CURRENT LITERATURE.
Stirring Times under Canvas. By Captain J. Herford. (Bentley.) —It may, perhaps, be thought that the time is gone by when a mere narra- tive of personal experience or adventure during the Indian mutiny is likely to be acceptable or interesting to the general public. Those who are of this way of thinking will probably fail to see any adequate reason for the appearance of Captain Herford's volume, especially as that gentleman does not appear to have anything very particular to narrate. He sailed for China early in 1857 in the unfortunate Transit; and the few pages which are devoted to an account of the wreck of this wretched vessel are, perhaps, the most interesting part of his book. On reaching Singapore they were met by the news of the Sepoy mutiny ; and Captain Herford's regiment—the 90th Light Infantry—was despatched to India without a moment's delay. They arrived in time to take part in Lord Clyde's expedition for the relief of Lucknow ; and spent the next year or so in various operations in the country between that city and Cawnpore. Captain Herford represents the rebels as having shown uni- form cowardice on every occasion on which he was engaged with them; while, at the same time, he does justice to the coolness with which, when taken prisoners, they met their inevitable fate. This coolness rose to positive impudence in one instance, when the head man of the village of Dhondea-Keera, who was deeply implicated in the massacre which had been perpetrated at that place, observed, on being brought to the gallows, that " really hanging was too severe a punishment for merely killing a few Europeans." Captain Herford writes in an unaffected style, and his book, if not vary valuable, is at least tolerably readable and pleasant.
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