The times., 1898-07-31
A New Book of Adventure.

cess was maze unueF lfle uolu uS p'uiA'S
ivory Black" But he has done moth
ing which is better than his latest book,
In the Sargasso Sea" 1t win inevitably
be compared with his first successful
book of adventure, 1.-The Aztec Treasure
House. but there is really no compari-
SON. The two books are on entirely dif-
ferent lines, and one is about as good
as the other.
TIE title, In the Sargasso Sea-" clearly
indicates the nature OF the book. 1t IL
the story of a man who, by strange
chance, penetrates this unknown sea,
about which so many weird and curious
legends are told by old sailors. In treat
ing of this subject Mr.. Janvier has found
an entirely new field, untrodden by any
foot save his own, and that, in itself is
a great deal TO say of a writer of iic-
tion His Imagination is practically free
10 invent almost any sort of adventure,
because nobody knows anything certain
ly about the place of which he is writing,
any more than about the North Pole or
the oeher side OF the moon
While this is a great advantage IN
writing a tale Of adventure, it is an ad-
vantage fraught with danger 10 the
writer who is not careful for he is likely
to let his fancy run away with him, ana
produce a conglomeration of characters
and incidents unlike anything in the
heavens. or on the earth, or in the wa
tiers under the earth. Witness the jour
news 10 Central Africa which were made
In the Middle Ages and the journeys into
the twentieth century which are made al
rhe present time. When Mr.. Janvier con-
ceived the idea of writing a book about
the Sargasso Sea, he knew that he had
at his command place which was resi-
sonably certain 70 be filled with all kinds
of interesting and fascinating materia!
for adventure, from which he had only
20 choose; he knew. also that nobody
could possibly verify or disproye any as
sertion that he might make until the days
of flying machines. because. so far as IS
now known. no man ever went into the
Sargasso Sea and came out alive, nor
woald II be possible for any man 10 do
so except by series of extraordinary
chances All that he had 10 do, there
fore was to invent some means of get-
ting his hero into the sea and getting
him out again, and anything in the world
could happen in the meantime. That he
has refra.ned from straining the credGi-
1ty OF MS readers. ard has coacocted
tale with all the ear-marks Of history il.
therefore,. GlOSL remarkable ana wholly
10 his credit
The story interests one from the very
first. The hero is a manly young fellow,
with some knowledge of mechanical en-
gineering, who takes passage on a sail
ing vessel for the west coast of Africa
and discovers after boarding her, that
she is engaged in the slave trade. BY
series of accidents he is finally left, with
q broken head, on board a disabled yes
SCI which drifts SlpKU1Kr a nd int
the yellow, weed-covered sea which gives
its name 10 the book. There is something
about the movement of the story which
reminds one fancifully OF that drifting of
dereliet into the tangle of yellow gulf
weed. First like floating fragment of
the weed, comes in an aIlusion TO that
currentlesS region Of the ocean that is
<ound to the east of the main Gulf Stream
and TO the south Of the branch which
sweeps across the North Atlantic TO the
Azores; and its floating stuff is matter
cast off from the Gulf Streams edge into
the bordering still water-as a river ed
dies into its pools twigs and dead leaves
and sUchlike small fiotsam-and there is
compacted by capillary attraction and by
the slow, strong pressure Of the winds"
Then, as might be suggested by that
hoating bit of weed, there comes the
thought TO the heTo's mind that strange
old waits and strays might be found in
the thick Of that tangle if there were
some way Of pushing into ii. One thing
after another, as the tale is told. be-
trays the way the current of fate is
setting, until the drifting vessel with its
solitary human freight and the reader
who follows his fortunes, are fairly en-
tangled in the Sargasso Sea. The story
reminds one of another thing, for it is
run OF suggestions: il is like one of those
dreams IN which the dreamer wanders
forever in a misty country compounded
strangely Of the past and present, always
trying to escape, never succeeding; pos
sessed with a half despairing courage
that will not let him pause, yet knowing.
In some sub-consciousness, that Il is all
q dream and he is surely going TO wake
up as soon as he can think of the way
TO do il. There never was more perfect
reproduction of such dream than this
story Of Mr.. Janvier's. II is as perfect
in its way as "Alice in Wonderland"
Lewis Carroll's story was a dreamland
of children; this takes one into the dream
land of grown folk, where reason and
logic still hold sway; that is the only
difference.
The story has a poetic completeness
that very few imaginative tales of this
type have There are grewsome things
in ii. and there are terrible and dangerous
things. but they are never really displeas-
ing or inartistic. The truth is that the
author of this unusual bit Of fiction is
something more than q writer of sto-
ries of adventure; he is a poet in prose
and although this peculiar quality of his
crops out in some of his shorter sto-
ries IL has never been present in its
fullness in any of his former work In
FRAY Antonio of the Gardens" one of
the most charming of his Mexican tales
there was so much poetry that it was
really an exquisite prose poem, full of a
quaint and delicate humor; but the Az
tee book was merely an adventure story
and the Ivory Black Tales" while thev
were among the most original bits OF
fiction of their time. were only clever
and Ingenious. This latest book, how
ever, is in some ways the finest thing it's
author has ever done. The only possible
fault that can be found with il is that
It is slightly reminiscent of Defoe, and
there could be worse faults than that
There are two or three chapters which
for strong imaginative writing, are es-
pecially remarkable. The first is that in
which the castaway meets with two 9TH
er human waits, one dead, the other dy-
ing from the effects of a furious fight
which the two have waged with each 9TH
er, beneath the unclouded sun in the
midst of the lonely sea. They are two
common sailors, and being cast away
with nothing but gin for comfort, took,
naturally, to drinking it all day long. till
each got it into his befuddled head that
the other was staring him out of counte-
nance, and they quarreled, and fought
with knives and stabbed each other TO
death. Such are the horrible things
which three months Of solitude will do
TO two human beings reduced TO each
others company and despair for their
sole entertainment.
Another discovery which thrills the