Old Tracks in New Landmarks : Wayside Sketches in Crete,
Macedonia, Mitylene, 4-c. By M. A. Walker. (Bentley and Son. 14s.) — This series of "wayside sketches," illustrated by a drawing here and there, will best please persons who know the places referred to. They will be appreciated according to time rules which govern our interest in turning over any traveller's portfolio. As sketches, they are good: prettily and vividly written. In the preface Sir Donald Wallace says "they are very carefully drawn little pictures." Some have a special interest in the fact that the tracks are old. Ranging over a period of forty years, they give ideas of localities before wars and devastations had changed even the "unchanging East," and we can well imagine that the author must have enjoyed selecting from her memories those which appeared to her to best illustrate a lady's life in the Turkish Empire. Here are two stories of the Greek domestic. "Oh! what have you done ?" exclaimed my friend Madame F. in dismay ; "you have broken my vase, my beautiful vase ; it is ruined,— I can never replace it."—" Madame," replied Nicodemus calmly, "do not distress yourself; the harm is not so great, for I have only broken one half of it, the other half is all right." Mr. F. directed that the remainder of a bottle of rare wine should be put aside, and was astonished to see a full bottle appear at table next day. "I did as you wished, Sir," observed Nicodemus, "there was some other wine in that bottle already, but that does not signify, as I took good care to pour the good wine quite on the top." There is a good deal of what may be called pleasant prattle in this volume.
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