14 DECEMBER 1889, Page 23

Blacks and Bushrangers. By E. B. Kennedy. (Sampson Low and

Co.)—Mat and Tim Sampson are the sons of a New Forest woodcutter. Mat, following his father's example, thinks more of the forest's wild inhabitants than of its timber. He gets into trouble in the course of a shooting adventure, and emigrates, his brother accompanying him. They are shipwrecked and cast away on the coast of Northern Queensland. Here they fall in with a tribe of natives, and spend with them so many years that, but for the fact that they had each other to talk to, they would have forgotten that they were Englishmen. The scene changes, when the story is about half way through, to New South Wales, and we get among bushrangers instead of black men. A heroine is introduced, kidnapped, and in due course rescued. This is a good story, mainly, of course, fiction, but, as the author explains, with much of the colouring true. The account of life among the Queens- land natives is borrowed from the genuine experiences of an Englishman who lived many years with a tribe, and saw customs which white men are commonly not permitted to witness,