11 JULY 1914, Page 22

The Land of the Lotus. By J. M. Graham. (J.

W. Arrow- smith, Bristol. 5s.)—This book is not, strictly speaking, a work of fiction, but a series of sketches dealing with life on a tea plantation in India. The chapters which are chiefly con- cerned with the ways of native cooks will be read by English housekeepers with a feeling of extraordinary thankfulness in their possession of even the plainest of English plain cooks, for the ways of the native are quite unspeakable. The prologue and epilogue of the volume are unnecessary, and tend to give an air of unreality to the work as a whole which the main part of the book belies.