20 FEBRUARY 1959, Page 27

Leaves from the Jungle. By Verrier Elwin. (O.U.P., 16s.) Welcome

reprint of charming minor classic—the diary of one who fell in love with Gandhi's India and Gandhi's philosophy, and wrote twenty years ago, his unaffected, sweet- natured, infinitely inquisitive story of life among the unlettered Gonds of the Central Provinces— still a tribal society, riddled with malaria, syphilis and leprosy, who nevertheless, when a health lec- turer asked, 'Who are our greatest enemies?' replied, 'Our wives.'