THE ADVANCE OF OUR WEST AFRICAN EMPIRE.
The Advance of Our West African Empire. By Captain Braithwaite Wallis. (T. Fisher Unvrin. 21s.)—This is a freshly written, and, as becomes a young soldier, full and particular, account of the Sierra Leone rising of 1898. The general public knew very little of the terrible scenes connected with that rising. Captain Wallis remarks on this, and explains his publication of the story by re- ferring to the suggestion made to him by a general officer that he should write an account of the fighting, as the public in the main are ignorant of the difficulties and struggles which campaigns in West Africa entail. Only those who have gone through them realise to what extent ,personal responsibility and private judgment are exercised. Captain Wallis very naively brings this all before us. Some of the details he might have spared us; they are not very nice reading, yet they have their value. He does make us under- stand what the savage is like, the real savage, and his simple narrative, with its atmosphere of the wonderful African scenery, the awful savagery, and the crudeness of the country, will suggest many thoughts to those who study the cost and end of Empires. The chapters on commerce, bush-fighting, super- stitions, and secret societies, especially the last, are not only ably written, but really contain sound advice. How many officers, he asks, follow the 'third of the eight points that should be ascertained by a young untried officer who finds himself in command of, say, a punitive expedition,—" Fighting capacity and probable numbers of the enemy " ? He always underrates the one and probably over- rates the other, as so many did in the late war. But any one who desires to read a fresh and frank history of the events of 1898 in Sierra Leone had better procure this book.
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