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 290 REVIEWS OF BOOKS April The evidence collected by Mr. Cory serves to add to the already high reputa- tion of D'Urban. Few colonial governors have ever done better work, and none, assuredly, ever received shabbier treatment. Especially impressive is the picture presented of Colonel Harry Smith, with his rapidity of movement, his kindness of heart, and his spectacular methods of dealing with natives. In striking contrast to these two good men was the enigmatic figure of Andries Stockenstrom, whom Lord Glenelg foisted upon the colonists as lieutenant-governor of the eastern province, as a reward for his denunciation of his fellow countrymen before the aborigines committee. Considering the unpopularity with which he started, it was impossible for Stockenstrom's government to have been other than a failure ; but in any case his character, as here depicted, was not such as, even under favourable conditions, to secure success. He * was easily offended and never forgave a slight. He always had some grievance over which to brood, and was prone rather to whine about it than either to take the necessary steps to remove it or to decide to endure that which he could not cure.' The melancholy outcome of all this was that * two more Kaffir wars, twenty years of further disorder and disaster, and the great self-immolation of the Kaffir tribes by starving themselves to death in the hope of driving the white man into the sea, were yet necessary before any eastern province progress worthy the name became possible '. Mr. Cory is singularly successful in summarizing the more important evidence given before the aborigines committee of the house of commons. In short, the volume is a production of which Rhodes University College, Grahamstown, and South Africans generally, may well be proud. We presume that it is the importance of the years here dealt with that justifies the appropriation of a whole volume to them. Otherwise it is difficult to see how, on this scale, the period down to 1857 can be completed within a single other volume. H. E. Egerton. The Belgian Congo and the Berlin Act. By Arthur Berriedale Keith, D.C.L., D.Litt. (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1919.) Professor Keith's history of the Belgian Congo is judicious, exhaustive, authoritative. Completed in September 1918, it necessarily wants sureness of touch in dealing with the present outlook, but a later edition will be able to supply an air of greater finality. An appendix comprises all relevant state documents. It would be an advantage if a map were added. The book is a carefully written and well-balanced history. It is also a remarkable record of how the baser sort of empire-builder turns to his own use and profit all the finer elements of imperialism — the love of adven- ture, the desire for knowledge, the ambition to spread culture, civiliza- tion, and religion overseas, and the desire to extend to backward peoples national or European standards of conduct. Leopold II launched his African venture nominally as a crusade against Arab slavers. Stanley's exploits gave it a solitary gleam of romance. The Brussels geographical conference of 1876, the session of an International Commission in 1877, the formation of a Comite d'fitudes du Haut Congo in 1878, were all clever