Lost Sir Brian. By Fred Whishaw. (Wells Gardner, Dalton, and
Co. 3s. 6d.)—This is a very good story of its kind. Brian's father is killed by a Kaffir who runs "amok" after being cruelly beaten by a Boer farmer. The child grows up first in a native hut, afterwards in a Boer household. It will be understood how useful he comes to be as a scout when the long-standing quarrel of Briton and Boer grows into a war. So we have some chapters of stirring adventure. Mingled with this there is a pretty love- story. And there is the added interest of the heirship to a title and estates. Altogether, this is a story that can be recom- mended without reserve.—In The Disputed VIC., by Frederick P. Gibbon (Blackie and Son, 5s.), we are taken to another "happy hunting-ground" of the tale-writer. It is "a story of the Indian Mutiny." Mr. Gibbon draws freely on history for his materials, and uses what he thus requisitions very well. He lets us see, too, various persons of renown, Lord Clyde, for Instance, John Nicholson, and a promising young Lieutenant of the name of Roberts. Perhaps it might have been as well, all things considered, not to have discussed at all the ease of Hodson of Hodson's Horse. It is too serious a matter for a casual notice of this kind. But the story is a good one, told with force and without verbiage.—Yet another semi-historical tale is In the Land of Ju-Ju, by Robert Leighton (Andrew Melrose, 6s.) Mr. Leighton begins by telling us how much he has taken from history, an excellent plan wherever it can be worked out. His story is built on that of the Benin massacre (when the Sultan of Benin fell on a peaceful Embassy), and of the punitive expedition which followed it. Our tale-writers have only too great a choice of such materials. Mr. Leighton has a hand well practised in these subjects, and always writes what British lads may read with pleasure and profit.
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