7 JULY 1877, Page 22

CURRENT LITERATURE.

Seonee ; or, Camp Life on the Satpura Range. By Robert Armi- tage Sterndale. (Sampson Low and Co.)—Seonoe is a district, con- sisting mainly of hill country, somewhat less in size than Yorkshire, lying to the south of Jubbulpoor, to take the best-known name in the surrounding region. It is chiefly inhabited by a race of Conds, and its natural features make it an admirable sporting-ground. Sport is the chief, though not by any moans the only subject of Mr. Stormlale's volume, which is, we may as well say at once, one of the very best of its kind that we have over road. A slight thread of narrative joins

together a number of very vividly-described hunting adventures, inter- spersed with occasional sketches of scenery and manners. All is done -excellently well. Our sympathies are attracted at once to the two fanciful characters in the story, if story it may be called, Captain Ford- ham, an experienced soldier and sportsman, and the young subaltern. Ernest Milford, who shares most of his adventures. Very picturesque, too, are the occasional sketches of native hunters and so forth which occur, and the narratives of hunting, whether it be of the lordly tiger or of less famous boasts, aro exciting in a high degree. A deeper and more tragic interest is added in the latter part of the volume, whore we find ourselves among the scenes of the great Mutiny. An appendix supplies very judiciously selected information about the geography, the natural history, and the population, past and present, of the Seonee district. This is in every respect a volume worthy of praise. Few have such experiences to recount, fewer still have the art of telling them so admirably, and the industry which has put together the appendix, with its varied information, is a still rarer quality.