7 OCTOBER 1893, Page 26

Captain Enderis First West African Regiment. By Arthur P. Crouch.

2 vols. (W. H. Allen and Co.)—Mr. Crouch's enter- taining book, " Glimpses of Feverland," testified to his knowledge of West African life, and he has utilised that knowledge very pleasantly in the two volumes of Captain Enderis. Sierra Leone will seem to most people about as unattractive a background as could well be chosen for a work of fiction; but apart from its malarial climate, the Settlement has many natural charms, and human nature is, of course, the same everywhere. At any rate, there is no lack of interest in Mr. Crouch's novel, which has the attrac- tions of some good fighting, some more or less innocent flirtation, and the usual proportion of genuine love-making, which in every ease bee the happy issue dear to novel-readers of the old-fashioned days when art was not associated with gloom and general unsatis- factoriness. The story of the expedition of Endoris and his young subaltern, Marsden, against the native insurgents, is a very brisk bit of military adventure ; and everywhere it is apparent not only that Mr. Crouch knows how to write, but that he is writing of a phase of life with which he is thoroughly familiar.