THE UNIVERSITY OF TRAVEL • Bias. Grates brightly written books

gives an interesting account of a trip to the sacred Mongolian city of Urge which she per- formed in 1913—the war, of course, explains its belated publi-

cation. She hoped at first to have the additional adventure of crossing the Desert of Gobi, but found it necessary to take the

Siberian Railway instead and approach Urga from the Russian side. Her sketches of Mongolian nomad life are always enter- taining. But the most remarkable chapter is that which describes the almost incredible horrors of the prison at 'Urge. Each inmate of this dreadful place is confined, she tells us, in

" a heavy wooden chest, some 4 to 44 feet long by 2i feet deep,

iron-bound and secured by two strong padlocks." The only means of ventilation is a hole in the side, through which food is thrust in ; and apparently the prisoners, once inserted in these chests, are never taken out except to be led to a more merciful death by the executioner's sword. Even the famous iron cages which Cardinal Balue invented for Louis XI. pale before these loathsome coffins, of which Mrs. Gull saw some twenty or thirty in each of the five dungeons which compose the Urga prison. One of these dungeons was filled with Chinese merchants who were suspected of favouring the Chinese Republic at the time of the Mongol declaration of independence :—

" There they were, shut up for the remainder of their lives in heavy iron-bound coffins, out of which they could never under any conditions or for any purpose move. They could not lie down flat, they could not sit upright, they were not only manacled but chained to the coffins. They saw daylight but for a few minutes, when their food was thrust into their coffins through a hole four or five inches in diameter, twice daily. In one way only did they score over their Mongolian fellow-sufferers. Their narrower Chinese skulls enabled them, painfully and with diffi- culty, to protrude their heads through the hole in the coffin side. The Mongol cranium is too wide to do so at all."

The only objection which we can take to Mr. Enock's readable and picturesque work' lies in its title. Spanish America can hardly be accepted as including Brazil, which is by far the largest State of the continent. Probably Mr. Enock had a good reason for not using " Latin America," the only title which at

once covers Mexico, Brazil, and krgentina. The curse which Donatus invokes on those who have said our good things before us may be equally well applied to those who have pre-empted our title. But this is a trifling objection, and we should be sorry if it were to deter any pedantic reader from making acquaintance with these very entertaining volumes. Mr. Enock has travelled widely in South and Central America, and probably knows those spacious regions as well as any living Englishman.

He has drawn freely on the excellent " South American Series," edited by the late Major Martin Hume, of which his new book forma a kind of summary. He mingles historical lore with topographical information in a, very agreeable fashion, and con- cludes with a couple of useful and instructive chapters on " Trade and Finance " and " To-day and To-morrow." He does well to disabuse his readers of the too prevalent idea that all Latin

• (1) A Tour in Mongolia. By Beatrlx Bulstrode (Mrs. E. M. Gull). Lon- don : Methuen. [16s. net.)—(2) Spanish America. By C. It. Enock. 2 Vols. London : T. Fisher Unwin. (308. net.]—(3) A Cheechako in Alaska and Yukon. By Charlotte Cameron. Same publisher. [25s. net.]—(4) A Winter Circuit of our Arctic Coast. By Hudson Stuck. London : T. Werner Laurie. [3O• net.] (5) The Life and Explorations of Frederick Stanley Arnot. By Ernest

Baker. London : Seeley, ServIce. sad Co. ed. net.]

American Republics are in a continual state of revolutionary turmoiL Their constitutions, as a rule, are admirably devised, and their systems of government nowadays work very smoothly.

" It might not be an exaggeration to say that there is more public spirit, of a kind, in a small Spanish American town than in its English or United States equivalent. More interest is taken in local government ; there is more discussion in local matters. The inhabitant, if he has any grade of education and knowledge, thinks it natural to assert his opinion as a unit of his habitat, and public opinion is a strong factor."

Mr. Enock's general remarks on this subject may be read with profit by those who think of settling or employing capital in South or Central America.

A " cheechako " in Alaska is what in milder and more southerly districts of the North American continent is called a " tender- foot." Mrs. Cameron can only call herself a " tenderfoot " anywhere in the sense of being a stranger to that particular locality, for her adventurous journeys in Africa before the war, no less than her new book on Alaska', show that she has the faculty of speedily accommodating herself to the ways of primi- tive peoples and their manners of life. She also has the faculty

of describing -what she has seen in a lively and picturesque

fashion, and has thus produced an extremely readable narrative. When someone asked her if she always travelled alone, even in wild outlandish parts, she answered that she did :—

" But how untrue, because in travelling one is never alone. Whatever your destination, whatever the chosen route, there you will find others who have a like intention. No matter how distant, or how wild and uncivilized the place, maybe you will find people on boat or train who have been there before, or who have made their homes at the spot you imagined so isolated. Soon, also, you will know all that is worth knowing about the locality you have chosen. If yours is a personality which is not disagreeable, you will at once find friends in the University of Travel ; it will be your own fault if you are lonely. In this world, give and take, sow and reap, are truisms as old as those of the Indians."

Anyone who has learnt to travel in this spirit is sure to find the journey interesting and to bring home tales that can be so written as to be worth reading. Mrs. Cameron is never dull, but her account of the Eskimos with whom she made friends so easily is the best part of her very pleasant book. Along with it may profitably be read another work written in the same cosmopolitan spirit, Archdeacon Stuck's narrative of his journey with dog-sleds around the entire Arctic coast of Alaska.' This is Dr. Stuck's fourth book of Alaskan travel, and we incline to think that it is his best ; in view of the steady culmination of

interest, perhaps he will change his mind about making it his last. His description of the Eskimos is very attractive: " I think," he says, " they are the bravest, the cheeriest, the most industrious, the most hospitable, and altogether

the meet winning native people that I know anything about, the most deserving of the indulgent consideration of mankind." We commend his book to all readers who wish to beguile a winter evening with a manly, bracing, and invariably entertaining narrative of travel in an almost un- known district.

Mr. Baker's record of Frederick Arnot's missionary work and travels in Central Africa' is mainly given in Arnot's own words, from his diaries and letters. It is an adequate record of an earnest and unselfish life. Between 1881 and his death in 1914 Arnot made nine separate journeys. The first and most im- portant of these lasted seven years, during which he wandered, practically alone and unarmed, from Durban right across the continent to Benguela and thence to the sources of the Zambezi and the Congo. For his discoveries in this journey he received a special medal from the Royal Geographical Society. His simple piety and zeal to spread the Gospel entitle him to a high place among the successors of Livingstone.