23 AUGUST 1930, Page 26

« * * *

We suppose that Lionville as a caption to the frontispiece is what one might expect of a book entitled The Roaring Veldt, by Gretchen Cron (Putnam's, 21s.). It is really incredible that there should be people prepared to pay a guinea to read the cheap and vulgar prattle of hunting visitors to East Africa. There is always the same blood-lust, the same self-advertisement, the same colossal ignorance, the same exaggeration, the same dangers, thrills and lieroisms, the some photographs, the same jocularity, and the infinitely same tediousness. One thing at least Mrs. Cron spares us : she does not torture us with mangled phrases of native languages. For this we are thankful, but to say, as the publisher does, that the soul of Africa is here portrayed with a sensitiveness to minute details is to talk sheer rubbish. As well might one sound the heart with a megaphone. Such books as this afford the strongest argument for game

protection in Africa.