New Books
p. 62 · Read in the full issue
The Patience Of Maigret, By
Georges Simenon. (Our copy from Angus and Robertson, Ltd., Sydney. 7/6.) Simenon is the Edgar Wallace of France: his crime and mystery stories, light and clever and gripping, have a tre mendous vogue. Not having seen the original, we do not know how much, in this book, Simenon owes to his trans lator; but we can most heartily recom mend the book to the British reading public—it is as good as the best of our “thrillers”, and far better than most. The plots are constructed with cunning, the tales are unfolded skilfully and enter tainingly, and the average reader of thrillers will be delighted with the main character, Inspector Maigret grim, silent, unorthodox, merciful, always smoking his foul pipe, and always getting his man.
Some priceless material relating to the origin of the Polynesians and the early history of Hawaii has been gathered by Edwin H. Bryan, Jnr., Curator of Collec tions at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, for his book “ANCIENT HAWAIIAN LIFE”, which recently was published by the Advertiser, Publishing Company, of Honolulu (retail price, postage paid, 2 dollars: or in larger quantities for schools, 1 dollar 75 cents).
In a most interesting chapter, entitled ‘Whence the Polynesians?”, Mr. Bryan examines all the evidence available as to the origin and migration of this inter esting people. “One of the strong lines of evidence as to the origin of the Poly nesians is found in their food and other economic plants and their domestic animals”, he says. “The taro, banana, breadfruit, coconut, tapa, mulberry, and many other useful plants originated in the Indo-Malay region. The pig, the dog and the fowl which accompanied the Polynesians on their wanderings had their origin in this same region. Only the sweet potato came from the east, and this is thought to indicate that Polynesians voyaged as far as the coast of South America and returned with a new food.”
He also says this: “From all this and other data, too voluminous to mention here, we might conclude that the Poly nesians originated as a Caucasian-like tribe in South-Eastern Asia. Driven out by wars, economic depression or religious oppression, they migrated into the Malay region. Here they lived for a time, ac quiring Mongoloid blood by intermixture with the inhabitants. About the begin ning of the Christian era they travelled eastward again, probably passing in waves through the Micronesian Islands.”