us with a vividness and force with which the occasionally-read history of the dim, uncertain past never affects us. Near objects are seen in their full magnitude, while the distant moon looks no bigger than a dinner plate. But here again, we must refer to Mr. Spencer. 'As witnesses of social phenomena, men thus impressed by facts. which did not before impress them, become perverters of evidence and so are led to regard as a growing evil or good, that which is very likely a diminishing evil or good. Take an example or two.

'In generations not long passed away, sobriety was the exception rather than the rule a man who had never been drunk was a rarity. Condiments were used to create thirst, glasses were so shaped that they would not stand, but must be held till emptied; and a man's worth was in part measured by the number of bottles he could take in. After a reaction had already diminished the evil among the upper and middle classes, there came an open recognition of the evil, resulting in temperance societies, which did their share towards further diminishing it. Then came the teetotal societies, more thorough-going in their views and more energetic in their acts, which have been making the evil still less. Such has been the effect of these causes, that for a long time past among the upper classes, the drinking which was once creditable has been thought a disgrace; while among the lower classes it has greatly decreased, and come to be generally reprobated. Those, however, who, carrying on the agitations against it, have had their eyes more and more widely opened to the vice, assert or imply in their speeches and petitions, that the vice is not only great but growing. Having in the course of a generation much mitigated it by their voluntary efforts, they now make themselves believe, and make others believe, that it is too gigantic to be dealt with otherwise than by repressive enactments-Maine laws and Permissive Prohibitory Bills.'

I have heard or read so many contradictory statements regarding the operation of the Maine liquor law, that I hardly know what conclusion to come to, whether it be productive of the apparent benefits or real evils equally and as vehemently maintained. by its advocates or enemies. It is so hard to get unbiassed testimony to the simplest

fact where the interests or passions of the parties testifying are enlisted on either side. But though aware, as I am, of the warping influence of such feelings, I can scarce refuse to accept the report of such a man as Dr. Bacon for so much as his statement covers. Yet when he wrote, the question had been but a brief period on trial and was still surrounded by a halo of novelty and expectation. The experience of a few years may be productive of results as unsatisfactory as those now realised in Gothenburg, though at first ushered in by such a flourish of trumpets. It may yet be found, that, so long as character remains unaffected, we only exchange one form of vice or crime for some other; or that alcoholic drinks which had once been taken openly, will now be privately indulged in; and if I know anything of human nature, there is nothing which deteriorates a man, which withers up all nobleness, which eats like dry-rot into the soul, like the stealthy indulgence in a secret vice-the solitary sot sneaking off slily into some private corner to indulge unseen. He either looks upon the law as tyranny, and frets and vexes his soul with an indignant sense of its usurpation; or he acquiesces in its general propriety, but, being led by temptation to violate it (though not to any personally-injurious extent) secretly, its very stringency in matters confessedly immaterial induces a spirit and habit of illegality, which follows him into other departments of life.

must

tion, instead of wandering at large and trying to grope their way through the long, tortuous by-paths of expediency.

But to very many-and FIDELIS is not quite excluded-Government is a kind of abstract entity with inherent rights and extra-human knowledge, which is bound to be always doing something, and may impose its sense of fitness on you and me, as apart and distinct from it—an entity outside an entityand may take our money to do its will. In short, it is the old idea of which so many who ought to know better cannot divest themselves, but which, like so much else, is gradually becoming obsolete and dying out. Whereas Government is but the creature and representative of you and of me and of the rest of us, and possesses only such powers as we possess in our individual capacity and delegate to it. But as we possess no power to 'meddle and muddle,' neither does it.

But this, it will be said, is radicalism pure and simple. So it is, for all reasoning must go to the root of things. But it is conser

vatism, too: for right is the only true conservator; and he who builds on anything else may find, sooner or later, that he has not been building on a rock.

In fine, I stand by myself, and you stand by yourself. I take care of my individuality and you take care of yours. But if you interfere with me or I with you, then Government, of right, steps in and says: 'Gentlemen, you must not tread on one another's toes. The world is wide enough for you both; keep apart, please. I must see fair play done; for "I am a constable to keep the peace.'

Nor does this at all exclude the idea of sympathy or pity or help to others, or of any gentle or generous or noble human feeling. On the contrary it strengthens it. But it puts every virtue into its proper place, with justice, the foundation, chief and first of all.

But how could such a system be carried out? It is perfect Utopia! Gentlemen, let us make ourselves familiar with the idea first. J. A. ALLEN.

O have accomplished that which others

done is a just passport to fame. That the only two white men who have, as far as is known, traversed Africa from the Indian to the Atlantic coast are both Englishmen, is a fact of which we are all proud; proud, not only because of the endurance and daring to which such a feat bears testimony, but also because it seems to us but another proof how strangely the destinies of England and that great continent are being bound up together. How it has come about, why it has come about, we do not know, but no one who has paid even a superficial attention to African history and African discovery can fail to be struck with the prominence which English enterprise, English trade, English habits, and English religion are assuming in all quarters of Africa. From Alexandria to

the Cape, from Zanzibar to Benguela, and thence up again to Gibraltar, England is the one spot of the outside world of which the natives have some cognizance. It is true, of course, that the French hold Algiers and certain settlements on the Gold Coast; but France never has been and never will be a successful coloniser, and to-day, outside the range of the rifles of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, the position of the Algerian colonists is not so very different from the sketches with which Punch ridiculed Louis Philippe's African enterprise thirty years ago, when the cows all carried small howitzers on their backs. In the Northern and North-Western deserts German savans have sacrificed their lives nobly in the cause of geographical and physical science, and the king of the Belgians is now prominently taking up the cause of African discovery,

but it is only on the lines already laid down by the English. Were it not for the trouble in the Transvaal Republic we should almost forget that the Dutch ever held a footing in Africa, while it would be well for the credit of Portugal if we could altogether put out of sight her great opportunities and the manner in which she has misused them. With a clear start in the race, with a clear opening under the noble ambition of Prince Henry, Portugal might have, and for a time did, distance all Europe in competition for the position of being the first African power. To what she has sunk, to what a miserable, debased system of slave-trading her policy has degenerated, a very small acquaintance with her possessions, either on the E. or W. coast will amply testify. As far as present indications go, England seems destined to make the greater part of Africa her own. Leaving out of consideration the aggregation of colonies at the southern extremity, look only at the effect which such journeys as those of Livingstone, Burton, Speke, Baker, and Cameron must have on the natives; look at 'Chinese' Gordon's position and exploits on the Upper Nile; look at the persistent efforts at evangelization made up the Zambesi, at the Presbyterian station on Lake Nyassa, in the attempt to reach and win king Mtesa, and by the Universities' Mission that is working westward from Zanzibar. It is not merely a strange fascination that the mysterious continent exercises over Englishmen. There is an underlying deep conviction that, as we believe, for some good Providential purpose, the destinies of the two countries are bound up together; and it is this which creates so deep an interest in achievements such as that of Commander Cameron, and in such a book as the one now before us.

The actual detail of daily journeying in Africa is singularly dull and wearisome. It was, if we remember right, Richard Burton who among the illustrations of one of his books inserted a sketch entitled 'African Travel.' A monotonous undulating landscape, a long straggling line of porters, followed by a listless traveller on a bare-backed donkey-the whole caravan plodding along under a pitiless sun at the rate of 12 miles an hour-such was the uninviting, and yet very faithful, picture. The narration, however, of a journey, if details are not wearisomely

repeated, need not be dull, as this book testifies; for the author's plain but graphic account of his exploits is deeply interesting. And so we will try to give to those to whom the book itself is not accessible, some idea of what Cameron did and how he did it.

Disappointed in his application for employment on the first Livingstone Search Expedition, Cameron, intent on African travel somehow or other, devoted his spare time to the study of the Suahili language; but six months later, in November, 1872, a new expedition was planned and he was offered the command. Passing over the details of the preliminary arrangements, we will take up the story at the time, March, 1873, when the trouble of hiring guides, soldiers, and porters, of arranging terms, of laying in stores, and of getting everybody and everything under weigh, having been finally surmounted, the expedition, consisting of Cameron, Dr. Dillon, R.N., and Lieut. Murphy, R. A., finally left Bagamoyo, the mainland port of Zanzibar, and started for the West. The route from the coast to Lake Tanganyika, thanks to Burton, Speke, Stanley, &c., is now comparatively well known, and need not be dwelt upon in detail. It possesses at the best very few features of interest, very little scenery that is striking, and very little land that is suitable for settlement. Thanks to the slave-traders, along a great portion of it chronic warfare is the order of the day; in fact, throughout every route along which Arab caravans have travelled, every man's hand is against every man. In the track of the traders, peace is replaced by war, security by rapine and anarchy, and unsuspecting confidence by well-grounded suspicion. Travelling consequently is no easy or holiday task, but requires tact, courage, patience, and energy. To know when to yield, when to resist the demands for black mail, when to conciliate, when to carry things with a high hand, is a gift which few possess, but which Cameron evidently has to perfection. It is not only exceedingly difficult to make the natives understand the possibility of any one travelling without the obvious inducements of trade or plunder, but at times it is necessary for the traveller to ally himself to caravans even of slavetraders, when to stand aloof from your companions, still more to avoid being compromised by their misdeeds, is well nigh impossible. It cannot be too often remembered

that in Livingstone's last tramp, extending over many years and thousands of miles, he never drew trigger himself nor allowed a shot to be fired in his defence; while throughout Cameron's march from sea to sea, from March 1873, to November 1875, twice only were his guns used; and then not with fatal effect. On one occasion a very sudden and unprovoked attack was made on the party, and an arrow glanced off Cameron's shoulder, who, catching sight of the fellow who had shot at him lurking behind a tree -shot him? no: 'I dropped my rifle and started in chase. Fortune favoured me, for my enemy tripped and fell, and before he could regain his feet I was down on him, and, after giving him as sound a thrashing as he ever had in his life, smashed his bow and arrows. This finished, I pointed to some of his friends who were now in view, and considerably assisted him to join them by means of stern propulsion, the kick being a hearty one.' One cannot help contrasting the vigorous but humorous way in which the English sailor protects his life, with the blood-and-thunder progress of Mr. Stanley, who, if his own statements are to be believed, thinks nothing of shelling a village and picking off the inhabitants to rehabilitate his own offended dignity, and to make sensational paragraphs for the glorification of his employers. Delays are, however, a more conspicuous feature of African travel than even dangers. No man, unpossessed of unlimited patience, should set foot in Africa. Livingstone's journals are full of the wretched delays imposed on him by his own followers, by wars, by illness, or by too hospitable entertainers. At his most westerly point he was laid by through sickness for months. And on one occasion Cameron seems to have been detained in honourable quasi captivity by a dusky potentate named Kasongo, from October 1874 to June 1875, having eventually to build a house for that personage before he could proceed westwards. Even the daily start of a caravan is an affair of hours; the donkeys, if any remain alive, have strayed; or five or six porters have run off; or a few askari or soldiers have indulged in too much pombé and are consequently incapacitated for active labour. And if one of the caravan has a friend in a village, that is quite sufficient excuse for a debauch for two or three days, while the luckless traveller is

absolutely unable to do anything but wait.

The route to Ujiji was marked by painful incidents. A grandson of Dr. Moffatt, a nephew to Livingstone, was sent by his mother from Natal to join the expedition. On one occasion the caravan was divided and Moffatt and Murphy were left behind. A few days afterwards, when the rear party came in sight, only one white man was visible. "Where is the other?" was the simultaneous ejaculation of Dillon and myself, “and who is the missing one?" At last, unable to bear the suspense, I limped down the hill. I then recognized Murphy, and to my question, "Where is Moffatt ?" the answer was, "Dead!" Worse, however, was in store. Few understand the terrible power of African fever. In September, six months after starting, Cameron says, 'out of fortyfive days I have had one fever of eight days, one of seven, one of five, one of four, and am now just getting well from a violent headache which lasted for five days.' 'None but those who have experienced this fever can realize the extraordinary fancies that take possession of the mind. At times I have imagined, altho' not entirely losing my consciousness, that I had a second head, and that I could not live in this state.' Again, on lake Tanganyika, he writes: I experienced a complete sense of of duality. I imagined that another person, a second self, was lying on the opposite side of the boat. I thought, too, that the tea-pot of cold tea, which had been placed on that side of the boat, was for his sole benefit, and when, in my tossing about, I rolled over to that side, I seized the teapot and drank like a whale, and chuckled at the idea of the other thirsty mortal being done out of some of his "tipple.' While in Unyanyembe, the chief seat of this fever, and when all were down with it, Jacob Wainwright's letter telling of Dr. Livingstone's death arrived, but neither Cameron nor Dillon could command their brains enough to understand what they read. However, in a day or two, the faithful servants came with the dead traveller's body. Suddenly, therefore, the reason for continuing the Expedition, had been taken away; and what was to be done? Cameron decided to go on, at least to Ujiji and recover Livingstone's papers. Dillon agreed to accompany him, Murphy elected to go back to the coast in

charge of the body. Dillon, however, became so ill that a return to the sea was the only chance of saving his life, and then Cameron was left alone. They separated; the one party for Zanzibar, the other for the unknown West. For a few days their routes lay nearly parallel, and one day a messenger came across country from Murphy with the painful news that in an agony of fever poor Dillon had shot himself. What must have been the loneliness of the man who, receiving this dreadful news, was then a third of the way across Africa and had set himself to accomplish the other twothirds, without the possibility of meeting one white face till he accomplished his task or, as was most probable, perished himself in the attempt?

After leaving the unhealthy Unyanyembe, however, his health much improved, though he frequently suffered from sprains and bruises. At Ujiji he found and despatched to the coast Dr. Livingstone's papers, and then, chartering and rigging two small boats which he named Betsey' and 'Pickle,' he started on an exploratory survey of Lake Tanganyika. Livingstone went on on foot along the lower half of the eastern shore of the lake, and he coasted along a small part of the western side, as well as along the east coast, between Ujiji and its northern head; but Cameron sailed and mapped as he went, the whole length of both shores, from Ujiji to the south end and back again. We are told that Mr. Stanley has since circumnavigated the whole lake, but the details of his journey are not before us. The mystery of the outlet, if there be any, of Tanganyika is not yet wholly cleared up. Several large rivers enter it, and down its rocky sides countless torrents pour in the rainy season, and the question arises, is the evaporation from its long but narrow surface sufficient to account for all the water it receives. Livingstone was confident that he detected a northerly flow in the lake, and he placed the possible outlet at a point on the western shore nearly opposite Ujiji. This conjecture seems to be disproved. Cameron found, about 80 miles further south, a large river called Lukuga, flowing out of the lake through the only gap in the surrounding mountains. He sailed three or four miles down this stream until his course was arrested by the floating vegetation which completely choked the passage,

very much as Sir Samuel Baker was thwarted in his ascent of the Nile above Khartoum. The first block was said to continue four or five miles, and then alternate portions of clear water and choking weed occurred for a great distance. The local chief said that his people had travelled for more than a month along its banks, and that it eventually fell into a great river, the Lualaba. Stanley, however, affirms that he followed the Lukuga for several miles, when it gradually thinned out and ended in a small stream running into the lake. Cameron on the other hand distinctly saw driftwood and vegetation carried by the stream out of the lake into the mouth of the Lukuga, and growing weeds were all turned in the same direction. Were it not for Baker's experiences on the Nile we should attach more weight to Stanley's investigation, but we know from those how impossible it is to trace the course or the very existence of such a vast river as the Nile itself, under the matted conglomeration of tropical vegetation; so it is still possible that the Lukuga may yet flow to the westward, though Stanley could not detect its course. Or, again, it is possible that it is an intermittent outlet, necessary only when the lake has received in the rainy and cloudy season more water than its surface can evaporate. If it is a little disappointing to find that the Tanganyika problem is still unsolved, we must remember that it is only eighteen years since Burton first set eyes upon that unknown lovely strip of water, lying embosomed in steep mountains and bordered by some of the grandest cliff scenery in the world.

Having returned to Ujiji and despatched Livingstone's papers and his own journals and maps to the coast, Cameron, after the usual delays and difficulties, ferried his party across the lake, and thence began his real tramp to the Atlantic coast. To reach his first objective point, Nyangwe, which was also Livingstone's furthest point west, he followed nearly in his predecessor's steps, 'whose peaceful and unoffending progress through this land has tended to make an Englishman respected by the natives.' Manyuema, as we learnt from Livingstone's last journals, is one of the most promising districts in Central Africa. Its people, naturally, are orderly and, by comparison with their neighbors, civilized,