The City of Gold. By Edward Markwick. (Tower Publishing Company.)—Mr.
Markwick apologises for his style by telling us that as he has been occupied in journalism all his life, he could not be expected to acquire a style, and urges that as he has never been in Africa, he is free in writing an African story, from "the prejudice which hampers the mere accumulator of facts." Both these pleas are ingenious. For the honour of journalism we are constrained to say that his style is quite good enough for its purpose. As for its local colour, it is doubtless sufficiently faithfuL One tinge of local colour is just as faithful as another when the scene of the story is laid in the planet Jupiter, or a place equally remote from human knowledge. The City of Gold is a travesty or an imitation—we cannot say which, either by the author's fault or our own— of certain well-known tales. The adventures are more surprising, the mortality more terrific. Beyond this we do not see much difference.
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