30 JUNE 1894, Page 10

I Fair Colonist. By Ernest Glanville. (Chatto and Windus.) —That

two young English girls, with a small capital and a taste for an independent life, should think of emigrating to South Africa and cultivating a fruit farm, does not sound very probable ; but in the fiction of adventure, strict adherence to probability is not among the number of the cardinal virtues, and on the founda- tion of this new narrative idea Mr. Glanville has erected a pleasant structure of stirring story. The interest of a book of this kind depends largely upon the fertility of invention and felicity of treatment displayed in the handling of striking episodes and situations, and in this matter the author shows himself a capital workman. The fight between Amos Fitkin and the leopard in an early chapter is admirably described, and some of the later scenes are of still more thrilling interest. A. Fair Colonist is, in short, an excellent story of its kind ; but we wish Mr. Glanville had omitted the sickening chapter entitled "The Flogging of 17mfaas." It is simply ghastly.