An Indian Garden. By Mrs. Henry Cooper Eggar. (John Murray.
7s. 6d. net.)—This is a delightful book, though the strictly gardening part of it is not the most interesting. The condi- tions of gardening are different from those with which we are familiar. One thing is that the whole business is done in five months of the year. During the remainder the cultivated part is a desert of dust, though the wilderness, if the gardener has the luck to have such a thing, furnishes objects of interest all the year round. Still, various practical hints may be found. Of the other part of the book one cannot speak too highly. There are admirable sketches of the servants, from the faithful old butler down to "Penelope," the serving-man, whose industry and idle- ness seem to have been about equally troublesome to his em- ployer. There is a specially lifelike picture of "Billy Doe," the page-boy who stole in the most artful way a roll of notes, and spent the money on riotous living. His purchases were curiously like, and yet curiously unlike, what an English boy would have bought in the same circumstances,—" a gold-embroidered cap, a pair of yellow shoes with red laces, a travelling shawl, a cheroot, a box of native sweetmeats, and an immense concertina, almost as large as the boy." Then there is a most picturesque description of an earthquake ; another of a Hindoo-Mahommedan riot. Most vigorous of all are the snake-stories, with their too tragical ending. The brave little dogs—let their names be men- tioned here, si qua eel ea gloria, 'Nous ' and '%linker '—after many a successful conflict with cobras, were both bitten and died within half-an-hour.
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