Behind an Eastern Veil. By C. J. Wills. (Blackwood and
Sons.) —In this volume we have a curious and successful mixture of fiction and fact. A young English lady goes out to join her father in Persia. The father has married a lady of high rank, and has nominally conformed to Islam. The daughter naturally has unusual opportunities of seeing sides of Persian life mostly out of sight of European visitors. So she has her story to tell. Her father has held office for some time under the Shah, and he has some curious experiences to relate. Trouble arises ; the father is killed, and the daughter. after suffering no little distress, is happily rescued by the opportune arrival of an old admirer, who had made her acquaintance on the outward voyage. Dr. Wills knows as much about Persia as any English- man living, and has had, we imagine, the assistance of one who has had the entrée to places which were necessarily shut against him.—We may mention at the same time Safar Nameh, Persian Pictures : a Book of Travel (Bentley and Son). —This is a record of personal experiences. The pictures of Persia that the author gives us have a great deal of shadow in them. The country has deteriorated in every way since the time when it was the greatest Power in the world. Vast portions of it are desert, made so by the persistent neglect of the people and their Government. If any one wants to see what Islam can do for a country he had better study these pictures. Even the fatalism of their creed does not seem to inspire the courage which ought to be a redeeming feature. When the cholera came, it was the non-fatalist European who "stood to his guns." There are some highly interesting descriptions in the book, among them the " Treasury of the King."
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