4 OCTOBER 1930, Page 44

It is difficult to say just how far one is

to accept as a truthful account An African Savage's Own Story, by Lo-Bagola (Knopf, 10s. 6d.). If it is true, it is a very strange story, and if it is true, the ethnography of that particular, but elusive, part of the African bush will have to be rewritten, so careless and unobservant have our scientists been. If it is not true, the author (whoever he may be in that case) must have studied the relevant literature very deeply in order to produce so ingenious a travesty. A facsimile of Lo-Bagola's Discharge Certificate from the British Army is included to establish his verity, but there seems to be some uncertainty as to the dialect which his tribe speaks, if we may judge by the °cert. sional words and phrases introduced into the volume.

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