IN STRANGE LANDS.
Among the Brahmins and the Pariahs. By J. H. Sauter. (Fisher Unwin. 10s. 6d. net.)
The Road to Timbuktu. By Lady Dorothy Mills. (Duckworth. 15s. net.)
IlEna S.tirrEn's book, admirably translated by Mr. Bernard Miall, comes near to achieving the ideal in the class to which it belongs, for its author has a breadth of mind and a humanity which transcend nationality and intellectual and moral prejudice, so that the strange places and people of which he writes are presented to us vividly and objectively, without the irritating and obscuring intervention of the average tourist mind. The book consists of a series of self-contained chapters—reminiscences of places visited, individual character studies, adventures among strange people and animals, and, here and there, a wonderful and haunting story ; and in all of them we are aware of one pervading atmosphere, melancholy, fatalistic, sometimes delicately beautiful, with something always of the quiet mysticism which is so strong a character- istic of the Indian temperament. Herr Sauter evidently possesses the rare gift of being able to make friends with all sorts and conditions of men on the basis of our common humanity, and it is his extraordinary loss of mankind which gives his book its finest quality, though hAms also a keen eye for detail and a considerable power of putting into words the impressions which have come his way. In Herr Sauter himself there is much of the Indian temperament. India is his spiritual home. In Europe, at home and among his own people, he feels himself an exile and an outcast.
The book is written in a tone which may at first irritate sonic English readers, for the romanticism with which its emotions are expressed has for some time been out of fashion in England though it remains typical of much that is written in German to-day. But the irritation will not last long, for the sincerity of those emotions is obvious and compelling, and the tone is so curiously in keeping with the wistful and " poetic" atmosphere of India that we soon cease to be con- scious of any discordant note.
In The Road to Timbuktu, on the other hand, we seldom lose sight of the pertinacious, wide awake, loquacious, and essen- tially English woman who has written it. Yet Lady Dorothy Mills, though her writing never reaches real distinction, has some gift for observation and description and can bring before us something of the parching monotony of the Niger and the curious charm of Timbuktu and the other towns and villages through which she passed. Her book contains, too, a good deal of interesting information. But only in faint and occas- ional touches do we discover anything of the essential atmos- phere of that strange and desolate country, and of the human part of it almost nothing beneath the visible surface. But for readers who are not too exacting, who like to read easily and gaily of the adventures of others, who do not feel unduly upset when, at the end of an anecdote, they are told that "It gave one to think, to philosophize quite a lot, about civilization and what lies beneath "—for such readers Lady Dorothy Milts's book will afford a very pleasant entertainment.
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