23 JANUARY 1897, Page 24

The Afrilcander. By E. Clairmonte. (T. Fisher 17nwin.)—Mr. Clairmonte found

that doing the chief work on a farm without pay was not interesting, and started to look out for something more remunerative. He fell in with an officer who was buying horses for Government, and was employed by him at 16s. 6d. a day. (At this time he was seventeen.) His next employment was to take charge of a convoy of waggons. It was the time of the Cetewayo war. The war ended, he took service as sub- manager of an ostrich-farm. The next thing was to volunteer as a substitute for a friend who had been called out to serve in the Basuto War. But we need not follow the story any further. It is a "plain tale," as the writer says, but with no little interest in it. Whether there is a setting of fiction we cannot be sure. The " substitute " business has a look of it, but may be true nevertheless.