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is so chimerical that it ought to be given | cides the issue. Unless Germany is estab up. But where 36,000,000 of people are lished on a pinnacle of strength and emiconcerned the statement is not one that nence from which she can never be carries conviction with it. Why should removed, there is a fair chance that, as France sit down in despair of ever being between two Powers so equally matched able to undo the work of the late war? by nature, fortune will side at one time She has all the materials out of which sol- with one and at another time with another. diers are made. She has the benefit of a No doubt it is a miserable prospect alike terrible experience. She has the knowl- for Europe and for humanity. But it is a edge of her own weak points burnt in upon prospect which lay clearly spread out beher mind. The best military organization fore those who framed the conditions of of modern times has been at work under peace, and it is but retributive justice that the very eyes of her generals. Granting the first to feel the inconvenience of it that the conflict is an unequal one at start- should be the conquering nation which set ing, that is not a fact which invariably de- the example of judgment without mercy.

Ar a meeting of the Asiatic Society, a trans- the sepulchres of the patriarchs. Of the hoslation from the Persian, found among the pa-pitality shown to strangers he speaks in favourpers of the late Sir H. M. Elliot, was read of able terms. To all guests, travellers and pilpart of a book of travel by Násir ibn Khushru, a native of Balkh, who visited the Holy Land and Egypt in the eleventh century of the Christian era. The traveller relates that he journeyed from Balkh to Jerusalem, a distance of 876 parasangs, and entered the Holy City on the 5th of Ramayán, A. H. 438, one solar year having elapsed since he had quitted his home. He says that the Moslems of the neighbouring countries, who are unable to go to Mecca, remain there until they have celebrated the Feast of the Kurbán, and that they carry their children thither to circumcise them. Sometimes as many as 20,000 strangers are congregated there. The traveller's account of the sacred buildings in Jerusalem forms a record of their state more than seven centuries ago. His description of the Kubbet-es-sakhrah deserves especial notice. The floor he describes as level and elegantly paved with marble The walls are of the same material, the joinings being filled in with metal. There is also a reservoir underground inside the shrine, into which runs all the rain-water, and this water is purer and sweeter than all the rest in the mosque. "The sakhrah stands above the ground as much as the stature of a man, and a marble screen has been placed round it so that no man can touch it. It is a stone of a dark blue hue, on which no man has ever dared to set foot; but on the side where the kiblah lies, it has a hollow in one place of such a kind that you would say it had been walked over. In this way the impression of seven steps are fixed on it. I have heard that Abraham and Isaac went there, and that these are the marks of their feet." The silver lustres, the gifts of the Sultans of Egypt, were of such size and weight that the traveller calculates that there were a thousand maunds of silver ware in the place. Enormous candles also, the gift of the same Sultans, were to be seen in the building. The traveller visits El Khalil (Hebron), and describes

grims they give bread and olives, and numbers
of mills, worked by mules and oxen, are con-
stantly grinding flour, while female servants are
engaged in making bread, and each of their
loaves weighs a maund. To every one arriving
at that spot they present a loaf of bread and a
measure of lentils cooked in olive oil, daily, as
well as some raisins, and this custom has con-
tinuel in vogue from the time of Abraham, the
friend of the Most Merciful, until the present
moment. Sometimes it happens that five hun-
dred people come there in a day, and entertain-
ment is provided for all of them. Returning to
Jerusalem. he gives the following description:
"The Christian infidels have a church at Jeru-
salem which they consider extremely holy. Ev-
ery year a vast multitude come there from Rúm
on pilgrimage, and the King of Rim himself
even comes in disguise. The church is capable
of holding 20,000 souls, and constructed in the
most splendid style of coloured marble, adorned
with sculpture and painting. . . . . Portraits
of Jesus, represented as sitting on an ass, are
put up in several places, as well as those of the
prophets, such as Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Ja-
cob, and his children. Each picture is covered
with a large plate of transparent glass of the
same size as itself, and this they place there to
prevent the dust from settling on the painting,
the glasses being daily cleaned by the servants.
In this church, too, is a chamber of two kinds,
constructed after the fashion of Heaven and
Hell; one half of it being descriptive of Para-
dise and its blessed inmates, and the other of
Hell and its wretched victims."— Mr. C. Horne
exhibited some bells, thunderbolts, an orna-
mental poisoned dagger, and some figures of
Buddha, used by the Llamas in Lahoul in their
worship, as also an image said to have been an-
ciently worshipped in that country, and some
photographs of ancient Græco-Buddhistic carv-
ings.

Athenæum.

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NUMBERS OF THE LIVING AGE WANTED. The publishers are in want of Nos. 1179 and 1180 (dated respectively Jan. 5th and Jan. 12th, 1867) of THE LIVING AGE. To subscribers, or others, who will do us the favor to send us either or both of those numbers, we will return an equivalent, either in our publications or in cash, until our wants are supplied.

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY

LITTELL & & GAY, BOSTON.

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FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually for. warded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor when we have to pay commission for forwarding the money; nor when we club THE LIVING AGE with another periodical.

An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & GAY.

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Smaller grows the isle where they sit sobbing, Darker grows the day on every sideWhiter grows the mother, with heart throbbing Madly, as she marks the fatal tide.

"Children, cling around me! hold me faster!
Kiss me! God is going to take all three !
Say the prayer I taught you - He is Master !
He is Lord, and in his hands lie we!"
Flowers the tide is snatching while it calls so,
Flowers its lean hands never snatched before;
Will it snatch these human flowers also?
Where they cling, sad creatures of the shore?
Nay for o'er the tide a boat is stealing.

On their names a man's strong voice doth cry, "God be praised!" the mother crieth, kneeling. "He hath heard our prayer and help is nigh.' "Father!" cry the children," this way, father! Here we are," aloud cry girl and boy

Comes the boat - the children round it gather-
But the mother smiles and faints for joy.

In his strong arm his pale spouse uplifting,
By her side he sets the children two:
Through the twilight shoreward they are drift-
ing,

While the pale stars glimmer in the blue.
Round them in the tranquil evening weather
All the scene seems strange as strange can
be:

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Waves that wash green fields and knolls of heather,

Lonely trees up-peeping from the sea.

FINISHING THE WORK.
BY LORD KINLOCH.

EVER in life is a work to do,

Long enduring, and ne'er gone through; Seeming to end, and begun anew.

Knowledge hath still some more to know;
Wealth hath greater to which to grow;
Every race hath farther to go.

Say not, e'en at thy latest date,
Now I have nought but to rest and wait;
Something will take thee without the gate.

What if thine earthly task be o'er,
Still is another for thee in store,
Heavenward walking, and heavenly lore:

Graces to nurture; snares to shun;
Sins to get rid of, one by one:

This is a work which will ne'er be done.

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From The British Quarterly Review. KIDNAPPING IN THE SOUTH SEAS.*

NINE years ago religious society in England was startled to find that an energetic attempt was being made in South America to extend the system of slavery. Seven vessels, fitted with all the appliances of the slave-ships of former days, commanded by Spanish officers, and manned by mixed crews, had started from Callao, had visited numerous islands of the South Pacific, and had carried away hundreds of their simple inhabitants to work in the Peruvian

Again has that indignation been aroused by a new effort to perpetuate these cruelties. But this time the transgressors are Englishmen; the kidnapping vessels are owned and manned by Englishmen ; the lands to which the captives are carried are settled by Englishmen; and it is entirely for English profit that the system has been defended and carried on. Happily, therefore, the reproach falls upon the whole empire; and the cure of the evil lies in English hands.

It was in the beginning of 1863 that Captain Towns a settler in Queensland, who owned an estate of 4,000 acres, in the neighbourhood of Brisbane, and who had employed South Sea Islanders on his little

mines. These vessels were fitted out by a well-known firm in Lima; and they had done their work with such success that before the humane Governments of the world could interfere, they had secured coasting vessels, conceived the plan of more than 2,000 persons, and disposed of them among the planters of Chili and Peru. The atrocious speculation, however, proved a failure. Loss and damage were suffered on every side. So crowded were many of the vessels that the captives died on the voyage. Even in Peru the mortality was excessive. The islanders, who had been born and trained amid the warm sea-breezes of the Pacific, ill-fed and ill-clad, could not bear the cold night winds which sweep down from the Cordilleras and dysentery and fever carried them off in large numbers. And when the indignation of the humane, and the official remonstrances of the French and English Governments, compelled the Peruvians to surrender their plunder, not forty per cent. of those who had lost their liberty were returned to their former

homes.

• (1.) Further Correspondence relating to the Importation of South Sea Islanders into Queensland; in continuation of House of Commons Papers, Nos.

391 and 496, of 1868; and No. 408 of 1869; No. 468, House of Commons, August 17, 1871.

(2.) Kidnapping in the South Seas. Narrative

of a three months' Cruise in Her Majesty's ship Rosario. By Captain GEORGE PALMER, RN. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas. 1871.

(3.) The Polynesian Labour Traffic and the Murder of Bishop Patteson. Proceedings of a Meeting in London, Dec. 13, 1871. William Tweedie, Strand 1872.

(4) The Slave Trade in the New Hebrides. Pa

pers read at the Annual Meeting of the New Hebrides Mission, held at theIsland of Aniwa, July, 1871. Edited by Rev. JOHN KAY, Coatbridge. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas. 1872.

(4.) In Quest of Coolies. By JAMES L. A. HOPE.

Henry S. King and Co.

procuring natives from the islands as labourers for this estate. He accordingly despatched a vessel to seek for them. The effort was made openly; the vessel was properly fitted, fair wages were promised, and a circular letter was addressed to such missionaries as the vessel might fall in with, asking their kind co-operation, and engaging to give fair treatment to the people who might come. The vicious element also entered into the system from the first. A man named Ross Lewin, who had lived in various places in the South Seas for twenty years, and whose name is now identified with the worst scandals of the traffic and is execrated throughout the islands, was sent in the vessel as second mate and supercargo; and he was instructed to "get seventy, if you can;" but "even fifty will be worth while." No

wonder that with such elastic instructions Ross Lewin obtained sixty-five labourers, and became superintendent on the estate. The islanders were, doubtless, nearly all volunteers; they were humanely treated; they were engaged for two or three years; and at the termination of their service were duly paid, and were assisted to return home.

The example spread. Another house, and then another, sent for labourers. A competition sprang up, and by October, 1867, 984 labourers had been procured, of whom 400 were working at the northern ports, chiefly Bowen; and of whom no less than 225 had been brought in the previous

With the Fiji Islands the case is different. There the soil is rich and fertile, and cotton and sugar will grow almost without measure. The larger islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, are entirely in possession of the native races; and for many years were given up to the wars, the violence, the utter cruelty and cannabalism, for which the fierce tribes of Fiji have been notorious. The victories of the Gospel, through the agency of the Wesleyan Mission, have

August by a single vessel, the King Oscar. | agement of estates, or the removal and They were no longer procured for a par- transport of timber; but all heavy outticular house, which fitted the vessel, and door labour is unsuited to their constitutook entire control. Masters of vessels tion, and fever and sunstroke can be its went out at their own risk; they found it only result. to their interest to go where they liked, and to manage as best they could. On their return the planters gladly divided the living freight; and the price paid, called "passage-money," was about £10 sterling. A few sharp-sighted men in Fiji heard of the plan, and speedily adopted it. And thus a system, at first well-intentioned and humane, was set going, under which rough English sailors, under mates and masters perhaps rougher still, found it a source of gain to fetch wrought a great change, and have renand carry, without inspection and without control, the simple and uncivilized natives of the Polynesian groups, and dispose of them to the men who would pay highest for the trouble involved in procuring them.

From the first the Lords of the Admiralty disliked the system. The naval of ficers on the Australian station knew only too well the character and proceedings of the English sailors who traded about the colonial ports and the accessible stations of the South Seas. The Colonial Office felt doubtful, and suggested to the Queensland Government that it should interfere; and at length, on March 4, 1868, that Government passed a Labour Act, and placed the employment of the islanders, if not their importation, under some measure of control.

dered intercourse with Europeans safe and profitable for both parties. Five years ago the pretty island of Ovalau, with its rich woods and turret-like hills, was found to be a safe as well as attractive place of residence, and a considerable number of whites resorted to the settlement. The worst class, as usual, in these English colonies, came first; happily the better men, with their families and little capital, soon followed; and the port of Levuka became quite a thriving town. Ere long a "rush" took place from Melbourne and New Zealand, and several hundred settlers landed in a few months, all anxious to secure the fruitful cotton lands. Finding some difficulty in getting the Fiji natives into their employ as labourers, the settlers took the hint from the planters of Peru and Queensland. But from the first the majority of these gentlemen repudiated any resort to violence; they determined to treat all native immigrants well, and in public meeting asked for the interference of her Majesty's Consul, Mr. Thurston, and accepted the regulations which he framed for their coolie traffic.

The colony of Queensland, unlike New South Wales, Victoria, or New Zealand, has one special reason for desiring an immigration of the dark races rather than of whites. A large portion of the colony runs up far into the tropics, whence that district has received the name of Capricornia. Though the air is fresh and bracing, and It is a fact worthy of note that while the the land is canopied by a sky of brilliant educated classes in England are in the blue, the climate is hot, the soil is rocky, main opposed to slavery, and are found to thin, and poor; the sun is powerful, and treat the dark races of the world with it is impossible for the harder processes kindness and humanity, the common classes of agriculture to be carried on to any ex- of Englishmen deal with them very roughtent by the white races of temperate ly. In India none hold the natives in such climes. As in Texas and Arizona, Eng- contempt, and are so ready to strike them lishmen may superintend the herding of as English soldiers and seamen. The sheep, cattle, and horses, the general man-English mechanics who superintend native

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