THREE CHILDREN'S BOOKS.* THESE are three children's books, all capital

of their kind, and of the three best kinds for children's amusement,—adventure, humour, fancy. As to the sometimes disputed authenticity of M. du Chaillu's travels in the Gorilla country we raise no question. There is nothing there that might not have happened, and pro- bably enough nothing that did not happen to the traveller who narrates it. But whoever disputes the authenticity of the narra- tives of his greater and more scientific work, the boyish readers of this résumé for the young will not be likely to do so unless they are quite preternaturally given to "negative criticism." The stories it contains are full of the kind of novelty, peril, and adven- ture which are so fascinating to children, but there is nothing in them to move special incredulity. What with encountering repeated malaria fevers, guiding canoes among fighting sharks and sawfish, crocodile hunting in risky craft fifty feet long by only two wide

* Stories of Me Gorilla Country. Narrated for young people. By Paul du Chaffin. With numerous illustrations, London : Sampson Low.

Garry, a Holiday Story. By Jeanie Hering. Illustrated with drawings by J. E. Hodgson and F. W. Keyl. London : Bell and Daidy.

Fairy Tales. By Mark Lemon. With upwards of fifty illustrations by Richard Doyle and Charles H. Bennett. London : Bradbury and Evans.

and one deep—in short, exaggerated outriggers,—getting mobbed by hippopotami, treading (twice) on cobras, hunting elephants, finding himself the object of a leopard's spring, facing fierce gorillas, and making friends with cannibals, there is sufficient peril to have extinguished any American traveller, however skilful and tough, a hundred times ; and the real and only great marvel of the book is, that with chances apparently so enormously unfavourable to him, M. du Chaffin should have escaped to tell what he has gone through. That, however, is a sort of marvel which it takes an actuary to appreciate, and children have not often much of the actuary about them. For them, this book, which only heaps on one man the perils and adventures which might easily satisfy six, but does not draw much on anybody's credulity in any one case, is only a delightfully concentrated form of the nourishment their imagination likes best. M. du Chaillu has not given even so many exact dates and distances as there were in his original book, where the absence of them was often complained of. This is as much a mistake, though for a different reason, in writing for children, as in writing for scientific naturalists. You will always find children insisting on the where and when with the greatest precision in asking about such adventures as these,—not, perhaps, that the special date or special locality when given is likely to be precisely remembered, but as realizing to their imaginations far more distinctly that the event narrated did actually occur. It is in no small degree De Foe's precision on all such small points in Robinson Crusoe which makes that book so delightful to most children. M. du Chaillu seldom condescends to any particulars much more precise than that his adventures happened both in space and time,—which is a little indefinite. He does, indeed, discriminate between 1852 and 1856, and between "the interior" and "the coast of Africa," but this is not as definite as children would like. Even if there were a perfect map of Equatorial Africa, it would not be easy for any one to follow his track from the account of it he here gives to his young readers.

Though the book is called Stories of the Gorilla Country, the gorilla is scarcely the principal hero of them. M. du Chaillu chases gorillas unsuccessfully once, captures two infant gorillas, neither of which lives very long, and he or some one of his party shoots one fierce male gorilla, besides the mothers of the two infant gorillas which he takes alive. And that is all we see of the gorillas. Perhaps a more interesting part of his book than anything which concerns the gorilla is that concerning the bald-headed ape, nshiego mbouve, which weaves itself a sort of umbrella-shaped roof or conical thatch in the tree which it inhabits with its mate. These shelters look as if they were to protect the bald head of the creature from the weather. They are made of loose dead boughs of trees, interwoven with the living branches of the one they inhabit. The ape selects a tree with no low branches,—none within twenty feet of the ground,—in order pro- bably, to secure greater protection from serpents, and they choose isolated trees rather than those overhung by other trees. M. du Chaillu's first acquaintance with these umbrella-needing apes is rather painful to read of :—

"At length, just at dusk, we heard the loud peculiar hew, hew, hew,' which is the call of the male to his mate. I was glad to know I had not waited in vain; and looking up I saw a nshiego mbouvd sitting under his nest. His feet rested on the lower branch ; his head reached quite into the little dome of a roof; and his arm was clasped firmly about the tree trunk. This, I suppose, is the position in which they sleep. Soon after his mate came and ascended the tree. After gazing till I was tired, I saw that one of the animals showed signs of being alarmed. Had they smelt us ? had we made a noise that excited their suspicions? Anyhow, we raised our guns and fired through the gloom at the one that seemed asleep. I almost felt sorry for the unfortunate beast, which fell with a tremendous crash, and died without a struggle. The other uttered an awful shriek, and came down the tree with the utmost rapidity. I fired but missed the animal, and in leas time than I take to write it the poor creature had disappeared in the woods. . .

. Duringlhe night I could hear, now and then, in the distance, the piercing shriek of its mate, which no doubt was calling for the absent one. At last I fell asleep on my bed of leaves and grass, as pleased a man, perhaps, as any in the world. The next morning I examined the nshiego mbouvd. Okabi, pointing to the head, triumphantly exclaimed, 'See, Chaillie, is not the animal bald-headed? Did I not tell you the truth ?' So it was. The nshiego mbouvd was quite bald ; not a hair could be seen on the top of his head. He was a full-grown specimen, and measured three feet and eleven inches in height. His colour was intensely black, and the body was covered with short, rather blackish hair. On the logs the hair was of a dirty grey, mixed with black. On the shoulders and back the hair grew two or three inches long. This animal was old, and his hair was a little mixed with gray. The arms also, down to the wrists, were covered with long black hair. The hair is much thinner than on the gorilla, and is blacker, longer, and glossier."

On another occasion M. du Chaffin captured an infant ape of this kind with a white face, which his friends the negroes called his cousin. It was much more tamable than the young gorillas, and

grew quite a pet in the village where M. du Chaillu was then living, and the stories of little Tommy have something quite human about them :- "I had a kind of rude table made, on which my meals were served, in the open part of my house. This was too high for Tommy to see the dishes ; so he used to come in before I sat down, when all was ready, and climb up on the pole that supported the roof. From here he would attentively survey every dish on the table, and having determined what to have, he would descend and sit down at my side. If I did not imme- diately pay attention to him he would begin to howl, 'Hew ! hew ! hew !' louder and louder, till, for peace' sake, his wants were satisfied. Of course I could not tell what he had chosen for dinner of my different dishes, and would offer him first one, then another, till the right one came. If he received what he did not want ho would throw it down on the ground, with a little shriek of anger, and a stamp of his foot, and begin to howl, and this was repeated till he was served to his liking. In short he behaved very much like a spoiled child. If I pleased him quickly, he thanked me by a kind of gentle murmur, like hoohoo,' and would hold out his hand to shake mine. He knew perfectly how to shake hands. He was very fond of boiled messes, particularly boiled fish, and was constantly picking the bones he found lying about the village. He wanted always to taste of my coffee, and when Macondai

brought it would beg some of me in the most serious manner." " As the dry season came on it became colder, and Tommy began to wish for company when he slept, to keep him warm. The negroes would not have him for a companion, for he seemed too much like one of them- selves. I did not like to have him in bed with me. So poor Tommy was reduced to misery, as he seemed to think nobody would have him. But soon I found that he waited till everybody was fast asleep at night, and then crawled in softly next some of his black friends, and slept there till the earliest dawn. Then he would get up and get away undiscovered. At other times he felt too warm and comfortable to get up, and was caught-and beaten, but he always tried it again."

He lived, however, only five months,—refused his food one day, and died the next. The poor little chap was very fond of spirits, and once made himself quite drunk on brandy.

Let us add that the woodcuts illustrating M. du Chaillu's stories are numerous and very respectable. It is a capital book (and not an expensive one) for boys.

Miss Hering's "holiday story," which, she tells us, is her first appearance before the public, deserves to be still more popular. It is a slight thing, indeed, and is probably meant for children somewhat younger than M. du Chaillu's stories ; but it will be read with pleasure by many of much older years, for its admirable humour and spirit. Miss Hering is quite unknown to us except as the author of this little story, but we feel little doubt that it indicates a sort of talent that will gain greater success in much less humble fields. Florence Gordon is the heroine of the holiday story, of which a little Skye terrier, Garry, whom she finds lost in the streets in St. John's Wood, may be said to be the hero ;- but lively as the dog is, Florence, with her high spirits, childish self-will, mischievous vivacity, and cool equanimity, is still better ; while the sketch of the old maiden aunt, Miss Gordon, who carries about a surplus umbrella because her own has such an unfortunate habit of turning inside out, and who calls out hush ! when she is beginning to get sea-sick in an open boat, is the most truly humorous sketch in the book. If you only ponder well the significance and the immense unconscious humour of that hush, which is evidently addressed partly to the rebellious stomach within, and partly to the noisy party outside in order to express the good spinster's sense of the solemnity and critical im- portance of the occasion, the monosyllable is really worth a page of accurate delineation in itself :—

" 'I wish we could go home,' said aunt Laura ; 'I do not like going sideways out at sea like this ; besides, it is going most disagreeably fast, and Maude is getting as whits as possible.' 'So are you, aunt,' said Florence, cheerfully. -Let us go home,' said Trevor to Ronald. Oh what a pity,' said Ronald, just as she was beginning to go respectably ;' however, he perfectly agreed, under the circumstances, at once to turn. Aunt Laura and Maude, on hearing this welcome intelligence, made up their minds to make a valiant endeavour to retain their dignity until their return home. 'Maude, you do look so horridly green, said Florence, flatteringly. Maude attempted to smile but found the effort too much for her, so thought she had better give it up. Aunt Laura, why do you look so melancholy and hold the boat ? 'continued Florence. ' Hash! ' solemnly said aunt Laura, in a deep tone, a peculiar movement passing over her face. 'Don't bother, Flo,' said Trevor, attend to your dog, and ask him if be ever intends to leave off sneezing ? ' Florence darted an angry look at Trevor, and politely requested him not to bother, but to attend to his rudder.' 'Florence, do not be rude—take this dog away—he will give us all colds—hush! ' the peculiar movement again passing over aunt Laura's face as she said this."

As we said, Garry is but a slight holiday tale for children, but it is by a hand capable of much more elaborate things, and no one who gets it,—to say nothing of the spirited illustrations, in which the dog Garry is capitally though rather too humanly drawn, after Landseer's fashion of throwing- in a touch of man,—will fail to have a hearty laugh over most of its pages. As Miss Hering justly observes in the introduction, there is certainly no powder in the jam. The third book on our list, which will be fully appreciated by children of a still younger age than those who beat enjoy the two former, owes most of its special attractions to its illustrations. The first of the two tales it contains is not Mr. Mark Lemon's, but only translated and adapted by him from the German (we think of Muse*, and the latter half of the book, the story of "The Enchanted Doll," which is original, is, though not without a certain ingenuity and liveliness, by no means one of the very best even of modern fairy tales,—not at all equal, for instance, to Mr. Ruskin's "Black Brothers." Still, both Mr. Lemon's tales are good in themselves, though the latter hovers a little too closely on the skirts of edification,—the enchanted doll being a sort of miniature, in black ebony, of the fairy Malice, and growing in size in proportion as the doll-maker's evil nature grows in size. Both tales will certainly interest children, while many of the very admirable illustrations by Mr. Bennett and Mr. Richard Doyle will delight them. Mr. Bennett's, indeed, are rather too comic. The fairy tale illustrated has no intention of turning into ridicule the Baron whose daughters respectively marry the enchanted bear, the enchanted eagle, and the enchanted fish, and Mr. Bennett should not have even suggested to the childish imagination, as he certainly has done, that the Baron was a kind of embodied joke, a Miinchausen, whose history might, after all, be a pure figment. It is of the very essence of true fairy lore to be serious. Directly these 'great marvels are told without simplicity, earnestness, and good faith, they lose their charm. However, Mr. Bennett improves when he leaves the foes at origo nwlorum, the spendthrift paternal Baron, and enters on the adventures of the three sisters and their brother Rinaldo, the Son of Wonder. The picture of the princess in the eagle's eyrie letting down a silken ladder to Rinaldo, whose shadow, reflecting his attitude of eager expectation, is thrown on the rock at the bottom, is very good. The princess herself is certainly too childlike for a matron who has lived some twenty years with an enchanted eagle under circumstances, naturally, of great difficulty and anxiety, and it is a mistake to give us the eagle flying away in the distance, as the tale expressly insists on the infinite peril of any rencontre between the eagle and the prince. Still, the general concep- tion is good, as is that of the huge Dolphin who comes to swim round the Crystal Palace in which his wife is ensconced, while the princess's air of half-embarrassment and half-hauteur under the dolphin's examination, as if she were trying to carry off her secret by a little display of the suffering angel's proper pride, is excellent. Still more telling and effective are Mr. Richard Doyle's illustration to the Enchanted Doll. Nothing could be more lively than the Alderman's Christmas Eve supper (p. 162). Every figure is drawn with either a charming grotesque humour or a quaint touch of antique dignity that makes it a separate study, and the air of convivial enjoyment imparted to the whole will strike every child's eye in a moment. The pigmy archers of the fairy Malice, who are ordered to transfix Jacob Pout with their arrows, are very spirited and mischievous ; and the pigmy mechanics manufacturing the enchanted doll out of the block of ebony, are conceived with an intensity of purely executive energy,—you can see that they are all mere instruments, and have none of the strain or responsibility of crea- tive energy upon them,—that is most impressive. In fact, the illustrations to this pretty little book are almost all—except those of the Baron in the first story—of that quaint and grotesquely earnest kind which has a peculiar charm for children of the right sort.