7 OCTOBER 1922, Page 22

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

Blackwood is, as usual, thoroughly entertaining. The author of Tales of the R.I.C. gives a long and somewhat depressing sketch of "Ulster in 1921." A first instalment of "The Voyage of 'The Maid,'" by Mr. G. H. Gandy, promises an exciting tale. 'The Maid' is an elderly cutter, who, in the first chapters, crosses the North Sea and arrives at Kronstadt with a cargo for starving Russia. Mr. Edmund Candler writes delightfully on a holiday in the Pyrenees. Sir Percy Sykes supplies a short account of the defence of Abadeh, the small town in Central Persia which, in 1918, was gallantly held by a handful of Indian troops against overwhelming numbers. The rest of the contents are characteristically informing and trenchant, but that, of course, we expect of Blackwood.