snails and ants, and all manner of creeping things, "perished in the flaming night of their last judgment."

erty was on fire." It was not his business to meddle with such things, but he was there as soon as any one, manfully lashing at the fierce red edge, and retiring at intervals into the dark background to cough and groan out the smoke which penetrated into the inmost recesses of his honest interior. Many of his men were there too, masons and joiners and plumbers, in the main good fellows, working hard and diligently at the unac customed job. The cattleman left his cattle; the butler asked leave for absence from dinner, and had to return after coming half the way, to change his dress coat. Many shepherds were there: they hurried from their homes in lonely glens, guided by the great blaze which their knowledge of the ground told them had no right to be where it was. These men understood their business: they did not rush at their work with the fury of inexperience, but quietly and determinedly stuck to it in a way which was in the long run the most serviceable. In fact, every able-bodied man in the district, and many who were exceedingly decrepid, reached during the night the place of action. And all these men worked according to their inclinations and lights, no one had time to see in the smoke and confusion that individuals scattered over a large space did what they ought.

He wished to save their strength; the switches, too, were worn, and the new supply had not yet come. And lastly, though all this has taken some time to An idle man would have found much to read, the doing of it was quickly carried interest him in the way in which different out. Only a few stragglers had come up people did their work that night, and yet, and it was with divided forces, and could have made many studies of characweary arms, and inefficient weapons, that ter by that fierce light. The estate on the enemy had to be met. A few seconds which all this happened was a very large would show whether men were to sleep one, and many different trades were repin bed that night, or spend it in grappling|resented on the hill. There was the clerk with the wildest conflagration the oldest of works, summoned from his office by a inhabitant had ever seen. The great, shrieking lass telling him_that “the propirregular wall of fire came threateningly on; already stray bits of lighted stuff flew on ahead, each one kindling the heather outside, and being hastily beaten and trampled out by hurrying men. But the flames were still some way back from the plantation fence when most saw that nothing but a miracle could save them from spreading over that frail march. The wind seemed to exult in giving help to their enemy, -a hundred burning tufts flew out on to the moor - five hundred a thousand panting men beating out one in their front found two or three blazing up at their backs, each demanding instant attention. Every blow of the beaters loosened lighted fragments of the wiry bent, dry as touchwood, and these in their turn kindled fresh places. By the time the reinforcements arrived, and fresh strength was added to the weary workers, the wood was left far behind, black and smouldering, and a great body of flame was driving through the heather, pressing across the moor towards the thousands of acres of wood which still rejoiced in their green beauty miles away, whilst a hundred and fifty men toiled in its wake, and thrust themselves' on its flanks, and even unavailingly charged it in front. And the good men set their teeth and swore to themselves, that if men could put out that fire they would do it; and the skulkers idled and lit their pipes, and wondered how much whisky they would be able to get hold of, working prodigiously when the factor or any one in au thority was near. Before nine o'clock the fire was a mile and a half on its way, with a head a quarter of a mile broad, the crowd following it, doing at present little more than follow it, but yet in some measure guiding it and preventing it from spreading and carrying utter desolation over the whole length and breadth of the moors. The frightened grouse and black game flew before it; the wood-cocks nestled in the heather, hardly stirring till the heat compelled them; and the beetles and

"We'll no' manage it unless the wind gaes doun," said a shepherd.

"We must manage it," said the factor.

"We'll no' manage it, wind or no'," said an old saw-miller, who had been attracted by the blaze and the hope of whisky, and who had not done one stroke of real work.

"It'll be in Langwell wood in an hour," said another.

"If it gets into Langwell," said the forester, "it'll get into Creildarrach; and if its gets into Creildarrach

Perhaps the factor should have gone on at once and made sure of the safety of the Langwell woods by burning a strip

"We will stay here for a bit," he said, "and if the worst comes to the worst, we shall still have time to save the woods."

outside, but that meant sacrificing most | line of defence for the plantation. It was of the moor which lay in front of them. no easy task: the night was now very He was very anxious to save some part of dark, the switches almost useless; the it, and he knew that the shepherd had heather here also was so rank and high greatly overestimated the pace at which that the greatest caution was necessary to the work of destruction was being done. keep it from spreading. A boy lit the On him the responsibility rested, and it line too far ahead, and it got away from was not easy to decide, it was almost them and passed on to the wood; and at painful. He compromised the matter. one time it seemed to the half-distracted factor that by their coming they had merely hastened the advent of the fire. It was put out, however, by immense exertion; and they got back to their old stations, owing to the increasing strength of the wind, and, to some extent, to the withdrawal of the small force sent on, before the old fire burned more fiercely than ever. There were no brooks in its way, few sheep drains, and these well filled in and harmless; and the flames swept on, meeting with small opposition: if they lost ground for a moment in one place at a temporary obstacle, at another they were sure to gain. A band of wearied, blackened, silent men followed it, doing what they could. Some had fallen out of the ranks and were left far behind, and those for the most part the best. A sturdy Highlander is bad to beat at any thing on which his mind is deeply set, but even his sinews and limbs will fail at last if no rest is given them. Few of the workers waste their strength in shouts now, though at the first there had been no lack of shouting.

The forester shook his head at this decision, and once more applied himself to his work. Soon there were two hundred men on the ground nearly one-half quite useless and large supplies of bread and cheese and drink arrived; but birch-beaters were scarce, and they were wanted most of all. Great big fellows were expending their strength in thrash ing at the flames with sticks almost as thin and as "feckless "" as a pitchfork would have been. It is not always easy to cut good ones by daylight, and it is exceedingly difficult to get them at night. So many that were brought up were use less too heavy to wield, or too thin to do any good; and some of the men at last strapped bunches of heather to their sticks and used them. The food and its accompaniment tempted some to stray away and hold little impromptu picnics in the dark, and all this took time; and there are few seasons when time is more valuable then when fire of any kind has to be fought.

Then the factor saw he was beaten where he stood. The men were hardly gaining ground. Many of the good workers were worn out and unable to do more, and many were discouraged; and finding their feeble efforts of little use, became still feebler, and stood by, as it were, when they could, and wondered what would happen. He got hold of about fiveand-twenty men, some good and some evil, and leaving the command and his last instructions to the forester, led his detachment, as quickly as he could get them to travel, across the rough moor to where the great woods began. It was a rekef to feel the cool wind blowing, free from smoke and heat, and to leave behind for a little the din and roar and confusion of the huge tossing mass of flame. Arriving at the wood, they carefully began to use their enemy as a friend; and as a surgeon will sometimes stop a dangerous bleeding by cutting an artery, and causing for a moment a greater flow of blood, so did they set fire against fire by burning a

"We're no' fit for it," said an ancient "bodach "who for hours had done nothing but give advice and smoke; and this feeling was probably more or less strong in most of the men's minds.

If the factor got his track burnt in time, the fire was beaten; if not, they were. It seemed doubtful if the track would be burnt in time. Part of it was well done, -a broad band of smouldering turf lay like a black moat round its for tress - the forest; but lower down the hill, and yet well within the scope of the approaching fire, the wood was still undefended. The heather there had to be burnt slowly and cautiously for the reasons given, and the most part of it remained unburnt when the old fire was within a hundred yards, · - a wide strip of dense high ling keeping up the dangerous communication between the moor and the trees. Then the factor called off all his men, and took them to meet their enemy. He knew that as the greedy blaze rolled up it, it would die out harmlessly on reaching his burnt strip, and that its power would be concentrated on the nar

rower lane which ran into the wood, and | to the hill and see the mischief that had that it must be beaten there if anywhere. been done. He shouted this out to the men, some heard, and some not; but all, at any rate, knew that a few seconds would show whether the woods of half a county were to go down or not.

Coffee, with whom we have been brought into actual hostility. Of Speke's and Grant's discoveries, Mtésa was not the least interesting item; and to the accounts given of him by these distinguished trav ellers is due the notice which his death has attracted. Since the time of Speke and Grant other explorers and missionaries have visited the court of Uganda, and each of them has added his testimony to the striking character of its ruler. The most prominent was Mr. Stanley, whose account of the king's later years offers many notable points of contrast to the experiences of the first Europeans who visited Mtésa.

his side, as also a knot of staff officers, with whom he kept up a brisk conversation on one side; and on the other was a band of Wichwézi, or lady-sorcerers.

The plates which illustrate the more recent works of travel are significant of the enlarged ideas which, in the course of twenty years' intercourse with explorers, and a more free communication with the Mohammedans of the coast, had opened up in the king's mind. The king appears. in a semi- Moslem attire. The bark. clothes and beautiful skins of the country, worn down to the ankles, had given place to the tawdry muslins of the Arabs, and taken away the primitive and national apFrom the attractions of its court and pearance which the king and his courtiers its geographical position on Victoria Ny- wore when girt in their simple robes of anza, Uganda has been a magnet drawing mbugu, without shoes, stockings, or hats. people of many tribes and nations; and The change which came over Mtésa seems Mtésa was brought more into contact to have corresponded with the alteration with external civilization than any of his in his outward appearance. He was fellow-potentates in the equatorial region. young, brave, handsome, and fearless, full How accessible he was to outside influ- of dignity and dash, when seen at the ence may readily be inferred from a comparison of Stanley's observations with those of Speke and Grant. The illustrations to Speke's "Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile" show the king and his court in the costume and manners of primitive African barbarism, but invested with a rude dignity that was imposing from its very simplicity.

early age of twenty-five-viz, in 1862by Captains Speke and Grant. He had not then been long on the throne. He had been chosen by the chiefs of Uganda from among forty or fifty brothers, the sons of King Sunna, and his career fully justified the wisdom of his selection. In the "Journal" we have a most amusing account of the struggles made by the young monarch to safeguard his dignity, A more theatrical sight I never saw [says and at the same time gratify his curiosity Speke]. The king, a good-looking, well-fig during Speke's visit. The efforts made ured, tall young man of twenty-five, was sitting by the explorer to have himself recog on a red blanket spread upon a square plat-nized as standing on a footing of equality form of royal grass encased in tiger-grass reeds, scrupulously well dressed in a new mbugů. The hair of his head was cut short, excepting on the top, where it was combed up into a high ridge, running from stem to stern like a cockscomb. On his neck was a very neat ornament a large ring, of beautifully worked small beads, forming elegant patterns by their various colors. On one arm was another bead ornament, prettily devised; and on the other a wooden charm, tied by a string covered with snake-skin. On every finger and every toe he had alternate brass and copper rings; and above the ankles, half-way up to the calf, a stocking of very pretty beads. Everything was light, neat, and elegant in its way; not a fault could be found with the taste of his "getting up." For a handkerchief he held a wellfolded piece of bark, and a piece of goldembroidered silk, which he constantly employed to hide his large mouth when laughing, or to wipe it after a drink of plantain-wine, of which he took constant and copious draughts from neat little gourd-cups, administered by his ladies-in-waiting, who were at once his sisters and wives. A white dog, spear, shield, and the Uganda cognizance- were by

woman

with the king, and the skilful persistency with which Mtésa evaded his demands, and also succeeded in retaining Speke at his court, is a comical proof of the suc cess with which the arts of diplomacy may be cultivated among even the most primitive peoples. The talents which Mtésa unfolded in his intercourse with Speke appear to have become fully developed in succeeding years. Though apparently a despotic and frequently cruel ruler, he acted under the control of his ministry, and exerted, by diplomacy or force, a paramount influence over all the States on his borders and around the shores of his lake. He had a large army at his command - a hundred and twentyfive thousand fighting men, according to Stanley; and he appears to have found constant occupation for these outside his own territories, for almost every traveller who has visited Uganda has found Mtésa's forces engaged in expeditionary operations against some of his rival neighbors

Mtésa, with the unvarnished but striking narrative of Speke, we cannot forbear the suspicion that the former has allowed his prepossessions and imagination to give, perhaps unconsciously, a color to his facts; and even Stanley himself was forced to admit that when the chances of war placed his enemies in Mtésa's hands, the precepts of Christianity had little influence in restraining him from exercising the natural barbarity of the African conqueror. Yet Mtésa personally was not cruel: his dignity as king of Uganda, and the maintenance of his prestige among his neighbors of the lake country, required such manifestations of his power as would strike terror into the hearts of his enemies and subjects.

or recalcitrant feudatories. Like most African monarchs, he placed little or no value on human life. Speke declared that during his residence in Mtésa's palace, he witnessed almost every day one, two, or three of the wretched palace-women led past with heartrending cries to instant death; and the executioner was one of the great officers of state, as seems usual in African courts. On the other hand, Mtésa appeared to be easily accessible to appeals for mercy, and readily granted to Captain Speke the life of one of his courtiers who had been ordered for execution, thinking that the matter was so trivial a one as not to be worth disobliging a distinguished stranger for. A free exercise of his power to inflict death was, in Mtésa's estimation, necessary to the All travellers who have made Mtésa's maintenance of his dignity; besides, it acquaintance agree in assuring us that he was the traditionary custom of his coun- was a great ruler, and possessed of pertry: and, by way of impressing his im-sonal qualities which raised him far above portance on Colonel Long, he had some the level of the ordinary African despot. thirty of his subjects killed on the occa. He had none of the fierce brutality of sion of that traveller's first visit to his Theodore, the late Negus of Abyssinia; palace, while a smaller number was sacri- and no one who knew his character would ficed at each of his successive receptions. for a moment compare him with such At the time of Speke's visit Mtésa's re- bloated tyrants as Cetewayo, or with the ligion was the ordinary paganism of the savage kings with whom we have been country; and he had a profound belief in brought into contact in western Africa. witchcraft and magic. Every article pre- Considering his isolated position he exsented to the king had previously to be ercised greater power and showed hightouched by some of the witch-doctors of er administrative qualities than any of his court, in order that all possible harm these; and all over the wide Nyanza from poison or magic might be removed country the tribes feared his name and from it but by the time that Stanley power quite as much as the name and visited Uganda, the king and his court power of the first Napoleon were feared, had adopted a corrupt species of Moham- eighty years ago, throughout the Euromedanism which had been picked up from pean States. He was an African Louis the Arab traders of the east coast. King XIV. in his observance of all those forMtésa, however, certainly never pos-malities and minutiæ which fence in the sessed more than the merest smattering person of a king, and keep him clearly of the faith of Islam, which supplemented rather than superseded his former beliefs; and down to his latest days the witch doctors and witch-priestesses played an important part in all court ceremonials. Mr. Stanley claims credit for having made a convert to Christianity of Mtésa. He took some pains to explain its leading doctrines to the king, who listened attentively, and received its truths in an unquestioning spirit, according to his teacher; but though he made a formal profession of his belief in the superiority of Christianity to Islamism, he cannot be said in practice to have shown any grasp or appreciation of the doctrines of the gospel, or to have abandoned his belief in his early paganism. When we contrast the accounts which Stanley gives of his conversations on religious matters with

separated from the common herd. He upheld his popularity, and the rigorous etiquette of the court of Uganda — accounted a most brilliant one throughout equatorial Africa — with the firmness and decorum which in the early days of his reign so greatly impressed Captain Speke. It was an every-day occurrence that from one to two hundred generals, with little armies of their followers, attended his receptions at the palace in levee costume; and several hundred women, the pick of equatorial African beauty, daily waited at the "drawing-room" parties held by the king. Each and every one present, from the commander-in-chief to the page of ten years old, was dressed with scrupulous neatness on these occasions; and though the alterations in court costume which were carried out