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boule (Hodder Most men are adventurers desire; a few, more favoured, ike the author of this book, are' able to realize their dreams and tell of them that the less fortunate may read and-delight in their accounts of perils overborne, strange lands, and almost unknown. peoples.. To those who enjoy a first-rate adven-narrative of the voyage round the world made alone by Alain Gerbault in the small yacht Fireerest.will prove a mine of treasure. The thor sot out from "New York November 1, 1924, and arrived at Lo Mavre in July 1029 having sailed Panama across the Pacific, ting the Marqueses, Fiji, Samos, New, Guinea, Timor snd Reunion, South Africa, and thorite round Island, Cape Verde Islands, and the Azores to France.
Gerbault is not only a tennis player anda yachtsman of the frst Tank, bot he is a keen and shrewd abcerver, a lover of ature on lend fand sea, and in the best and wide Senso of that much abused: wordy sportsman. At almost every -atage fof his voyage he was face to face with death and only. the utmost skill and jeourage could save. him, but he met the appalling dangers of cyclopes or reefs as gaily' as-he took part in tennis, swimming, or football matches at the: ports of call, or watched and played with the natives in the remote islands where he tried to teach them something of European games.. His philosophy of life is as sane sunny as any that may be found; live naturally, keep fit, and above all, play, for' unadulterated work makes life a boring monotony' instead of an ever—new delight, The healthy natural life in these happy [Islands of the Sout to him-the ideal, and his descriptions make the reader sigh with him as he his Teave them and return to the fetters of the European civilization: which has had such dire effects: on "the Islanders. Disease, greed, ugliness MIN. Gerbault finds almost every: where where the white trader has ket his foot, except in the Arcadian Cocos Islands which are ruled absolutely by a Scotsman, descondant of the original settlers, who allows no money to circulate but repays his labourers: in kind. The comparison which is made: swith those parts of Polynesia where traders flourish, while the inhabitants are destitute and rapidly: becoming extinct points a very serious moral th colonists 'The accounts of native _tife, customs, arts, and dwellings are-fall of interest, for many of the pliices ted wore off the ordinary track where the natives, as yet. unspoiled by contact with' the white "like, made M, Gerbault a welcome. guest fand. received him into intimate friendship, with the generous: has nitlity' which the tradition "of their races. "ey Though the author ix writing in a foreign Language the style is easy and pleaser more attractive by his modesty and..hia -ady sense of humour. The lapses into quaint or unidiomatic English ave slight and pardonable., This book should stand onthe bookshelf asa worthy companion to "the voyages of Drake, Hakloyt, Cook and the other heroes of the great sen-tradition of the Wext.—m
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.