Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/621

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Jlfiiior Xo/ifcs 6il Copenhagen, are especially interesting. That Nelson ignored a positive signal from Sir Hyde Parker at Copenhagen is made abundantly certain. In the case of Trafalgar the records printed cover not only the day of the combat, but the days immediately succeeding, which severely tested the energy and seamanship of the fleet. Admiral Jackson's volumes have presented the most perfect possible body of materials for the study of these six great battles. It is needless to say that these records make dry reading for the non-professional reader. He will not be able to "read without emotion the bare and formal record: "Partial firing continued until 4.30, when a victory having been reported to the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Nelson, K.B. and Commander-in-Chief, he then died of his wound ; " but it is an emotion imported from other narratives. To the serious student of naval warfare by sailing ships, however, these volumes must forever be indis- pensable. U'it/i Both Annies in South Africa, by Richard Harding Davis. (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. xii, 238.} This volume, [covering the personal adventures of a clever newspaper correspondent on both sides of the line, possesses the keen zest of injudicious frankness. A campaign to-day evokes such an avalanche of publication that to be fresh one must go beyond mere war matter or mere literary excellence. This the author has done. Mr. Davis sympathized with the under dog, though all his friends were in the British camp. First visiting the "corrugated zinc dust-bin of Ladysmith," he adds a few colors to the siege and relief we already know ; then making his way via Louren90 Marques to Pretoria, the first distant view of its dark-green poplars and red-topped roofs oddly suggested Florence, an impression 'the ox-teams in the streets alongside tramway and victoria speedily dissipated. Among the British, at home and in camp, Mr. Davis found much " hysterical " war fever ; among the Boers none. The latter are not 'cute and boorish, as the Briton declares them ; "I have never seen an uncivil Boer," says Mr. Davis. Soundly berated by the Briton, the Boer had no ill words for his opponent ; and except the British prisoners, no sign of war ex- isted in Pretoria. That to crush thirty thousand potential soldiers, England should have required so vast a force seems odd to us all ; and our author justly condemns the "good pig-sticking" at Elandslaagte, and the lying unburied three days of the killed at Spion Kop. He con- trasts Mr. Kruger's personal simplicity and official state ; suggests a likeness to Cleveland, and refers to his bitterness against the British, while President Steyn's attitude was one of amused tolerance. In com- menting on the good treatment of the British prisoners, Mr. Davis dubs the action of some of their officers "unsportsmanlike, ungentlemanly and foolish," and maintains that the (Boer has been murdered and robbed because the Briton coveted his watch and chain — strong words. The small number of Boers who repeatedly stood off the hosts of English evokes his admiration, and the battle of Sand River is vividly described.