Wanderings and Wonderings. By J. J. Aubertin. (Kegan Paul and
Co.)—Mr. Aubertin again presents the world with another "fight with distances," but we cannot say that it possesses any vital interest, or that the style is attractive ; it is merely the itinerary of a " globe.trotter," one who never stayed long enough at any place to be able to form any but a hasty opinion of it, or convey but a meagre idea of it to others. There was a time when such books were valuable, pointing out, as they did, striking features for others to come and study at leisure. Now, however, that careful descriptions and studies of the wonders of travel by painstaking writers are numbered by the hundred, the mere "globe-trotter," who rushes at railroad speed across continents, puts in a daub here and a daub there, and relates his adventures in full, is a bore and a nuisance, and we have had enough of him. An occasional anecdote or two amuse us in Wanderings and Wonderings, but the mere telling of how our writer rose at 5.30 a.m„ or how he met So-and-So in G-ujerat, becomes wearisome.
Previous page
