" MARTELLO TOWER" IN CHINA AND THE PACIFIC.
"Martell° Tower" in China and the Pacific. By Francis Martin Norman. (George Allen. 102. 6d.)—Commander Norman will certainly not injure the reputation he made through his fascinating and piquant "At School and at Sea" by this useful and lively book, which is a record of the commission on the China and Pacific Stations of H.M.S. 'Tribune,' of thirty-one guns, a typical wooden screw frigate belonging to the transitional period of our Navy, in which both the outgoing reign of sail and the incoming reign of steam were represented. The special chapters on China cover a period of about nineteen months during the war of ' 1856-58 (including the occupation of Canton), which immediately resulted from the lorcha ' Arrow ' incident, and was finally con- cluded by the treaty ratified at Pekin in 1860. The book also tells of a visit to Manila and Japan, and gives reminiscences of Vancouver's Island in 1859-60. Commander Norman, even although, of course, he is not quite the midshipman in tempera- ment that he was in his former book, is still most vivacious. He is equally at home in describing the extraordinary birds he saw in Magellan's Straits off the shores of Patagonia., in giving details of theatricals on board the' Tribune,' in supplying a key to the mysteries of " pidgin " English, and in sketching the boat actions in which he was engaged in China. He is full of animal spirits, and yet he can moralise with vigour, as when he laments the deterioration of the native Patagonians as a consequence of their imbibing bad liquor, and calls for "drastic" action. There is not a dull or uninforming page in the whole of this volume.
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