Colonial Maps and Drawings. (British Museum.)
ONE of the most agreeable by-products of "colonial month" in London is the display of old maps and drawings of the colonies which has beZn organised at the British Museum. Out of deference to Americans, Indians, Australians, Tangerians and others who have passed out of the colonial yoke, the exhibits are confined to the domains which still come under the Colonial Office, which has meant the sacrifice of much good material, but what remains is frequently exciting as well as instructive. No one has ever needed any pre- liminary training to enjoy the best early nineteenth-century aquatints, of which a number are here ; West Indian mountains rising out of the sea like fatal galleons, for example, and the tangled coast of West Africa stretching out under a sultry sky. More unusual are the sketches of the South Sandwich and New Hebrides Islands made by William Hodges, a pupil of Richard Wilson, who accompanied Captain Cook on some of his voyages as official artist to the expedi- tion. These are simple, delicate productions, less elaborate than those of his successor, John Webber, the Swiss, who later became an R.A. Both these were professionals, but in the exhibition as a whole amateurs, both cartographers and artists, manage to hold
their own well enough with the professionals. H.
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