"Boyer: LA Mort ne Puttan"—By.
Pierre "Loti, Transinted. from the French by W. P. Baines, "Londont Werner Laurie, Egypt the land of mystery and antiquity, of ruins, the evidence of the work of human beings who lived and laboured on earth isa cycle buried in the mists of the past.
History reveals the vise and fall of nations with speculative theories fs to the reason for those changes, Dut civilization must have existed in Egypt long anterior to any ro cords which have come down to us, These very ruins reveal to us. cee who built and planned centuries before the Christinn era, To. able to speak adequately of this land presippores a train of thought not easy to define, a transference to the realms. of imagination and speculation, And who can be fitted better to do so than the author off this book? With his delieney off touch and wonderful ability of painting pictures with his pen, rings these world famous named before the readce's eye and trans poses tis to the periods which ho Gepicts and we live again in thd places described.
'And what a list it is, Abydos, 'Thebes, Lexer and Philae to mand but a few. Ho speaks of them moving language as he sw then at dawn, midday, eventide and night, and he veerentes them as they, must' have existed centuries ace And the desert ever present, how clearly is its spell and influence die played. To suggest that he hag written @ guide book would wound the author's soul, but it can be supe sented that this. book. swould: be very, Valuable to have with one whol visiting the places described, 'a man with the temperament of author {t causes no wurprite to learnt that the dntrasion of the modern in" to the realms of antiquity is painful, He deals with the tourist in Exyp with gentle sarcasm, His explana tion of the female tourist it a subs tle view of humour. 'The chapter Town Promptly Embellished' epitomizes his view on tourists gem erally. His regret that the Assovan bronze has submerged the Templs of Isis at Philne, one of the wone ders of the world, and at the changes being wrought on the Nile and amongst the fellaheen who live on and by the river can he appreciated, However in the utilitarian world of to-day these things are inevitable however munch to be deplored, There are very interesting chaps ters on Elazhar, the centuries old. University at Cairo for tha of the priests of Islam, the earlies iseiples of Christianity, The translation of any _boolk from one language to another never ensy, for 0 often iff ye process the shade of mesne and of nuances of thd original are blurred, but here the translator is to be congratulated on his work: the book is as delightful to read in English as it must be int the original French. A. charming book and well worth perusing.
There is an old story about the man who complained to his books binder that some hooks bound for him were coming adrift, and on being produced for that workman's inspection he exclaimed, "Why, you must have been reading them!" Glasgow youth recently attempted to stop that sort of nonsense on the part of the book-lover by an ingenious method. lent bookbinding in Glasgow. Technical College, showing his session's' worl to the examiners the other day, produced a volume of the "House hold Physician" finely executed calf with a handsome design int gold, but appearing on the bade was 'a skull and crossbones. Whee ther this implied a solemn warning to these who would, diagnose their own troubles or wat simply a sly. dig at the medical profession is known. At all events it has stru@@ new note in the designs medical literature.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.