TRAVEL AND TOPOGRAPHY.
The World as Seen by Me. By T. Simpson Carson. (Heath Cranton. 30s.) It is difficult without undue emphasis, such as capitals or headlines, to indicate the intrinsic masculinity of this record of travels. Here is a man. No wonder his relatives prevailed on him to write a book. No Aristotelian observer, no grain- of-sand mystic, no gleaning Frazer, no idle stroller here ; the world ' as seen by me " is abruptly thrust before us without trimmings of any kind. Mr. Carson may not " write like the Kipling or the Dickens," to quote his example of Indian newspaper English, but it is remarkable that a man who can combine the most strenuous cattle-ranching with the careful drawing of the slenderest stems of strange flowers (see illus- trations) should not find it in him to obviate the constant jerks of the narrative, which confound our attention, like the flicking of a note-book's leaves. He could still, while easing his paragraphs, preserve his waggish detachment, the austerities of his attitude towards literary style. The sincere outburst against big-game hunters does honour to the eager, well-informed rover who has so sorely overdriven his pen through these indescribably crowded pages. He himself finds, however, in sea-fishing as keen and savage a joy as may attach to the slaying of elephants ; in fact he hurls himself after the tarpon, because of its size and power, with perfect abandon. In the end the stream of sports, customs, flora and fauna begins to lose the strangeness and clearness of its details by its very lack of arrangement. We are landed characteristically with a thud—take it or leave it : " There have already been many attempts to secure a -world language . . . To-day Esperanto . . . holds the field, meeting as it is said to do all requirements. If so, and though like religion subject to schisms, why not get on with it ? Here ends the narration of my travels."
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