enes of tenderness and sentiment;
but she is by no means the most prominent character in the novel, as the
infelicitous title would imply, and she serves chiefly to bring into
stronger relief the traits of Colonel Carter and Doctor Ravenel. The
author seems not even to make so much study of her as of Mrs. Larue, a
lady whose peculiar character is skilfully drawn, and who will be quite
probable and explicable to any who have studied the traits of the noble
Latin race, and a little puzzling to those acquainted only with people
of Northern civilization. Yet in Mrs. Larue the author comes near making
his failure. There is a little too much of her,--it is as if the wily
enchantress had cast her glamour upon the author himself,--and there is
too much anxiety that the nature of her intrigue with Carter shall not
be misunderstood. Nevertheless, she bears that stamp of verity which
marks all Mr. De Forrest's creations, and which commends to our
forbearance rather more of the highly colored and strongly-flavored
parlance of the camps than could otherwise have demanded reproduction in
literature. The bold strokes with which such an amusing and heroic
reprobate as Van Zandt and such a pitiful poltroon as Gazaway are
painted, are no less admirable than the nice touches which portray the
Governor of Barataria, and some phases of the aristocratic,
conscientious, truthful, angular, professorial society of New Boston,
with its young college beaux and old college belles, and its life pure,
colorless, and cold to the eye as celery, yet full of rich and wholesome
juices. It is the goodness of New Boston, and of New England, which,
however unbeautiful, has elevated and saved our whole national
character; and in his book there is sufficient evidence of our author's
appreciation of this fact, as well as of sympathy only and always with
what is brave and true in life.

_A Journey to Ashango-Land: and further Penetration into Equatorial
Africa._ By PAUL B. DU CHAILLU. With Maps and Illustrations. New York:
D. Appleton & Co.

Somewhere in the heart of the African continent, Mr. Du Chaillu, laying
his head upon a rock, after a day of uncommon hardship, finds reason to
lament the ungratefulness of the traveller's fate, which brings him,
through perilous adventure and great suffering, to the incredulity and
coldness of a public unable to receive his story with perfect faith. It
is such a meditation as ought to reproach very keenly the sceptics w