Meeting the Sun a Journey all round the World. By
William Simpson. (Longmans.)—Mr. Simpson went to draw sketches of the wedding ceremonies of the Emperor of China for the Illustrated London News. Being a British newspaper correspondent, he saw all that could be seen, but this was very little indeed. Five illustrations are all that refer to the immediate object of his journey ; but he saw other things more or less noticeable in China and elsewhere, and having a considerable gift of recording his observations with the pencil, and a gift—less considerable, but efficient for the purpose—of recording them with the pen, he has produced a tolerably interesting volume. Fortune, which was not very kind to him in China, favoured him as he was returning to England by way of America, for it brought him just in time for the Modoc war. The last ten sketches of his book are of scenes and persons connected with this miserable business, and are distinctly the most interesting of all. That of the "Lava Beds," the stronghold of the Modocs, is very curious. But why, we must ask, spoil the effect by another " Modocs in the Lava Beds " ? This must be an imaginary picture ; and the result is that one is inclined to be generally
sceptical. It is worth noticing that Mr. Simpson thinks the Modocs to have been provoked by treacheries quite as odious as that by which they fixed their own doom. It seems that there never were savages who sold their lives at such a cost of life to their civilised assailants.
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