OTHER COUNTRIES.* Jr is not easy to characterise this work,

or to say whether it is a book of travels, of history, of philosophical reflection, or of facetious xemark. It combines all these ingredients thrown together in an odd heterogeneous mixture that recalls the " crudities " of more ancient British travellers. For the author has travelled—over immense spaces too—and if he is a little affected in his manner, his observation is minute and the information he conveys is worth .having. His drawings, some of them comic, and set forth with the text, are excellent. But his manner is certainly odd. What does the reader think of the following passage, interlarded in an .account of the drive from Nagpore to Jubulpore, during which zome wigwams come into view?—

"'You stop me. You tell me you don't know what a wigwam is. You tell me you don't understand how these wretched savages live. Ah, • Other Countries. By Major William Morrison Bell. With Maps and Illw3tratIons. 2 vola London; Chapman and Hall. 1872. Theassia how can I explain it? Let me see ; to-day is Sunday. Borrow the dear duchess's carriage and come with me. I fear I can't ask you to drive farther than to Stewart's Terrace, Corunna Road. We must stop there. Henry will let us out, and you and I will leave the carriage and pass but a very few paces on to Battersea Fields. Taere, my dear cousin, you will see a wigwam. Yes, in this nineteenth century of the Christian era, you will find your fellow-creatures living in wig- wams worse than those of the horrid savages,' 415c., &a."

In another place, the traveller on leaving Cawnpore for Lucknow bethinks him of a cousin whom he ought to have met at the station,

but did not. This reminds him of a Swiss girl travelling in a train with him from Folkestone to Charing Cross. She spoke no English, and seemed friendless, yet expected that a cousin "from Vardoor Stree," whom she had not seen for years, not since he was a boy, would meet her at the station, and would reveal him- self by holding up his umbrella. Truly enough the umbrella was held up, and our traveller prevented from doing.a kind and gallant action. Puerilities of this kind would make very poor padding for a book of travels did they not reveal the genial, honest, nature of the writer, and bring the reader into a certain degree of intimacy with him. In personal adventure the book is not rich. Little things in the manners and customs of the people he comes across are noted with a fidelity that makes them new and instruc- tive to the fireside traveller. Here and there, too, he displays a certain poetical gift of description. He is a great " tubber " and bather, and one morning when in lovely Cashmere, he says, "It is so early we catch nature at the bath, and find her bosom studded with glittering drops of dew." The sight of the match- less white marble Taj built at Agra by Shah Jehan in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, quite inspires our Major :—

" I want to tell you of the exquisite effect that its conception, its de- sign, its execution, its proportion yield. As the soft glittering light— seen either by sun or moon—thrown from it steals over you, you think you see the bride whose memory it hallows. A sort of mystic ethereal beauty girds it, and the eye rests on its perfect proportions with a sense of relief and repose. Nor is the eye only charmed ; but standing 'mid the flowering shrubs of the garden, the orange, the myrtle, resting in their shadow, the sense of smell is delighted, and the ear accepts the scream of the green parrot and the coo of the dove gratefully. Alto- gether I consider the Taj as the most beautiful thing in the world."

It is quite refreshing, in these days of cold and carping criticism, to find anyone so enthusiastic as this over an object of artistic beauty. By way of enhancing the interest of his travels, Major Bell read up the history of the countries he visited, and every now and then he gives his readers the benefit of his lucubrations. He speaks of the five religions reigning over Asia and North Africa, and gives the statistics of them numbering -the Christians all over the world,—Hindoos, 120,000,000; Buddhists, 483,000,000; Parsees, 1,000,000; Moham- medans, 120,000,000; and Christians, 353,000,000. To complete the tale of human beings on the earth's surface, the author adds 8,000,000 Jews and 189,000,000 savages. His reflections upon this table are worth quoting :—" A world thousands of years old, millions upon millions of souls alive, dead, and still to be; a centre of faith upon which the world has turned until now, and to its

dissolution Yet there are now 921,000,000 non-Christians, to 350,000,000 Christians in the world. Why ?" He answers his own question in a foot-note thus :—" So long as the vast wilderness of the imperfect nature of man—moral or mental— remains as it is, which divine laws, working by physical causes, at present render a necessity, so long must human inhabitants of a type suitable continue to exist." The reader will perceive from these indications that the Major does think for himself. He travelled through Hindostan right up into Cashmere and the snowy region beyond, getting, after considerable hardships, as far as Arendo, in the heart of the Himalayas. It is curious to read of the travellers crossing the river at Shigar on a mussick raft constructed like those antique Assyrian conveyances sculptured on stone in the British Museum. The bodies of twenty-four sheep, with their heads cut off, were inflated and attached to a light raft, which was floated across the stream in four minutes. A primitive mode of smoking tobacco is also worth noticing. "A little mound of sand bored through with a stick, the tobacco at one end, your month at the other, and what more do you want?" At Sreenugger, the capital of Cashmere, the travellers were surprised by a sudden and destructive flood, which is well described. Major Bell saw Shere Ali and his reception at Umballa by Lord Mayo. The Afghan ruler, though so very polite to the Viceroy, made caustic asides on occasions, as, " Ah, I see you only let your ugly women be seen!" and after asking which was the best kind of gun, "Ah, then, I see you have given me the worst!"

Of another eminent chieftain, Rhunbheer Singh, the Maharajah of Jumnroo and Cashmere, the following whimsical record is made. He is the son of Golab Singh, who bought Cashmere of the British in 1846 for seventy-five lace. Reputed to be the richest man in the world, Rhunbheer, it is said :— " Figures himself as a piece of meat in a sandwich ; he is not sure If be will first be eaten by Russia or by England. Not long ago he stopped all fishing in his rivers and lakes, and nothing would induce him to rescind the order until peremptory hints from the British Govern- ment advised him so to do. His people were starving. What mattered that ? Was not Golab Singh, his father, dead ? Hadn't he afterwards turned into a bee, and hadn't a fish in some sportive and unwary moment swallowed the bee that swallowed the spirit of Golab ? Possibly—and 0 fates defend !—some unbelieving dog might swallow the fish that swallowed the bee that swallowed the spirit of Golab ! So no one must fish. And yet what a handsome man Rhunbbeer is, intellectual too withal ; bats Hindoo of the strictest caste, and under the thumb of his priests."

lir Quitting India, in October, 1869, Major Bell steamed away to Australia. Not the least useful among the minute scraps of in- formation that he offers his readers is the cost of his expeditions. 1300 covered his expenses from Bombay 'to the heart of the Himalayas, and thence to Calcutta. From Sydney to Brisbane, a distance of 510 miles, he sails—there and back—for £10. The approach to Australia draws from the Major the following pithy exhortation, which arose "because we carried out the final order to remove our troops from New Zealand ":— " If it had not been for the sou'-east 'trades' I was going to have said something here. I was going to have said to every budding statesman, if you want to flower, travel. You may go away a fool and you may come back a fool, but you won't come back the same fool. You may misjudge, but you are less likely to do so after you have seen than when you only hear."

in the same quaint, racy, not to say flippant tone does the gallant Major treat of things he sees and smells and hears in many parts of the world. From Australia he goes to China, thence to Japan, then on to San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Chicago, Niagara, Montreal, New York, and so at last home again. Everywhere he picks up and records useful information, and his original style of writing makes his book very amusing. He studies the countries be visits as thoroughly as he can, and is not without keenness in matters political, however oddly he may express himself. Speak- ing of the Mikado's recovery of active power in Japan through the promulgation of a dogma that asserts his divine origin and his right to religious obedience, he says :—" I fear me that there are troublesome days in store for the Mikado. When people will believe a lie they are easily ruled, bat when they won't if Humpty-Dumpty had not been on the wall when he fell, perhaps all the King's horses could have put him up again.

It was the wall that did it. Still the Mikado starts with a tremendous prescriptive right, and I wish him well. lf, if only he can judge how to rule wisely. But can he ? In my note-book, on May 11, 1870, I see a rough entry, "Change of coinage will probably cause distress." In the Globe of May 8, 1871, I read, "Serious disturbances, says the Pattie, have taken

place in Japan. The Central Government, having resolved to destroy a large quantity of paper money without issuing the corresponding value Insurrection City burnt.

Troops defeated, &c., &c." Again, the Mikado's recognition of the Shiogoon's Daitnios as nobles of his own creation is illustrated in the following queer fashion :—" The Mikado recognised the Shiogoon's nobles as his own, much in the same way that the Queen did the medals which (I was told) not long ago Sir George Bowen gave for New Zealand service. 'Medals V said her gracious Majesty. 'You give medals ! It's absurd ; you can't. Neverthe- less, as you have given them, I will ; and you may tell the reci- pients they are from me."

The great fact impressed upon Major Bell's mind by his visit to North America is that he likes the Americans and that the Ameri- cans like us. This he reiterates with an amusing pertinacity, as if he were enunciating a very unfashionable and unpalatable truth,—" I like the Americans, and I will keep on saying it as long as I choose.

What is more, they like us." He admits that they are thin- skinned, and that where sensitiveness and a sense of' power are commingled, the two opposing sentiments will resolve themselves into acts opposed to calm and impartial common-sense. The Alabama difference he qualifies as a statesman's, a newspaper's quarrel, involving the country against its will and better judgment. We are in the main disposed to scree with him, believing further that the same might be predicated of the majority of international differences in modern times. A visit to the Yosemite, in Tuolumne county, California, calls forth the Major's powers of vivid descrip- tion. An isolated granite rock that in rough measure is twelve miles long, two broad, and one high, may well defy comparison with all other striking bits of scenery in the world. The

chapters on Salt Lake City are as entertaining as any in the book. A visit to Brigham Young and sermons from Mr. Austin Pratt and Mr. Lyman are neatly touched off, giving upon the whole a favourable impression of the Mormons as industrious settlers and decent livers. " Bachelors and maids in heaven," said Mr. Candland, the largest store-keeper in Salt Lake City, "will act as servants to married people, I think ;" and he was not joking. A solemn lesson this to London clubmen. Our author draws a contrast between Canada and the United States that may satisfy the pride of both countries. The former has super-eminently what he calls the vis inertial of progress, of stability, of wealth, of means equal to the need, of comfort. The Americans are very fond of doing things "right away,"—too fond, in the opinion of Canadians, one of whom said, "If we want any- thing done, we go about it steadily, we take time, we do it thoroughly ; we benefit others whilst accomplishing the work, and ourselves when it is accomplished. We gain two objects, and our country prospers." Major Bell says that climate has much to do with the difference between the two countries, permitting the United States to be showy, effective, and progressive, while it compels Canada to seek the comfortable,—a remark not without force.

Canada complains of the high protective duties of the States, which cripples her commerce, but "as far as our institutions go," they say "we are more free and independent than the Americans themselves, and if they try to annex us by force, we will fight." The people of the States have no intention of fighting, believing, as they do, that the Canadians will in due time awake from their delusions and ask to be annexed. "Thank you for nothing" is the Canadian return sentiment. As regards the Fenians, the opinion held of them by Americans and Canadians is summed up in their button, on which is engraved "I. R. A.," "Irish Republican Army," but which is read, "1 ran away."

The effect of Niagara, the falls, the river above and below, upon the susceptible imagination of the Major is briefly, but pleasantly delineated, common-place being skilfully avoided.

We have said enough, we trust, of this very original book to make our readers desire a closer acquaintance with it. One more specimen to show the art of the author in ending his work abruptly without an anti-climax. "There was once a gallop written. In its notes you saw the whole of a cavalry regiment ; in them dashed into battle the colonel ; the cornet's blast sounded in your ears; you trotted, and galloped, and charged; then you halted. But there was a flourish of music after the halt. " Very pretty," said I, "only it is wrong ; for, after you have stopped your gallop, you have no right to flourish." " Oh ! that's for the harmony," was the answer. "Never mind the harmony," I continued ; "we want facts. Take away the flourish, and put the halt in amongst the charge as it would sound in reality ; then you will have a perfect gallop." Very well. Away went the flourish, and from out a chorus of notes in full charge there rang out the command, "Sound the halt ! " Thus pithily ends the Major's book.