The Oregon Trail. By Francis Parkman. (Macmillau.)—This is an illustrated
edition of a well-known book, first published five- and-forty years ago. The West, as the author remarks, has mar- vellously changed since that time. The buffalo and the wolf have disappeared; the Rod Indian is "turned into an ugly caricature of his conqueror." All the more interesting, therefore, is this record of a vanished past, now given to the public with the addi- tional attraction of a number of vigorous illustrations.—The "Wild West," however, is not altogether tamed, as may be seen. plainly enough in A Tramp Across the Continent, by Charles F Lummis (Sampson Low, Marston, and Co.) Mr. Lummis walked from Cincinnati to California, a distance of 3,507 miles, and en- countered not a few perils on the way. (This was in 1884.) A savage dog nearly tore him in pieces, a rattle-snake almost charmed him, he was within an ace of being killed by a "life- timer" at a convict settlement in the Callon of the Arkansaw, and was ahnost lost in the snows of the Sandias. Perhaps his most for- midable experience was a life-and-death struggle with his own dog, which went mad when his journey was nearly completed, Alto- gether, one gets from this lively narrative a decided impression that there are many things in Western life which are very remote from the security and peace of an old-settled civilisation.— Another volume on a Transatlantic locality, Cape Breton and its Memorials, by J. G. Bourinot (W. Foster Brown, Mon- treal), takes us to a very different spot. Dr. Bourinot takes up the history of the region from the earliest time. The name dates from the sixteenth century, having been given to it by Basque and Breton fishermen. (Franco has always found North America a training-ground for her sailors, and lost much more than territory when she was deprived of her Canadian provinces ) The French history is given with much detail ; end the country, as it is now, is graphically described. The Indians have large reserves in the island ; and are, we are glad to see, in a more prosperous condition than others who have been similarly disposed of.
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