MEXICO:

Magnetic Southland. Sydney A.Clark. Dodd, Mead & Co.: 1944. P. xvi No.239.$3.00.

Mr. Clark knows how to write an eminently readable and at the same time eminently practical guide-book, as might be expected from the author of the France on Fifty Dollars series of pre-war guides, covering the most visited European countries. I have used several of these books; and although I never succeeded in keeping within the fgo-dollar limit, that was perhaps because I didn't intend to. But these books always enabled me to get more for my money than I otherwise would have got; and they enabled me to economize time, also, for they singled out a limited but varied array of things to see, do, and buy.

A like talent for selection has gone to the making of this, Mr. Clark's fourth book on Latin-American subjects. He divides his book into three parts. In the first, "The Foreground of the Picture," he covers rapidly but accurately such topics as means of travel, currency, and the "altitude bogey"—for it is no more than a bogey. In the second part, "The Background of the Picture," he sketches rapidly the general course of Mexican history from before Cortes to the present. With the third part, "Yourself in the Picture," comprising two-thirds of the book, the guide proper begins: it covers Mexico City with some thoroughness, and then launches the tourist on the trips he is most likely to take: northwest to Morelia, Lakes Patzcuaro and Chapala, and the new volcano, Paricutm; north to the historic region of San Miguel de Alleride and southwest to Cuernavaca, to Taxco, that gem of hill-towns, and the beaches o£ Acapulco; and southeast to Puebla, the flower-paradise of Fortin and Cordoba, and the ruins and repose of Oaxaca. The book does not cover Yucatin, which is best visited in conjunction with Guatemala.

I have traveled in Mexico, to many though not all of the places I have mentioned. Where Mr. Clark speaks of what I have seen myself, I agree heartily with what he says—except that I rate the mid-day food at Sanborn's somewhat higher (but that was four years ago). And I would emphasize one matter to which he alludes only rather lightly: the necessity of a few medical precautions to ward off ills incident to eating. I found entero-vioformo tablets, procurable at Sanborn's, the best safeguard; at the rate of one a meal, I was merely investing 75 cents a week in what proved to be an entirely efficacious health insurance. Where, on the other hand, Mr. Clark speaks of what I have not seen, he makes me eager to hurry right back to Mexico and see that, too. All in all, this is certainly the best first book I know of for anyone intending a visit to Mexico.