Pearl - Maiden. By H. Rider Haggard. (Longmans and Co, 6s.)—Many are
the adventures of the unhappy maiden Miriam, and some of them, to make a "bull," take place before her birth. The story is concerned with the fall of Jerusalem, but opens at the games at which Herod Agrippa was seized with his death-pangs. The book is crowded with exciting scenes, and Mr. Rider Haggard's hand has not lost its cunning in depicting marvellous rescues from peril. But his method suited his earlier books better than this, as the modern language in which his characters talk is rather an anachronism in ancient Palestine, though it suited Allen Quatermain and his companions to a nicety. Hot and strong are the adventures which the public demands from Mr. Haggard, and both these adjectives may be applied to the adventures in Pearl-Maiden, while we may add that they are by no means limited in quantity.
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