20 MAY 1978, Page 16

The pigskin library

Sir: Simon Courtauld's remarks about explorers and the books they read (Notebook, 13 May) reminds me of Theodore Roosevelt's safari in the first years of the century. He took with him a 'pigskin library.' He, explained: 'Most of the books were bound in pigskin. They were carried in a light aluminium and oilcloth case which, with its contents, weighed a little less than 60 lbs,

making a load for one porter.'

The books included Fitzgerald's Omar Khayyam, Shakespeare (of course), Carlyle's Frederick the Great, Dante, Spenser, two Oliver Wendell Holmes, Browning, Mark Twain, Euripides, and no less than five books by Borrow. Celia Haddon 9 Maunsel Street, London SW1