26 APRIL 1890, Page 22

Ad Orientem. By A. D. Frederickson. (W. H. Allen and

Co.) —After seeing Europe, not in its happiest aspect, during the Franco-German War, Mr. Frederickson thought that he should like to refresh himself with a year or so of Cathay. Accordingly, he went via Trieste to India, saw Lucknow, Cawnpore, the Himalayas, Southern India, and Ceylon, made his way to Singapore and the Dutch East Indies, thence to Siam and Japan, and thence, again, home by way of 'Frisco, Salt Lake City, Chicago, and New York. We have no fault to find with his souvenirs de voyage. But why print them after nearly twenty years of discreet silence ? If our traveller had given us some more of the contents of his sketch-book, we should have been better pleased. The figurings of Oriental fruits and the few sketches of life that we find are charming. He was compelled, we find, to abandon an intention of adding "a number of views of Eastern landscape and religious monuments" on account of the ex- pense. But why not less reading and more pictures ?