KEEPERS OF THE BALTIC GATES By John Gibbons We know
by now what to expect when Mr. John Gibbons goes travelling, and Keepers of the Baltic Gates (Hale, Jos. 6d.) will not disappoint his many readers. Of course, he has travelled a long way since Tramping to Lourdes, and his style has lost much of its attractive gruffness. And he now actually visits some of the show-places! But still he remains a difficult traveller to impress, and so his praise of life and conditions in the Baltic States is of more value than, the current raptures of less hard-headed observers. He went to Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, none of them a place that had ever appealed to him. Catholic countries were more in his line. But when he saw the energy and imagination with which they are setting themselves in order, his prejudices were over- come and he writes this for example about the capital of Finland: "I was surprised at the youth and development of these countries. . . . In all Helsinki they don't seem to have a slum or a shabbily-dressed man or woman." It is a mixed pleasure for us who live further south to read this book.
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