Welsh Journals

others are not even names to us, but the specimens given here of their work are all interesting, though in some cases too brief for a fair judgment upon the author the book would perhaps have gained had its range been less wide, but there is nothing in it which is not of literary value, and most of it is extremely original. The longest tale in the book is Bartek the Conqueror." It is an ironic study of the Polish question as it appears to the eyes of the peasant, and possesses a tragic interest for us to-day since we know that in every detail the story is repeating itself on the battlefields of Eastern Europe. Bartek is a young Polish peasant-strong as a giant and brave but noticeably stupid. He is taken off by the Germans to fight against the French in 1870. His comrades are intelligent enough to understand that the war is against their friends and in favour of their German oppressors; Bartek, however, comprehends nothing of this he performs prodigies of valour against the French, wins many medals, captures standards, is congratulated in person by Steinmetz but his exploits are regarded with ironic amusement by the Germans, and he returns home, his mighty strength wasted by the war, only to find that he and his wife are cheated out of their little holding by German tyranny, and that everything Polish is hated, proscribed and oppressed. The slow disillusionment in the soul of Bartek is wonderfully described his naive belief that his exploits will somehow redound to the good of his country, that the Poles will be admired and esteemed because of them, his sorrow on learning that the best Polish patriots are fighting for France, and his bewildered agony over the cruelty of the Germans for whom he has done so much-all these things are told with consummate skill. It is the tragedy of a nation in brief, a nation which must combat against its friends and whose very valour redounds only to the glory of its foes. Exceedingly original and very powerful also are two short tales-H In Autumn and In Sacrifice to the Gods," by Sieroszswski, who, we are told, was for fifteen years an exile in Siberia and spent much of his time studying the wild tribes of the region-the Tungus and Yakutsk. These little studies are full of poetry and romance, the strange weird beauty of the Siberian forest and lake and marsh, the picturesque animal lore, the adventurous life, the beauty of dress and weapons. There is a certain haunted wood, haunted because the Tungus are accustomed to place their corpses in it without burial. At one time they were to be found here quite frequently, and the forest takes its name from them. Shrivelled and horrible they usually sit somewhere under a tree or cleft in a rock, gazing eastwards with eye-sockets pecked by the birds. On their knees they hold a wooden bow, or a rifle, at their feet lies a hatchet with a broken handle, and at their belt, inlaid with silver and beads, hangs a broken knife in its sheath-also broken in order to prevent the dead man from doing any mischief after death. It is dangerous even to touch any of the things belonging to the dead man, since that evokes a storm, or, at best, a high wind." Very interesting is the explanation given by the Tungus hunter of his strange cosmogomy there are as many lakes, in his country, he declares, as stars in the sky and the stars are only the reflection of them; each lake has its own character-marshy or muddy or pure as air-and its own inhabitants, wild duck in some, in others salmon. Everything comes from the water. Even the cow lived in the water until she was taken and tamed by man." The Tungus hunt bears, but in fear and trembling since they believe that the animals are really forest demons who can hear everything that is said, even in the interior of a house and who have mysterious charms by which they can entice the hunter alone into the forest at midnight. The great hunter- Chachak-slays many bears, but he is overcome by their magic in the end. Equally weird and fascinating is the story In Sacrifice to the Gods," which tells how a great pestilence came upon the herds of reindeer-the one wealth of the nomads-and the means by which they sought to avert it-the old means of human sacrifice, that of the best beloved. The Siberia shown in these pages is very different from that revealed in such books as Dostoievsky's House of the Dead; it is primitive and severe, but full of freedom and beauty, and its wild tribes have a singular poetry and charm, even a certain tender- ness. Lilian Winstanley. The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (Author of Erewhon). Selections arranged and edited by Henry Festing Jones. London: A. C. Fifield. Pp. 438. 5s. net. In one of these Notes Butler tells us that he could not keep himself going at all did he not believe that he was likely to inherit a good average three-score years and ten of immortality. He died in 1902, and here we have before us the Third and Popular Impression of the contents of his Note-Books, and a publisher's announcement of The Complete Samuel Butler running into nearly a score of items several of which are certain to live long beyond the period