ACROSS MANY SEAS.
Across Many Seas. By Alfred Kinnear. (Simpkin and Marshall. 6s.)—This is a book of stirring incident, worthy of a place by the bedside of a boy, to be taken up and devoured by him at day. break. The author had an overpowering passion for adventure. At the ripe age of three and a half he determined to enlist .as powder-monkey. His father designed him for the law, but as soon as he was old enough he shook off its trammels, and in the early " sixties " obtained an appointment on board the 'Great Eastern,' then the wonder of the world. When the ship reached New York he found himself in the midst of war and tumult, and tells most amusing stories of all he said and did in this, to him, congenial atmosphere, which he exchanged for blockade-running, an occupation still more to his taste Many were his hairbreadth escapes from sharks, raiders, hurricanes, A.c. On nearing Jamaica, "Any news, Pilot ?' the Captain sung out. 'Yes, Sare, niggers have riz and killed every white man except one, and he is black." The negro rebellion and the terrible reprisals of Governor Eyre were in full swing. At the end of 1866 our author was appointed a war correspondent. He made friends with Cetewayo, inter- viewed O'Donnell, the assassin of Carey, started off at a moment's notice to Cannes to obtain details of the Duke of Albany's death, paid a morning call on Arabi at Ceylon on his way to China, was kept in China a long time, and administered good advice to Li Hung Chang. We next find him in Russia, whither he was sent to record the dying moments of the Czar; then in 1896 in the dash on Kalamai, and taking a lcading part in the deposition of the drunken savage, King Prempeh. He earned the title of the "Champion of War,"—one who marches in front of the army and never gets killed. A march of eight days brought him to Cape Coast Castle, and three days later he set sail for England. Ile mentions that the ghost of "L. E. L." still haunts the castle In the early days of the last century she was a beautiful woman, well known in the best London society, and a distinguished poetess. Our author brings down his narrative to the Sonclan and the Boer War, and ends with the return of the • Prince land Princess of Wales from their successful visit to our Empire beyond the seas.
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