Some Books of the Week
THAT very wise book, Mr. Edwin Smith's Golden Stool, insists on a previous study of anthropology for any white administrator who is set over a non-European people. The triumphant career of Sir Harry Johnston vindicated the necessity times without number, and now Dr. Hose, in his Fifty Years of Romance and Research (Hutchinson, 80s.), tells how sympathy for and understanding of the beliefs and customs of primitive man brought him success in the jungles of Sarawak. Dr. Hose is indeed firmly of opinion " that all candidates for posts. under Government in non-European countries should possess a working knowledge of anthro- pology." That opinion is amply confirmed by this excellent book on the little-known region of Sarawak, in which the author, one of Rajah Brooke's officers, played the part of " a sort of connecting-link with primitive life and the ideas of modern times " in a country which was once the happy hunting-ground of Malay and Dayak pirates. Dr. Hose seems almost a born native administrator, and is besides a dis- tinguished naturalist. May one say too that the man who first pointed medical science towards the cure of beri-beri, and who discovered and aided in the development of the second largest oilfield in the British Empire, has indeed deserved well of the republic ? His book is a record of quiet adventure, of a fine personal courage and tact, and of a very special interest to the naturalist. One detail may be noted : let us be careful to call the great ape of Borneo the orang utan and not the orang utang ; else we shall be talking (Dr. Hose tells us) of " one who has an overdraft." This is a book to read—truly a
human document.
Previous page
