plete with that kind of useful information which will constitute the data for further colonisation. There is not much of adventure to interest general readers-there is a necessary sameness in the diurnal records of spinifex and thirst; but Mr. Forrest's experiences are noted down with careful accuracy and commendable modesty. A valuable report of the state of Western Australia, by Governor Weld, is added, and some long details of speeches, &c., at public receptions, which might have been. spared.

Mr. Forrest is a type of explorer of which we may be proud, and his book contributes materially to our knowledge of the interior of the continent which our colonisation has hitherto only fringed. Conclusions respecting the arid and uninhabitable character of much of the interior seem established.

Arabistan; or, the Land of the Arabian Nights. Being Travels through Egypt, Arabia, and Persia, to Bagdad. By WILLIAM PERRY FOGG, A.M., Author of 'Round the World,' 'Letters,' &c. With an Introduction by BAYARD TAYLOR. Sampson Low and Co.

It cannot be said that Mr. Bayard Taylor-who, if we mistake not, himself needed at one time the aid of another to introduce the account of some striking journeyings of a compositor-has been very generous towards Mr. Fogg. If he undertook to write at all a preface to a volume of Eastern travel, surely he ought to have done something more adequate. If Mr. Fogg's book meets with favour, it will not be, we think, to be attributed to Mr. Bayard Taylor's effort. But Mr. Fogg might as well, perhaps better, have stood on his own feet. When he has once quitted beaten paths, he writes with great force and attractiveness. open eye,' and eke the Yankee cheek.' He has the his own ground, and question him unflinchingly; and is not 'put out' He can meet a pasha on by trifles. But generally he really manages by his dash to get hold of some fresh fact; and what we admire in him is that, together with these qualities, he has the knack of finding the best side of foreigners. Our readers will admit there is something Yankee in the process, but there is a heartiness in this record of it that is refreshing. At the close of the play, the 'majority of the games being against me, on one occasion in Damascus, "I called the attendant, and, being the losing party, I proposed, according to 'Western notions, to pay the score. This my Arabian friend at first strenu'ously opposed, but I insisted; and holding out to the servant a dozen or more silver coins of various denominations, from a piastre (five cents) to a 'mejeide (about a dollar), I pointed to the narghilehs and coffee, and by 'pantomime told him to take his pay. Having no definite idea of the proper 'charge, I should have been entirely satisfied if he had chosen the largest 'coin in my hand. To my surprise he selected a two-piastre piece. Think'ing that he might have made a mistake, I again pointed to the table, 'narghilehs, and coffee, and held out my hand to him to take the proper

'sum. But he only made a low salaam, and held up the trifling coin as 'all right.' The best part of the book is that concerning Bagdad; and those who wish to learn about that romantic city, and the ways of the people there, could not do better than consult Arabistan,' which, in spite of its over-gorgeous binding, is a better book than many we get from America.

Among the Zulus and Amatongas: with Sketches of the Natives,

their Language and Customs; and the Country, Products, Climate, Wild Animals, &c. Being, principally, Contributions to Magazines and Newpapers. By the late DAVID LESLIE. Edited by the Hon. W. H. DRUMMOND. Second Edition. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas. The first edition of this book was an In Memoriam' volume, printed for private circulation. It is so full of intelligence, useful information, and general interest, that we are very glad that it has been given to the public. Mr. Leslie went to Natal when a child; entered into business as a merchant at Durban, but took to hunting and trading with the native tribes of the North; whereby he acquired an intimate acquaintance with the Zulus,their politics, manners, modes of thought and life, &c.,-which, perhaps, was unsurpassed. With a considerable degree of scientific knowledge, a vigorous intellect, and a ready and graphic pen, he became a valuable interpreter of Zulu to England and Europe. Mr. Drummond, in his work on 'The Large Game and Natural History of South and South-East 'Africa,' bears testimony to Mr. Leslie's great knowledge and experience. The papers here collected-about fifty in number-relate to all kinds of matters connected with Zulu hunting, Kaffir doctors, marriage, the Tsetse, Kaffir characters and customs, hunting journals, with one or two tales, &c. They have considerable literary merit, and convey a good deal of reliable and valuable information. Mr. Leslie died at the early age of thirtyfive.

Three Months in the Mediterranean. By WALTER COOTE. Edward Stanford.

The Mediterranean is not so familiar to us as to make the interest of a book about it depend entirely upon what the writer brings to it. It has still its towns and coasts of which ordinary readers know but little and are glad to know more. Mr. Coote sailed from Liverpool, touched at Gibraltar, Genoa, Leghorn, and Pisa, Naples, Messina, Alexandria, and Cairo, the Levant, Constantinople, Smyrna, Greece, Malta, Tunis, and Carthage; and he tells us what he saw with modest intelligence and vivacity, and with considerable descriptive power. His little book pretends to no more than impressions de voyage, but it is a very pleasant book to read. It is a good deal more than a reproduction of guide books. The individuality of the writer enters into all that he describes. He is a pleasant travelling companion whom we shall be glad again to meet.

Travels in Portugal. Вy JOHN LATOUCHE. With Illustrations by the Right Hon. T. SOTHERON ESTCOURT. (Ward, Lock, and Tyler.) We are glad to see the second edition of Mr. Latouche's fresh and instructive book, of which, in common with almost all our critical contemporaries, we spoke with such high commendation in our last number. It is, in respect both of independent observation and freshness and freedom of style, one of the best books of travel of the year.- -The Story of the Jubilee Singers, with their Songs. (Hodder and Stoughton.) This is a compressed and improved history of the remarkable experiment and success of the Jubilee Singers, brought down to the present time, with the addition of a considerable number of new songs, including 'J ohn Brown's Body,' the Lord's Prayer,' and several other of the pieces with which the first set of Singers electrified every audience. The Singers, with some changes in their corps, are in England again. They were unable to meet even half the demands for their presence on their first visit, and, commendably anxious to supplement their great service to the admirable institution for educating their race at Nashville, they have paid a second visit to England and are having, we believe, great success. This volume is in every way an improvement upon the first. -As a companion to their guide-book for Northern Italy, Messrs. T. Cooke and Sons have published A Tourist's Handbook for Southern Italy (Hodder and Stoughton), which comes to hand just in time for the season. The former volume ended with Florence; the present comprises the rest of the Peninsula. All the necessary information about money, luggage, routes, &c., is given. Necessary brevity reduces description, but all that the tourist will care to see is indicated, and information is given sufficient for intelligent appreciation.

POLITICS, SCIENCE, AND ART.

Introduction to the Study of International Law. Designed as an Aid in Teaching and in Historical Studies. By THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, lately President of Yale College. Reprinted from the Fourth American Edition. Sampson Low, Marston, and Co.

Dr. Woolsey's very high reputation as a jurist has carried his able work on International Law into a fourth edition. It has become the text-book on the subject on both sides the Atlantic, and that in virtue of the ample information and judicial impartiality which are the characteristics of its eminent author.

This fourth edition has been revised; the treaties brought down to the present time; and a note discussing the case of the Virginius added, in which Spain is justified in the capture of the Virginius on the high seas, not only on the ground that she was really a Spanish vessel falsely bearing an Americau flag, but on the higher ground of self protection, which justifies the seizure of any vessel known to be engaged in violating its laws.

Essays on Social Subjects. By MATTHEW JAMES HIGGINS
(Jacob Omnium '). With a Biographic Sketch of the
Author by Sir WILLIAM STIRLING - MAXWELL.
Elder, and Co.

Smith,

Mr. Higgins was entirely sui generis. He was a satirist and a humorist, but his satire and humour were of a very peculiar order. He seized the remote and unnoticed aspect of the thing or the question with which he dealt, and turned it suddenly face to face with the most obvious aspect, suggesting a certain grotesque departure from the true type in the very features to which society had most perfectly accommodated itself, and in which very often it most thoroughly believed. He had a quick fancy, united with rare analytic and logical powers; and, besides this, an unusual self-restraint and reverence for individual character, such as most frequently rendered spite and narrow ill-nature impossible to him. He was one of the valued influences which bring social life, in spite of its modern complexities and disparities, to a unity in its relations with literature; and in thus setting forth, in forms suited to the humour of the day, an ideal of social right and duty and fairness, he did no slight service. What seems trifling or whimsical in his methods may, to a great extent, be accounted for by a wonderful sensitiveness of mental constitution, which led him to forecast multitudes of objectionsthe necessary offsetting of individual demands in a complicated society; but the leading moral aspect of the question he seldom missed. All this the careful student will find illustrated in the essays reprinted here. We regret that our space will not permit us to particularise. Perhaps in nothing was the salient characteristics of his mind and method seen more expressly than in his treatment of that institution at which Thackeray also made a decisive blow through the alter ego of 'Policeman X,' in the ballad of 'Jacob Omnium's Hoss.' The biographic sketch is full of fact and remark, which tempt us to disquisition. It puts its subject very fully and faithfully before us in small space, and gathers up with rare tact the apparently contradictory tendencies in his character. There is a dash of grotesquerie, too, when we read, for example, how Mr. Higgins, being some six feet eight inches in height, was distinguished from another of the same name, who was six feet four inches, by the application to the latter of the title, Little Higgins.'

Jack Afloat and Ashore. By RICHARD ROWE, Author of Episodes in an Obscure Life.' Smith, Elder, and Co.

Mr. Rowe always writes with picturesque force, showing the results of a quick observation-apt to run, after the manner of Dickens, into concatenations of detail-a humour that slides easily either into sentiment or pathos, and a warm charity that finds points of interest in characters hardly interesting in themselves. All this is found in the present volume, which is almost as picturesque and graphic as Mr. Rowe's former works, notwithstanding that the subject is precisely of the sort to tempt him to

the side on which he usually errs by excess. Nevertheless, few will begin to read the book and not go on to the end-he is so apt at catching traits that are likely to escape the ordinary observer, and so full of out-ofthe-way information, which he manages to communicate in a masterly manner. The object with which it is clear that he has written this book should also have its own influence with the reader. His whole mood is charged with benevolence, and he has the adequate tact and humour to relieve the strain and pressure which the benevolent mind, working in the line of reform, is so very apt to carry with it.

Thrift. By SAMUEL SMILES, Author of 'Character,''Self 'Help,' &c. John Murray.

The

Mr. Smiles in this instance has hardly put his best foot foremost. first few chapters read rather like a working up of materials which had been rejected in the writing of his former books; but as you go on you discover that he has started with a definitive plan, has great aims in view, and that this book is even more original than some of the former ones. He states a principle clearly, adds, it may be, a few facts, and then caps all with an anecdote, a biographic instance, or a good story. The title seems more and more appropriate as you proceed. Building Societies, Savings Banks, Lotteries, Assurance, and a hundred other cognate subjects are discussed in this attractive and commanding manner, and the book contains not a few short biographies of real originality and valuethe more that they are compressed into a page or two, and hardly a word wasted. Those of the Crossleys, Mr. Baxendale, and Pickford and Co., are especially fresh and interesting. The great subjects of competition, of giving, lending, charity, method, amusements, debt, dirt, and so on are discussed in a simple and thoroughly popular way. The last few chapters are, to our thinking, almost perfect in a line of literature which seems easy but is most difficult. The last, on the Art of Living, deserves to be widely read and deeply pondered by young and old also. Ceaseless industry in collecting his facts, careful statement, with a quick eye to practical illustration, a fine feeling for characteristic traits in leading men, together with an easy yet polished and graceful style, these are the most marked points in Mr. Smiles' writings, and have combined to raise him to the high rank which he so deservedly occupies. He well exhibits in practical work his own principles of industry and thrift. The concluding words are so suggestive and full of sympathetic colouring that we may quote them:

The art of living may be summed up in the words, "make the best ' of everything." Nothing is beneath its care; even common and little 'things it turns to account. It gives a brightness and grace to the home and invests nature with new charms. Through it we enjoy the rich 'man's parks and woods as if they were our own, We inhale the common air and bask under the universal sunshine. We glory in the grass, 'the passing clouds, the flowers. We love the common earth, and hear 'joyful voices through all nature. It extends to every kind of social intercourse. It engenders cheerful goodwill and loving sincerity. By its