THE romance of islands is inexplicable, but very real. From the mysterious isles of the Odyssey—the islands of Circe and Calypso-to the island of Robinson Crusoe , the literature of adventure bristles with islands. Mr. H. M. Tomlinson is a writer who has the gift of making the real world far more romantic than most of the adventure-story writers can make their world of fiction. He is a traveller who knows the Indian Ocean and the Malay Straits as taxi-drivers know the West-end, and he has written some of the finest travel-books in the language. Readers of ' Tidemarks,' ' The Sea and the Jungle,' and 'Old Junk,' or of his novel, ' Gallion"s Reach,' which created a remarkable impression amongst the critics when it came out this year, will know that when Mr. Tomlinson talks of islands in the Eastern seas, ho is likely to be in his very best form.