British Exploits in South America

lication, will explain itself. It is true that it was written in the heat of an indignation which appeared justifiable to me; but, on mature consideration, the special nature of this present book, written at this period, seems to demand its inclusion, sincerely reluctant though I am to introduce any personal matter of the kind. I include it in full, moreover, although some lines have no bearing on the subject. But this is preferable to the employment of the asterisk-than which there is surely no instrument of the pen which lends itself more readily to the unfair practices of a juggling mind.

It is unnecessary to give the name of the publication to which the following was directed:

Sir: In this secluded spot most things, including periodicals, are belated. It is for this reason that I have only now been enabled to read your review, published on the thirtieth of November, of my book, The South Americans. I have, up to now, managed to deliver myself of eighteen books without sparring with a reviewer-possibly because there has seemed no reason! But there are two points in this review of yours that cannot be passed over in silence.

The first is a personal one. According to your reviewer: "The name of our author leads one to suppose that he knows a good deal more than he tells of the unceasing efforts of Germany for supremacy-not commercial supremacy alone-in some of the states, especially in parts of Brazil; as a matter of fact he dismisses this subject airily in twenty lines."

Now this, leaping from the flat body of a review, is startling, and imbues one with the sensations of a sitter on a needle-point concealed in a cushion! If the words have any meaning at all, sir, they surely convey the gravest slur on the loyalty of one who has never willingly missed an opportunity of pointing out the German peril, not only in South America, but elsewhere. Those who are familiar with my work-and I am fortunate in that, though clearly lacking your reviewer, their number is not small-know that I have laboured this very point with persistence for the last ten years. They, I am sure, will not need from me any comment on this imputation. The others (I suppose, sir, that it would savour too much of egotism to class them as the "remainder"?) will, I hope, accept my unqualified denial that

there is the faintest ground for this queer insinuation concerning some dark and mysterious knowledge which I am jealously guarding from the British public.

As regards the precise degree of taste in interpolating such matter, on such evidence, in a review-well, I do not think that I have any peculiar reason to be sensitive on this point. As one whose father held a commission from Queen Victoria, and as one who at the outbreak of the war alone out of five brothers -the number is no longer intact-did not hold a commission in the regular forces, I cannot produce a blush of shame even to gratify your reviewer! Moreover, that I am still a civilian is the fault, not of four years on the shady side of the slacker's haven (forty) but of a slightly sprung heart. So much for a personal outpouring rendered unavoidable by our critic.

The second point I can turn to with some relief, since it is not of an intimate nature, and since it seems to me to come within the reviewer's legitimate province. In any case it strengthens my theory that I have the misfortune not to count your reviewer among my readers. According to him, again: "Mr. Koebel cannot know much of Pernambuco or its surroundings, or he could not have failed to observe the copious and interesting Dutch remains still to be seen in that part of the continent."

I freely admit that an ambiguous sentence which the reviewer has picked out might produce this supposition-in the mind of one who has not read on and arrived at the description of these very Dutch remains at Pernambuco (p. 265).

Accept my apologies for the length of this letter, which is primarily due to the fact that it is not only men having the advantage of homely names who pride themselves on being English. There are others, such as,

Castle Combe,
Combe Martin,

N. Devon.

Yours very truly,

W. H. KOEBEL.

These latter apologies must be repeated here to the present reader. May his breast be free from that justified resentment which one who has paid to enter a place of public entertainment must experience when he finds himself buttonholed and drawn into a corner for an intimate and heart-to-heart talk with a performer whose

rightful place is on the stage, and whose private affairs are a mere matter of boredom to others! Nevertheless, it is preferable to run this risk than to permit the remotest doubt of the loyalty with which the affairs of the British in South America are regarded in these pages.