27 MAY 1871, Page 22

Camp Life. By George Buchanan, M.D. (Glasgow.)—Dr. Buchanan was in

the Crimea during part of the campaign of the allied armies, and wrote an account of his experiences. This account he has handed about in MS. till, the document being about to come to pieces, he determined to print. Would it be rude if we were to suggest that it would have been better, as far as regards the agreement of the book with its title, if the earlier part of it had perished ? For, really, down to p. 176 there is very little indeed about "camp life." On p. 55, indeed, Dr. Buchanan, having hitherto lived on board ship or in a house, lands in the Crimea. This is on July 4th; on July 9th (p. 93) he embarks on board the Ottawa, and the next day departs, and lives in a house at Scutari till September 14th, when he goes again to tha,Crimea. Then we do get something about "camp life," and it is fairly interesting. About October 20th, however, our author gets news from home which makes him throw up his appointment and hurry home. Now we must say frankly that we do not care enough about the way in which Dr. Buchanan eat and drank and slept for some months to repay us for the time spent on his volume. If he had lived under canvass through the terrible winter of 1854-5, we should have been glad to hear what he had to say ; bat that a man should write three hundred pages and call it "camp life" when for two-thirds of the time he has been living in a cabin or house, and for the other third has been doing a very little more than the Volunteers do at Wimbledon, is a thing which a reviewer, with his. shelves full of books, cannot pardon. A short paper in a magazine might have been legitimately made out of the author's experiences ; that would have been pleasant reading enough, but this book is an imposture.