A Trip to Prairie Land, by Francis Jameson Rowbotham (S.
Low and Co.), belongs to the wet-blanket order of literature. Mr. Row- botham's experiences of Dakota are unpleasantly suggestive of the doings, and still more of the sufferings, of Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley in the city of Eden. Mr. Rowbotham has hardly got out to the prairie, when (p. 67) be writes for the benefit of his friends in England :—" With reference to your coming out here to us, if my advice is wanted, I say without hesitation, Don't come. Don't throw up your situation and pay, to come here and face difficulties, hard- ships, and extremes of climate which I am convinced you would never like. It woald have been pleasant enough if things had turned out anything like what they were represented; but, on the contrary, the climate is far more severe and uncertain than I thought it would be. The living is dear beyond our worst expectations ; and, most important of all, capital is needed here, if anything substantial is to be realised." The 'details of the struggle on the prairie, with natural difficulties, human competition, mosquito persecution, and what not, are given unrelentingly. Here (p. 130) is an example of the general spirit of the book :—" We have had a lovely day—that is, if a blue sky and a blazing hot sun, with mos- quitoes, midges, and bluebottles ad lib., constitute such. Bat where are the trees, with their refreshing shade, the gurgling brook, with its sweet though watery music ? Nowhere in this 'green Sahara' are they to be found." Two more quotations—for this is a book to be quoted, not criticised—will show both its tenor and its purpose. " In England," says Mr. Rowbotham, "the poor man can find employment during the short period of winter ; but in Dakota he mast make up his mind to be without work for at least six months, if he contemplates wintering on the plains ; and, save in the larger towns, he will find scarcely any active em- ployment during the winter season." Finally, "oar advice to any one who contemplates emigrating to the North-West is not to attempt at first to start a farm with .auch capital as he may be possessed of, but to obtain employment on a well-established farm, and keep his money, until, by so doing, he shall have had time to look about him, and judge for himself of the country and its resources." Mr. Row- botham tells his story of his miseries in going to Dakota,-and the horrors of roughing it there, with a certain amount of humour, although in a somewhat too rollicking and slangy style. Bat his book is a transparently honest performance, and should be carefully read by all who are thinking of trying their fortune on the prairie.
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