Government publications find few readers, but a new book authorized
by the Punjab Government deserves the widest popularity. European Adventurers of Northern India, 1785- 1849, by Mr. C. Grey, edited by Mr. H. L. 0. Garrett, Keeper of the Punjab Records (Lahore: Government Printing Department, 15s.), is full of the strangest stories about some seventy Europeans who sought wealth and variety in the native States and sometimes found both. The Neapolitan ex-gunner Avitabile, of course, has a chapter. This astonishing man entered the Sikh service and as Governor of Peshawar tamed both Sikhs and Afghans by relentless cruelty. The In- dian Government, while privately disapproving of his methods, found it expedient to urge that he should be retained at his post, and the East India Company entertained him in London when he had left India with his large fortune. Mr. Grey's book is admirably written and solidly based on the records. It should supply novelists with endless material.
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