The Land of the Sun. By Lieutenant C. R. Low,
(Hodder and Stoughton.)—Lioutenant Low, whose name is well known to all readers of the periodicals which delight our boys, gives us here some spirited narratives having references to sundry places in or about the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the parts adjacent. The author served in the Indian Navy, when there was an Indian Navy, and had opportunities of acquiring knowledge, more than can be got by the passing glance of the ordinary traveller, of the places and events which he describes. The sketches of Aden, Perim, the Andaman Islands, and Bussorah are among the more interesting chapters of a book which is throughout very readable, though it has something of "juvenility" in its tone which older readers hardly find to their taste. Nor is the book one in- tended merely to amuse. The politics of regions which lie so close to
our highway to India can never be a matter of indifference, and the author, without making any pretensions to peculiar insight or knowledge of these matters, has certainly the advantage of having spent as much time in these regions as any other Englishman is likely to have done. There are some noteworthy remarks on p. 118 about the slave trade. Lieutenant Low declares the Sultan of Zanzibar to be deeply implicated in the traffic, and very properly asks why he, being, as he is, within easy reach of British power, should be allowed to do so without molestation. It seems certain that the traffic has been gradually transferred from the West Coast of Africa th the Red Sea and the Nile, and it will be our business to consider what should be done.
Previous page
