Behold the Hebrides "
CC Searching the Hebrides with a Camera. By Alasdair Alpin MacGregor. (Harrap. 7s. 6d.) EVER since Neil Munro fashioned for himself an "Aebudean English"- a stylized way of enshrining, Gaelic idiom and turn
of phrase in distinguished prose, he has never lacked imitators North of the Tweed. Kenneth Macleod can transmute some of the imagery of the Gael into his poems, but neither he nor the late Mrs. Kennedy Fraser were anything like so happy in their prose pictures. Mr. Alpin MacGregor is an-example of a writer who has long striven after the success which met Neil Munro's experiments. These are his best two books on the Islands so far, and they are profusely illustrated by the finest photographs of the kind which the present writer has seen, but his narrative cannot escape, for all his eagerness and child- like sincerity, from regular lapses into mannered affectation which may irritate his fellow.islanders and fail to attract the Sassenach.
The other three travellers in the Isles tell' their tale with equal sincerity but much greater simplicity. Mr. Humble and Mr. Anderson have the advantage again of some really first- rate photographs, and the former writer includes some very useful suggestions for walks in the Misty Isle ; his book should prove of really-practical value to many holiday-makers this
summer. Mr. Anderson has the zeal of the convert and the charm of sincerity ; if he has nothing new to tell us, and no great art in writing; his narrative will certainly bring Pleasure to many island lovers and may well attract other readers to make the pilgrimage Westwards. Miss McIver's little book is, like Mr. Humble's, based on close knowledge of the ground, and will therefore prove practically useful, to hikers. She gives times, routes and distances, and writes with unaffected simplicity.
One cannot help wishing that some enterprising publisher would re-issue Miss Goodrich-Freer's excellent book on the Outer Hebrides, and that Compton Mackenzie; George Scott Moncrieff, Eric Linklater and Moray. Mclearen would make haste- and give -us some-really good- writing about the Outer
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