-Westward to Mecca, by Sirdar Ikbal All Shah (Witherby, 12s.
6d.) is an interesting and original account of a journey through Afghanistan (the author is an Afghan and he tells us a good ghost story whose scene is laid in his native land) and up to Khiva and Samarkand and then across Persia and Kundistan, meeting some amazing adventures by the way. The author took a long way round to get to Mecca, for from Baghdad he returns to Bombay, where he tells us a fascinating story about the extraction of cobra poison for the preparation of anti-venine. The cobra that supplies it is given an egg-flip as -reward. Sirdar Ikbal All Shah has a sense of style which (combined with an intimate inner knowledge of the men and places described) makes his book a very pleasant travel story. We have had enough of Westerners describing the East with cynical or uncomprehending eyes and welcome the East des- cribing itself, as it does here, with insight and with humour.
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