COBBERS
By Thomas Wood
Dr. Wood's narrative (Oxford University Press, 7s. 6d.) of his journeyings through Australia—a narrative excellently written and adequately illustrated—should provide some- thing more than a plethora of information for the_ prospective traveller : it should provide for the casual reader as personal an entertainment as any novel, as well as dozens of those intimate hints of travel facilities, personnel, &c., which spell the difference between enjoying journeys and suffering them. His book is an account recorded with captivating intimacy, and utilizing a quite remarkable adroitness of language. The descriptions of various cities and localities of Australia are done with the accomplished ease of an expert novelist, and the numerous conversational passages of this book are especially natural and convincing : " ' Anything to declare P '
" ' This tobacco pouch, full, and fifty cigarettes.'
" To hell with them. Anything else—any spiritswines—wines. silks—silkscigars Y ' " No.'
" Much chalking. " Good-0, doe. She'll do.' "
Capable of handling his characters with a novelist's dexterity, Dr. Wood displays less skill with the manipulation of ideas. In those portions of his book devoted to thoughts on the condition of Australia, one is aware of a superficiality lying beneath the facility of the writing which, though not harmful to it as a personal record, invalidates it as general philo- sophic thought.
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