We regret that our limited space does not permit us to dwell farther on this valuable volume. To realize its importance, and the grace and style of Lord Lytton's despatches, the reader must peruse the volume for himself.

LUZAC AND Co.; LONDON, 1899.

8. Essays on Kāçmiri Grammar, by G. A. GRIERSON, C.I.E., PH.D. This volume consists of articles contributed to the journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society by the highest authority on Indian languages, and, like everything written by Dr. Grierson, is not only profound and exhaustive, but minutely accurate. Kashmiri (as it may be written for the uninitiated) is an exceedingly interesting language to the comparative philologist because of its peculiar and almost isolated standpoint. Hitherto very little has been known about it, but of late years, owing to this secluded country having been thrown open to Europeans, a considerable amount of information has been collected and published. It is now seen that this language contains an archaic phonology and structure which, on the one hand, explains much that has been obscure in the allied languages of Western India, while, on the other, it throws light on the processes by which the inflexional languages of the Aryan family arrived at their present condition. It is still under the dominion of those subtle laws of euphony which play so important a part in the agglutinative languages of the Turanian class, and of which only faint traces still survive in Aryan speech, traces which are stronger in the less advanced, and fainter in the more developed members of the group. Indeed in Kashmiri phonology there is much which can only be properly understood by one who possesses an ear as delicate, and a perception of shades of sound as keen, as the learned writer himself. Here we have epenthesis employed not merely as a tone gradation in derivatives, but as part of the machinery of inflexion; and that this was originally a principle of Aryan speech is shown by its existence in Celtic, Slavonic, and early Teutonic languages. In a brief notice like the present, it is impossible to enter into details of the fascinating analogies and inferences which might be drawn from the facts so lucidly set forth in these articles. Students of the science of language will, however, find a rich treat in these pages. Nor is the interest of them confined to the phonetic system; the inflexional peculiarities are also full of interest. Taken in connection with the very striking range of forms and inflexions so ably and copiously elucidated by the late Dr. Leitner in his monumental work on "The Languages of Dardistan," they afford material which it may be hoped some competent scholar will one day work out into a detailed exposition of the structure of primitive Aryan speech and its relation to the agglutinative languages. By publishing in a connected form these very valuable essays, Dr. Grierson has added to the already long list of benefits which by his learned and indefatigable labours in the domain of Indian philology he has already conferred on the students of that thorny but deeply attractive science. When he has completed the "Survey of Indian Languages," on which he is now engaged, it is a duty which he owes to the world to crown the

edifice by a really satisfactory comparative grammar of the Aryan languages of India. Quod ego olim tentavi, id tu fausto numine perficias!

JOHN BEAMES.

9. The Arabic Press of Egypt, by MARTIN HARTMANN. In a small and handy volume of less than a hundred pages, Mr. Hartmann gives an account of the periodical press in Egypt. He supplies a list of the periodicals to the number of 168, some of them daily, some weekly, some monthly. Most of these periodicals are in Arabic, some in Syriac, some in Armenian, some in Hebrew, some in Kurdish, some in Coptic, some in English. Such prolific enterprise is not limited to persons of the dominant sex; it has, as in America and England, developed also the female journalist and editor. In addition to the names of the periodicals, Mr. Hartmann gives also in few words some idea of the functions and political rôle of each periodical. Some few of the papers are almost entirely religious, and all of them are strongly committed to Muḥammadan sentiment, while many of them are, of course, very pronouncedly anti-English; for, do what we will, there are agitators and malcontents in every community, and as the British claim the prerogative of grumbling about things in general, and rejoice in the exercise, the same spirit is caught up by the Egyptian as well as by the Bengáli. It is a useful exercise. The newspapers in Egypt are published in the afternoon; the reason, though Mr. Hartmann does not note the fact, is probably that the Muhammadan day, or date, begins at sunset, and not, as among ourselves, at midnight. In the midst of the Babel which the incessant clack of all these enlightening periodicals creates, one can readily sympathize with the official English in that land in the difficulties which beset them in governing in our name and as our representatives.

The strongest element in the population, from the intellectual point of view, is, it appears, the Syrians, and the weakest the Coptic. The backwardness of the Coptic race would appear less a matter of reproach to Mr. Hartmann if he were better acquainted with their political history since the Conquest of Egypt by the second Khalifa. The oppressive nature of the Turkish Government, and the folly and pusillanimity of its officials everywhere, are strongly animadverted upon. "Every kind of public instruction is," says Mr. Hartmann, "systematically opposed by that Government." The English in Egypt, as in India and everywhere else, have to "take up the white man's burden." In England we are all so preoccupied with our own political burdens, problems, and complications, that we have no time to read the newspapers of the many countries with which we stand connected. A similarly interesting account might be compiled respecting the Indian periodical press, and the press of China, South Africa, Canada, Burma, Japan, etc. Such compilations as the present are valuable as works of reference, and as shewing the intellectual activity of all those peoples who fall under British influence. But the present work was compiled in a hurry, and though the work of the printer was admirably executed, there is many an error which the compiler might correct in a later edition.-B.

10. Notes and Commentaries on Chinese Criminal Law and Cognate

Topics; with a brief excursus on the Law of Property: chiefly founded on the writings of the late Sir Chaloner Alabaster, K.C.M.G.. by Ernest Alabaster, Barrister-at-Law, etc.-This work is decidedly of a high order and can be thoroughly trusted as a popular guide to the principles of Chinese law, recast, moreover, so as to fall more easily within the purview to which we are accustomed in the West. Chinese law, like Chinese history, lacks concentration and systematization, dealing as it does by preference with concrete cases rather than fixed principles; and it is for the European student of law, as of history, to extract from a mass of specific pains and penalties in the one case, or a mass of isolated facts in the other, some general rules which govern and throw intelligible light upon the unscientifically-grouped details. No one who has spent his best years in China could have been better fitted by temperament for this task than the late Consul-General at Canton, who had so far back as 1876-78 contributed to the China Review (vols. v. and vi.) the excursus portion of the above excellent work. Chinese law makes no distinction between the civil and criminal branches of jurisprudence-in fact, there are no well-understood Chinese words capable of adequately expressing the distinction as we understand it. From their point of view a law is a command, pure and simple, and breach of that command entails punishment; hence all law is in a way criminal. If popular customs upon matters touching inheritance, commerce, transfer, and so on have from time to time called for a command to rectify, accentuate, or generalize such customs, and have in this way indirectly created a body of quasi-civil law, this civil jurisprudence is none the less of an ancillary order, sanctioned by pains and penalties exactly as the general or criminal code of which it is, so to speak, a mere after-growth or excrescence. This peculiarity is the better realized when we observe the one main principle which pervades all Chinese law, namely, that rights, injuries, innocence, and guilt are founded rather upon status than upon individual equality; thus, what is a crime in a child, slave, junior, wife, or pupil may, through the exaggerated operation of patria potestas, taken in its widest sense, become almost a virtue in a parent, master, senior agnate, husband, or tutor. This point is exceedingly clearly brought out by Sir Chaloner Alabaster, whose well-known sardonic humour manages to quicken with lively interest the dry bones of the baldest Chinese statutes. Having read carefully through the whole 600 pages, and having previously had opportunities of reading the original "commands" of several successive dynasties of Emperors, I can candidly say that I have not noticed a single instance where (so far as my own imperfect knowledge goes) any essential fact or principle appears to be incorrectly stated; it is a little curious, however, to notice that not a single word is said upon the subject of female infanticide. It was a happy thought to give, in the original Chinese characters, along, of course, with translations, the leading legal terminologies. In a considerable number of cases these characters have been misprinted, but not in such a way as to prevent anyone conversant with Chinese from knowing what the correct character ought to be, whilst for those who do not read Chinese at all this defect will not entail any serious consequences, as the whole of the Chinese will to them be unintelligible.

E. H. PARKER.

HORACE MARSHALL AND SON; LONDON, 1899.

11. The Story of West Africa, by MARY H. KINGSLEY, author of "West African Studies" The Story of the Empire Series. A racy pocket-history of West Africa, in the author's well-known style, showing the rise of English influence in the West; the conditions under which English trade. has been carried on, from Queen Elizabeth's time to the present; the story of early and modern explorers and merchants, the difficulties they met with, and their pluck and perseverance, resulting in a settlement of Government under the ægis and control of England. The area of Miss Kingsley's excursion comprises the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, Lagos, and the vast territory now to be known as Nigeria. This history is accompanied with a map, and a good index.

12. The Transvaal Boers: a Historical Sketch, by AFRICANUS, with presentation map of South Africa. A very accurate and clear historical sketch, embracing the origin of the Boers, the Voortrekkers, the early history of the South African Republic, annexation and war, the two Conventions, the Uitlanders, with important appendices, giving the names of British Premiers, Colonial Secretaries, and Governors of the Cape; Presidents of the South African Republic and of the Orange Free State; Premiers of Cape Colony and Natal since the grant of responsible government; Lieutenant-Governors, Administrators, and Governors of Natal since its separation from Cape Colony; calendar of principal events in South Africa since 1834, and a list of the numerous books consulted, with an important note. This work is full of interest, clearly written, and valuable at the present time.

GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED; LONDON, 1899.

13. The International Geography, by seventy contributors, edited by Dr. HUGH ROBERT MILLS, librarian of the Royal Geographical Society. This book of 1,088 pages including index is a wonder and a credit to the Century at the close of which it appears, and emphatically no other Century could have given birth to a compilation so comprehensive, so accurate, and so complete. In statistics some reasonable accuracy is sought for, and not mere guesses; some data must be shown for amount of population. As regards the Chinese Empire, the estimate of the population is too uncertain to record anything as a fact; the utmost that can be said is that it is not improbable that it reaches 350,000,000. As regards British India, where attempts have been made for several decades to introduce a census, the population is entered at 287,000,000. Thus the two countries together contain more than one-third of the population of the world in its widest

sense.

The Editor in his brief preface explains that the work is the work of a Septuagint, and gives the names of the seventy learned contributors, and the portion of the subject entrusted to each is recorded, and the list justifies the title of "International." An estimate was formed of the amount of space to which each contributor should be restricted; this must have been a task of great delicacy. Each author was allowed to use his own language, but the contribution was, under the supervision of the Editor,

translated into English; each author is held responsible for his facts and figures, and the final proof was submitted to him so as to insure that responsibility. While, on the one hand, mathematical, physical, commercial, and political treatment of the subject was not excluded, on the other hand, it was understood that a book on Geography must be written. from a strictly geographical point of view. The general description of a continent must refer only to the largest and most determinative features, and these should be taken in the following order: coasts, surface, geology, climate, flora, fauna, anthropology, history, including territorial changes of the highest order.

Seventy-nine letters of invitation to possible contributors were issued in October, 1897. Forty-seven of the authors thus invited at once agreed to contribute; on each refusal a second author was applied to, and nineteen accepted; in ten cases a third author had to be applied to. In the course of this operation 122 letters were exchanged with correspondents in all parts of the world, from Norway to New Zealand. Each section bears the author's name, and seven European languages are represented in these communications.

The spelling of place-names presented a serious difficulty. The division of the subject is into countries, where there is a special alphabetical system, and into countries where there is none. The transliteration of the former was difficult. As regards the latter, the rules of the Royal Geographical Society were adopted whenever the pronunciation was known. The names of places in British India are given throughout according to the rules of the Government of India.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland occupies a larger space than any other great country, because the materials available were fuller. Other countries have been treated with equal care. No part of the world dominated by Western civilization is viewed as a foreign land. All details of Anthropology which have no bearing on Geography, such as religion, language, education, culture, are rigorously excluded or lightly noticed. Geography, and Geography alone, is the subject and object of the book, for a treatise de omnibus rebus has no limit. The subject, being strictly limited, has been treated systematically, on understood plans and principles, in an orderly manner, leaving no room for partiality or prejudice, with a uniform terminology, with no allusions to past history or dipping into future possibilities. Turning to Chapter LII., pages 986 to 1014, we are informed all about South Africa by competent persons; at pages 469 to 503 British India is fully illustrated. There is a danger in knowing too much of a particular region, and there is a greater danger in knowing too little and supplementing ignorance with platitudes. Both these errors are avoided.

I do not recommend this book to continuous reading from the first to the last page, as this would prove wearisome, unless to a student, who is getting up the subject preparatory to an examination in Geography. There are no large maps in the volume, but several hundred small illustrations. There are no sheets of statistics which crush the inexperienced reader, but at the end of the descriptions of each country there is a uniform statistical