Zig - zag Travels. By Charlotte Roper. (T. Fisher Unwin.)— There is
some courage in provoking the comparison which the title of Miss Roper's book suggests. This will scarcely become a classic, but it may be described as a simple, unaffected, and read- able narrative of travel. The author started from England in November, 1892, and made the "grand tour," as that phrase is now understood, returning to this country in April, 1894. The "tour," indeed, included variations, for it is not every " globe- trotter " that goes to Panama and Burmah. Finally, after coming back to England, there was a voyage to the Canary Islands. The impressions of travel thus gained are sufficiently interesting. The Venezuelans did not please her. "A very fierce, unpleasant- looking set of people, but perfectly civil in their manners to us." "The Republic of Venezuela appears to possess every desirable thing, except peace and ordinary security of life." At Guadalupe Miss Roper found a cut ions replica, or rather original, of the Lourdes legend. A p.:ton WAS on the hill of Guadalupe and saw a vision of a btautiful woman standing on
a rock. She told him to give a message to a certain rich man that he was to build a church there. And so in process of time there came a cathedral costing £160,000. Arrived at Chicago, Miss Roper made acquaintance with a curious religious develop- ment. It seems to have been a conference for devotion and dis- cussion. The question was why young men did not go more into society, and the answer that chiefly approved itself was that "Christian young women did not show them sufficient attention " The visitor was a little surprised. "The town of Chicago is, to me, very unpleasant, like all the American towns I have yet seen." But if she did not like the town she liked the people. They never, it seems, displace their " h's," and "nothing can exceed the kindness and courtesy of the men to all the women, irrespective of age and looks." She does not tell us whether, as has been sometimes said, the women abuse their privileges.
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