Around the World on a Bicycle. By Thomas Stevens. (Sampson
Low and Co.)—A more exact name for this book would be " Half- Round the World with a Bicycle," as the author only went from San Francisco to Teheran, and even when be was not on board ship seems to have spent a good deal more of his time " trundling " his bicycle in front of him, than he did in being " trundled " by it. The feat, however, of escorting a bicycle from San Francisco across the American continent to New York, and from Dieppe to Teheran, is a considerable one, and Mr. Stevens, who is apparently an American citizen, certainly showed the highest pluck, endurance, and good- humour in carrying out his enterprise. He has adorned the book with some excellent and sometimes funny drawings, and has recounted his adventures in an easy and truthful-sounding, if not very exciting narrative. One of the most curious things about him is that when he started he apparently knew not a word of any language but English, and yet managed to find his way comfortably through France, Germany, Servia, Turkey, and Persia. His estimate of the various peoples through whom he travelled singularly coincides with the common repute. Among Europeans, he found the French and Viennese the most polite, and the Germans the least so ; while in Asia the Persians fully sustained their reputation as the French of the East, but the Turks, those " gentlemen " of the Tory Party, contrasted most unfavourably alike with the Greeks and the Persians. In fact, Turkey was the only country in which he was seriously molested or in actual danger. In Persia he twice interrupted grand reviews by riding into the midst of the troops, and was on each occasion received with cheers by the troops, and smiles by the Commander-in•Chief. In the matter of roads, Mr. Stevens's surprise at the goodness of the English roads is quite surprising ; the famous "sand-paper road" at Boston is a rut compared with an English main-road, and be finds England "the paradise of the cycler ;" but the Normandy roads are even superior. From Normandy the roads more or less steadily decline in goodness until the awful camel- tracks of Armenia are reached, which appear to be more like the moraine of a glacier than any human creation.
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