early summer for the golden scented cowslip that springs ever freely in a broad, bright field, beyond which lie three or four un-named tombstones, discovered long ago, when the little church was built that crowns the lane. Perhaps some of our six children sleep there unmovingly through all the lapse of years: perhaps the elder sister, whose bridal wreath may after all have been woven for her marriage with death alone, there found balm for her broken heart! But it is all speculation. Nothing lasts, save the immortal range of hills beyond the garden, that are now as when the garden was in its prime; and as we stand at the gate, and try to avoid the rusted hinge that always stays us while we retwist the wire fastening, and prepare to plunge into the world again, we seem to part with a multitude of ghosts, who doubtless, when the moon rises high in the sky, walk hand in hand in the garden, and talk mournfully to gether of the days when they and it were in their prime.

of those who have read the accounts given by recent travellers in the southern seas of the state of things in Polynesia, or the still more terrible narratives of those who describe the slavery which has been established in Queensland, or the war of extermination which is being waged in northern Australia. Mr. John Wisker, of Melbourne, contributes to the current number of the Fortnightly Review an account of the doings of Englishmen under the Southern Cross which would be pronounced incredible but for the confirmation supplied by other independent witnesses. M. Rochefort is forever sneering at the nation which scatters tracts over the universe, and at the same time mercilessly exterminates the aborig. ines at the antipodes; and for once M. Rochefort's sarcasm is barbed with truth. It is in northern Queensland and Cape York that this process of colonization by massacre is to be seen at its best or worst. The "pioneers of civilization," gold-dig gers and adventurers, with a liberal leaven of the scoundrelism of two worlds, have been waging for years past an intermittent war with the black. fellows, who it seems are stronger, braver, and more inFrom The Pall Mall Gazette. dependent than the degenerate specimens THE CRIMES OF COLONIZATION. of humanity who are being crowded out "IN the name of God, the Clement, of existence in Victoria and in New the Merciful," began a curious document South Wales. As the pioneers took no recently produced before an Indian mag- women with them they supplied themistrate, “let Hafiz Saheb, who is the pos- selves with the wives of the aborigines. sessor of virtue and good qualities," pur-Human nature being the same all the chase at the slave market of Mecca two world over, a fierce war of reprisals beyoung negresses who, for the satisfaction gan, and is kept up to this hour. Every of "the exalted Sirkar," must be "young, native trouble is said to be traceable to comely, and cheap." These slave girls the same fatal cause. The black robbed were purchased at Mecca and imported of his wife slays the first white who into Bombay, and the law courts of the crosses his path. The colonists combine latter city are engaged in meting out a and massacre all the black fellows within righteous punishment to those engaged range of their rifles. And so it goes on. in this nefarious traffic. The lofty invo- Even when there is no blood feud, potcation which prefaced the letter does not shots are taken at "niggers as if they contrast more rudely with the instructions were wild ducks, and their women are to the slave-dealer than do the practices regarded as the common property of the indulged in by Englishmen in dealing first comer. Children are born of these with the weaker races with our ostenta- lawless unions, but none survive. Whethtious professions of morality and religion. It is an old story, and a hideous one. But from time to time it must be retold, if only that, while our ears are filled with mellifluous phrases about our humanity, fraternity, and civilization, we may not entirely forget that to multitudes of men we are only known as the pitiless exponents of a system of murder, greed, and lust.

These are hard words, but who can say they are undeserved? Not assuredly any

er their parents kill them or the hybrid lacks stamina to face the climate remains a mystery. Every year the black man is hunted farther and farther back from the lands which are coveted by the white, and in northern Queensland ere long it will be as it is now in New South Wales, where, with a territory as large as France and England combined, seven hundred and fifty thousand colonists protest they can find no room in which to locate the miserable, dwindling remnant of the orig.

cult problem, no doubt; but ought it, therefore, to be left to solve itself? If so, the history of the aboriginal races will be told in two words - extermination and slavery. That to the Kanaka and the Australian is the practical meaning of Christianity and civilization.

inal owners of the soil. The colonists, | gin of most of the troubles in the Pacific however, do not do all the murders them- we shall not enter now. For them we selves. They massacre by deputy. Un-are not so directly and exclusively responder the guise of a police force they have sible. The rascaldom of many countries armed a body of blacks as savage and is engaged in the work of demoralizing, more drunken than their naked brethren, of plundering, and of murdering the unand these they periodically lead forth to fortunate islanders. To adequately police massacre gatherings of the tribes. the southern seas a kind of European The story which Mr. Wisker has to tell concert is required, for international comof the state of things on the cane planta- plications might arise if we were to string tions of southern Queensland is not less up to the yard-arm every scoundrel of a horrible. On the strength of official doc-beach-comber whose lust and avarice conuments he maintains that in many cases vert a paradise into a pandemonium. At the imported Polynesians are actually present we shell villagers who have visworse off than slaves. The labor traffic, ited blind vengeance upon their whitedespite all attempts at regulation, is, in skinned enemies, and only make bad his opinion, little better than an organ- worse. But, leaving the Polynesian quesized slave trade. On paper the regulation on one side for the moment, what is tions seem to be satisfactory. In prac- to be done in Queensland? It is a diffitice they are too often nugatory. The law provides that the native shall only be engaged for three years, at the rate of six pounds a year, besides food, lodging, and clothes. The native is paid his eighteen pounds at the end of his term of service, and is then returned to his island. If he dies before the three years expire, his master saves both his wages and the expense of sending him home. The economic problem, therefore, which confronts every cane-grower is, first, how to extract from his laborer the maximum amount of labor on a minimum quantity of food; FEW cities of the world have underand, secondly, how to arrange for his gone greater vicissitudes than the scene death as near as possible to the close of of our latest naval exploit. It is not his three years' service. A skilful cane- many years since Alexandria was a vil grower who can use up his laborers in lage, existing by fishing and the sponge two years and eleven months is £17 10s. trade, cut off from the interior by arid in pocket. A clumsy hand who works sands and fetid marshes, almost waterhis man to death in two years only gains less, and shrunk into a narrow corner 12. Thus a system ingeniously devised among the ruins of Greek magnificence. so as to combine all the worst features of So completely had Iskanderieh forgotten slavery and of freedom has been estab-its ancient glories, that it has even been lished under our eyes, and no one seems found impossible to identify the ancient to care. It is slavery plus murder. The sites of the famous buildings it once conemployer is allowed to pocket his work-tained. The Serapeum has perished as man's wages on condition that he kills completely as the tomb of Alexander; and him off before the end of three years. The result is that in Queensland the death rate of Polynesians between the age of sixteen and thirty-two varies from eighty to one hundred per thousand. In England the death rate is only nine. The fact is vouched for by government inspectors and police magistrates. We have spent millions in emancipating slaves and in crusading against the slave trade. Surely we are not going to allow without even a protest the gradual conversion of this great colony into a slave

state.

Into Mr. Wisker's exposure of the ori

From The Saturday Review. ALEXANDRIA.

within a few years the only two remnants
of Egyptian art which remained to show
that the town was not altogether modern
have disappeared.
The traveller may
search Alexandria from one end to the
other without discovering anything older
than the pillar which a Roman prefect
erected on the neighboring hill in honor
of Diocletian. True, there are, or were,
older objects in existence; here and there
the whole inner court of a house is sup-
ported on syenite columns from some
splendid temple; here and there a mosque
or a church has capitals, or pavements, or
lintels which denote the ruin of some

T

great edifice. But these remains are not | palace of Meks, a domed ruin, without so
easily found, and are only revealed when much as a blade of grass near it, gives
some street alteration reveals the interior you the first impression of modern Egypt.
anatomy of a falling house. The only As the inner harbor is reached, the palace
spot identified with any certainty is the of Ras el Tin - Fig Cape, where no figs
Kom el Dik, a hillock on whose summit grow is on the left, and presents some
is, or was, the reservoir of the waterworks. pleasing features in verandahs and bal-
This, it is tolerably plain, answers to the conies. This is the western extremity of
Paneum, from which, as ancient travellers the former island of Pharos. On its east-
have recorded, a view may be obtained ern extremity is the lighthouse, and from
over the whole city. No two modern the deck of a steamer it is easy to see that
writers agree as to where the Soma was, the island is now a peninsula, and that on
or the museum, or the library, or the pal- the connecting isthmus, the ancient Hep-
ace of Queen Cleopatra. This is the tastadium, an artificial causeway, now
more strange as few cities have their geo- widened out, the modern city is placed.
graphical features more strongly marked. The houses separate the two harbors, both
But the ancient Alexandria extended much of which still exist, but the western only,
further to the east and west along the with its breakwater and piers, is now
shore, and to the south-east into what is used. The harbor, indeed, good as it is,
now almost a desert, while the modern might be immensely improved; but the
city covers very little besides the site of jealousy of rulers like Araby has con-
the ancient Heptastadium. The Euro- stantly prevented the opening of better
pean quarter is larger, if not more popu- entrances than the Boghaz Pass, of which
lous, than the Arab quarter; and before we have heard so much lately. The depth
the recent exodus and the bombardment of water over the bar is so slight that
the city must have boasted of a quarter
of a million of inhabitants, of whom very
very little more than half can have been
native Moslems. European trade gave
employment to most of them. They are,
or were, turbulent, noisy, grasping, and
dirty, but well affected to the Franks, and
especially to the English, to whom, as
they well knew, they owed their liveli-
hood. Except from a soldier, the traveller
seldom had any cause to complain of in-
civility in Alexandria; and, except in the
Greek quarter, it was perfectly safe for a
stranger to walk through any part of the
town by day or night, alone and unarmed.
Alexandria could not in any sense be
called a beautiful city. It does not con-
tain a single handsome building. And,
though the streets are wide, the houses,
even in the central square, are irregular
without picturesqueness. The view from
the sea cannot be described, if we may
repeat the standing joke on board a pas-glish book-shops, exchanges, hotels, and
senger steamer, for the simple reason that
there is no view from the sea, and you are
actually in the harbor before you feel cer-
tain that Alexandria is in sight. A num-
ber of windmills on the low sand-hills
between the city and the marshy expanse
of Lake Mareotis, and nearer the sea a
number of factory chimneys, first come in
sight. Then among the chimneys and
windmills you are persuaded that Pom-
pey's Pillar is visible. As you approach
nearer, the low mounds of yellow or white
sand take the likeness of fortifications;
and as you enter the outer harbor, the

when a high sea washes over it the pas sage is dangerous even to small vessels, which often touch the ground at almost the deepest part of the channel. The best view of Alexandria is from the eastern coast a few miles out, whence it is seen, perhaps against a sunset sky, with pinnacles and domes jutting out into the blue Mediterranean, the long low line of buildings terminating in the lofty horn of the Pharos. From Ramleh, indeed, the English quarter, which spreads at intervals along a line of low cliffs for five miles or more, the traveller obtained far too favorable an impression of the place. A few minutes' walk in the interior showed him sights and made him smell smells that soon dissipated it. As you proceeded along the square of Mohamet Ali, with his equestrian statue in the centre, and a kiosk where a band never played, you passed coffee-houses, haberdashers, En

in front of them blue-veiled women with naked brown children astride on their shoulders, negro soldiers in white canvas uniforms, every one marching to his own step, yellow, mangy dogs creeping miserably along the gutter, water-carriers with great leather sacks on their backs, greenturbaned sheykhs cantering past on fat white donkeys, and elegant English carriages filled with well-dressed ladies, and driven by coachmen in top-boots.

The native population of Alexandria will have cause for many a year to come to deplore their submission to Araby.

There was no local industry except that | little to choose between the two. Alexof attending on Europeans. For them andria being on an old site, and having an the little market gardens along the Mah- ancient Arab town in its very heart, is moudieh Canal existed. For them an less healthy than Port Said. Its outlets army of carriage-drivers and runners, of are much the same. Ramleh, which has boatmen and porters, of shoeblacks and always been a hotbed of fever, though shopsweepers, plied their various callings. high and dry, will yield to the ranges of There is no tongue nor language known hills surrounding the Bitter Lakes. Mornto articulate-speaking men of which in ing trains will convey the banker and his Alexandria some dragoman would not clerk to Port Said from their villas at have a smattering. A little boy whose Kantara or El Gisr, as lately they conbusiness consisted in constantly pursuing veyed them to Alexandria from Sidi Gaan unhappy ass would give you words in ber or Bulkeley. There were no fine six languages. A recent traveller heard houses at Alexandria to regret, no palsuch a boy call a very dirty-looking sow aces or guildhalls. Everything, except porco, schwein, cochon, khanseer, and the English church, was of the most other names, ending with what he thought flimsy character; the noise of the bomthe English form-namely, beeg. All bardment will by itself have shaken down these industries are now checked. There some of the most imposing structures in is no agriculture, no native trade, noth- the city. Alexandria had not the power ing, in short, for the Arab in Alexandria of attaching her children. People who to do when his only employers are with have been once in Cairo long to see it drawn. And it is a question whether again, and dwell with pleasure on recolthey will return and when. Meanwhile lections of sunsets seen from the citadel, he must live, or if that is not evident, or of the sound of the blind men calling must die. The town has been emptied. The desertion of the European quarter must be followed by that of the Arab quarter. Of course, those who talk of Egypt for the Egyptians will rejoice at the depopulation of Alexandria, but the world in general can hardly be expected to share their views. It is no secret that for a long time past Alexandria has been at a standstill. The Alexandrians have Ramleh, always Ramleh; and that long, and justly, dreaded Port Said as a sandy oasis, where so many of our counrival destined eventually to outstrip them trymen and countrywomen have lived and altogether. It is asserted, on good au- died, is one of the most desolate places thority, that a railway along the northern imaginable, without shade, without roads, shore of the Delta from Alexandria past except the railroad, and without any place Aboukir, Rosetta, and Damietta has only beyond to which you could go for variety, been completed for a certain distance, or a change from the dull monotony of and has not been allowed to approach sand and sea. If Alexandria ever recovPort Said. Jealousy like this may avail ers, she must exert herself to attract for a time, but cannot succeed in the long trade. The harbor entrance must be run, and a catastrophe such as that which deepened. The custom-house must be Araby has brought upon Alexandria rebuilt, or built, for it is a mere heap of means ruin to a town which has been hovels. A good hotel must be estab supported in any degree artificially. The lished. Some attempt at drainage must completion of the railway, either from be made. Ismailia, on the canal, or from Alexandria, along the coast, will transfer the seat of commerce to Port Said, which already, without any means of communicating with the interior except along the Suez Canal by steamboat, has attracted an enormous trade. In situation there is

the faithful to prayer, or of the verdure of the ride to Heliopolis; but they have no such feeling towards Alexandria. It is, or was, a place to get money in, and leave as soon as possible; a place which every inhabitant qualified as dreary, cold, and wet in winter, hot and dusty in summer, un wholesome at all times, ugly to look at, bad to smell. There was but one outlet

In short, like a man recovering from a dangerous illness, Alexandria must undertake to reform itself, to live cleanly, to facilitate locomotion, to exchange its do-nothing Turkish governor for a corporation formed from among the ratepayers, who may be, not only able, but willing, to improve their port and city.

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