6 MARCH 1915, Page 23

Miss Maud D. Haviland was invited to accompany Miss Czaplicka

on her important anthropological expedition into Siberia last summer, and gives a vivid account of her experi- ences in A Summer on Cie Yenesei (Edward Arnold, 10s. 6d. net). Though Miss Haviland's concerns are primarily those of an ornithologist, yet the general interest of her volume is considerable. Especially exciting was her return journey down the Yetesei to iM mouth, and hack to Europe through the Arctic Ocean. It was on August 26th in a remote spot called Golchika that the travellers bad their first bare news of the declaration of war. We may quote a wqrd or two on this point :— " While the people were at church, the gendarme went out to search for vodka. Almost the only evidence of the war at Golebilia were the effects of the Russian Government's magnificent crusade against alcohol. . . Only two days previously this officer had seized 2,000 roubles' worth of vodka at one haul. The law was carried out without any distinction of persons. Oar friend, Michael Potrovitch, had bought a few bottles of cognac for his omen use, but these were confiscated with the rest."

Xis most satisfactory and striking to have this independent evidence that the vodka turas was carried out not only in the great centres of population, but in the remotest villages of the Empire.