The Marble City. By R. D. Chetwode. (Sampson Low, Marston,
and Co.)—There is no doubt whatever that there is plenty of adventure in this book; on every second page there is a mutiny or a shipwreck, or a fight with savages, or a hairbreadth escape, or a hunt for treasure, or some other incident of the kind with which boys who have been taught in the schools of M. Jules Verne or Mr. Rider Haggard are familiar. As a matter of fact, indeed, the amount of adventure is positively fatiguing, and when the three brothers — Bob, Jack, and Harry—get into the resplendent city of the extraordinary savages, with its high-priests and all the rest of it, we find our- selves asked to accept what is preposterously incredible. Mr. Chetwode has in fact set himself too obviously to "beat the previous record" in the matter, both of the quantity and of the quality of the sensations he provides. If the boys had under- gone one-third of what he credits them with, they must have returned to their homes and their parents absolute wrecks. But there is no doubt whatever that this author has the gift of story-telling, and that he gets up his subject as conscientiously as Mr. Henty himself.
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