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and the like? But by Mr. Darwin's theory, the higher virtues are those which are founded on the social instincts, and relate to the welfare of others; and these are considered higher because they have tended to the welfare of the community, and have thus been developed largely by natural selection, and afterwards by reason, public opinion, and sympathy. The lower relate chiefly to self, and have, though developed for the good of the individual, been checked by the social instincts; till, as reason and experience increased, and their indirect influence upon the community became perceived, they would be increased by public opinion so far as they were beneficial to all.

Thus the good of the community becomes at last the end and aim of our moral nature. A man who has no sympathy, whose inordinate desires are strong, and his social instincts weak, is essentially a bad man; yet another may also act with bad results, because, though his social instincts are strong, they are guided by a weak intellect. The cultivation of the intellect becomes therefore a supreme duty, while the development of love and sympathy is equally imperative. By the cul

tivation of the first, we render vivid the memory of past actions; by the exercise of the second, we render the memory of bad and selfish actions intolerable: and this is conscience, by which ultimately man becomes freed from the influence of the mere praise and blame of others, for his convictions become his guide and rule.

I have endeavored in this short essay to keep strictly and logically to facts, allowing but little scope to heart and imagination, that no preconceived prejudice might creep in. But if, calmly reasoning upon the evolution theory, we can establish that it neither shuts out God, degrades our conscience, checks our belief in the power of communion with the Divine mind as far as our faculties will permit, nor diminishes our hope of immortality, may we not then, even while allowing the theory as probable, give rein to the glorious. conceptions and inspirations which flash upon us in happy moments of thought, and feel that all things are possible to usthat we have a never-ending future, and a hope of drawing nearer and nearer to the Almighty Being from whom we derive all and hope for all. A. B.

Chambers's Journal.

STATION LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND.

THE tables are turned. The "natives" are astonishing us. Instead of making themselves generally unpleasant and dangerous, giving rise to acrimonious debates in parliament, and to the quaking of maternal hearts, for fear of "active service," the Maori are taking to railroad making, telegraphy, public discussion, without the tomahawk accompaniment-in short, to civilization on the European pattern. If our experience of the results of high culture on this side of the world were not what it is—that all "progress" resolves itself into the power of making war in a bloody and relentless fashion, such as the dark ages did not dream of, and all "friendly relations" mean palavering among sovereigns up to the moment when each thinks he can hit the other the most hurtful blow, and "annex" his possessions with most profit and facility-we might look upon the accounts from New Zealand with unqualified pleasure. But we are growing sceptical about peace and

good-will, and we only "hope the best" in the case of the Maori. To be sure, there is no talk of a Great Exhibition at the antipodean Canterbury, so that public confidence has some little ground to rest upon. When the natives reach that pitch of sweetness and light, we, with our European experience, shall know they mean mischief. In the mean time there is a great deal of very pleasant occupation to be had. One may have much enjoyment of life in New Zealand, without being brought in contact with the delightfully clever and rapidly improving natives at all; when, except that the climate is delicious, health one's normal condition, and the Queen's taxes unknown, one might be in the remoter parts of England and Scotland. Why that should be considered an advantage, it is difficult to understand, the "remoter parts" of any country being usually dull and dismal, in proportion to the life and activity of its great cities; but it is supposed to be encouraging to intending

colonists. Such a place is Nelson, on the north coast of the middle island of New Zealand, when Lady Barker first landed in the colony, for which she is certainly a capital advocate, and, in the Artemus Ward sense, show-woman.* Not the least indication that any one but the lordly Anglo-Saxon ever was lord of the soil, order and industry everywhere, and Swiss architecture applied to domestic purposes, which must be suggestive of Norwood, where it is not rational, whereas at Nelson, a gloriously sunny place, it is. Lady Barker says: "It is a lovely little town as I saw it that spring morning (October, 1865), with hills running down almost to the water's edge, and small wooden houses, with gables and verandas, half buried in creepers, built up the sides of the steep slopes. It was a true New Zealand day, still and bright, a delicious invigorating freshness in the air, without the least chill; the sky of a more than Italian blue, the ranges of mountains in the distance covered with snow, and standing out sharp and clear against this lovely glowing heaven." From Nelson to Lyttleton is a twenty hours' voyage, and then the emigrant has done with the sea, and has only a charming drive, which reminds one, in the description, of the road depicted by Captain Burton from Petropolis to Juiz da Flora in the Brazil.

"It

Christchurch is highly civilized. might be a hundred years old," says Lady Barker, when she praises its well-paved streets, its gas-lamps, its pillar post-offices, and its drinking-fountains; but these things belong rather to the newest than to the oldest cities. Christchurch is also excessively genteel. Ladies began to "call" immediately, very nice ladies too, somewhat like what our great-grandmothers were, only not quite so plain-spoken; possessing an immense amount of practical knowledge, and yet knowing how to surround themselves, according to their means and opportunities, with the refinements and elegances of life. In this thriving little town "there are no paupers; every one is well fed and well clothed, and the children are really splendid." Also, every one is very healthy. It is necessary to remember that "north in New Zealand answers to "south" here,

Station Life in New Zealand. By Lady Bar

ker. London: Macmillan & Co.

when the frequent mention of a delightful north aspect occurs.

Sixty-five miles from Christchurch is the fine station of Heathstock, and here may be witnessed in perfection the important and interesting work of sheepshearing. Here is an account of the wool-shed, as curious as those of the saladeros of South America, but much less repulsive. "Each shearer has a trapdoor close to him, out of which he pushes his sheep as soon as the fleece is off; and there are little pens outside, so that the manager can notice whether the poor animal has been too much cut with the shears, or badly shorn in any other respect, and can tell exactly which shearer is to blame. is to blame. Before this plan was adopted, it was hopeless to try to find out who was the delinquent, for no one would acknowledge to the least snip. A good shearer can take off one hundred and twenty fleeces in a day, but the average is about eighty to each man. They get one pound per hundred, and are found in everything, having as much tea and sugar, bread and mutton, as they can consume, and a cook entirely to themselves; they work at least fourteen hours out of the twenty-four, and with such a large flock as this-about fifty thousand-must make a good deal. We next inspected the tables, to which two boys were incessantly bringing armfuls of rolled-up fleeces; these were laid on the tables before the wool-sorters, who opened them out, and pronounced in a moment to which bin they belonged; two or three men standing behind rolled them up again rapidly, and put them on a sort of shelf divided into compartments, which were each labelled, so that the quality and kind of each wool could be told at a glance. There was a constant emptying of these bins into trucks, to be carried off to the press, where we followed to see the bales packed. The fleeces are tumbled in, and a heavy screw-press forces them down till the bale-which is kept open in a large square frame-is as full as it can hold. The top of canvas is then put on, tightly sewn, four iron pins are removed, and the sides of the frame fall away, disclosing a most symmetrical bale ready to be hoisted by a crane into the loft above, where it has the brand of the sheep painted on it, its weight, and to what class the wool belongs. Of course everything has to be

done with great speed and system. I was much impressed by the silence in the shed -not a sound was to be heard except the click of the shears, and the wool-sorter's decision, as he flings the fleece behind him, given in one, or at most two words. All the noise is outside; there the hubbub, and dust, and apparent confusion are great. You can hear nothing but barking and bleating, and this goes on from early morning till dark. We peeped in at the men's huts-a long, low, narrow building, with two rows of "bunks" in one compartment, and a table with forms round it in another, and piles of tin plates and pannikins all about. The kitchen was near, and we were just in time to see an enormous batch of bread withdrawn from a huge brick oven. The other commissariat arrangements were on the same scale. Cold tea is supplied all day long to the shearers, and they appear to consume great quantities of it."

Lady Barker's wooden house was made at Christchurch, the dimensions being regulated to suit the carpets they had brought out. She petitioned for a little bay-window, and on her last visit of inspection, the builder asked: "Would you wish to see the horiel, mum?" Six weeks after they had fixed on their "station," the house was ready; and then they found they had been wrong in bringing out furniture, for the expense of carriage (in New Zealand) was enormous, and there are capital shops where everything may be bought at English prices. Wages of all sorts are given; employment is a certainty; and even the London cabby may be content with a rate of fares which makes a morning visit three miles out of town, and lasting a quarter of an hour, cost one pound ten. The town is very pretty, all the streets being bordered with large trees. It has been found necessary to legislate against watercress, which had spread so rapidly since its introduction, as to become a perfect nuisance, blocking up mill-streams, causing meadows to be flooded, and doing all kinds of mischief.

A tremendous nor'-easter, which would be our sou'-wester, blew an accompaniment to the settler's journey, and introduced Lady Barker to her first acquaintance with a dust-storm. In July, when quite settled at their station of Broomielaw, in the Malvern Hills, she writes of the delicious mid-winter days: "We are NEW SERIES.-VOL. XIV., No. 1.

glad of a fire at breakfast, but we let it out, and never think of relighting it until dark. I bask all day in the veranda, carrying my books and work there soon after breakfast; as soon as the sun goes down, however, it becomes very cold. In the house, which is only one plank an inch thick, lining board, canvas, and paper, a good fire is wanted between you and a hard frost." It is a curious life to think of, à curious scene to contemplate, that lonely "station" at the Antipodes, with its horizon boundary of beautiful hills sheeted in snow, its great tracts of grassland, its tiny shoots of English trees, its luxuriant broom, its beginnings of vegetable and fruit garden, and the wooden house, so neatly arranged, so homelike and elegant, so untouched by the customary roughness of colonial life in the distant interior. One naturally thinks of a log-hut in such conditions, but here is the reality.

"Out of the veranda you pass through a little hail, hung with whips and sticks, spurs and hats, and with a bookcase full of novels at one end of it, into a dining room, large enough for us, with more books in every available corner, the prints you know so well on the walls, and a trophy of Indian swords and hunting spears over the fireplace; this leads into the drawing-room-a bright, cheery little room-more books and pictures, and a writing table in the 'horiel.' In a tall white, classical-shaped vase of Minton's is the most beautiful bouquet, made entirely of ferns; it is a constant object for my walks up the gullies, exploring little patches of bush to search for the ferns, which grow abundantly under their shelter by the creek. I have a small but comfortable bedroom, and there is a little dressing room for F——, and the tiniest spare room you ever saw-it really is not bigger than the cabin of a ship. I think the kitchen is the chief glory of the house, boasting a 'Leamington range.' There is a goodsized store-room, in which F has just finished putting me up some cupboards, and a servants' room. It is not a palace, is it? But it is quite large enough to hold a great deal of happiness."

Skating excursions, in the intervals of business, for her husband and his companion-a young gentleman learning sheep farming, and for herself, housekeeping, botanizing, long walks, and rides in the

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beautiful country, and through the delicious air, with the constantly high musical wind -these constituted the avocations and amusements of Lady Barker's distant home. She established a little congregation of which her husband was the minister at Broomielaw, and she visited and made friends with all the humble industrious households within her reach. She met with strange and interesting people, and with many a nature of more cultivation and refinement than one could possibly expect in a place so distant from the old associations of culture and home. One is persuaded on reading this book, that there is no colony so little savage as New Zealand; the colonists are certainly the élite of the emigrant class in all ranks, and the amenities of life best preserved and most highly prized.

The storms are a great drawback. One nor'-wester succeeds another; one sou'wester has hardly blown himself out, before his twin brother comes rushing from the cavern of the winds. And in addition to the discomfort they produce, these storms do much mischief to animate and inanimate property; especially they kill numbers of the bush birds, whose presence and song constitute a great charm in the life of that jubilant young country. An air of cheerful prosperity reigns everywhere, but the people do talk too much about sheep and money. They had glorious pic-nics, and balls contrived with wonderful ingenuity, considering there were but six ladies to dance with the "haill country side," at Christmas, when the heat was the sole hindrance to perfect enjoyment, and the dancing took place at daylight..

Lady Barker is of opinion that there is no place in the world where people can live so cheaply and so well as on a New Zealand sheep-station, when the first expense of setting everything going has been gotten over.

Lady Barker concludes her account of the labors of her well-spent days—the form of her narrative is epistolary-with the following enviable little sketch: "After dinner, F- and I go out for a walk or a ride, generally the latter-not a little shabby canter, but a long stretching gallop for miles and miles; perhaps stopping to have a cup of tea with a neighbor, twelve or fifteen miles off, and then coming slowly home in the delicious gloaming, with the peculiar fresh crisp feeling which

the atmosphere always has here the moment the sun sets, no matter how hot the day has been. I can hardly hope to make you understand how enjoyable our twilight hours are; every turn of the track, as we slowly wend up the valley, showing us some beautiful glimpse of distant mountain peaks; and above all, such sunset splendors, gradually fading away into the deep, pure beauty of a summer night."

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The delights and the dangers of "camping out" are also within Lady Barker's experience. She went to see the sunrise from the top of Flagpole, a hill three thousand feet above the level of the sea, and passed what she candidly confesses to have been the longest night of her life, within an inconsiderable distance of the summit. All the toil, cold, and discomfort were, however, amply rewarded by the prospect (when the dawn really came), which had all the mountain, plain, and river beauty which they had dreamed of, and one additional touch of interest and glory on which they had not counted. Just when the sun was climbing up, and the curtains were being lifted off the hills, some one cried out: "There's the sea; and they saw it, as distinct as though it lay near at hand, instead of fifty miles away. None of the party had seen it since their landing in New Zealand: to all of them it was associated with the idea of going home some day. The magnificence of the prospect made up for all the cold, fatigue, and discomfort they had undergone. Indeed, the beauty of New Zealand seems to be as varied as it is striking. Monotony is not one of the grievances of the colonial life there, if any grievances there be, except "the deep unutterable woe which none but exiles feel," and one which came within the experience of Lady Barker in a terrific manner, and her endurance of which crowns the impression of her heroism in ordinary life created by her narrative.

Towards the end of July, 1867, the weather was very wet and cold, but cleared up in the last few days. All the stores at the station were at the lowest ebb, and, after waiting a day or two, to allow the roads to dry, the dray was despatched to Christchurch for provisions, and Lady Barker was left alone, her husband also having to go to Christchurch, but arranging to send a friend to escort her to the town on the following day, as he should

be obliged to remain for a week. The lambing season was only just terminated on the runs; thousands of lambs were skipping about; their condition was most satisfactory, and the prospects of the colonists were flourishing. On the 29th, there was a "sou'-wester ;" but no change was made in their plans, and Lady Barker was left alone: "My mind," she says, "was disturbed by secret uneasiness about the possibility of the dray being detained by wet weather; and there was such an extraordinary weight in the air, the dense mist seemed pressing everything down to the ground. I was so restless and miserable, I did not know what was the matter with me. I wandered from window to window, and still the same unusual sight met my eyes; a long procession of ewes and lambs, all travelling steadily down from the hills towards the large flat in front of the house; the bleating was incessant, and added to the intense melancholy of the whole affair. When Mr. V--- came at one o'clock, he said that on the other ranges the sheep were drifting before the cold rain and mist in the same manner. Our only anxiety arose from the certainty that the dray would be delayed at least a day, perhaps two: this was a dreadful idea. For some time we had been economizing our resources, to make them last, and we knew there was absolutely nothing at the home station, nor at our nearest neighbors', for they had sent to borrow tea and sugar from us. At dusk, two gentlemen rode up, not knowing F—— was from home, and asked if they might remain for the night. They put up their horses, and housed their valuable sheepdogs in a barrel full of clean straw, and we all tried to spend a cheerful evening; but every one confessed to the same extraordinary depression of spirits that I felt." This was the beginning of a period of terror, suffering, and loss, which needed all the nerve and resignation at Lady Barker's command. The next morning the snow was falling thick, fine, and fast; no sheep were visible, and intense silence prevailed. There was very little mutton in the house, no oatmeal, no coffee, no cocoa, and after breakfast, about an ounce of tea. A very small fire only could be allowed. Towards night, Lady Barker fancied the garden-fence looked strangely dwarfed, but no one was alarmed. "Snow never lies in New Zealand." Next morn

ing it was four feet deep, still falling heavily and steadily in fine dense clouds ; the cows were not to be seen; the fowlhouse and pigsties had entirely disappeared; every scrap of wood was quite covered up: both the verandas were impassable, and the only door which could be opened was that of the back-kitchen. The commissariat was in the following condition: "The tea at breakfast was merely colored hot-water, and we had some picnic biscuits with it. For dinner we had the last tin of sardines, the last pot of apricot jam, and a tin of ratafia biscuits. There were six people to be fed every day, and nothing to feed them with. Thursday's breakfast was a discovered crust of dry bread, and our dinner rice and salt-the last rice in the store-room." The snow fell unceasingly; only one window in the house afforded light; every box was broken up and used for fuel. On Friday there was nothing in the house but blacklead; the women-servants were in terrified despair. Of the sheep no trace was to be seen; the dogs' kennels could not be got

at.

On Saturday the cows were found, and dragged within the enclosure; and after four hours' severe toil, a little oaten hay was dug out for them. Now nothing remained but one bottle of whiskey, and all were starved and frozen. On Sunday the rain came out heavily, and in time so far washed the drifts away that the gentlemen contrived to tear off some shingles of the roof of the fowl-house, and procure some aged hens, mere skeletons after a week's starvation; and also to pick away a rail from the stock-yard fence, which gave them an hour's firing, and enabled them to make a kind of stew of the hens. After this meal, every one went to bed again, for candles were scarce. On Monday the rain partially cleared the roof and the tops of the windows; some hay was procured with incredible toil for the starving animals, and some more fowls were killed. The wind shifted, and the imprisoned party began to have some hope of saving some of the thousands of sheep and lambs which they now knew were buried under the smooth white winding-sheet. All night the gale roared, and on Tuesday the pigsty was comeatable, and one of its inmates, who had been perfectly snug all the time, was slaughtered, so that the fear of starvation was at an end. On Wednes. day, they saw the sun; and the gentlemen

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