BAKU.
Baku : an Eventful History. By J. D. Hendry. (A. Constable and Co. 12s. 6d.)—" In oil, Baku is incomparable. I know of no oil city that can compare with it either in subterranean wealth or in wealth of history and tradition, legend and story. Los Angeles, chief town in the oil-fields of far-away California ; Petrolia, Canada's petroleum capital ; Beaumont, the four-year-old creation of Texas oil ; Boryslaw, chief of the widely-scattered group of oil-fields in Galicia, home of the ancient Poles ; Campena, in Roumania, and a score of other oil-producing centres, can in no way be compared with Baku. Baku is greater than any other oil city in the world. If oil is king, Baku is its throne." This Hoge, which the reader will find not to be overdone, presents the sum and substance of a book which, more than any of its predecessors on the same subject, brings home to the world the extraordinary history, and still more marvellous possibilities, of the khanate which RtIBSIII acquired from Persia in 1813, and which the energy of many men, and above all the genius of the Nobel Brothers, has transformed. Mr. Hendry writes as one having both personal and practical know- ledge, and as a consequence his work may be regarded as a text- book on the history and the present condition of Baku. Mr. Hendry has also much that is important to say on the tragic events in Baku during September of last year. It was on the Zabrat property of the Baku Russian Petroleum Company that a small body of Englishmen were besieged during the week of the massacre. Mr. Roland Wallis, a member of the party, has given an account of it, including the celebrated rescue-ride of Mr. Urquhart, which, although it has been exaggerated in some respects, was nevertheless "a brave deed bravely done." The book is full of detailed and valuable information.
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