and there is only
rather than about the banal region which Cooke has rambled both East and West. one recollection he will always keep" of
we and our fathers have made of so much So much has been written on Sussex
Stratford-on-Avon :
of the coast to-day. Indeed, Mr. Hannah within recent years that many of the
might well have been more severe than he tags are becoming stale, among them pure-white gondola, propelled on the waters of
" It is of a lady dressed in white, seated in a
is upon the depressing hideousness of the Mr. Kipling's dim blue goodness of the the Avon by a gondolier all clothed in the same
works of modern man, as seen, say, from Weald. ' The style is good except for a few colour of original simplicity. Whenever I hear
the west end of Worthing to the east of lapses from grammatical English. The of Stratford, I think of that.
Brighton.
author can turn a pretty set of verses, But he gives us (through his artist) an un-
From St. Wilfrid to Blake-nay, in less witness his stanzas harebells. It is recognizable Wormleighton, and slips over
detail, to Burne-Jones and Mr. Rudyard implied that the promontory fortress of the date of Abbot's Salford, placing nuns
Kipling - the men of note who have Burpham is due to the Romans ; surely it there, too, centuries before they ever
played any of their parts on the coast of is prehistoric.
entered the house. Disquisition, not de-
Sussex are brought up before us in a suffi.
scription, is what pleases Mr. Thurston :
ciently pleasing pageant. The warriors and Selsey Bill : Historic and Prehistoric. By he follows George Borrow, somewhat too
the administrators fare, on the whole, better Edward Heron-Allen. (Duckworth. ) — By readily, for he has hardly the true wanderer's
than the literary characters--the pages on his wide attainments Mr. E. Heron-Allentouch. The journey from Cropredy, to
Blake, for example, are far from happy- is exceptionally well qualified to deal with Warwick by canal is a stirring one, placid
and better also than the ecclesiastics ; while the prehistoric and historic aspects of the and long drawn-out only in seeming; Three
those who come off best are the scarce-known district in which he lives. "Historically times you circle the height of Wormleighton,
or unnamed townsmen, villagers, and fisher and geologically Selsey Bill is very interest- and so you may think of Rupert dining there
folk, of whom the author tells us more than ing, and has captivated the reviewer like the night before Edgehill, in that now dis-
one good story. Nor has he forgotten the others of the comparatively few visitors who mantled Star-Chamber; see Edgecote, where
three or four local trades : the needle for several summers in succession have the royal standard floated; think of Charles
making at Chichester; the trug at Hurst- trusted themselves to the tender mercies of calling Shuckburgh from his hounds, and
monceaux ; and the sheep-crooks of Pye- the tramway which dallies between Chi- read tombstones to one and another faith-
combe.
chester and Selsey village. The sea has ful soldier of King Charles ye First. " But
His accounts of the older towns, Chichester, from time to time played wanton tricks with not all these things will Mr. Thurston know
Lewes, Newhaven, Battle, and especially the island of Selsey; and at the present of, or if he knows tell. On again you may go
Winchelsea and Rye, are full and satisfactory, time, owing to an irruption, in December, that quiet way by Baddesley Clinton: Mr.
though we should have been glad of a better 1910, of the sea into Pagham Harbour (which Thurston never mentions it, though he was
picture of Chichester Cathedral than the for some 40 years had been reclaimed for at Lapworth and Knowle and Solihull, a
view of a drive and some trees with a spire pasture), the very existence of the Selsey very short distance away. But he does
behind them, which is all that is vouchsafed promontory seems to have become pre- tell one of “ the six locks at Knowle, up
us. In general the choice of the photographs carious. It is difficult to realize that a few which we climbed wearily, a height, it must
strikes us as capricious. Some are good, hundred years ago Selsey Bill ran out sharply have been, of over a hundred feet before we
but others-e. g. , those of the interior of into the sea and resisted the breakers with reached the top”; and of all the horrors
Winchelsea Church--are decidedly poor. . bluff cliffs ; yet, on the other hand, the of the canal beyond Knowle, by Solihull, and
We imagine that this is partly due to the student of fossils or of coast erosion could its contents. "Perhaps the most charming
desire to avoid giving hackneyed views. nowhere see these subjects better demon- part of the book is the passage describing how
On the other hand, most of Miss Edith strated than along by Thorney Farm and the party left the barge behind for a while
Hannah's little drawings at the head of the West Wittering, west of the Bill. This time and trudged over the road from Stratford
chapters are successful, and we have no the sea has forced an entrance to Pagham to Tewkesbury, pausing only at places which
doubt that her water-colour drawing of (formerly Selsey) Harbour at the west, specially please the wayfarer, at Bidford
Beachy Head in a fog is in itself beautiful, instead of (as before) at the east end of the (though Mr. Thurston says hard words
though it has suffered a good deal in repro- great shingle bank, and the breach that after there) and Salford, Eckington and Fladbury:
duction.
the first attack was a few yards wide has Fladbury, which deserves all the enthusiasm
There are at least two other elements of now been multiplied in width many fold. it wins, whether from the house on the hill
interest in the county apart from memories On manorial statistics and genealogy from which looks across to other hills; from the
and survivals of old Sussex folks, their the time of William the Conqueror, the late rectory, once the richest in the shire, with
customs, habitations, and churches. One is rector of the parish, the Rev. John Cavis- its terrace above the river; or from the mill
Brighton; the other is the land itself, apart Brown, had intended to write ; but death below with its beautiful pool. These are
from the human inhabitants thereof. Mr. interrupted his plans, and the store of docu- things Mr. Thurston sees and knows how to telle
Hannah deals with both ; but in neither ments handed to the author by his widow of, and they go far to make one happy with
case do we think he has expressed even so is too great to be fairly handled in the his book. But it would have been even more
much of their inner secret as a work like present volume. The story begins with the delightful if he had told us more of what
this might have held. The chapter on cutting of the English Channel, and is carried he saw and less of what he said, including
Brighton while there are but few omis- on to the present day, almost every relevant the language with which he and his bargee (a
sions to remark-is almost pure "guide. I department of science and history being very nice fellow)garnished their conversation.
-
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## p. 121 (#103) ############################################

No. 4397, FEB. 3, 1912
121
THE ATHENÆUM
ones
9
are
Mr. Dakin's pictures parallel the quality eat less of raw meat and blubber, and more of of Greenland entirely from memory, and
garments of cloth instead of scal-skin ;. . . . they about a thousand miles of the coast
of Mr. Thurston's prose. The coloured bread, tea, and cooked meats of the settlers
aro charming, the black-and-white and Nature rebels. The Southern Eskimos are
as accurately as that drawn by the Admiralty
are sometimes exceedingly good (as on less hardy, they cannot bear the cold so well, Survey. The introduction of an English
but need more fire, more clothing, and more warm
p. 127) and sometimes as surprisingly bad. food, and their children are puny. . . . If they of place among a people whose memories are
system of education seems strangely out
À writer and an artist who can sometimes give up their native foods they will dwindle and so well developed. Memory and eyesight
do so well ought always to do well, one die out. "
will be weakened by too great a dependence
feels.
We entirely agree with him, and are on books.
therefore the more surprised to find that he The author ends his interesting narrative
Memorials of Old Gloucestershire (George approves of the introduction among them by telling us that the policy of the mission-
Allen), edited by the Rev. P. H. Ditchfield, of European foods, such as tea, bread, bacon; aries has been “to make the Eskimo a better
is & volume which is of interest, but is of wooden, linoleum-covered floors ; of | Eskimo. " To us it would rather appear
incomplete.
“Memorials " is a word vague bedsteads, sofas, and even gramophones ; from his account that we ourselves have
enough to include anything, but we fail to and, yet stranger to relatę, glass windows something to learn from this prehistoric
understand the principle on which the various on hinges.
people in the way of common sense', as well
contributors have worked. Dr. Cox is re-
It is sad to read that their winter houses
as in methods of education and government.
sponsible for a chapter on the Forest of Dean,
“ dark and noisome," and that the art
Dr. Wallace felt the same about the forest-
and he tells us that it is foreign to the purpose of carving is disappearing. Dr. Rink was
dwellers of the Malay Archipelago, and he
of his essay to enter into the question of
the administration of the Forest.
But an
one of the first travellers to give Western pointed out many ways in which the English
Europeans some idea of the Eskimos at would be made better English if they would
account of that district which omits to
home. His book is illustrated by the clever learn from Nature's children.
mention the Speech House, where the
drawings of a native who shows the winter The photographs which serve as illustra-
gives no information about the laws of the by no means to be despised.
Freeminers hold their ancient Court, and house to have been well constructed, and tions are excellent, but we regret that the
subject-matter is not better arranged, and
Freeminers, cannot be considered satisfactory.
There are 25 pages on Chatterton, and a good
also that the map is not referred to in the
The following is also illuminating :-
text.
deal about Bristol Cathedral; but Gloucester “ The summer of 1904 saw the hospital. . . . in
Cathedral has apparently been forgotten, | full going order, for among the many things that
Hunters and Hunting in the Arctic. By
though the work has been copiously_illus-
the Harmony brought were the bedsteads and
trated. We note that Sir Francis Drake
Translated by H.
bedding for the wards. Our servant a bright the Duke of Orleans.
and active Eskimo girl of eighteen. . . . touched Grahame Richards. (Nutt. . -In four recent
is named, but that Sir Walter Raleigh is
my arm. . . . and said, • What are they ? '. . . summers the Duke of Orleans has made
omitted. Houses in which, local tradition - Why, these are the bedsteads. ' Bedsteads ? '
says, they lived are still standing and -this with a puzzled air,
voyages in Arctic waters the last three in
• Ahaila, beds for the
.
)
his steam-yacht Belgica of Antarctic fame.
are close together. There is an interesting sick people; old Emilia is the only
person in bed, He might, indeed, almost be styled a seasoned
chapter by Canon Carbonel on the famous
and she is not sick, only old. '
Arctic explorer, if he had not managed,
glass at Fairford ; but, though Mr. Ditchfield
“ I tried (says Dr. Hutton] to explain to her through skill or good fortune, or a com-
goes out of his way to say that the glass that these bedsteads were to be. . . . in readiness bination of them, to avoid passing a winter
came from the Netherlands, his contributor for any possible sick persons during the future.
in those regions. In 1905 he succeeded in
is allowed to give an account which is incon- “Ai, ai," she said, there are going to be sick reaching the highest latitude till then
sistent with the editor's words. The article people ? Who will it be? '”
attained on the shores of East Greenland,
on the 'Norman Doorways of Gloucester- We are still wondering what bedsteads and and in adding to the map a stretch of coast-
shire' is valuable, and the many photo- hospital wards have to do with Eskimo line (surveyed only from the ship), besides
graphs of these add to the usefulness of the hunters, and also whether Dr. Hutton has
a group of islets, named by him“ Isles de
book. We are sorry that there is no map forgotten the subtle influence of suggestion.
France,” which figure variously (and rather
of the county in the volume ; but there is a
The women are extraordinarily skilful, absurdly) in this book as the French
good Index, in which we have noted only as the following instance may show :-
Islands and * French Land. ” Of this
one mistake.
*** Be wise in time, and wear Eskimo clothes,' expedition, and of the succeeding one in
was the advice of & missionary, who said he 1907, he has published narratives in diary
would arrange matters for me ; accordingly the form, which have not been translated into
village 'tailor,' square - faced, brisk little English ; and in the present volume he
NORTHERN REGIONS.
Eskimo woman, came in one day like a miniature has brought together the hunting experi-
hurricane. There was
no aloofness
about her . . . . she stood me up, and looked at me,
ences of his four voyages under the headings
To those caught in the tangled net of an and measured me with her arms, and walked out of Trappers,' 'Bears and their Cubs,'
artificial civilization there can be no greater satisfied. "A bit taller than my husband, and ‘Reindeer, The Walrus and Seals. ' The
refreshment than the Real. Next best to not so fat '-was her comment
; and the
outcome habits of the animals indicated are by this time
the Real itself is a sympathetic account of a
of it all was that after a few days she turned up
familiar to readers of Arctic travel-books ;
people living in close touch with Nature.
again with a big bundle, and I found myself the
possessor of a dicky' (blanket smock) and a
and the Duke has wisely refrained from
Such an account Dr. S. K. Hutton has given complete suit of sealskins. . . . and all for the outlay padding his pages with zoological details,
us in his interesting book Among the Eskimos of a modest sum. ,. . . for the good woman's preferring to extract from his diaries the
of Labrador (Seeley, Service & Co. ). Prof. excellent needlework. '
record of his own sporting adventures.
Sollas tells us that these Eskimos are the
The author has a good deal to relate This system, or want of system, renders his
modern, though degenerate, representatives
of the prehistoric Magdalenian folk, who concerning the moral excellences of the book, far more graphic and readable, but
Eskimos. Thus he tells us :--
has the effect of jumbling together in
lived, wandered, and worked in Europe
during the last glacial epoch, and whose
" The Drink Evil began in 1907. Several puzzling fashion the occurrences of different
years-. g. , on pp. 180 and 191 the same seal.
implements, drawings, and carvings, re-
men got drunk. The elders called a meeting, of
• This new habit is bad,' they said ;
hunt is variously stated to have happened
covered to-day in caves, bear witness to it will ruin the people ; let us cast it out. '
in 1905 and 1909. In the latter summer
their artistic ideas and powers of expression. “ And cast it out they did.
the Duke was lucky enough to be able to
With the retreat of the ice northwards “* Kajusimavit,' they said, the mind of the visit East Greenland, West Spitzbergen, and
there followed necessarily the retreat of People is made up the
brewing and drinking Franz-Josef Land in a single season, without
these Magdalenians, who live again in the
must cease. ' The evil was abolished ; and so
Eskimos.
by their own wish the Eskimos became what they experience has been confined to those
being seriously beset by ice; and his Arctic
had always been, a teetotal nation. ”
Dr. Hutton emphasizes the importance of
regions and the Kara Sea, where he was less
recognizing that the Eskimo temperament As is well known, this people have no prisons fortunate. On reaching the limit of ex-
and native genius depend for their very,
and no police, serious crime being virtually ploration there in 1905, he was mortified
existence on a rigid adherence to the special non-existent, while in their daily life they to find a Norwegian sealer already " in
environment and ancient traditions of the show themselves kindly, courageous, and possession"; and three degrees further
capable, when need arises, of supreme self- south in 1909, his dreams of a musk-ox
* The life of a hunter is the ideal life for an
sacrifice.
hunt were amusingly dispelled by the
Eskimo. It is the life he is especially gifted for ;
The eyesight of the Eskimo is at present presence of winter trappers of the same
the raw (seal’s) meat he eats keeps him fit and very keen, and he is an excellent shot. The enterprising nation.
well
. In the north the people are broad and fact that he finds our guns require “mend- The Duke was able to bring three captive
plump, with flat faces and sunken noses ;
further south. . . . lean, sharp-faced, bony limbs, thom affords food for reflection.
but ing," s. c. , straightening, before he cubs of Polar bears alive to Europe, one of
pointed noses. . . . though pure-blooded Eskimos.
Galton which he attempted to domesticate at Wood
The cause of the change lies in the altered again, in 'Human Faculties,' narrates Norton;
he remarks, however, that it
lood and habits of the people. . . . They take to how 'an Eskimo trapper drew'a map of ' always remained savage and dangerous.
no awe,
>
the men.
race:
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## p. 122 (#104) ############################################

122
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4397, FEB. 3, 1912
some
are
60
9
66
It is pleasing to find him indignant at the
or equals in charm the annotations trans-
indiscriminate and useless slaughter of wild THE AMERICAN CONTINENT.
ferred from the pages of Jules Tailhan
animals ; and he is always pained when a
(S. J. ), who first published Nicolas Perrot's
stricken seal or walrus sinks to depths too Canada To-day and To-morrow. By memoir on the Indians in 1864, from the
great to be reached by the harpoon. In his Arthur E. Copping. (Cassell & Co. )— The only MS. which had survived the dangers
opinion the reindeer of West Spitzbergen, author dedicates his work to Mr. Frank of three half-centuries at least. In addition
formerly abundant, are destined speedily Oliver, “Minister of the Interior, Canada," to all this, the small-type appendixes con-
to disappear ; but it is hard to believe that from which we must assume that the dedica- tain a mass of informing matter that could
this is due to the annual visit of two or three tion was written before the remarkable not well come into foot-notes, and include
German tourist steamers, whose stay is general election of September in last year, original communications of great
always short. Others evidently to which converted the party to which Mr. interest (for instance, regarding the medicine-
blame, and on his last voyage the Duke Oliver belongs into a much attenuated eating Christian sect among the present-
himself shot not only several deer, but also Opposition. The book is a very fair speci- day Pottawatomis) not to be found else-
two fawns. He expresses a just repugnance men of a class which has multiplied enor-where. An annotated bibliography (in
at the massacre of young seals which mously during the past five years. Canada which, however, the works of George B.
is carried on, he says, every spring in the welcomes with open arms three kinds of Grinnell on the Pawnees and the more
St. Lawrence and on Jan Mayen by English visitors : the men who will develope her recent work of McClintock on the Blackfeet
and Norse hunters, who club thousands of rich natural resources by manual toil; the Sioux are overlooked) and an excellent
young seals before they are able to take to men who will invest capital in her develop- index complete the book, making it a
the water. Yet in describing a seal-hunt ment; and the men who, as writers, will give treasure-house of knowledge.
of his own on the east coast of Jan Mayen, wide publicity to her manifold claims and The text round which all this illustrative
he confesses to shooting several young seals, attractions. To the last kind of visitor all learning is centred consists of four primary
which made no attempt to move,'
and sources of information are freely opened, accounts of the Indians, three of which are
he frankly admits that it was massacre and, if he lacks material for his book-making, new either to print or to English. The
rather than sport. ” In both cases, no doubt, he must be singularly unreceptive or par- first is Perrot's memoir aforesaid, written
the desire was for the valuable skin of the ticularly fastidious. Canada will give him circa 1700 for the information of the In-
animal; but whether this is less legitimate endless tabulated facts and pleasant pic-tendant of Canada, and now admirably
in the professional hunter than in the tures. Further, if he will traverse the translated by Miss Blair from Tailhan's
wealthy sportsman is an interesting question country with his eyes open, he can hardly out-of-print and scarce edition. It is fol.
for the moralist.
fail to acquire at first hand a mass of lowed by an excellent rendering of those
The translator's work is on the whole well interesting impressions, and valuable raw parts of La Potherie's Histoire de 1'Amerique
done, but he has failed to turn into English which Mr. A. £. Copping has here written,
material, for precisely, the kind of book septentrionale' (1716) that deal with the
the French names of several not uncommon
more important events in which Perrot was
Arctic birds; and his retention of such
and Mr. Harold Copping illustrated. Some engaged. The two sections supplement
words as “baleinopteres ” and “crepuscule
critics may object that it has all been done each other very happily and, we must add,
(without an accent) is surprising. The
before. But it should be remembered, justly. For Perrot's aim in writing his
hybrid spelling
first, that many thousands of people are
Franz-Joseph Land”
mémoire was merely to communicate to
migrating each year to Canada from Britain, the Minister what he knew regarding the
is retained throughout the volume.
and that they are hungry for information ideas, customs, and characters of the dif-
during the process of making up their minds ferent native tribes, and his view of the
Few people who go to Norway, even on
to this step ; and, secondly, that Canada's right policy in dealing with them : not to
material progress
a brief visit, can resist the spell which that
just now is so rapid recount his own experience or exploits.
that last year's news of her development We should gather from his own pages, there-
wonderful country casts over those who
set foot on her shores. Mr. H. K. Daniels,
is quite out of date this year. The little fore, but a meagre idea of the great part
the author of Home Life in Norway (Methuen); busy, thriving centres of the next; and thirty-five years' traffic with the Indians as
Western townships of one season are the played by this splendid fellow during his
has been a resident there for many years,
and for him the first glamour has not
it is a fact that a new book every month
departed, has rather been intensified by the would not exhaust the tale of Canada's maker, friend of all, and ambassador of
lapse of time. He is therefore well qualified travellers, and the business man with plans defect is partly, at least, made good in the
march forward. Prospective emigrants and Onontio to the western nations. " This
to write a volume of this kind, and he may
be said, for the most part, to have succeeded will all find useful and interesting inform- the result that English readers can now make
for the exploitation of Canada's markets,
more narrative pages of La Potherie ; with
in giving us an adequate picture of the
conditions of life in the average Norwegian ation in Mr. Copping's book.
acquaintance with yet another of those
home, whether in town or country.
finely tempered personalities which give to
In The Indian Tribes of the Upper Missis. the early history of French America its
But it is none the less true that this same
glamour, to which his own mind is evidently (Ohio, the Arthur H. Clark Company), Miss at the same time get a remarkably full
sippi and the Region of the Great Lakes, 2 vols. valiant and romantic character. They will
keenly alive, is somehow missing from the Emma Helen Blair makes a contribution initiation into the subject matters of anthro-
pages of his book. We have no fault to find to historical knowledge which is hardly pology, from myth and ritual to personal
with his facts-only with his manner of the less original because her own part in adornment in bead- and quill-work, or the
presenting them. There can be no question the work is mainly editorial. The text, the simplest tools of life and death. Two
of his instinctive sympathy for the Nor- appendixes, and practically all the extensive Reports by United States officials, written
wegians, whether men or women, peasants
or townsmen.
and vigilant foot-note commentary are by about 1825, and the more valuable one
He is fully able to appreciate other writers and scholars. Nevertheless, hitherto unpublished, reinforce the picture
their points of view as regards life ; to
enter into their aims and ideals ; to acknow-
more learning, industry, and skill than often of Indian character, and suggest the new
go to the making of independent works conditions which had come upon it, mainly
ledge their failings and extol their virtues.
have here been exercised in bringing these to its hurt.
Every now and then we come upon component parts together so as to form “a
an inspired touch which brings the picture connected homogeneous whole,” and to
he is endeavouring to paint vividly home present the entire subject of the Indian, High Mountain Climbing in Peru and
But it is not until his last chapters his character and way of life, in the light of Bolivia, by Annie S. Peck (Fisher Unwin),
that his inspiration is seen at its best. actual observation, past and present, and is a remarkable record of skill and endurance.
Here, and especially in the one entitled as it is now interpreted by the masters of The American author has done all that a
'A Day on a Better-Class Farm,' he is suc- scientific method who have made it a life- man could do, if not more, and, being a
cessful in conveying just the right atmo- study. Foremost among these we must highly educated woman, tells of her exploits
sphere. His summing-up of the Norwegian rank the writers for the Bureau of American in a style beyond that of the average ex-
bonde or peasant (on p. 242) could scarcely Ethnology, from whose work, published and plorer. Mountain climbing, even in Switzer-
be bettered. There are similar passages, unpublished, Miss Blair has had leave to land, is much more expensive than it used
equally felicitous, which make the book borrow with a free hand, and has mani. to be, and there was considerable difficulty
both interesting and illuminating, and go festly set about doing so in a spirit of generous in raising the necessary funds.