THE distinguished soldier and untiring sportsman who has drawn upon

his diaries to compile this very entertaining volume has set a difficult task before the reviewer. We have read the book from beginning to end, and, at the conclusion, really do not know where to begin our review. There are accounts of hot-Weather shooting parties in India ; of fox- hunting at Pesth and Gibraltar; of snipe and woodcock shooting on the Albanian coast; of fighting in Abyssinia, Afghanistan, and Egypt. But, besides, there are hundreds of anecdotes of sporting incidents, of amusing sayings of Baboos and curious ideas of Indian natives, and stories, true or ben trovato, of garrison life in India. Where is the unfortunate reviewer to begin, and how can he hope, in the space at his disposal, to give an account of such a book ? " J'entends, Monsieur le Capitaine, que vous avez tue cent cinquante tigres," said the Emperor of Austria to the author when he met him hunting near Buda-Pesth in 1876. Sir Montagu Gerard modestly remarks that this shows how accounts grow in the telling. But he tells us that at the end of Lis eighth year in India, when he went home on furlough, he had shot, or shared in shooting, a hundred and eleven tigers, eighty- three bears, sixty-nine panthers, two leopards, and one lion. It would be interesting to know what the total bag had risen to when he left India in 1884.

Sir M. Gerard's reminiscences open with "The Rock" in 1864, where he shot in the country round Tangier and hunted with the Oalpe hounds, who rarely killed a fox, though they were accompanied by a couple of Spaniards with picks and spades. Once the greater portion of the pack were rioting, and the huntsman was asked what he thought they were on. "Well, Sir," he replied, "it's some of them pore puppies led away by one of them there nick-numonses ; they smells that sweet they does !" But apparently the ichneumon was a mere polecat.

In 1866 Sir" M. Gerard obtained a transfer to the Field Artillery in India, and the scene changes to the Central Provinces with descriptions of tiger-shooting and pig-sticking. Thence he was mimed to Guzerat, the so-called "garden of India," which differs as much from the Central Provinces as Kent from Perthshire. The collection of anecdotes which he has made of Baboo doings and sayings is unrivalled :— " An: English lady reforiner, of uncertain age, who came here

• to deliver a lecture on prison discipline, zenana education, or some kindred topic, told the audience at its conclusion that she would be happy to answer any. question put to her, upon which a fat baboo came to the front with How old are you ? " Oh no,' she replied, 'I don't mean questions of that sort; only ones connected Leaves frees the Diaries of a Soldier and Sportsman during Twenty Years. Service in India, Afghanistan, Egypt, and other Countries, 1in5-1885. By Lieut.- General Sir Montagu Gilbert GerancL.K.C.B., E.C.S.L With Illustrations, including some of the Author's Sketches. London : John Murray. [162. net.] with the subject of the lecture." Are you forty ?! continued the• baboo, nowise abashed, No, I won't answer such a question,' was the reply. 'Are you fifty ? ' continued her tormentor. 'Oh no ; I told you I won't answer such questions." Are you sixty?' Oh no, no, no ; I'm not sixty,' the lady responded precipitately."

The years 1867-68, or part of them, were occupied with work on the transport train of the Abyssinian Expedition, which

did not afford great opportunities for sport, though one of the foreign Military Attaches, who posed as a mighty hunter, did once return radiant with the announcement that he had shot dear chameaux sauvages. Thence the author returned to India, being quartered for the next two years at Ahmedabad. Here one night a servant fell down a well, and was discovered at his last gasp, when one of the party rushed to the nearest horse and began to pull off the heel-ropes, to save the

drowning man. Thereupon the syce in charge interfered upcin the ground that his master, who was not present, had given no order for these ropes to be employed to pull men out of wells with. This disregard of the value of life is shown

in another story of a shikarri who, out partridge-shooting, was seen in fits of laughter, slapping his thighs in the ecstasy of

his glee. On inquiring the cause of his hilarity, he hurriedly said : " Hush, Sahib ! That coolie," indicating one of the beaters, "has just been bitten by a green snake, but he thinks it is only a thorn ! Don't tell him, or he'll be frightened and stop beating." • Stories of the humours of the mess-room and the parade-ground are freely sprinkled through these pages. Here is one of a middle-aged Major who proposed to a young lady. "Oh, but I thought you were married F" replied the damsel. "Yes, but I expect to hear of my wife's death by the next mail," he pleaded. Another

worthy old honorary Captain employed in the arsenal at Ahmedabad, being asked where his wife was staying in England, replied that he did not know, as he had given her carte de visite to go where she pleased. As is well known, there' are many native Christians round Bombay. "One hot day, when riding near Coorla, I asked a villager for a drink of water out of his lotah, but the man objected that this would spoil his caste. `But to what caste do you belong ? ' I inquired. 'To the Christian Caste,' he replied."

The old hill fort near Chandairee, which was stormed by Sir Hugh Rose in 1858, enjoyed the reputation of only having been twice previously taken,—in the sixteenth century by the Emperor Akbar, and in the eighteenth by Jean Baptiste Filose, a French adventurer in the service of a Mahratta chief. Two English soldiers were heard discussing the matter. "This fort has never been taken afore, has it, Bill ? " "Oh, yes, twice," said the other; "I heard Saint John the Baptist took it once, but I don't know who t'other beggar was." It was during a tour of the Governor of Bombay that the famous triumphal arch was erected with the inscription on one side: "The Governor is coming," and on the reverse the words, "God help us !"

In 1875 and 1876 Sir M. Gerard was on furlough, and travelling or visiting friends in Hungary, Russia, and Corfu ; but he cut short his time in Europe to be present at the Proclamation Durbar, where he was attached as orderly officer to the Agent Governor-General. Then came more shooting, among other things, of snipe, geese, ducks, and teal on ground where the only retriever one could employ was an elephant, partly on account of the crocodiles, and partly on account of the tangled weeds. Next followed the Afghan War, when, his regiment not being for service, he got appointed Brigade- Major of Cavalry. We have no apace to deal here with the incidents of the campaign and the march to Kabul and Kandahar, which fill a long chapter, and one of the most interesting in the book. The following chapter takes us to the Egyptian War of 1882, which ended with Tel-el-Kebir. Here the helpleflaness of English cavalry in scouting work was often illustrated. Sir M. Gerard was ordered to proceed with a squadron of Dragoon Guards across the desert, and feeling more reliance in the pluck than the scouting abilities of the Dragoons, he got leave to take half-a-dozen frontier Pathans with him :—

" Starting at 9 p.m. and steering by the North Star, we had barely advanced a mile when a report was brought in that a couple of the enemy's vedettes were visible upon a knoll to the right front. The ground was beautifully open, and just sufficiently undulating to limit the view, even with daylight, to a mile or so. Halting the main body, we irotted on to the spot, only to find that a couple of stunted shrubs were responsible for the alarm. In the course of the next two hours we had quite half a dozen of these ridiculous scares, and this was not to be wondered at when we consider what sort of preparation for night work a soldier has in an English barrack-yard. I bad remarked pretty sharply upon one sergeant who had already given two false alarms, when upon centering up to his party, which had sent in yet another report to the effect that a detachment of the enemy had just retired over the ridge, the non-commissioned officer pointed to some horse-tracks clearly visible in the moon- light. I called the attention of one of the Pathans to this, but he, without dismounting, and merely bending down slightly from the saddle, said, 'Why, Sahib, those marks are two days old.' "

The same chapter is full of the sayings and doings of the "handy man," who was much to the front in the landing which followed the bombardment of Alexandria. Returning again to India, Sir M. Gerard for the second time refused a permanent Staff appointment, being unwilling to exchange the saddle for the office desk. He killed his one hundred and seventieth tiger without a single accident to shikarri or beater, when ill-luck set in, and within three months he lost two of his best men. From the last chapter, from stories of snake charmers and fakirs, and traits of native character, we select one more passage for quotation :—

" I have frequently heard it asserted that no mutiny in the future is possible, and have often been asked how our native troops would comport themselves if opposed to Russians. As to the former belief, although the chances of such a rising seem at the moment a negligible quantity, yet old officers have frequently informed me that they were on equally friendly, and even more familiar, terms with their men in pre-Mutiny days than we now are. In addition to this, the indebtedness of the men and the lack of power accorded to regimental officers—both of which causes predisposed to the Mutiny—are quite as bad, if not worse than they were in 1857. This is chiefly owing to changes in social habits, the more frequent absences of officers from their regiments on leave, and the prolonged sojourns of all the heads of the military administration out of India proper in the absolute seclusion of hill stations, where they soldier only on paper Until the principle is rigidly enforced that an officer must revert for at least five years to regimental duty, after having been an equal period on the staff, no reform in this direction can be expected."

These recollections end with the year 1884. We have quoted enough from the four hundred pages which the author has written to show their nature and variety.