Mainly About Morocco
Algerian Adventure. By Joy Collier. (Allen and Unwin. zss.)
THE joy of alliteration seems to have inspired the title of this book, for it deals almost entirely with Morocco, Algeria only entering at the tail end. But it is none the worse for that: Morocco was, and is, the better place. It was written shortly before the war and the author is one of two English girls who set out on a trip only mildly adventurous now-a-days, though it would have *been an impossible one twenty years ago before the French had completed
the pioneer task which made Barbary, for the tourist, an out-date name.
These young Englishwomen were ill provided with funds, but b staying at second-rate hotels (which they found, on the whole, t be almost as comfortable as the more expensive ones, and muc more entertaining) and travelling with the natives, they manage to make an unusually wide itinerary, finding themselves at tim well off the beaten track. This method of progression, of cours makes for closer study of people and places, and one only regret that they were not acquainted with either the Arabic or the Berb language. It is disconcerting to find the natives usually described a either " gabbling " or " jabbering." On page 548 there occurs extraordinary phrase " la marriage c'est fait," but on the whole di French quotations suggest that the writer is well acquainted wi the spoken language.
This book is, as the author admits, light fare, though the t is well written and diverting. It thus makes, if 1 may say so, a suit able present for the general reader of taste, and it is calculated inspire a desire to visit Barbary—which is all to the good, for lif in Barbary is utterly different still from anything else to be foun at such comparatively close range.
The author is also an artist of distinction and her drawings, her• reproduced, are excellent, showing both acuity of observation and high standard of workmanship despite difficulties arising, in som cases, from the Moslem religious objection to sitting for pot traits. There are also a large number of interesting photograph I feel that, having thus taken her soundings, Joy Collier shou revisit Barbary after the war and give us a more serious study
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