so that the land is practically all grass country.

Indian and boviander folk, whose settlements dot the river banks, or are screened behind the riverside jungle. The vegetation is very fine hereabouts. I see it in my mind's eye with the golden-yellow light of the late afternoon illuminating the dense foliage, as it rises tier upon tier into the rich blue sky, whilst the river gives back the reflection in almost incredible emerald, and slowly changes to ruddy-gold as the shafts of sunset light flame overhead. Soft, indefinably fragrant scents float out upon the evening air. The brief tropical twilight breathes blessing as it passes, and the boat makes its way through the deepening shadows of the great dark forest. It looks so grim and impenetrable that one needs an effort to realise that the open savannahs do really lie so near, and that the forest bogey which so long imprisoned them has been laid at last.

During the afternoon we went by bateau a mile farther upstream to visit Dornspruit, the depot of the Consolidated Balata Company. Here its courteous storekeeper showed us bundles of balata piled in stacks. It is cacao-brown in colour, and more like linoleum to the feel than anything else I can think of. Also we saw amber-coloured lumps of sweetsmelling forest gum. The storekeeper kindly took us on in his bateau with an outboard motor, first to visit Kalcuni, a little higher up the river, where there is a fairly large settlement of aborigines under the auspices of a Congregational Mission, and afterwards downstream to the Anglican church and school at Kumaka. This little settlement takes its name from a huge silk-cotton tree, called by the aborigines a "kumaka." Its bare trunk towers to a great height above all the surrounding growth, and its creeper - burdened branches spread out from the top like a Japanese umbrella. Behind the church stands a patriarch among mango-trees, guarding in its shadow three Dutch graves with inscriptions to the memory of a Dutch planter's family who died in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Of the "oldtime plantation only this mango-tree and some very large gnarled cacao - trees remain. The school is attended chiefly by the children of the aboriginal

୫

Before the late moon rose those members of our party, who were going on southward to build and establish the first Government station and represent the strong arm of law and civilisation two hundred miles away from all regular communication, left us to return to Waranana. We wished them good luck under the stars.

At 11 P.M. we heard the little river steamer pass on her way up to Dornspruit; and just as the first pale light of dawn was beginning to show itself, she appeared on her

down-stream

journey, and picked us up from the bateau in which we had pushed off to meet her. We spent a very comfortable day in more or less somnolent repose on board. The Berbice river scenery is much like that of the Demerara, the same sleepy water reflecting the same dense green curtain of trees and palms ever straining towards light and air. The little settlements of river-folk tenant the banks in similar fashion, only they are fewer and farther between than on the western river. We saw many of those curious birds known as hoatzin, or "Canje pheasant" in local parlance, hanging on to the riverside foliage, displaying their beautiful pheasant-like tails and crests. These creatures are dear to scientists as a sort of missing link between reptiles and birds. The young ones use a curious claw on the wings, with which they crawl about on all-fours as it were, and they swim and dive wonderfully, though the adult birds

are not aquatic. The distance to the sea from Takama is over a hundred miles, but not until twenty miles from the coast did we see the first sugarfactory chimney at Mara.

At dusk the lights of the township of New Amsterdam showed up on the east bank of the river close to its mouth; and landing at Plantation Blairmont on the west side, we found that a fine Marmon car had been sent to await us. The throb of the powerful engine, as it pursued the flying patch of light thrown ahead by the big lamps, was very stimulating. We were borne along the seventy miles of coast-road to Georgetown in less than three hours-seventy miles,-more than the whole journey from Arakwa to Takama! Such is the power of motor transport. Its wonderful potentialities in an unopened country cannot but thrill one's imagination, till the cry of roads, roads, roads haunts one's dreams, asleep or awake.

VOL. COXI.-NO. MCCLXXVIII.

b

MR LLOYD GEORGE has lost his nerve. At what his worshippers thought was the zenith of his power, he threatened resignation and sought the retirement of his own Criccieth. It may be that, never a gallant fighter in a losing cause, he was terrified at the defeat of a handful of Coalition candidates. Or the obdurate Sir George Younger may have frightened him out of his autocratic complacency. Or it may even be possible, though unlikely-for his vision was never of the acutest,—that he saw his vague and vain schemes crumbling to pieces beyond hope of repair. He has thrown Ireland into anarchy; he has gambled with Egypt until she has but a small chance of recovery; he has permitted his late colleague, Mr Montagu, to arouse India from her pathetic contentment, with the result that massacre seems inevitable. Nor is this all: the triumph which he prayed he might snatch from Genoa fades from his vision; the substitution of conference by caravan for the old, efficient, respectable methods of diplomacy has brought him

only ridicule; and, maybe, he finds the rehabilitation of the Bolsheviks, always near his heart, insufficient for his wayward ambition. But whatever was the momentary cause of his aberration, Mr Lloyd George lost his nerve, and, instead of coming forth and confronting a harsh world, he attempted to regain the lost favour of the people by imploring his friends and colleagues to present him with an obviously solicited testimonial.

So it was proclaimed aloud in every quarter that Mr Lloyd George was the greatest man on earth. We were invited to take a lofty pride in our one man of genius, and to look with satisfaction upon the havoc which he had wrought. And we are invited in vain. No man, in or out of politics, can safely rely upon the praise of others to restore a fallen reputation. He must still make his own speeches or do his own work if he would not lose the position he has gained, and Mr Lloyd George has declined in the public esteem at every trumpet-blast of praise. Nor has the quality of the praise

For Sir Arthur, in his desire to protect his leader against the assaults of those who once were his friends and followers, is forced to make certain admissions, which seem effectively to destroy his argument. Speaking as the Conservative and Unionist representative of the City of London, he said: "For a time which is not very far from half a century I have been a member of the party to which I have always belonged, to which I still belong, and doubtless shall belong until I go to the country where political parties interest me no more. But of what use is it to belong to a party which has abandoned its principles ? Sir Arthur proclaims himself a Tory and a Unionist. The Coalition, of whose deeds and words he wholly approves, is neither Tory nor Unionist. The past is "irrelevant to it, as it is to Sir Arthur Balfour. It cares not a snap of the fingers for the tradition of our English life. It has, above all, lost all right to claim the title of Unionist, because by its surrender to Collins and his gunmen it has renounced the policy

and Ireland, whence it derived its name. Sir Boyle Roche said that a bird could be in two places at once. The most alert politician cannot be in two parties at once. And if Sir Arthur Balfour still calls himself a Unionist, he must have effectually separated the name from the thing.

Indeed, he does not attempt to save himself by half-statements. He is whole-hearted in his loyalty to the "Unionists," who have disunited the Empire, to the "Tories," who have accepted, without question, a Radical policy at home and abroad. "I have belonged to many Governments," he says. "Some have been Coalition Governments; some have been purely Conservative or Unionist Governments. I have never belonged to a Government in which there was a greater harmony of purpose and singleness of end than this, or with more desire to carry out a great national policy." It is a strange statement. The Government which Sir Arthur applauds thus loftily has shown its harmony most conspicuously in the readiness with which its members have all changed their opinions at a single word of command. They have many of them— gone to bed stern unbending Unionists, and woke up eager for disruption. For them, at any rate, coalition means instantaneous and simultaneous conversion. If there has been no "singleness of end " in their