Letters and Memoir of Hugh Hastings Romilly. (David Nutt.)— The
late Mr. H. H. Romilly, who died young, bad a short, but energetic and useful, career in the Western Pacific, first on the staff of the then Sir Arthur Gordon, and afterwards as Deputy- Commissioner and Magistrate ; and for a few months the newly declared protectorate of New Guinea was under his direction. The piece of work for which he will be most remembered in the Southern Hemisphere was the taking back of some five hundred kidnapped labourers to their several scattered homes, a work attended, as may well be supposed, with danger. The fury excited in Queensland, especially among the planters, many of whom, according to Mr. Romilly, were gentlemen (?), at this act of reparation, will be well remembered by many. The bulk of these letters relate to the writer's journeys and experiences in Fiji and Rotumah and Samoa, and the rest were written from Sydney, New Guinea, and Wellington. They are full of high spirits, racy humour, and are remarkable for a real gift for describing aboriginal customs and placing them in an amusing light. Mr. Romilly started for the Pacific without any definite aim, but he turned out to be just the man for the place ; good- natured but firm, and highly popular, as his letters show, with the natives. Indefatigable, despite the repeated attacks of fever, which eventually killed him, he was truly, as his brother says, one of that army of unrecorded workers, those men who do their utmost to beget in the childish mind of the Pacific Islanders respect and affection for the Power that protects them, yet knows but little how this happy result is brought about.
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