Evening star., 1927-04-03

as this illuminating method serves to
set out the international story OF the
herring shoals of the Baltic. -1
CARAVANS AND CANNIBALS. BY
Mary Hastings Bradley, author OF
"On the Gorilla Trail" Etc. New
York: d. Appleton & Co.
MRS. NIMROD. mighty huntress.
A'A here greets you with her second
record Of big game hunting. And this
time out. not to miss any possible
chance of disaster. she takes her
young daughter along. OF course, the
husband goes too. Such equipment
for mishap leaves one convinced that
IL the lady herself comes back at all
she will be quite free from any sort~of
family attachment. And this goes to
show that nothing is more uncertain
than the casual forecasts that We are
all so ready to make. For. here they
all are. seemingly In prime condition.
as this very joyous book of travel and
hunting in Africa makes perfectly
clear. Now, we are, the most OF us,
pretty we'll fed up on the adventures
of those daring folks who delight to
get as far from home as possible,
there to endure personal discomforts
and actual hardships. for the sake
of killing mammoth beasts that have
never done anything at all to them.
Instead they've stayed at home and
have minded their own business In
a highly creditable fashion. But, hap
PLY for the people who are all tired
out with the ardOrs of these far hunt
ers, there Is a great deal in this book
that is not bloodthirsty stuff. There
is any amount of finely appreciative
To-
teresting things about places and peo-
pie, about odd customs and strange
ways of life that are rooted much as
our own feelings are in the basic
things of existence. And, above all, 1t
Is the gusto of this recital that is truly
captivating. 1t Is the communicable
appreciation of each situation as IL
comes along, ii is the humor and the
buoyancy that count so much here.
Listen: "The cannibal is simply an ul-
ira utilitarian. He Is a chap with no
inhibition against eating human flesh.
He regards your feeling about it much
as some people regard the feelings of
others about not eating pork. or not
eating meat on Friday. The
practice has it's code and it's ritual.
Part of the game is the soothing idea
that he takes unto himself the valor
and the virtue of the enemy he con.
sumes, and that he is paying the dead
foe graceful tribute when he elects
to eat him.
"If he is a peaceful cannibal and
lives upon such human food as he
acquires by thrift and purchase he
certainly does a bit of callous murder
ing when he dispatches his fatted
slaves, but he regards that very
much as you regard dispatching
fatted lambs. He is brought up to
1t and society expects it of him. If
he is good cannibal he has to do his
duty by his family and see to 1t that
they have their bit of black beef
when he can manage it, No, no,
this book is not confined to such a
mournful matter as this. 1t talks,
racily and partakingly, of other GUS
toms, such as dances, religious and
ceremonial. 1t tells of witchcraft and
other bedevilments. 1t revives the
story of lost village-and besides
there is the hunting. That we leave
for You to take for yourselves. The
whole is a story of adventure, and
then adventure, all met with zest and
competency and any amount of plain
good sense that, barring the fact of
her being of there at all, is one of
the chief charms of this storytelling
traveller and hunter.
~ **
THE CHAPLET OF PEARLS, or
The White and Black Ribaumont
BY G. M. Yonge. Edited and con-
densed by r. d. Chamberlin. Il
lustrated. Boston: l.. C. Page &
Co.
WHEN this story was written, so
w years ago or thereabout, there
chanced to be- a curious agreement
between the fashion in clothes and
the fashion in novels. Both were
vollIminous, with yards and pages of
unnecessary material, with ruffies and
puffs and furbelows and verbal adorn-
ments so lavish as pretty well to con-
ceal the identity Of the lady so en-
wrapped on the one hand, of the story
SO entoiled on the other. Your
mothers will tell you, however, that
"The Chaplet of Pearls was, in it's
day, a beautiful tale, historical, with
great ladies and gentlemen of France
in the sixteenth century, with a
glimpse also of the queen-mother of
that time and the flashing view of a
king besides. And they will tell you
too that in the longer leisure of so
years ago they followed all the ins
and outs of that romance with care
not to lose word of it. But-tiTnes
have changed. The ladies' have taken
Off the most of their clothes and the
novels also, the best of them, have
doffed much Of their verbiage. So, in
oh IN oardf%in~n 800 - - ,-.S.-