uld have suffered more from time and the elements in one part of the
country than in another," it seems to us impossible to reject in so
summary a fashion the testimony of early writers, given, not in mere
general terms, but with a minuteness of description rivalling his own.
Possibly, the explanation may be found partly in the fact that the roads
in one part of the country were generally more ancient than in the
other--many of them, as we know, dating from a period anterior to the Inca
rule--and partly to the greater devastations wrought by the European
conquerors and their descendants in the neighborhood of the capital and on
the most frequented routes. In other particulars, such as the size of the
Peruvian houses and the existence of windows, Mr. Squier finds the facts
to have been understated by Humboldt. Generally, as we have already
intimated, he finds full confirmation of the accounts of such writers as
Cieza de Leon and Garcilasso de la Vega in those relics which still
survive as the surest witnesses of the past, defying the tooth of time,
the ravages of violence and the denials and assumptions of a crazy
scepticism.

Camp, Court and Siege: A Narrative of Personal Adventure and
Observation during Two Wars, 1861-65, 1870-71. By Wickham
Hoffman. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Had the third of this book which is devoted to the writer's reminiscences
of the late civil convulsion in his own country been omitted or reserved
for expansion into a separate publication, the remainder would have had
more unity and attractiveness. The latter is by far the more interesting
portion. Expanded and fortified by details, references and documents,
Major Hoffman's account of his experience as secretary of legation at
Paris in the year of the siege might have filled--and may yet be made to
fill--an important place among memoirs of its class. His narrative style
is clear and pleasant, if never vivid or impressive. It harmonizes with
the complexion of truth, and truth is the first thing we ask from the
diarist and observer. Our confidence is won by his direct and unambitious
way of telling what he saw and shared.

We should think it not improbable that the writer will adopt this course,
and use more fully the material which must be at his command for
illustrating, from an exceptionally favorable point of view, the fall of
the Second Empire and the double fall of its capital. The American
legation, under Mr. Washburne, w