Illustrated Travels. Edited by H. W. Bates. (Cassell and Co.)—
This is a very handsome volume, illustrating in a remarkable way the wonderful activity of travel which makes the Englishman a familiar presence in almost every land. One gentleman, for instance, describes the South African gold-fields, another makes a tour in Alaska, a third goes on a "summer trip up the Amoor," and a fourth tells us about Arizona and New Mexico. And these are only four, out of some forty and more contributors, taken in the alphabetical order in which they stand in the table of contents. Among the most noticeable articles are "A European Sojourn in Japan," from the French of M. Aim& Humbert; Lieutenant Prideaux's account of "The Soudan and Western Africa ;" a paper by Professor Arminius Vambery on "The Hyrcanien Desert ;" and "A Visit to Paraguay during the War," by Thomas J. Hutchinson. We mention a few which have happened to attract our attention, and doubtless leave unnoticed otheis no less valuable. This• volume is for 1869 ; we have also before us the two numbers published in the present year. Mr. F. Whymper begins a series of sketches of a journey across North America, under the title of "From Ocean to Ocean : the Pacific Railroad ;" Mr. A. Goering contributes an inter- esting account of the Guayiro Indian of Maracaibo, a tribe which pre- serves to this day the habits of life which Herodotus describes in the dwellers on the Lake Prasias, and of which the traces have been found in the Lake villages of Switzerland ; and Mr. Nicholas Rowe gives a very amusing and readable account of "A Journey on the Volga."
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