ads, he read a page or two, and read on, and read on, for
five hours, till he had finished the book,--which is much too
short,--fascinated, lost, carried out of himself and England. He
was in Mongolia, sitting under a blue-cloth tent, with savage dogs
howling around, and gazing outside, through the doorless doorway,
on a vast panorama of poor tufted grass, stretching away to huge
black hills in the distance, and Tartars on camels, Tartars on
horses, Tartars on springless, unbreakable ox-carts, hastening up
to the encampment; while inside he listened to a quiet Scotchman,
resignedly yet clearly explaining everything in a voice---- there
was the puzzle. Where in the world had the reviewer heard that
voice before, with its patient monotone, as well known as his
oldest friend's, its constant digressions and "reflections," its
sentences so familiar, yet so new, sentences which, as each topic
came up, he could write before they were uttered. "James Gilmour,
M.A." Never knew him, or heard of him; yet here was he, talking
exactly as some one else had years ago talked a hundred times. So
oppressive at last became the will-o'-the-wisp reminiscence, that
the reviewer stopped, after an account of the Desert of Gobi, and
deliberately read it through again, in search of a clue which might
reawaken his memory. It was all in vain, and it was not till
another hundred pages had been passed, always under the impression
of that bewildering reminiscence, that he exclaimed to himself,
"That's it! Robinson Crusoe has turned missionary, lived years in
Mongolia, and written a book about it." That is this book. To any
one who, perhaps from early neglect, does not perceive this truth,
our judgment will seem erroneous; but to any one who does, we may
quite fearlessly appeal. The student of _Robinson Crusoe_ never
expected that particular pleasure in this life, and he will never
have it again; but for this once he has it to the full. Mr. James
Gilmour, though a man of whom any country may be proud, is not a
deep thinker, and not a bright writer, and not a man with the gift
of topographical, or, indeed, any other kind of description. He
thinks nothing extraordinary, and has nothing to say quotable.
There is a faint, far-off humour in him, humour sternly repressed;
but that, so fa