Books: Africalamity*

Brave, boyish Janet Rawley and her brutishly neurasthenic spouse, Jack, are about to plunge into African shrubbery on a safari for game and gold. Capt. James Antrim, of the King's African Rifles, splendid fellow that he is, cannot bear to see such ill-mated tenderfeet wandering loose among the lions, thirst and loneliness. He turns in his steamer ticket from Mombasa to England, takes command for and of the Rawleys, gets the safari past the usual vile German agent and as far as a highland camp, three weeks from nowhere. Here fever, whiskey, manslaughter, flies and love descend upon them. Rawley indulges in the first three and then loses his unpleasant self in the ample countryside. Janet and Antrim stagger home, black-lipped and full of British guilt. After the decent British interval, they marry. A ghostly negroid smell haunts them nightly, requiring Antrim's return to Africa to lay the ghost of Dingaan, a black he sent to find the strayed Rawley. Two skeletons come to light in an abandoned game-pit, clearing Dingaan of a murder he might pardonably have committeed.

Mr. Young's African smells, sights and sounds are indubitable. He can occasionally strike off action, too. His motivation, however, is vague, unaccountable, spasmodic. His emotions plod in circles. His temper the generous will call wholesome and dignified, others cold and muttonish.