An Artist in the Bog

The Gentle Savage. By Richard Wyndham. (Cassell. 12s. ad.)

THE Bahr-el-Ghazal, commonly called " The Bog," no longer exists as a province. Its administrative problems were too

much for it and it committed its hist unpardonable crime in, bogging a Governor-General who retaliated by amalgamating it with a sister province and calling the two 'Equateria. But, the river from which it was named still flows and overflows and the district, which witnessed the exploits of Emin, Gessi

and the ill-famed Alphonse de Malzae, is still one of the uri, healthiest, least known and most interesting in the- Anglo.;

Egyptian Sudan. The names of its people—Dinka, Bongo.' and Zande—and of its villages, Wau and Pannam-wier, Gogrial . and Tonj, have a magnetic attraction. At least they had for Mr. Wyndham, who was lucky enough to have a friend in those pares, a District Cominissioner luiown to the natives'

as Aginejok, and who claims to be the first tourist to have chosen the Bog for his summer holiday. After three month-s- he came back and wrote The Gentle Savage.

' He is an artful author; for he disarms in advance.

Some may consider it an impertinence to attempt to describ after so short a -visit, a •country in which others have lived and worked for many years, But I feel justified,-: inasmuch that Chinaman would certainly write a more entertaining account of ti:1 changing of the Guard than the Colonel commanding the Regiment I. admit that the Chinaman's account would be the less accuratO- and that he might well infuriate the adjutant by miscounting..

buttons. . . ." „ Indeed, if the reader would know the number of figurative buttons on the bosom of the Bog he must look elsewhere, and

Mr. Wyndham, who gives his references, tells him where to turn ; but The Gentle Savage provides an entertiiininent far

more rich and rare than any dependent solely upon facts and figures. • Again

some may accuse me of having been unnecessarily outspoken when describing the dances and sexual life of the natives... . Once. hunger has been satisfied,,the life of these natives revolves entirely round dancing combined With sex. To evade this fact would be to; p'ortray once again the straw gollywog depicted by Victorian

explorers." .

To my mind, Mr. Wyndham is not so right here. He is

certainly nequitted in advance of any attempt to shock or to obtain cheap publiCity "t- but it might' be more true to say that

once sex has been satisfied, the native, who can come by all he wants in that direction so easily, does not think of it again till next time. As for his dances,' obViously Of sexual deriva- tion in most cases, they are probably no more suggestive to him than is the latest ballroom step to the London debutante. Apart from this slightly controversial pOint the book is a pure joy. Equatorial Africa is a land of constantly changing and elusive beauty, of savage crudity blended with untram- melled and unstudied grace. AbOve all, the sun makes amends for its noon-tide cruelty by the .inarVellous effects of light and shade with which it glorifies the birth and death of day,

yielding first.. place for 'natio -only to the radiant- peace of equatorial night. All who have travelled or worked in Africa have been solaced and supported by these. things. Perhaps

they supply the key to the ability and readiness of . white men spend the best year§Of their life in incredibly uncom- fortable and unhealthy surroundings—an ability and readiness at which Mr. Wyndham marvelled. But to the senses of a trained artist their appeal is immeasurably greater, and when

the artist, as doeS Mr. Wyndham, combines artistic perception with the power to transmit his impressions' through the pages of a most charniingly: written book, we can only be devoutly thankful to him ind to the Bog which, " unnoticed, unwanted,