Some Books of the Week
Ativ one who knows what it means to travel by ox-waggon over rocks and through sand in what the Boers so expressively call " the Thirst " will smile a little to hear the crossing of the Kalahari in well-provisioned, well-watered motors described as an adventure. So is the crossing of Piccadilly Circus, and much-trikte dangerous. Mr. W. J. Makin's-Across the Kalahari Desert (Alrowsmith, 15s.) gives a rather catchpenny account of a journey which would have been the height of luxury and safety to the Boer hunter or the pioneer cattle-farmer who know the -Kalahari so well.- For the region -is no " great mystery," as the author states, and not really a desert, since it is largely composed of open park-like scenery ; but it is dry. It is a little odd to hear the author call the paauw, the giant bustard, a " greater buzzard," or to have him put Rhodesia to the west of Bechuanaland ; while to speak of a springbok " scuttling thro' the scrub for cover " is sheer nonsense. One would as soon expect to see a rocketing landrail as a springbok, a dweller in the openest of plains, taking cover in scrub. And would Mr. Makin explain how an elephant, by wallowing in a marsh, can make (as on p. 171) a limestone
pan ?
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