An 011a of Travel
THOUGH the shy and therefore explorable corners of the earth grow daily fewer, yet-the crop of travel-books never seems to decrease in yield. But in them there are differences. Some are mere tourist trip-books like Lady Dorothy Mills' The Golden Land (Duckworth, 15s.), which is the product— apparently the inevitable product—of her third visit to West Africa, this time to Portuguese West Africa. It adds little or nothing of importance to the world's knowledge of that region. In somewhat the same category is Mr. Kai Thoren- feldt's Round the World on a Cycle (Selwyn and Blount, 15s.), a simple-hearted narrative which readably enough chronicles a real achievement on the part of a young Dane who completed a journey of 48,000 miles round the globe (leaving Africa, however, practically out of his scheme) and reached home in Denmark again with ninepence in his pocket. Some of his photographs are interesting, notably one of Baghdad from the air, which conveys the vividest idea of the massed humanity that pullulates in Eastern cities. But a note of real explora- tion is struck in the Messrs. Roosevelts' Trailing the Giant Panda (Scribners, 16s.). The panda (aeluropus melanoleucus) is a creature resembling a bear—though Mr. Theodore Roose- velt definitely declares it not to be one—of striking colora- tion, having a white head with black spectacles, a black collar and white saddle. This animal has never before been shot by a white man, but the explorers were successful in securing a specimen for the Chicago Field Museum after a severe journey through a tangled mass of lofty mountains which lie between South-west China and the Tibetan border. The book, lively and attractive in style, makes a valuable contribution to the geographical knowledge of a little-known region.
Somewhere between the trip-book and the travel-book proper comes the volume didactic, such as is The Land of the Sun-God (Allen, 12s, 6d.), by the Swedish archaeo- logist, Dr. Hanna Rydh-. One would not be understood as using the word didactic in any invidious sense. On the contrary, the author brings knowledge, sympathy and imagination to her task of re-creating certain phases of Egypt's age-long past and of illustrating other features of her life to-day. Clearly, however, Dr. Rydh is instructive. Still, as it is certain that a traveller takes out of a country in proportion to what he brings to it, with this book in mind any future visitor to Egypt may perhaps be helped towards a quicker and deeper understanding of some sides of the country's life.
A Tropical Tapestry (Thornton Butterworth, 12s. 6d.) deals Scenically and ethnologically with the forests of Malay, with the curious charm and the modern problems of Java, and the dreaming and storied Spice Islands. In this book (which is illustrated by a number of pathetically grotesque black-and- white drawings) Mr. Hubert S. Banner, in a style which is at times slightly superfatted, though at other times he can, as in describing a buffalo-fight in Flores, write vividly and well, sets the stage for Mr. Walter B. Harris's East for PleasUre (Arnold, 21s.). No one- who knows this author's previous works on Morocco, and who has read his articles in the Times on Tangier and its problems, will need to be told-that in Mr. Harris we have a writer who is at once sagacious, level- headed and picturesque. East for Pleasure, a record of travel In Indo-China and the–gist 'Indies, is a' truly adinirrible
The central thread of thought running throughit is that the Oriental has the first call upon his own activities ; that the East is not necessarily improved by the acquisition of Western commercialism ; that more can be done and should be done by the West to make friends with the East by sympathy and friendly politeness, and that we British would do well to wash out some part of the colour-line ; that the spirit of Nationalism will out, and that the key-note of successful policy in the future will be a recognition of its legitimate aspirations. " The always exaggerated prestige of the West (Mr. Harris thinks) has gone for ever, and its place has been taken by a far deeper sense of realities." But may it not rather be said that, if those realities are fully recognized, the tottering Western prestige may be restored by wise administration and indi- vidual character and behaviour ? The Dutch have achieved that aim in Java ; the French, by their " assimilation " native policy in North Africa and Indo-China, are in process of arriving at it ; and for England it should not be imperilled by " the thoughtless act of a subaltern or of a newly arrived clerk, a foolish planter, or an inconsiderate employee." Far more than a mere survey of t se economic and social condi- tions of Indo-China and the rich and romantic island group of the Indies—though it is that too—this book and the digest- ing of it will help to bring the West into better and more considering and considerate relations with the whole of the East.
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