CURRENT LITERATURE.
Sport in Many Lands. By H. A. L., " The Old Shekarry." 2 vols. (Chapman and Hal.1)—These volumes may, we suppose, be described as the last fruit from an old tree. Since their publication, Major Leveson has gone over to the majority, or to use a more congenial metaphor, has departed for the happy hunting-grounds ; and we confess to finding, in the short memoir now prefixed to them, some of the most interesting reading in these volumes. He appears to have been a valuable and most promising officer, and to have gained a reputation in that capacity as creditable, if not as wide-spread as his fame as a sportsman. At this moment his opinion of the Turks (in whose service he highly distinguished himself) may be noted :—" I believe, as a body, they are most the detestable race of people under the sun, and I think that their kingdom will soon pass away into other hands." It would be difficult to give an idea of the hair-breadth escapes and marvellous stories of pluck, endurance, and every sportsmanlike " quality ex- hibited hero. The style is graphic and captivating, the pictures are spirited, and there are plenty of them. Of course a good deal of the narrative is " caviare to the general," yet such books are not without the same attraction to the stay-at-home Briton as schoolboys find in stories of shipwreck, or suburban residents in the pages of " Debrett." They stimulate the imagination, and satisfy in a measure one's cravings- after a knowledge of other and perchance less " dismal and illiberal' existences.
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