UNCONDULL ED WANDERERS.* Orra moral of this gay, happy-hearted, and
spontaneously amusing travel book is that a oouple of young and very prepossessing women (assuming that " Undine " also was as attractive as the photograph of Miss Forbes which decorates this volume) may fare anywhere unchaperoned and uncouriered, to New Guinea huts, Kaffir kraals, or Chinese mansions, if they respeet themselVes and possess a sense of humour Miss Forbes's fun is not dependent upon a good memory for quaint anecdote ; but this story is quotable :—
" A would-be Papuan Christian arrived one day at the house of a Roman Catholic priest, and said he wished to be baptized. The priest consented, as the boy had attended a mission school, but decided on christening hum to substitute Patrick ' for Snowball.' The boy was told that his name was now Pat, and that he must not eat meat on Fridays. The very next Friday the priest found him devouring a• large piece of kangaroo. ' Oh, Pat, don't you know that this is Friday, and I told you to eat
only fish on that day ? Me no eat meat. Me eat fish,' said the former Snowball,' eagerly. But I can see it is meat. It is very wrong of you to tell lies.'—' But this no meat,' insisted Patrick. ' I put him in the water and I christen him fish.'
The wayfarers attended a wedding feast in the island of Savai, which-is near Apia, but wholly unspoilt by the feet of tourists in
ordinary :—
``What a night ! We were notallowed to creep behind the tapa cloth and sleep on the yielding mats till we, too, had danced. In breeches and stockings, hair flying, Undine and I danced reels and Irish jigs to a highly interested audience, who caught the tune with wonderful quickness and beat it accurately for us on the mats. The crowning touch was when the bridegroom of to-morrow crept up to Undine, and murmuring that she would make. lm excellent Taupa, suggestedthat his own house was exactly opposite, and it is quite dark.' " They found aChinese dinner of ceremony rather fatiguing. They started with green tea and soup, but during the next thirty-two courses had nothing to drink at all. At the end, when human endurance had been rudely strained by sharks' fms, pulpy birds'-nest jelly, grey fungus, black eggs, oily roast duck-skin, and indescribable sticky sweets, five more courses were suddenly placed on the table at the same time ; but luckily green tea came with them :
" The whole time during dinner a noisy band clashed and clanged in an adjoining room, and a few painted singing girls wailed in high nasal tones behind our chairs. I have never understood the social position of these girls, for every householder seems to possess several in addition to one or more wives. I remember a lovely Chinese lady, who looked like a piece of Dresden china in fancy dress, remarking placidly one day, You see my mother used always to choose my father's concubines for him, he was so very lazy.' "
Miss Forbes is a close and keen observer of Nature, and especially of human nature. She never permits herself to be dull; and the reader of this entertaining volume will happen
upon very few pages which he can afford to skip.
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