Portuguese Zambezia ¹

Abstract

FOR the pictures alone this book is worth purchasing. We have rarely seen in any similar work dealing with Africa a better collection of admirable photographs which are apt illustrations of the text. The book is not written round the illustrations, nor are these photographs stuck into the work without relation to its text and purport. If Mr. Maugham had further confined himself in his text to his own personal observations of this relatively vast region of Portuguese Zambezia, and to his own theories based on his personal observations and experience, there would be nothing in the book to criticise unfavourably. But he has conceived it necessary to borrow largely from the works of other writers, borrowings which he frankly acknowledges in the preface, but which, one might plead, were quite unnecessary to his purpose in view.