Books Reviewed

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 903, 21 February 1930, Page 16

Books Reviewed

THE NEW TURKEY CREAKING Turkish fluently and having an excellent knowledge of the Near East, Mr. Harold Armstrong possessed admirable qualifications for his position as a delegate of the Commission of Assessment of War Damagess- with Turkey and Syria as his territory. More than that, he possessed the gift of recording his experiences, not in the rather bored and perfunctory manner of the seasoned traveller, but in a vital and stimulating fashion, with here and there pungent criticism, dramatic surprises and magnificent word-pictures. In the pages of “Turkey and Syria Reborn” something of the immemorial mystery and fascination of eastern lands is captured. One smells again the glamorous, if filthy, by-ways of minareted cities and hears the echo of those tantalising melodies of reed instruments; melodies that “have no beginning and no ending,” and that plangorously add to the mysterious charm of night in the East. Mr. Armstrong went to Beyrouth, “a town without a soul,” to storied Damascus, to ruined Baalbek, to drowsy Latakia, capital of the Nausairi State in which he had many thrilling experiences; to Aleppo, "dying, strangled by the new frontiers”; to Antioch, a mean township of mud, where once the Emperor

Theodosius indulged in the wildest debaucheries the world has seen; to Angora, home of the Ghazi Mustapha Kemal whose name is held in awe in every corner of the East, whether In Turkish territory or otherwise. He writes of Turks suave and churlish, hospitable and forbidding, clean and filthy, moral, immoral and amoral; of the queer ways of officialdom, of the quaint habits and superstitions of tribesmen, of the almost universal distrust of foreigners. He takes his readers with him to revolting meals in foul-smelling hovels and to repasts, greasy and expensive, in the homes of great chieftains. Through it all runs a vein, of irrepressible good humour and a keen understanding of the vast problems confronting the makers of the new Turkey. Mr. Armstrong in his travels has met most of the protagonists in the long-protracted drama that has its setting east of the Levant. Here is his impression of Colonel T. E. Lawrence: I had watched Lawrence at work. I had argued with him for hours. He was a meteor of a man who had almost burnt himself out in one great flame and who today, as Air-Mechanic No. XYZ of the Royal Air Force, tries to damp down his restless vitality and his craving for the old life under the monoton:' of routine work. I always failed to follow his mental processes. His intense se f-conscious-ness made him develop an armour of cynicism so that it was impossible to know what were his real thoughts and whether his queer, illogical actions and his brilliant flashes of satire were merely for effect or the result of his considered opinions. ... I think that he dreamed a tine dream; then he woke to reality, but refused to allow it; and finally hid himself behind his queer cynical manner and pretended that he had always known that it was a fantasy. While I had dreamt no dreams—only realised that there were problems without solutions and that the destruction of the Ottoman Empire had not produced a new heaven and a new earth, but was more like tile

Up From the Deeps Nothing more fascinating has ever been written about the sea. its terrors and mysteries than the story which Mr. David Masters tells of the most romantic of peace-time professions in his book "The Wonders of Salvage.” The wealth annually spilled into the sea as the result of wrecks amounts to many millions of pounds and, while much of this is unfortunately lost, the salvage experts by their courage and resourcefulness recover bullion and property worth immense sums. Mr. Masters has an intimate knowledge of great salvage feats in all parts of the world and tells of wonders performed that outrival fiction. An outstanding figure in his pages is Commodore Sir F. W. Young, of the Admiralty Salvage Section, who spent some time in Auckland on holiday a few years ago. The salvage section saved or recovered about 300 vessels at a time when ships and their precious cargoes were vital to the nation. The section developed a. method of raising sunken battleships which overcame many _ difficulties. By pumping air into a submerged vessel they were able to raise her to the surface, often bottom up, and float her into shallow water. This method was employed by private contractors after ihe war in the raising of the German fleet from the bottom of Scapa Flow - —the biggest wreck-raising job the world has ever seen. There have been many suggestions for the raising ot the Lusitania, but Mr. Masters thinks it impracticable. "Those who are curious on the subject may be interested to know,” he says, "that the chances of raising the Lusitania are so small as to be almost negligible. The sheer weight of the sea quickly obliterates man’s handiwork, and the Lusitania probably ceased to be a ship years ago. It is extremely likely that the tremendous pressure to which she was subjected at the depth of 288 feet long ago crushed her flat. Proposals have been made to try to salve the valuable 30-ton safe from the strong room of the liner, but personally I should not care to back such an enterprise.” "The Wonders of Salvage.” The Week-End Library—John Lane, The Bodley Head, Ltd. Our copy from the publishers. The Learned Judge Unbends Judges and legal notabilities who preserve their sense of humour intact through all their wearying contacts with fusty argument and arid enactments are really remarkable people. Here is one of them, Mr. Justice Piddington, of New South Wales, who for years past has been principally engaged on arbitration cases, about the most uninteresting and perhaps—judging by the experience of his native State —the most futile of all forms of judicial effort. Yet now, between the covers of this book, "Worshipful Masters,” Mr. Justice Piddington introduced upon the title page as plain A. B. Piddington, has crammed a volume of the most amusing stories and reminiscences that could be picked up in a day’s march. The learned judge not only unbends, but becomes positively "one of the lads.” One or two of his stories are almost of smokeroom calibre. There are some chestnuts there, too, but they are well served up. Mr. Piddington has met and moved with the most brilliant figures of the Australian bar. He tells tales that are full of keen wit. The brilliant Salomons had audacity as well as an alert mind. In one case heard before an obtuse judge, Salomons instituted reprisals. He developed a line of argument, and then referred to a mythical American gen-

eral he had met “in the Yosemite Valley,” who said: “You have strange laws in your country, Mr. Salomons.” Mr. Salomons: “I know of nothing to justify such a remark.” “Oh, but you have. Why, there is a law by which it is possible to have lunatics sitting on the Supreme Court Bench.” Mr. Salomons: “I have practised there for 30 years, and I have never heard of such a thing.” The General: “Ah, you can’t tell me that, Mr. Salomons. I have been there myself, and I’ve seen them!” “Worshipful Masters,” by A. B. Piddington. Published by Angus and Robertson, Sydney. Our copy from the publishers. A Brilliant German Writer There is to be found in “Don Juan’s Daughters,” by Irene Forbes-Mosse, the elfin touch of our own Katherine Mansfield. Under this title are ! grouped three novellen or complete short novels, as distinct from short stories. Miss Forbes-Mosse has an enviable reputation in this field of work in Germany, but, until now, her work has not been well known in English-speaking countries. There is power and reserve in her writing and at the same time a deft humour and occasional thistledown touches that are unusual in German work. And what an artist in words we have here! She breathes upon a few cold nouns and adjectives and creates from them perfect cameos. Open the book at any page, almost, and you will find work of this quality: Sedans appeared from which ladies of quality alit, leathery of hue but raddled with rouge: with lace and with artificial flowers in their dyed hair, rather like the faded queens in an old pack of cards. They uttered little shrill cries, like parrots being teased and gossiped with their servants with the talkative familiarity on which only arrogance, based on centenary traditions, can venture. “Don Juan’s Daughters” is described as a capriecio and that adequately conveys its wayward sprightliness and charm. “Dream Children,” the second of the novellen, is in the minor key and deals with frustrated motherlove and its outlet. It is pervaded by a gentle melancholy; a sad song, played on muted strings. “The Burden” is more substantial, more blottesque. Here are high lights of tragedy, relieved, again, with the same brilliant flashes of humour. Incidentally, a rather pathetic picture is presented of the struggles of a very delightful German family to face polite starvation brought about by blockade. Miss Forbes-Mosse should make a very successful dehut before the British public with this very interesting book, which has been translated by Oakley Williams and carries a foreword by Dr. Vernon Lee. “Don Juan’s Daughters.” John the Bodley Head, Ltd., London. Our copy from the publishers direct. A Coloured Cattle-Thief Since a cattle-thief is—do the farmer or rancher, at least —just as obnoxious in South Africa as he is in Western America or in New Zealand, and only th e degree of penalty Imposed when the thief is caught distinguishes cattle-stealing in one place from the same crime in another, the difference in penalties arising from local conditions, it may seem to some people that there is little in cattlestealing to write a book about unless the thief has become so successful that he ranks as a full-blown general of his particular industry. Yet stories of the principal exploits of Ntsukumbini were well worthy of presentation in hook form. Ntsukumbinl, a member of a tribe called Amaxesibe. lived in the Transkeian Native Territory, which contains 16,000 square miles of the finest country In South Africa, and which has a native population just short of a million. He was a member of a family in which cattle-stealing was a traditional profession, honest though the family was in all other things. Something of a palliative is offered—the poor, as a rule were not robbed; toll was taken from the fat herds ot the rich. Sometimes thefts were carried out merely for the purpose ot demonstrating skill in stealing, and particularly for demonstrations to new and youthful members of the society of thieves. We do not notice, though, that the subjects of the demonstrations were returned to their owners, or that society in general agreed that robbing the rich was commendable. What does give these stories of Ntsukum- ‘ blni an assessable value is the fact that they are an interesting illustration of native psychology, and that scattered through them are many useful side- • tights on native customs. The stories were gathered by Mr Frank Brownlee, a Native Commissioner, from Ntsukumbinl himself, and the gathering has been assisted by Mr Brownlee’s intimacy with natives and knowledge of their ways and customs. They make good reading, besides being well worth having for their delineation of the native mind. '’Ntsukumbinl: Cattle Thief:” Frank Brownlee. Jonathan Cape, London. Out EQDV f rom ihe nuhlither. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED “The Month.”—February number. Includes articles by the Rev. Austin Woodbury, S.M., D.D., and Stanley B. James. Stories by Helena J. Henderson and Mona Tracy.