5 DECEMBER 1908, Page 11

The Island Traders. By Alexander Macdonald. (Blackie and Son. 3s.

6d.)—Raymond Fairfax, finding himself stranded for want of a job in Sydney, takes up with a somewhat mysterious stranger who is captain of the Mote.' He has made, it so happens, a special study of Polynesian dialects, and so he is just the man that is wanted. What the 'Hots' really was and what it was after is Mr. Macdonald's secret. The reader before he finds out will be regaled with sundry adventures in picturesque places, and learn something about Polynesian polities, which, as one might guess, have not a little to do with commercial rivalries.