AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE.
ISAAO F. Maneosson, the well-known, American journalist, has written, under the title of An African Adventure (Lane. 218. net),. an interesting book on a tour which he made through South Africa, Rhodesia and the Congo in the winter of 1919-20. He was greatly impressed with South Africa, her "buoyant, confident, unwearied spirit," and with the evidences of her prosperity. He lays stress on the importance of South Africa's coalfields, as well as of her agriculture. He outlines the history of Rhodesia and of the Jameson Raid in which, as he says, a number of Americans were concerned :— "Jameson and Rudyard Kipling happened to be together when the news of Roosevelt's coup in Panama was published. The author read it first and handed the paper to his friend with the question, 'What do you think of it ? ' Jameson glanced at the article and then replied somewhat sadly : This makes the' Raid look like thirty cents.'" Mr. Marcesson devotes half his book to the Congo and its wonderfully rapid development under the direction of Belgian, British and American pioneers. He describes the Katanga copper mines, of which Mr. Robert Williams has been the guiding spirit, and the palm-oil factories set up by Lord Leverhukne at Elizabetha and Alberta on the Congo. Up the Kasai he visited the establishments of the great timber and mining company founded by the late King Leopold and the American fluarreier, Mr. T. F. Ryan. Mr. Marcosson suggests that the King obtained American assistance because "American capital is about the- only non-political money in the world," whereas "when England puts money into an enterprise she immediately makes the Foreign Office an accessory." British capitalists would demur to this sweeping assertion, which is very far from being accurate in the case, say, of oil. The diamond fields worked by American engineers in the Kasai basin appear to be of great value, and, though far from a railway, give employment to thousands of natives. Mr. Marcosson's pleasant book is illustrated with many photographs.
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