The Concession Hunters. By Harold Bindloss. (Chatto and Windus. Gs.)—Mr.
Bindloss has got back to West Africa, where he is manifestly at home. So much at home, indeed, is he that the scenery of the country may be thought to dominate his style. As we read we seem to be working our way through a jungle ; an overgrowth of detail, a luxuriance of facts, a tangle, so to speak, of parenthetic information, hamper our movements. Hero is a specimen. The work in hand is the cutting down of some fine mahogany trees, out of which a fortune is expected. "Four hatchets rattled feebly upon the bark of a forest giant, and Lyle, after methodically stripping himself to his gauzy singlet, carried from the launch a seven-foot cross-cut saw and one of the beauti- fully modelled axes our colonists buy from America because Sheffield grinders cling to ancient patterns." As for the story, it is at least as intricate as the style. How often are we to say that it is impossible to read tales which resemble a series of conundrums? And yet Mr. Bindloss is readable. It may be difficult to follow him ; but wherever we find ourselves we have something picturesque to look at, some vivid description or some exciting incident.
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