Ends of the Earth
k(411:RT SOUTHEY is a writer whose reputation has become somewhat dimmed in the last 150 years, 11(1 it is not likely to get any brighter. However, In his Portuguese and French Journals (O.U.P., 4S5.) he appears as a more interesting personality than he does in his generally tiresome poetry. for two unpublished journals are now edited or the first time by Dr. Adolfo Cabral, and are supplemented by extracts from Southey's corre- sPundence, published and unpublished. The first 1.0urnal was kept by Southey on a visit to Portugal In 1800-1. He stayed in Lisbon and travelled widely in other parts of the country, making notes of everything that interested him. Mostly he manifested the distaste of the Englishman for the teneral beastliness of Southern Europeans, in a Way that curiously anticipates parts of I Like it (-fere. He grumbled incessantly (and quite justifi- ably, it seems) about the universal dirt, the bad- ness of the inns, the cost of bread, and the in- iliciencY and oppressiveness of the government. h,"e house was clean, but the beast people had ti. a large dead dog to rot opposite the door, and ePoisoned the air.' Nevertheless, Southey seems 's(t) have been sufficiently attracted by Portugal to 4114 the language and history. The second journal . a Work of Southey's last years, the record of a visit to France in 1838. n Istanbul is a city which has greatly interested the age of eight onwards,' writes Mr. ofs Cuddon, the unremittingly urbane author the
Owl's Watchsong (Barrie and Rockcliff,
c,, study of Istanbul. Though he modestly c'selainis expert knowledge, it is obvious that Mr. wfaiclidon knows the city intimately, and is equally 0.7 acquainted with the work of practically N4e,.2°, ne who has written about it since the Ages. Not that he restricts himself to leciaabul: he has made his book a repository for `eciens on a great many other subjects. His te?tial reading is extensive, and his pages are ssellated with quotations from Virgil and Taci- Lees, Chaucer and Walter Hilton, Alen and 4 i°Pardi, Richard Wilbur and Allen Tate. It is learibute to Mr. Cuddon's literary ability that this raed digressiveness is not a mere bore: he obe!Ids a certain aristocratic disdain with keen oirs,ebt:atioll, and he has a delicate feeling for i.,at events, as in his accounts of being struck w'aiiI8htning whilst wheeling a bicycle outside the ira4 of Istanbul, of rescuing a mouse from or c clolY to find it had died from heart-failure, deb: visiting a striptease show where a man fell the n In an epileptic fit to the total distraction of for audience. Most modern travel books are a str11,1.°f higher journalism; Mr. Cuddon, who is "1st and a wit, Iglu written tten a work of literature.
Turkey (Thames and Hudson, 70s.) is a splendid collection of photographs of ancient and modern Turkey, taken by Yan, with a text by Robert Mantran and an introduction by Lord Kinross.
Professor Joseph Jones, of the University of Texas, recently spent a year in New Zealand. As a result of his stay there he was able to write The Cradle of Erewhon (University of Texas Press, $4), a study of Samuel Butler's period in New Zealand during the early 1860s. He draws a fascinating picture of Butler leading a hard but not desperately uncomfortable life, leaving his sheep farm for frequent visits to the Christchurch Club, making contact with other colonial intel- lectuals, engaging in controversies about Darwin in the local newspaper, and all the time absorb- ing experiences that were later to be precipitated in Erewhon. As Professor Jones shows, the open- ing chapters of that book reflect closely some of Butler's explorations in the Southern Alps, while various aspects of Erewhonian society are evi- dently related to Maori life and customs. The Cradle of Erewhon is a genuine contribution to knowledge, equally absorbing as a piece of literary biography and as an account of Christ- church society in the Sixties, where a transplanted Victorianism was combined with a vigorous pioneering spirit. Those who are primarily in- terested in New Zealand will also want to read Early Travellers in New Zealand (O.U.P., 63s.), a bulky collection of journals by the explorers, mis- sionaries and prospectors who opened up the country in the Forties, Fifties and Sixties, edited by Nancy M. Taylor. If New Zealand is to de- velop a frontier mythology akin to the American, here is an invaluable source of material.
Mr. Desmond Fennell is a cosmopolitan Irish- man employed by the German radio who, in 1957, made a leisurely trip to the Far East. Mainly in Wonder (Hutchinson, 21s.) is a random, rather banal, collection of notes made in Yugoslavia, India, Malaya, Japan and elsewhere. He seems to have enjoyed himself, and communicates some- thing of the pleasure he found in visiting new places and talking to new people. Above all, he never forgot he was an Irishman, though in places he had to explain what an Irishman was. Mr. Nigel Heseltine has a passion for the Sahara, and his From Libyan Sands to Chad (Museum Press, 27s. 6d.) tells of a journey by jeep and Land-Rover right across the desert from north to south. He lightly describes the various obstacles on the way—mountains as well as sand—and has some nice accounts of native life and the French military, plus a useful modicum of historical information. Vigorous stuff, and very literally off the beaten track.
Mr. Hammond Innes is a professional writer of extravert adventure stories who travels inces- santly in search of material. Harvest of Journeys (Collins, I8s.) is the record of a number of trips he has made throughout the world in the last few years. He writes with superb precision, and everything he touches on is vividly rendered: a whaling ship in the Antarctic, the iron-ore rail- way in the heart of Labrador, a visit to the Soviet frontier in the far north of Norway, an interview with El Glaoui in Morocco. Perhaps his most memorable account is of the strangely ana- chronistic world of the Aden Protectorate, where native troops under harassed British officers are (or were) incessantly engaged in fighting off raiders from across the Yemen border. It was there that Mr. Innes managed to meet the mys- terious Buchanesque figure of Colonel Boustead, successfully persuading the native rulers to keep the peace. Just the book for the worried urban intellectual.
BERNARD BEIWONZ1
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