Under the Palms. 2 vols. By the Hon. Lewis Wingfield.
(Hurst and Blackett.)—Mr. Wingfield gives us in these volumes the impressions produced by several months' travel in Africa and by a visit to Tunis. We do not find him to possess the powers of description which have
been displayed by recent travellers over the same ground, by Mr. Tristram, for instance, and by Miss Edwards. But he can tell us what he has seen tolerably well, and he saw something, especially in the town life of the countries which he visited, which obvious reasons would prevent bath of the travellers whom we have mentioned from visiting. We do not wish to ho puritanical, but we doubt whether an Englishman should have patronized by his presence a dance orhieh the French Government had forbidden on the ground of its excessive immorality. While we are on this subject, we might suggest to Mr. Wingfield that he might find plenty of quotations wherewith to orna- ment his book without having recourse to the coarsest parts of JuvenaL But tho speciality of the book is the business part of it. Mr. Wingfield speaks strongly of the benefits of French colonization (as distinguished from French rule, which ho blames much), and piles up every epithet of abuse on the Arabs. It strikes us that some of his statistical (mica- lations are rather wild. Thirty-five millions of acres at fifteen bushels per acre would produce only half of 1,106,875,000, the total he gives ; and he ought to know that "white crops ' cannot be taken every year from the same ground. Nevertheless, this part of the book contains some very useful information, and the whole is fairly readable.
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