CURRENT LITERATURE.
Jottings from the Pacific. By A. Wyatt Gill. (Religious Tract Society.)—Mr. Gill brings together in his volume a number of very interesting facts. The varieties of Polynesian worship are most curious. In Ninth.° (750 miles N.W. of Samoa), the central side-post of the idol-house is the idol. The daily offering consists of three green cocoa-nnts, which the worshipper eats. The deity is supposed to have taken the essence. The Naitaoans evidently make the best of both worlds. At Nanomanga, in the same group, the natives worship shooting-stars and rainbows, and the skulls and jawbones of the dead. We should have written in the past tense, however, for Nanomanga is now Christian. The story of the conversion of the islanders is curiously like that of the Kentish Saxons. Mr. Gill has many other interesting things to tell,—abont the white men, for instance, who have made themselves little kingdoms in these regions ; about the Polynesian history of the past, a dismal record which is itself an un- answerable case for missionary enterprise ; and about the prospects of the future. There are interesting chapters, too, about native preachers and their work ; it is a good sign that these communities are producing their own teachers. And lastly, there are some valuable zoological and botanical notes, and a great variety of miscellanea.
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