The reader need not expect to find in this work a sensation story. It is anything but that. Neither, being exclusively descriptive of the beneficent arts of peace, can it in any sense come under the head of what is termed war literature. Yet it is safe to affirm that without the great rebellion this book had never been written. It is full of novel, picturesque, and widely suggestive ideas. Some of its statements tear away old fallacies as by a cannon ball. For instance, where the young settler states as matter of experience:
'Those who say the treasures of the tropics are to be best won by the brute force of ignorant labor, cannot have studied with sufficient patience the march of invention. Intelligent laborers, men who know how to make wood and iron do their harvest work to the sparing of human sinews, men who can work steam in harness, these are what is wanted here. Those, too, are mistaken who fancy that no skin but a black one can cover the firm muscle and vigorous endurance of a perfect and hardy manhood. The most manly workers I have seen in this country are white men. They know how to obtain and use the best class of labor-saving machines, and they trust no one but themselves to manage them, for they know that superior implements and the recklessness of brute force don't work well together. Under the warm sun of the tropics white men and machinery will yet open the grandest field of civilization.'
This goes to confirm us in the opinion we have long entertained and advanced in these pages, that the result of the great political change we are now undergoing will be for the benefit of white men. It has been so often asserted that only black men can work in the tropics, that people have come to acquiesce in the statement without investigation. The record of this work is to the point in helping to dispel so widespread a delusion.
Whoever, at this delightful season, wishes to enjoy a book written in pure, gushing English, attuned to the gentle harmonies of nature, and be refreshed by sympathy with its kind and grateful spirit, will not fail to read 'In the Tropics.'
Harper's Pictorial History of the Great Rebellion in the United States.
This work is issued in semi-monthly numbers, at twenty-five cents per number, appearing about the first and fifteenth of each month. The introduction contains a succinct account of the formation of the Confederacy of the States; the formation and adoption of the Constitution of the United States, and the establishment of the National Government; the origin, development, and progress of the doctrines of nullification and secession, and the various phases which they assumed until their final culmination in the Great Rebellion.
The illustrations comprise portraits of those who have borne a prominent part in the struggle; maps of the different localities; plans of the leading actions; views of scenes of interest and of the most important battles.
The work is profusely and graphically illustrated, and we think this serial cannot fail to become popular. We learn much and readily through the eye, and the importance of faithfully executed pictures can scarcely be overestimated. The portraits given in the work are portraits, and not caricatures. It contains a careful, comprehensive, and minute record of the progress of the war, and is written with ability and spirit. It promises to be impartial, accurate, and artistic.
The North Pacific Review. A Journal of Literature, History, Science, Correspondence, and Fine Arts. San Francisco: Dalgleish & Co., publishers and proprietors.
The Continental extends a warm greeting to her sister of the West, feeling not only the strong bonds of the literary amenities, but the far stronger ties of patriotism and loyalty, so ably defined in the opening article of the North Pacific. Loyalty is indeed something more than fidelity to one's country and Government, based upon a sense of interest or of obligation: it is fidelity based upon love.