/slam Lands. By M. M. Shoemaker. (G. P. Putnam's Sons.
12s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Shoemaker is most readable when he talks about the Sudan. He is very frank and a great gossip in a cosmopolitan fashion. Slatin Pasha amuses him and interests him, and he discusses the vicissitudes of the Austrian with a lack of reticence that reveals his own nationality. Incidentally he paints Islam as it is, and very black is the hue Mohammedanism takes on in the Sudan. Oriental gossip is another force he indicates with some happy touches. English rule, the struggle with the mosquito, Gordon, the changelessness of the East, all these he writes upon with ease and yet with no uncertain touch. In Tunis he gives us a delightful sketch of Karawiin, one of the holiest of Moslem cities. Not the least charm about this book is the pause the author makes now and again to think out, and to make us think out, the problem of Islam and its contact with Western religions.
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