Peeps at the Etr East. By Norman Macleod, D.D. (Strahan.)—We
have here a very attractive volume, pleasantly written, well illustrated, sad handsome of aspect. Dr. Macleod was, with a colleague, sent out to report upon the conditions of the missions of the Church of Scotland ; and he tells us here, not, of course, the results of his official visitations,
but the varied observations on men and things, both native and foreign, which he made in carrying them on. A sojourn of a few months in such a country as India does not entitle, nor does Dr. Macleod imagine that it entitles, a man to speak with authority. But the views of a shrewd observer, as candid and kindly as the world knows Dr. Macleod to be, used to estimate character, and not officially disposed to any particular view, the missionary question being, as we have said,
out of sight, are of considerable value. And about the pleasantness of the book, its humour, its lively touches of description, in fact about its merits as a book of travel, there can be no doubt whatever.
The author, goes for the most part, over old ground, but he writes with a freshness which keeps our interest sustained. Who has not read twenty times about the famous "mango trick," yet who will not be amused to read once more Dr. Macleod's pleasant account of it, and see how the canny Scotchman, who had kept so keen an eye on the juggler that "he felt sure that the trick could not succeed," was utterly baffled, and saw the mango duly grow and bear fruit under his eyes? Among more serious topics we note an interesting, and on the whole satisfactory, testimony about the demeanour of the European to the native population. No one but very young soldiers, the doctor bad reason to believe, were accustomed to speak of the natives as niggers," while "public opinion is thoroughly sound in regard to each bad manners." It would be well, we would suggest, if these "young soldiers" were made to get up as part of their cram for the military examinations the history of the Aryan race, and so wore taught that these "niggers," many of them at least, are their own blood rela- tives. Dr. Macleod's estimate of Chunder Sen and the Brahmo Somaj is, we think, valuable and sound. "The want of an objective basis is what mast ever prevent the Brahmo Somaj from cohering as a body, or making any real progress. It mast be ever changing, ever breaking up, and its fragments gathering round some new centre or phase of subjective thought."
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