A Diary in the East. By W. H. Russell. (Routledge.)—The
late Mr. G. P. R. James held, if we remember right, the office of "Historio- grapher Royal." We never hoard what the duties of the office were, but suppose that it may have included the chronicling of royal proceed- ings which were beyond the province of the Court Newsman. This duty would be no sinecure in the days of travelling princes, and 'could hardly indeed be discharged by one man. We seem likely to have a whole literature of royal journeying; Hanover was once the bound of such travellers; new they go round the world about once a year. In such a literature Mr. Russell's book would take high rank ; the work he had to do, to tell how a Prince and Princess travelled through Egypt and elsewhere, is not of a high kind; some people might be ungracious enough to think it best left undone ; that the public manifestly will not submit to ; and Mr. Russell does it with as much good taste, the chief quality to be called into use, as can be asked for. How the Princess cantered about on her donkey, how the Prince shot crocodiles (crocodiles one will not be allowed to feel pity for, but why should he massacre flamingoes?) how they explored temples, and, in short, ' did' the Nile, the British reader may hero find set forth without anything, as it seems to us, like snobbishness. Mr. Russell, without doubt, would have written a much better book if any chance had taken him to Egypt without the royal and ducal company with which he travelled. He avoids, of set purpose, the descriptive writing of which he is a master, and as he writes for a public who care very little for Egypt and -very much for the proceedings of Royal personages, he cannot be blamed. As it is, he gives a good thing now and then. Hero is an instructive specimen of servile life :—
" Two men had a dispute over some matter of sale, and from words one of them, the larger and stronger, resorted to a sounding box on the eye of his antagonist. The latter put his hand to his face, looked round with one glaring orb at the crowd which had been collected by the con- troversy, and, singling out a laughing donkey-boy, administered to him a tremendous cuff on the aide of the head. A few yards away there sat a child of eight or nine years of age against the wall of a house, inno- cently sucking a piece of sugar-cane. The donkey-boy at once charged him, and kicked him in the ribs. The little fellow looked up, uttered a cry of rage, and, seizing a large paving stone which lay close at hand, Zang it—at the donkey-boy ?—oh, certainly not ! but at a poor street dog which lay asleep close at hand. The dog immediately went off bowling, and no doubt bit a small puppy to ease its mind."
The best part of the book is that in which Mr. Russell records his impressions of the Crimea. There he was among things quorum pars magna fait ; he feels himself to be of more importance than princes, and rises to the occasion.
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