A PASSPORT ROUND THE WORLD By Charles H. Holmes
Presumably any Australian can obtain a passport to travel round the world, and, one imagines, almost any literate Australian could have written as good a book as this (Hutchinson, 12s. 6c1.) about his experiences. That perhaps is its chief merit ; it will save every other Australian world-tourist who takes the same route the trouble of keeping a diary. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes went by air from Brisbane to London, by sea to America, and home again across the Pacific to Australia. They saw what every other world tourist sees, and the author describes it all in time-honoured clichés. However, his facts are usually accurate if banal. For instance, " There are no Arabs in Tel Aviv." - Sometimes he exaggerates playfully for the sake of effect, especially in his chapter on Lon- don. We don't all call an umbrella a " brolly," nor always carry it rolled in the rain, and the statement that the Eng-
lish have " a positive distaste for altering things " is, as a glance at London's squares would show him, only too un- true.
Previous page
