21 FEBRUARY 1903, Page 24

Outside and Overseas. Edited by George Makgill. (Methuen and Co.

6s.)—This story suggests various reminiscences. We think of the " Sentimental Journey " when we read of a Boer woman "with half her hair in curl-papers," the said curl-papers being fragments of the manuscript which we are now permitted to see. Then the story itself is a curious mixture of Defoe and R. L. Stevenson. "My uncle " the Captain might have passed muster among the characters of " Kidnapped " and The Master of Ballantrae," and the doings of the savages are depicted with the gravity and precision which we find in "Robinson Crasoe." We cannot say that the story is quite to our mind,—we have an inveterate passion for cheerfulness in these things, and Outside and Overseas does not gratify it. But it is unquestion- ably a good bit of work.