New-York tribune., 1912-03-02
Around the World in Many
Illustrated Books.

Illustrated Books.
SURFACE JAPAN. Short Notes of Swift
Survey BY Don G. Seitz. illustrated IN
color by photogravure and marginal
sketches after Hokusai Small 4to, up.
49, Harper a. Bros.
ISLANDS OF ENCHANTMENT. Many
sided Mianesia- Seen through many
eyes and recorded by Florence Coombs.
Illustrated with 100 photographs by j.
w. Beattie. Svo, PIP. 3S2 The Macmillan
Company.
THE FAIR LAND OF CENTRAL AMER
ICA. BY Maurice de Valerie Trans
lated by Violette M. Montague Preface
by Sir A. Conan Doyle; With "a Illus IHs
trations from photographs. Svo., PIP. 2SS
London: John Long, Limited.
ON HORSEBACK THROUGH NIGERIA.
Life and Travel in the Central Sudan.
Nv ]. ID. Falconer. ID. Sc. With map
and 80 illustrations. Charles Scribner
Sons.
GERIA. An Account of an Otticial
Seven Years Experiences in the North
ern Nigerian Pagan Belt. and Descrip-
tion of the Manners, Habits and Gus
toms Of the Native Tribes. BY Major
a. j. n. Tremearne. With illustrations
and a map. Svo, pp xvi, 342 Philadel-
phia: !. b. Lipplnctott Company.
The number Of books about Japan is
still increasing, the Japanese themselves
being more and more inclined to add TO
them volumes of their own, explanatory,
didactic, defensive and accusative, as in
the case of their relations with this
country. The West has progressed
and. in a certain way, digressed-from
aesthetic appreciation to social and espe-
cially political and economic studies,
whose practically unanimous conclusion
IS that the White Mans burden is an in
creasingly heavy one for the Yellow Men
of the island empire to bear.
Mr. Seitz's book does not undertake too
much. but it performs thoroughly the
task he has set himself. He skins the
surface quite minutely, indeed, with ad
smirable comprehensiveness, compress
gng a great deal of general information
within very little space. He draws
Geftly the boundary where the new
cally unchanged; he even glimpses that
possibility, hinted at by others, of re-
action toward ancestral ways at some
fime in the future. Meanwhile it has
been long step from two swords 10 the
clawhanfmer. but ii has been taken.
Peace hath her victories no less dread
f1il than those of war" And, apropos Of
war. Mr.. Seitz saw no evidence of any
advantages gained by the victory over
Russia, except prestige. and, on the other
|. eide crushing national budget. Japan,
4 moreover. like Germany. where the term
u originated, already has its problem of
an educated proletariat."
Much Of beauty remains. much that is
picturesque and graceful. There are old
customs kept alive even by the most
Progressive Japanese whose exquisite
spirit of courtesy might we'll be copied
by the West. The author pays respect
ful homage to the charm of the Japanese
woman, discusses the commercial moral
aty of the Japanese man. and even in
cludes in his account OF the nations
eager progress the proposed substitution
pf the Latin alphabet for the Sino-Jap-
enese ideographs. At times he describes
extremely well. Here IL his account of
his first sight Of the coast from the
steamer:
Like all things japanese. il intrudes shy
" into the scene. Above, behind and all
eoouf IS strange meeting OF sky and sea.
gray upon gray, silver upon silver as
whistler loved TO paint. There are no
harsh lines, no loud colors. Even the
Orient sun goes modestly down to light the
Western world. leaving only the pinkness
OF the apple blossom about his trail Then
oil is gray, not of ashes. but of pearl
Fisher boats fit into the view without sign
or coming They Just appear. The picture
j. complete! Japan is here.
The large colored illustrations of this
volume are a real and enduring delight.
And there are Hokusai's marginal draw
tngs within the bamboo frame designs Of
fhe text pages. A beautiful book, as
well as a readable and sufficiently in
forming one.
Miss Coombs visited the northern New
Hebrides. the Banks and Torres Islands,
Santa Cruz the Reef Islands and the
eastern solomons aboard the yacnt
Southern Cross, OF the Milanesian Mis-
sion. She. too. does not undertake too
much IN her descriptions Of these isles
of enchantment" in the vastnesses Of the
Southern Pacific. She likes the natives,
hheir good humor above all else, and ex-
plains their intellectual limitation by
comparing them with children Their
ymemory reaches back a half century at
hbest; they have neither a written
Language nor stone with which Ia
2engthen their recollection of the past.
They even have no names for the ISL
ands On which they live-they have
never felt the need Of them-so 'they
will tell you what the district Is called
5by those who live on the adjacent one. -
Names, moreover, have a curious way
of being taboo" out there, which some
times even interferes with the reading
of the Bible. There is John" for in
stance. The New Testament contains
mo less than two. Not given to abstract
thinking, Milanesians are vague on the
subject OF their own beliefs and supersti-
stions They seem TO accept them with
sout rejecting upon them at all. More
over, why. talk about them TO white men,
who, wishing to know, will in the same
breath tell them that there are no spir-
SITS, and that it is nonsense to attempt
That from their standpoint it is the
white man, and not they, who Is vague,
confused and altogether Incompetent
sible on the subject.
The pig is the measure Of wealth and
ssocial standing In these islands. 1t is
the highest form Of currency, the gold
and banknotes of Milanesia the article