Through and Through the Tropics. By Frank Vincent, Junior. (Sampson
Low and Co.)—Mr. Vincent started from New York, sailed round Cape Horn, and up the western shores of America, till he reached California. From San Francisco he crossed to the Sandwich Islands, of the condition of which he gives a more favourable account than we have been accustomed to see. The people, he thinks, are really civi- lised ; unhappily, they are disappearing, at the same time. The ques- tion is, which is the better ?—" Fifty years of Europe, or a cycle of Cathay ?" From the Sandwich Islands, Mr. Vincent passed to Australia. We notice, in passing, that he speaks well of the wine. "The colonial wines are mostly clarets, and nearly equal to those of the best French provinces." More than half the volume is devoted to India. Mr. Vincent is an entertaining writer, and his experiences of travel, if not exactly novel, are always readable. But there is little beyond the superficial in them. The chapters on India are, from this point of view, especially disappointing. There are a few concluding observations of an optimist kind about the future of the country, but we miss the intelligent observations of a traveller who estimates the real value and bearing of what he sees. That a hurried visitor should fancy that he can form a complete judgment of the con- dition and prospects of a country is, of course, absurd, but impressions have their value. We are naturally anxious to learn what we are really doing in India, and the observations of an intelligent American would be especially welcome towards this end. Ho has the same facilities for judging as one of ourselves, and has, or at least should have, no pre- possessions.
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