Contemporary Literature [pp. 541-573]

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.
welcome. The author is an observant traveller and a skilful narrator. Especially for those who travel along our Western coast, and in the Hawaiian
Archipelago, will his book be found of great utility. But it is also interesting to all by giving just the information one would like to have of the
places visited. He is just to the labors of our missionaries in the Sandwich
Islands-he says that the natives there "are the most generally educated people in the world. There is scarcely a Hawaiian -man, woman, or child-of
suitable age but can both read and write." The accounts of Mlendocino, its
coast and red-woods, and of the Farallon Islands, with their picturesque
scenery, are of special interest and novelty. The appendix contains a curious chapter, entitled " Contributions of a Venerable Savage to the Ancient
History of the Hawaiian Islands."
Under the Trees. By S. IREN.SUS PRIME. New York: Harper & Bro.
In a characteristic note, Dr. Prime writes that "many of these miscellaneous letters and papers were written out of doors, and the writer yields to
the request of others in putting them into a book. And a very pleasant
book they make-sketches of all sorts of places and people, at home and
abroad, in towns and woods, in the Adirondacks and in Italy written in
various moods-grave and gay, and yet always interesting and instructive.
It will be a welcome book in travelling and at home, for young and old. And
it is very well got up. ",lIy illother and I" is the last addition made by
the Harpers totheir excellent edition of Miss MIuloek's popular tales.
The Heart oy Africa. Three Years' Travels and Adventures in the Unexplored Regions of Central Africa, from 1868 to 1871. By Dr. GEORGE.
ScawIWFUETH. Translated by Ellen E. Frewer. With an Introduction by
Winwood Reade. 2 vols. 8vo. With maps and numerous illustrations, engraved by J. D. Cooper. Halrper & Brothers. By these volumes Dr.
Schweinfurth has put himself into the front rank of African explorers
penetrating into districts of Central Africa further than even Sir Samuel
Baker, nearly down to thie equator. The author wvas born in Riga, 1836,
studied at Heidelberg and Berlin, became enamored of the botany of
Africa, went thither in 1863 as far as to Khartoom; and in 1868 organized
for the Royal Academy of Science the plan of a botanical journey, the resuits of which are contained in these two noble volumes. He wvas aided by
the Egyptian government, and had special facilities for exploration. liHe
passed through the country of'the Niam-Niam, and made large explorations
in the hitherto almost unknown kingdom of AIonbutte —a splendid and fertile region, with a I opulation quite different from the Abyssinians, degraded
profligate, and warlike, a race of cannibals. Being a superior drauightsmanI
as well as a scientific botanist, he made sketches of the country, the people,
their implements, etc., which are reproduced in the excellent illustrations of
these volumes. He also saw many of the Pygmies-a dwarf race of Central Africa, of whom Aristotle and Herodotus make mention, but of whose existence as a tribe there has been much doubt. This question he seems to
have set at rest; and hle claims that they are the same with the Bushmen of
South Africa. They are a fierce and warlike little race —some of them four
566
[July,.