sent out under Messrs. Very and Wheeler.  A visit to some of the ports of Madagascar soon after the bombardment of Hovas gives occasion for a readable relation of the internal revolutions and the transactions with European powers that have given a pretext, if such it can be called, for the French claim to exercise a protectorate over a portion of the island, the enforcement of which will require, in our author’s opinion, “an army of at least fifty thousand men.”  Cape Town was a place of stay for several weeks on both the outward and the homeward voyage, and in this connection the history of the South African states and colonies, including the English wars and imbroglios with the Boers and the Zulus, is given in detail; while the necessity for touching at St. Helena furnished an opportunity for repeating the tale of Napoleon’s captivity, with particulars preserved among “the traditions of the old inhabitants, not generally known.”

It will be seen that Lieutenant Beehler made good use both of the means of observation and of the leisure for study afforded by the “cruise.”  He writes agreeably, and seems to have been careful in regard to the sources from which he has gathered information.  The book is beautifully printed, and the illustrations are faithful but artistic renderings of photographic views.

Recent Fiction.

“At the Red Glove.” 
  New York:  Harper & Brothers.

“Upon a Cast.” 
  By Charlotte Dunning. 
New York:  Harper & Brothers.

“Down the Ravine.” 
  By Charles Egbert Craddock. 
  Boston:  Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

“By Shore and Sedge.” 
  By Bret Harte. 
  Boston:  Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

“At Love’s Extremes.” 
  By Maurice Thompson. 
  New York:  Cassell & Co.

Although the scene of “At the Red Glove” is laid in Berne, it is a typical French story of French people with French ideas and characteristics, and it is French as well in the symmetry of its arrangements and effects and its admirable technique.  In point of fact, Berne is a city where a German dialect is spoken, but among the lively groups of bourgeois who carry on this effective little drama a prettier and politer language is in vogue.  Madame Carouge, whose personality is the pivot upon which the story revolves, is a native of southern France, and is the proprietor of the Hotel Beauregard.  Her husband, who married her as a mere child and carried her away from a life of poverty and neglect, has died before the opening of the story and bequeathed all his property to his young and handsome wife.  “Ah, but I do not owe him much,” the beautiful woman said:  “he has wasted my youth.  I am eight-and-twenty, and I have not yet begun to live.”  Thus Madame Carouge as a widow sets out to realize the dreams she has dreamed in the dull apathetic days of her long bondage.  Although she is bent on love and happiness, she is yet sensible and discreet, and manages