SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we 710iiCe such Books of the week as hare not been reserved for review in other forms.] in a distant part of the world I always send "for a Captain of the Navy," said Lord Palmerston. This is the text which Messrs. Becke and Jeffery have chosen to illustrate. They pass over the early days of Australian discovery very rapidly. Little more than a page, for instance, is allotted to Tasman. Dampier, "the first Englishman in Australia," has a chapter to himself, and deservesit- In spite of the suspicion, or more than suspicion, Of early buceaneer- ing that hangs about him, he was a man of good qualities, and did sOme very good work. Here we have some interesting accounts of the stores and provisioning of the time. A table -of the date of -16-88 is liberal only inthe item of beer, of which each man had four quarts a day. Of bread he had a pound, and not quite an ounce of butter. The only flesh provided was about four and a half minces of pork. The third chapter is occupied by Cook, and contains some interesting particulars about his subordinates, a short-lived., and unlucky company. Arthur Phillip, John Hunter, and -Philip King are the prominent names in the closing years of the eighteenth century and the first of the nineteenth, with Sir Joseph Banks taking a keen interest in the affairs of the settlements at home. Matthew Flinders and George Bass distinguished themselves in the field of exploration. Flinders was shamefully.- treated: by the French, who sought to avenge themselves for continuous defeats by barbarous usage of a harmless explorer. They even took his charts, and handed them over to a navigator of their own. Chaps. 10 and 11 are assigned. to Bligh, whose Australian experiences were nearly as unfortunate as those of the Bounty.' This is a useful, and well-written book, though scarcely equal in picturesqueness to what Mr. Becke's 'name led us to expect.
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