pictures of tropical forests, pitch lakes, mangrove swamps, volcanic mountains, and cultured gardens. Mr. Kingsley spent seven weeks in the island of Trinidad, only glancing at other West Indian islands as the touches of the steamer enabled. His descriptions are therefore almost limited to that island. We are sorely tempted to cull some of the racy anecdotes that Mr. Kingsley tells, and to reproduce some of the superb pictures that he has painted, but we must forbear. We will say only that his science is simply the framework of popular descriptions, that his book is for the multitude, and not so much for natural philosophers, and that from beginning to end it is simply a gorgeous series of pictures, a fairyland of colour and form and wonderful adaptation, a psalm not of life but of nature, a prolonged 'Benedicite,' a companion-book to 'Glaucus,' and to the 'Essay in a Chalk Pit;' only richer in detail, more novel in phenomena, and more gorgeous in colour. The world was as beautiful when he found it, but he has made it more beautiful to our apprehension. His book has excited our enthusiasm almost as much as the scenes which it describes excited his. _To Sinai and Syene and back, in 1860-61._ By WILLIAM BEAUMONT, Esq. Smith and Elder. A very fairly written narrative of the author's journey, having the drawback that the writer is slightly given to bad jokes--thus, 'Suli-_man_, the boy of our party,' 'the cam-els are coming,' &c. The route to Sinai from the wells of Moses was the more eastern one, taken by Robinson, whereby the writer missed the fine Wady Feiran, the Bedouin Paradise, which, however, he afterwards visited on his return. He was admitted to the convent of Sinai by the looped chain; more fortunate than the writer of this notice, who, arriving after sunset, had to sleep at the door in the open air, the archbishop's letter notwithstanding, but was afterwards admitted at sunrise through the postern. Surely Mr. Beaumont is wrong in saying that Tischendorf found his famous Codex at Cairo, and not at Sinai. We can only say concerning Mr. Beaumont's book, that it is one of those painstaking records of travel which gather together round each locality, most of the important things done, and interesting things said concerning it. It has not grown, it has been made; but it is written with intelligence and commendable accuracy. _Peeps at the Far East: a Familiar Account of a Visit to India._ By NORMAN MACLEOD, D.D. Strahan and Co.