CURRENT LITERATURE.
GIFT-BOOKS.
Memoirs of an Arabian Princess. (Ward and Downey.)—There is a very agreeable air of reality in this hook which renders it of little or no consequence whether it is based on actual experiences, or on knowledge that has been "got-up" as carefully as Moore "got-up" the materials for his " Lolls Rookb." It is the story of a Princess born in the island of Zanzibar, whose mother, as she tells us almost too realistically, was " a Circassian by birth, who in early youth had been torn away from her home," while her "father had only one Home (plural, Harino), or legitimate wife, in my time, as far as I recollect ; his other wives, or Saran (singular, Saris), numbering seventy-five at his death, had all b'en purchased by him gradually, and the former, his first wife, Azze Mat Saf, a Princess of Om Art by birth, reigned as absolute mistress over the household." What encourages a reader in the belief that the information these Memoirs supply has been obtained by careful study is the self-consciousness of the auto- biographer. She is found, every second page, explaining how Arabs differ from Europeans, or how Europeans are mistaken in holding this, that, or the other view of some aspect of Arab life. Take, for
example An Arab never thinks of making plane for the morrow, as he may expect to be called away any day. He never plants but that which he can reap himself ; and he considers him who acts otherwise to be ' like the rich man who set up greater barns.' (Luke xii.) " This looks rather like the language of a missionary who has lived among Arabs, than of an Arab herself. Nevertheless, the book is a series of very carefully finished pictures of Arabian interiors, or rather of interiors in the life of an Arabian Princess who travels a considerable distance from her native Zanzibar, but whose heart always remains there.
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