A Conver on Asta—by Sir Hugh In official circles and some others Sir Hugh Clifford. is known us a colonial administrator of exceptional ability, Ina much wider sphere ho is known as a writer about the Malay peninsula vf singular charm and graphic power. And it is in this capacity that his name will probably. live.
ast into the heart of the Malayan forests at the curly age of 17," where he remained f years, except for ones invaliding to Europe: cut vit from the outside world for seven months every year by the northeastern monsoon, which made the only approach (by the sea)
impossible: gifted with extra-
Mr. Mottram's war books are the ordinary ability for learning best that an Englishman has writ-languages, an uncanny insight into ten yet. It fe as impossible, 1 native character and a remarkable suppose (writes A. J. Cummings in power of writing: Sir Hugh Clifford "Daily News") for any human has done fur the Malays) who: being to put into words a complete final conception of the Great India, in bringing them vividly be-did for the peoples of as it would be to describe Hell fore the id. some adequately. Mr. Mottram—makes no such attempt. But he draws Yack the curtain just a few inches while most acceptable to and us gaze for a moment veadars, was resented upon the fragment of a scene that, and, perhaps, tended a little bears all the authentic marks of to distort the picture. Sir Huxh tru Clifford ie eer not without humour, but it is note under control The man hho fought in Flanders resulting picture strikes ove wilh recognize the accuracy and vely.as better focussed, And perfection of every objective detail he has the divine quality of pity ith instant emotion.
The man} who has never heard examples of which a dying assed stories, "In the soldier's scream or an explosion and "A Daughter of larger than a back-tyre burst will] the Muhaniaadans" (which re+ apprehend uneasily something of appeared. we think, in "The Further its darker meaning.
There is] Side of Silene" printed in 1916, as nothing rhetorical in Mr. Mottram's we are nearly sure "The Death method. It has a deceptive sim-March of Kulop Sumbing" did). plicity. It seems, as befits an epic These two are, for our taste, the theme, the plain tale of a best in the book. But they are als man. The distinguishing quality of and the story of how the ret his work is an unerring actuality officer "At the Court of informed by an fronie imagination withstood the petty tyrant that keeps his moral judgment in- of Pelesu to his own infinite peri! tact and his vision clear. His and was saved literally by Fate Intest book is not so good a story mne, for vigorous description ai as "The Spanish Farm" or "6494 sheer' dramatic power stands hij But it is of the same genre, and among all short stories, In. all we are given another glimpse of these stories the gloomy and the symbolic Farm—unrelenting in horrific aspect of life predominates, its revelation of the cold bitter-as naturally it may. Even ness of the backwash of battle, English forest awes us by solemnity and how much more the An Unusual Crime tropical jungles of Malay, fall of strange beasts and stranger men?
There is caustic humour in the Some of the tribes who are known gradual unfolding of this crime at to inhabit these forests have never Vanderlynden's, which Dormer, the been seen by a white man and by young officer "temporarily attached" few, if any, of the higher class to Divisional Headquarters, is sent. atives; and their existence is only to investigate, and which haunts.
Proved by the remains of the him for months like a bad dream camps being found and by the fa: until it brings him to the verge of Of the stealthy trade they do. Bue nervous breakdown. It is a even for this they will not face their crime, and yet nota fellow-man, but deposit their pre-crime. A private soldier, crazy duets by right near a village and with fatigue and the reaction of next night as secretly remove the bloody conflict, finds a comfortable of barter left for them by icho in a shrine fgr two wounded villagers. "In a Corner of mules; thus Vanderlynden loses its Avia" was first published in 1893; red Virgin. A fussy French] it has been out of print for 20 yea"s n takes the incident seriously. and Messrs.
Fisher Unwin have question is asked in the French Parliament, GHQ. is angry. Corps is alarmed and demands 3 done a good dead in reprint in their excellent Tittle Cabinet Library.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.