AFTER EVEREST • By T. Howard Somervell
The interest of thi:s book (Hodder and Stoughton, 18s.) lies mainly, in its revelation of a charming personality. Mountaineering,' for Mr. Somervell, is, as it should be, a magnificent recreation but not a religion, and the greater part of his book is concerned with his ex- periences as a medical missionary in India. The writing is sometimes new' e, and too often Mr. Somervell falls into the obvious cliche, but the reader is neiertheless compelled to sympathise with the- author's ideals, which are always temperately and moderately stated. From his earliest schooldays it was his ambition to become a surgeon, and his years at Cambridge, though they destroyed and recreated: his reli- gious 'faith, aid nothing to change that aim. -The -War came before he was qualified. He accepted advice, took his final examinations, and served in France with a Casualty Clearing station: he gives a grim and vivid chapter to that experience. After the War, he took to guideless climbing, and in 1922 and 1924 he was with the parties on Everest In 1923, with money he had earned by lecturing, he equipped a hospital at Neyyoor in South India, and with brief intervals he has worked
there ever since. His chapters on Indian life and thought are written without political or sectarian bias, an they are worth studying by anyone interested in British responsibilities in India.
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