THE BALKANS AT CLOSE QUARTERS.
An Observer in the Near East. (Eveleigh Nash. 16s.)—The author of this volume, who preserves his anonymity for reasons which he rightly says are obvious, has had the pleasure of par- taking of coffee and cigarettes with most of the potentates, crowned and uncrowned, in the Balkan Peninsula. Thanks perhaps to the mellowing influence of this medium, or perhaps to his own powers of diplomacy, he has contrived to obtain from his hosts, who include his Imperial Majesty the Sultan and Vett Marashi, the brigand chief, a mass of information relating to the tortuous problem of Balkan polities, all of which is interesting and much of which is actually startling. Monarchs, Cabinet Ministers, and bandits have shaken him by the hand with equal readiness, and displayed to him a spirit of communicativeness that is almost suspicious. That he has been told the whole truth and nothing but the truth on all occasions he does not himself contend. But by separating the grain from the chaff of official information and relating it to his own private investigations he claims to have obtained a uniquely accurate insight into Balkan affairs. He speaks very bitterly of the part that Germany is playing in fomenting the unrest in Macedonia, and of the methods employed by Austria to gain a hold on Servia and Montenegro. He regards a war between Turkey and Bulgaria as more than probable, and considers it quite likely that a final solution of the problem of the Near East may be found in a confederation of the Balkan States under the. Governor-Generalship of a European Prince. The account of his sojourn with the brigands of Northern Albania in the "Accursed Mountains" is of interest, if only from the romantic point of view ; while, on the other hand, he has been careful to give his work a practical commercial value by indicating how the natural resources of the Balkan Peninsula afford oppor- tunities for financial enterprise. The volume contains a number of excellent photographs taken by Princess Xenia of Montenegro and by the author.
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