"Poa" By H. F. Hele (Peeps at "tony ands" series) As and Black, 1 London.
Most of the readers of the Book Page in this journal probably know fof the. attractive series issued by Messrs. A. and C, Black under the title: Peeps at Many Lands. The volume on Persia which we have before us has eight full-page ilustrations in colour anid 10. well-written chapters on the history, climate, religion and life of Persia, a country larger than France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and Italy together, but fof which the ordinary reader knows. practically nothing. So much of the country is desert that its population not much more than twice that lof London, The English name of the country is taken from one of its: provinces, [which the Greeks called Persis, and the modern Persians call' Pars or Fars, but the Persians themselves fall the land Zran—the country of the Aryan, or noble race.
Chapter Five gives an interesting account of Rustam, son of Zal, whom most readers of adolescent and adult age will recognize as one of the heroes immortalized in" Matthew Arnold's "Sohrab and Rustum." Mr. Haig spells the names of these mighty fighters thus: Zustam and Suhrab, but they are unmistakably the same.
The book gives a vivid description of the life of the Persian peasants. They abear to have few luxuries; they live chiefly upon brown bread, to. which they Mid cheese, curd fruit, egos or vegetables, consequently probably far less liable to fits of the blues than those of us who over-indulge in heavy meals, alcoholic drinks and tobacco. "Per haps a trip too Persia and six months of the simple life there would put many a dyspeptic right.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.