Evening star., 1935-12-15

Continued From Fourth Page)
increased frequency ever since that
country became good salable book
copy The friendly poems all liked
Mr.. Dobie. They welcomed him every
where to their desert firesides and sat
him down and nourished him and
then burst rrepressibly out INTO folk
lore, usually of an admirably catholic
nature. The very first outfit ne met,
for example, regaled him with the old
Irish legend of Donald of the Two
Humps-served Mexican style. of
course. How refreshing it is to meet
our childhood favorite and hear it
speaking Spanish!
But a good story is a good story
and Mr.. Dcbie, in selecting poems to
meet by accident in deep canons or
out on the desert wastes as night was
about to fall and he to roll his
blankets alone under the vast bril-
liant heavens, used good Judgment in
that the boys always talked well.
Indeed, they seemed invariably TO be
conversationally loaded to the barrel
and needing only the encouragement
of a chance-met gringo to bring out
their talents like a case of double
measles-Spanish measles, of course.
Articulate people Cor should one say
folk?) these mixed blood Indians!
Still werewolf is werewolf, even
when it Is a billy goat and called a
nagual, as they nominate them south
of the Rio Grande. These be tales
that will outlive many tellings. And
Mr.. Dobie, thanks to his remarkable
luck in chance acquaintance, has put
down a very readable version of them.
AS has been said, his book can be
commended.
City of COckeyed Angels.
LOS ANGELES. BY Harry Carr. Il
lustrated by E. H. Suydam. D.
Appleton-Century Company.
THIS sister volume to Lucius Beebe'S
Boston and the Boston Legend, ="
is not of the same high level of writ
ing as its twin. but it still contrlves
to accomplish its purpose, which is to
give readers a sort of cross section
view of that mecca of clerks, chorus
girls, hack writer's, beauticians. chirop-
odists, realtors, preachers and similar
wistful souls across America-that is,
Los Angeles.
Mr.. Carr takes the somewhat
pompous manner of invoking the soul
of the dead Indian culture and burn
Spanish padres, before attempting to
describe the more recent Greks made
in the direction of the famous climate
One feels, as one reads him, that Los
Angeles is a literary theme with him
first and a town afterward. Still.
although using tender tones, he does
paint picture.
The actual illustrations in his book,
it should be said, are as in the Beebe
work, very fine. More than the lit
erary portraiture, they constitute a
reason for wanting to own the volume.
Ships On the Shelf
THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN
SAILING SHIPS. BY Howard I.
Chapella. New York: w. W. Nor
ton g. Co.
THIS huge volume, its publisher
tells us, had, its hugenesS not
withstanding, sold two editions even
before it was issued to the public.
That there is a great interest in the
subject of sailing vessels one knows.
The remarkable sale of Mr.. Chapella's
work can only be taken to indicate
that it meets the desires of readers
in an eminently satisfactory way.
The author is a naval architect of
note. He has written other works on
sailing ships. His present volume
begins with American ships in the
Colonial period. and continues with
successive chapters on naval craft,
privateers and slavers, revenue cut
tiers, the American schooner, mer-
chant craft and sailing yachts. 1t Is
illustrated profusely with diagrams
of famous ships and types Of ships.
~ WOu4u 0CCIA1 " NC a AohA NnAAeAAo-
tive treatment of the subject, as well
as a history Of ship architecture
through q great American naval
period.
Occur de Lion.
SEVEN LEAGUE BOOTS. BY Richard
Halliburton. Indianapolis: Bobbs-
Merrill Company.
RICHARD HALLIBUR-
A'A TON, that roguish bright-eyed
lad, has gone and written still an
other book. And what do you think it
is about, girls and boys? Why, bless
your little hearts-about travel. Dare
devil Dick has rung the bell again.
The world already knows how Dick
put Lord Byron and the Hellespont
to shame by swimming the Panama
Canal. According to a writer sta
toned there at the time, it took him
some days, for his habit was to swim
a few miles in the mornings and then