Evening star., 1925-07-07
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
I. G. NJ.
THE RIVER OF SEVEN STARS

AAAG INV En VT SEfE1N S1AnJs
Arthur o. Friel. Harper & Bros.
II The modern wise man, having dug
back into an inconceivably distant
past, has discovered that the earth,
upon coming to light, spent centuries
and ages and aeons on merely getting
things to grow without apparent ef-
fort to separate these growing things
into plants on the one hand and ami
| mails on the other. And, indeed, they
all looked much alike and behaved
much the same, so the wise man says.
Their basic processes were identical
| food. self-preservation, reproduction
hard to distinguish them one from an.
other. And, despite the enormous
| changes that time has wrought upon
each, they are in essentials not so far
apart even in the present. The one
deep-seated difference between them
lies in the fact that animals finally
achieved the power of free 1ocom0tion,
| whereas the plant remains immoVable
| in Its original location. Other differ
ences are chiefly superficial. Coming
forward abruptly to the man animal,
ione cannot fail to. see among an, over
whelHning majority of these a truly
lvegetative fixity of place that suggests
a generally distributed throwback to
an ancestry antedating the period of
cleavage between plant and animal
| life. The soil, the home. property, the
family, governments, have been the
agents of this persistent vegetable ex-
istence. On the other hand, 1t maybe,
that those are of the most advanced
development among men who have
achieved the greatest freedom and
scope of movement-the out-farers,
| the explorers, the discoverers, the
! pioneers. A word here for the hobo
and the tramp. It may be that the
vanguard of civilization is truly with
! these wanderers over the earth-from
Morse sailor down to polar explorer,
and still on down to the mere adven-
turer of yesterday and today. Not
much of an hypothesis, this, but let
it stand. 1t covers many a good name
the Raleighs and brakes and For.
bishers, and, nearer, the Nansens and
1 Amundsens and MacMillans. On
land, a hundred of these adventurers
also admit us to a partaking of their
strange experiences.
| y X
| 1t takes little or even nothing at all
| to start one of these freed shoots OF
| life of on the trail of adventure and
romance mere rumor, some half
1 told tale, a dream, the fragment of an
old song, the Tilt of tune. Any OF
| these, or less than any one of them,
suffices. 1t was the unsubstant lure
4 of legend that set Arthur Friel out,
hot-foot, for the Alto Orinoco. Some
body, long ago, had told somebody
else-thereby forging the first links in
the endless chain of they say'-that
1 in the far Guayana land around the
iheadwaters Of the Orinoco might be
found the remnants of a lost white
race. A thin lure, it looks to us of the
settled plant tribe, but to FTiel it in
stantly became a properly executed
document-signed, sealed and deliv-
cred to him as passport into land OF
mystery, he appointed by Heaven TO
be the agent of its clear disclosure.
| X +
| And here we are given the day-by-
day account of that 6,000-mile adven-
ture into the hinterland of Venezuela.
A waterway throughout, in craft rang
! ing from the dugout type to that OF
some degree of advance over this prin1-
| tive mode of travel. The crews were
rivermen of the region. Up the ORR
| noco to its great tributary, the Ven-
tuari, then east upon this stream into
Guayana the reputed home of the lost
race. Curious streams, these two,
| whose prime output appears TO
| be a mammoth crop of raudaleS-
rapids-each a field of white water,
rock -frenZied, lashing out venomous-
/ 1y to escape the barriers set up
| against IT.. Beside these there are
| the little apids-raudalitos- -dimpled
! and smiling things of guileful and
! wicked heart. Excitement keeps
steady company with this adventurer
and not a little of risk and hazard
] give extra point to a generally en-
| livened situation. The back of Friefs s
4 mind is, to be sure, pretty well oc-
| cupied with plans for the discovery
of the lost white people. The front
of it, however, is wide open to the
passing events around him. And
these are many and of wide variety.
There is, first, the country itself in
a new arrangement of mountain and
/ plain, of stream and bordering jun
] gle, new cloud patterns in the sky
| by day, by night brilliant en-
broidery of stars. There is. too, the
glamourous haze of atmosphere play
| ing strange tricks upon the eyes In
many false appearance of beckon-
4 ing beauty. Next comes a real rich
ness of plant and animal life. To all
of this Arthur F'riel gives a whole
hearted attention that becomes COM
municable and most interesting to
| one going along here. a true lover
4 of the open, this man, upon whom
no essential part of it Is losH A
busy man OF leisure, with time
enough to spare out of his real en-
terprise for a thousand wayside
things that make up the full picture
| OF the land through which he is
travelling. A human person besides,
who finds no small part of his pleas
! ure in the folks around him, even
when these hinder and delay him
| through their allegiance to 'tomor-
row. and their small concern for
today Glimpses of government and
1 no government in this region are
| given, and sketches of high handed
business methods that include con-
ffscation and murder if need be to
meet the desired end. Good sight,
an open interest, good humor and
wit go along with this lone adven-
turer into far places. And the lost
white race? No such thing, it turns
out. Only here and there far
throw back to some blue-eyed an
cestor OF a specially tenacious brand
of indigo blue for the coloring of his
eyes They are Indians, all right,
these few and scattering examples of
enjoyable in a high degree, this story
! of an untraveled region opened up
by so zestful and intelligent an ad-
venturer as Arthur o. Friel.
4 X *
MOUNTAINS OF MYSTERY. Ar.
thur Friel. Harper & Bros.
This romance was inevitable. With
setting all provided out of Arthur
Friel's Venezuelan adventure, with
motive and plot running out to meet
| him, what else was there for him to
do except to turn the notion of lost
white race to account for the enter.
tainment of those who delight in mys
terry and hazardous adventure and a
web of the strangest of strange do.
ings. With almost no departure from
the Setfiuv of his actua1 ioitrpov ipfc