16 NOVEMBER 1907, Page 7

The Romance of Savage Life. By G. F. Scott Elliott.

(Seeley and Co. Ss.)—Mr. Elliott's industry has collected a large pot- pourri of facts curious and entertaining, and set out with some skill and cohesion ; but there is much that is somewhat technical, and the details about so many different peoples and regions crowd each other. Interesting, and even instructive, as the volume is, to- a boy it could scarcely seem other than congested and too

tightly packed with information. To have taken some races and treated them more leisurely would have given a boy a better idea of-the reality, certainly more idea of the "romance " of savage lifer To range from the Kirghiz steppes to Norway, and then to Basutoland, in a dozen lines is too much ; a boy does not appreciate

this comparative ethnology, however fascinating it may be to the man. Still, there are things of remarkable interest in this volume, and it makes excellent reading and represents much research. The photographs are well chosen and good of their kind.