CURRENT LITERATURE.
GIFT-BOOKS.
On Either Side of the Red Sea. By "H. M. B.," "C. E. B.," and "T. B." With an Introduction and Footnotes by E. N. Buxton. (Edward Stanford.)—It is perhaps stretching a point to include this little volume in Christmas literature, but the simple style of the letterpress, and the beauty of the illustrations, make it an eminently suitable present for either a boy or a girl who is specially interested in the very different marvels of Egypt and of Sinai. The kodak has passed into a proverb—as a nuisance —but the young travellers, whose experiences in the form of extracts from their letters are here presented, found it very valuable, and so will the readers of this book, who will obtain here a far more effective realisation of regions which are no longer sacred from the globe-trotter, than is to be obtained in much more ambitious works. Mr. Buxton, from the letters written by whose daughters the book is compiled, makes very light, in his in- troduction, of their literary ambition. But the unconventionality of thoir remarks, as they note what they see, is very enter- taining, and recalls the works—or, to speak more accurately, the pleasures—of Miss North. Here is the description of a scene at the Convent of Mount Sinai :—" The entrance and courtyard were swarming with Russian pilgrims and Arabs loading their camels. Such a funny, frowsy lot the Russians were, and they looked out of place there. The stout old dames were the funniest—regular old market women, with very round Dutch faces, and handker- chiefs tied over their beads—each one shouldering her umbrella, with which she belaboured any refractory Arab who did not pack her camel according to her wishes." This is emphatically a book to be read and enjoyed—apart from the treasures revealed by the kodak—and not to be criticised.
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