no surprise that he was highly appreciated as a preacher by his congregations. The standpoint of The Times, or of William Rogers, or the tendencies of Hadden to sympathize with the Broad school of English theology as a whole, may not, and will not, win all readers, but the honest purpose and the reverent language of the preacher must win the attention and the respect of every one, and as a portrait of a true man we are glad to have seen the book.

VIII.-ANTIQUITIES AND TRAVEL.

Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals. By E. NORMAN GARDINER. (Macmillan and Co. 1910.) IOS. 6d.

A SERIES of articles, published during the last few years by Mr. Norman Gardiner in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, attracted considerable attention as surpassing in completeness, practical knowledge and critical sense, all previous attempts to deal with certain main problems in the history of Greek athletics. Probably no writer in any language has brought so much practical experience to bear on the subject, or covered the field he has chosen in so thorough-going a fashion. Students of antiquity, more especially that class of them-particularly numerous among the English-speaking races-who are or have been athletes, have awaited with interest the gathering of these articles into a book. They will not be disappointed; the author has given them what they expected, and a great deal more. The first half of the book, a continuous history of Greek athletics, is quite new; in the second, the articles previously published have been thoroughly revised, and new chapters added. The illustrations, which are of great importance where so much has to be inferred from contemporary monuments, are numerous, well-chosen, and (with a few exceptions, such as the Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo or the Vaison Diadumenos) satisfactorily executed. There is a very useful classified bibliography. In this, however, we suspect the strange name Perclüzet to be a printer's disguise for one more familiar in archaeological circles under the form Perdrizet. Other errors of this sort are few and far between, but it may be noted that the name of the Thessalian bull-catching sport, the 'taurokathapsia,' is generally regarded as a neuter plural, not as Mr. Gardiner writes it, a feminine singular. The point would not be worth mentioning did not Mr. Gardiner say that he knows of no

four. Nearly every question is beset with difficulties of the kind of which this is an example; but Mr. Gardiner faces them all and nearly always strikes a happy mean between dogmatism and indecision.

Besides the points of view of the archaeologist pure and simple and of the practical athlete with an historic sense, there is another from which we may look at the subject-the ethical. The effect of athletics on character and the evils of professionalism and overspecialization are fertile subjects for discussion, and we do not intend to enter upon them here, but merely to draw attention to one aspect of the matter which is apt to be neglected. These evils cannot be properly understood unless we realize that they are equally liable to be present in other branches of human activity. Making due exception of certain philosophers, it is safe to say that the Greek ideal of education was a harmonious balance between soul and body. Neglect of the latter could never, as in certain phases of Christianity, become a virtue, even for the cynic; and over-specialization in the cultivation of either at the expense of the other was regarded as an evil. We at the present day seem to recognize the evil in only one of its aspects, in athletics. It would not need the skill of a sophist to make out a case, acceptable to the ordinary educated Greek, against specialization in, let us say, music or acting. The mischief of such specialization is that it closes the field to all but those who are willing to give their lives to training; the majority of mankind thus become idle spectators, and the artist, equally with the athlete, a professional who performs for their amusement and is open to all the deleterious influences which beset his class. The arts themselves suffer. A truly liberal education, of the kind which Vittorino da Feltre, for instance, gave to his pupils, or Lord Herbert of Cherbury described, becomes almost impossible. It is not necessary to insist that this point of view is wholly right, but it opens up certain considerations which might well be taken into account by our reformers.

Overland to India. By SVEN HEDIN. Two Volumes. With Illustrations and Maps. (Macmillan. 1910.) 30s. net.

IN these volumes Sir Sven Hedin describes his route from Trebizond through Armenia, Central Persia, and Northern Baluchistan to Quetta and the Valley of the Indus. Crossing

the Black Sea in the latter part of 1905, he reached Batum, which he found plunged in the miseries of a strike and terrorized by anarchists. The whole Colchis coast was convulsed by revolutionary disturbances, and he was glad to reach Trebizond, which is a pleasant place. Thence he drove through desolated Armenia, which Turks, Kurds, and Armenians were ruining by their sanguinary quarrels. The barren mountains, ruined villages, desolate plains, and scanty fields formed a gloomy picture, and the snowy peak of Ararat looked down on a dreary country. It was a pleasure to reach Tabriz, which stands in a sterile plain, and had once half a million inhabitants, but at present contains little more than 200,000. The land and people in Persia are fast sinking into utter decay. The degeneration is lamentable. Beyond Tabriz the route was monotonous, barren plains with but scanty vegetation and wretched villages being passed, until Teheran was reached. The capital of Persia is in a state of decay. It stands in a barren plain, surrounded by a ruinous wall, is 3700 feet above the sea, and has a population of 200,000 souls., Beyond Teheran deserts had to be crossed. Camels were bought and a caravan equipped, and on January 1st, 1906, Sven Hedin left Teheran. A few days later he entered the desert, a dreary clay expanse with sand belts here and there, and scarcely any vegetation. Snowstorms were frequent. Then came the Kevir, a wet salt desert, which extended for 200 miles. It is uninhabited, and is the home of wild asses. Tradition says it was once a sea, and ascribes its origin to Solomon and to demons. Its average height is 2500 feet above the sea. Marco Polo traversed the Persian deserts in 1272 A.D., and his descriptions of their features are strikingly correct. Beyond the Kevir came barren plains and stony ridges, till Naibend, full of palm groves, was reached, beyond which town similar districts were traversed until Sir Sven Hedin arrived in the province of Seistan. This portion of Persia is one of its most fertile provinces, being better supplied with water than the other parts of the country. According to Persian writers Seistan was once a perfect garden, and even now under good government it might be made a second Egypt. In its centre lies the great lake of the Hamun, which spreads fertility all around. Climatic and geological changes (as our author points out) have much altered Eastern Persia. Since the Glacial and Quaternary Periods its lakes have slowly dried up and the rainfall has decreased, and so may be explained those great expanses of clay with salt efflorescence, which give the country such a dreary appearance. On April 6th, 1906,

E

a sea.

Sir Sven Hedin reached the Hamun lake, which is little more than the flooded delta of the Hilmend river. The land around was perfectly flat, so that the lake spread to the horizon like It was, however, very shallow, and not six feet deep in the very deepest part. At a distance, old beaches far above the present level shewed how steadily the lake has for ages been drying up. Its borders are formed of grey clay and

covered with reeds. The whole of the Hamun district reminded the traveller of the Tarim basin and the Lop lake in Turkistan, which he graphically describes in a former work. Having crossed the lake he entered a region in which the plague was raging. The ravages of the disease were terrible. Whole districts were

depopulated, and famine followed pestilence. How it reached Seistan was a mystery, as the countries all round were free from it. Seistan-which is full of ruined towns which formerly were populous-is the scene of great political rivalry between England and Russia, and it is possible that the contest for the supremacy in Persia between these two Great Powers will commence in Seistan. Again the wearisome journey over sterile clay plains and between barren mountains was undergone, until the frontiers of Baluchistan were reached. This country is under the protection of England. The rest-houses were good, and the telegraph ran alongside of the track. The heat was fearful, being sometimes more than 100°, the very stones being too hot to touch. At Nushki the railway was reached, and on May 14th, 1906, the explorer arrived at Quetta. This is a large English town, 5512 feet above the sea, full of parks and gardens, and holding a garrison of 5000 men. From Quetta the train speedily brought Sir Sven Hedin down into the Indus Valley, where the book ends. The work is written in a bright and lively style. There are several hundred illustrations from photographs and watercolour sketches by the author. The maps are excellent, and the type and binding are admirable. The value of the book is also increased by a first-rate index.

Memorials of Old Lincolnshire. Edited by E. MANSEL SYMPSON, M.A., M.D. (London: George Allen & Sons. 1911.) 15s. net.

We have little but praise for this beautiful volume, which will always take a first rank in the series of Memorials of Old Counties. The editing and illustrations are alike excellent, the latter really