The Peninsular Journal of Major-General Sir Benjamin D'Urban, 1808 - 1817 (Longnians,
21s.) is edited by Mr. I. J. Rousseau of the Rhodes University College, Grahamstown— with sonic appropriateness, for D'Urban, one of the greatest Governors Cape Colony ever had, was very familiar with Grahamstown as a centre of the most pressing South African problems with which he had to deal. (Another volume of the Journal, dealing with his administration at the Cape, is pro- mised.) The present instalment is, for the larger part of it, a record of war pure and simple, more unimpassioned even than Caesar, and like Caesar containing the minimum of personal reference. Purple patches there are none ; Badajoz is stormed, but not a whisper of the horrors that followed on the storm, while the crowning triumph of Vittoria is dismissed in a few frigid sentences. But that D'Urban could write des- criptively and interestingly if he chose is proved by the admirable summary of the year 1810-11 which appears on pp. 228-30. As a source-book, however, being written by an observant, thoughtful and distinguished soldier, the Journal is of very special value, and has been used to advantage by Sir Charles Oman in his history of the Peninsular War ; it may well serve also as a military manual to professional soldiers. It remains part of D'Urban's fame that under the unjustly maligned Beresford, whose chief of staff he was, he made in the face of innumerable difficulties a steady and reliable army out of the Portuguese, while the quality of his military judg- ment is evidenced by his appreciation of Wellington's " con- ception of things, always just, to a degree of intuition,"
Further editions of a book so important might well be fun nished with an adequate index, and there is no need for mis- prints like Almieda, Arzobiopo and Roleca to appear in the map.
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