At Home in India. By Mrs. Herbert Reynolds. (H. Deane.
6s.) —The recollections of Mrs. Reynolds date from the days of the Mutiny,—though she herself was at Mymensingh, in Eastern Bengal, and so out of harm's way ; and the antiquity of these personal recollections is, perhaps, a sufficient excuse for their publication. Mrs. Reynolds gives us glimpses of Anglo- Indian life, described with enough freshness and detail to make the story of her long sojourn readable. But there is no literary talent to distinguish her three hundred and fifty pages. One realises the varied and changing phases of a Civil servant's life, the hard work, the hard life dealt out to children in the Bengal climate, the perpetual interest afforded by Oriental habits and customs, and the necessary cameraderie existing between families,—commonly dropped, we should say, when they return to England. All these, of course, an intelligent and sympathetic person cannot help preserving to a certain extent, but their interest grows faint when repeated in copious commonplace English. The jugglers' performances are interest- ing, and the descriptions of one or two native entertainments, with the particulars of feminine dress, have a certain value. Some one must record these things. The book can only have a family interest, and help, as its title suggests, to refresh the memory of acquaintances. As such it may have a slight historical value to Anglo-Indians.
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