Letters from Bombay. By D. Aubrey. (Remington and Co.)— Twenty-six
letters—all written from Bombay during one month, and describing not only the buildings, scenery, climate, and surroundings of the town, but also the social life of the various classes which com- pose society there—at least attest the energy of Mr. Aubrey and his capacity for sight-seeing. It is in descriptions of native, and especially Parsee manners and customs, that he is most interesting ; and he succeeds in leaving a sufficiently clear impression of what he saw and heard. The information thus obtained must necessarily be somewhat -superficial ; and the historical retrospects and speculations on the various Eastern religions might, with advantage, have been excised. The descriptions of family and social relations among the non-Euro- pean races who people Bombay are pleasantly written, and the letter beaded "A Parsee" will especially be read with interest. It is to be regretted that the style is laboured and sometimes involved, and that revision would have made several passages more intelligible. Such words as " chitterling " (used to describe an infant), " caprid," "meticulous," " horrisonous," " nigrid," "pyroltarous," " vertigini- unsly," strike the ear unpleasantly ; and a "tabooed lieutenant," "bright lucioles," and a few other presumably Bombay productions, might at least be explained for the benefit of the untravelled.
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