WILLIAMSON are the writers, motor-cars are hardly so much as mentioned
throughout. It is a tale of the Nile and the Desert, of camels and
caravans, told with a quite extraordinary power of making you feel
that you have visited the scenes described. But this, of course,
if you have any previous experience of the WILLIAMSON method, will
not surprise you at all. As for the story that strings the scenes
together, though it promised well, with almost every possible element
of fictional excitement--buried treasure, and spies, and abductions,
and secrets--somehow the result was not wholly up to the expectation
thus created. To borrow an appropriate simile, the great thrill
remained something of a mirage, always in sight and never actually
reached. Also I wish to record my passionate protest against stories
of treasure-trove in which the treasure is not taken away in sacks and
used to enrich the hunters; I am all against leaving it underground,
for whatever charming and romantic reasons. No, it is not so much as
a novel of adventure that might have happened pretty well anywhere
that I advise you to read this book, but as a super-guide to scenes
and sensations that happen in Egypt and nowhere else. From the moment
when, as one of the WILLIAMSON party, you sit down to breakfast on the
terrace of Shepherd's, till you take leave of your fellow-travellers
in the mountain-tomb of QUEEN CANDACE, you will enjoy the nearest
possible approach to a luxurious Egyptian tour, under delightful
guidance, and at an inclusive fare of six shillings.

* * * * *

Mr. SETON GORDON is a bold man. It is one thing to call a book
_The Charm of the Hills_ (CASSELL) and quite another to succeed in
conveying that charm through the medium of the printed word. Perhaps,
however, he was encouraged by the success that has already attended