A ROVING COMMISSION By Henry Newman
In A Roving Commission (Bell, 7s. 6d.), Mr. Newman, well known as " Kim " of the Calcutta Statesman, continues the reminiscences he began in Indian Peepshow. They are mostly of his experiences as a war correspondent the East, and, as in his previous book, written in an easy-going informal style suitable to his somewhat random selec- tion of material. We start in 19oo, when he accompanied the expedition sent to the rescue of the legations in Peking besieged by the Boxers. Writing, as he explains, " out of his head," he does not attempt to give a detailed account of the affair, and there is little here that we have not read before. In 1903 he went with Colonel Young- husband's mission to Tibet, and was one of the few correspondents to get into Lhasa. Lhasa is still sufficiently unknown for his description of it to be of considerable interest. Then we jump to 1916 and a chapter on the Mohmand rising and other frontier affairs. This is a sketchy but readable book.
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