4 JANUARY 1930, Page 34

However eminent and vocal, Mayfair is a very small part

of London, and even Deauville does not loom very large in the scheme of things. If certain men and women of Kenya are Tarred with the Same Brush, by le Comte de Janze (Duckworth, Os. net), they also are numerically few, however vocal and eminent. These are minor tales, melo- dramatic and on occasion too cheaply macabre, and they might equally well have been staged in London or Paris, as the local colour, though laid on with a trowel, is only sin deep. The interpolation of indifferent Swahili, needing a translation in brackets, does nothing to impart value, and phrases such as "with lure and pose soignee even in the wilds" are the worst journalism. The short impressions of Book II. are less absurd, and we find Samson, the lion-cub, more real than the neurotic, cocktail-drinking hedonists of Muthaiga. Misprints are thick.