Colymbia

 

A VOYAGE AND ITS END.

MY father, the Rev. Athanasius Smith, was the incumbent of a rectory on the east coast of England. Besides the income he derived from this post, he had a moderate patrimony, which enabled him to live comfortably, and to give his children, two boys, a good education. My name is De Courcy, that of my brother Howard. Smith, in spite of the many noble and illustrious persons of that name, is considered rather a plebeian appellation; so the Smiths are much addicted to bestowing aristocratic christian names on their children, in order to neutralize the supposed vulgarity of the patronymic. My father was not exempt from this weakness; hence our high-sounding names.

We were sent as day-boarders to a large endowed school not far from the rectory, where the usual excellent education of such establishments, consisting chiefly of much Latin and Greek, and a little French, writing and arithmetic, was duly taught, and great attention was paid to the religion and morals of the school boys. English grammar and composition were, as in most public schools, much neglected, which will account for the defects that may be visible in my style; ​but it was never supposed that I should one day become an author, nor should I have ever thought of writing a book, had it not been that I am in a manner forced to do so by the strangeness of the adventures that have fallen to my lot. This digression was required to justify my appearance as an author and to excuse my unpolished style. The truthfulness of my narrative will, I hope, compensate for the absence of the graces of composition.

The boys of our school supplemented their mental education by a physical one, in which they learned thoroughly the games of cricket, racquets, football, and became adepts in running, leaping, rowing, swimming, and all other manly and athletic exercises. The vicinity of the sea and a long reef of rocks extending far out from the shore beyond low water, which enabled us to get readily into deep water at every state of the tide, gave us opportunities for practising swimming which were taken advantage of by the boys, so that our school was renowned for its excellent swimmers and Carried off all the first prizes at the swimming competitions with other schools.

I was the elder of the two children of my father by about two years, and I excelled my less robust brother as much in athletic sports as he surpassed me in a knowledge of Greek and Latin. However, my progress in my intellectual studies was not conspicuously bad, only I greatly preferred perfecting my bodily frame to cultivating my mental faculties. My brother, on the other hand, though much inferior to me in muscular strength, was a diligent student and cut a very good figure at the annual examinations.

My father was a man of cultivated tastes, a good classical scholar, and a strict disciplinarian. He took ​care that we should be well instructed in religion, and devoted much time to making us thoroughly acquainted with the social state and political constitution of our country.

Under his tuition I acquired a great respect for all the existing institutions of Britain, and I gained a profound conviction that this country was much superior to any country of ancient or modern times in both its political and social aspects. I was thoroughly persuaded that a limited Monarchy, supported by a hereditary House of Peers, and a House of Commons elected by the free and independent votes of a virtuous people, was the perfection of forms of government. I admired the glorious union of Church and State, fraught with so much benefit to both parties, and I was fervently thankful that I had been born an Englishman.

My father's means did not allow him to send both of us to Oxford; and as my brother's superior aptitude for study plainly indicated that a university education would be more profitably bestowed on him than on me, I not unwillingly consented that he should be brought up for the Church, while I looked about for some mode of life more adapted, to my capacity.

Though I cordially ceded to my brother any claim I might be thought to possess, as the elder of the two, to a university education, I envied him the possession of those natural abilities which enabled him to study for the Church, than which I could not conceive a more glorious calling. However, as nature had denied me the qualities of mind necessary to the aspirant for a place in the ecclesiastical establishment of my beloved country, it was resolved, after much careful consideration, to send me to push my fortune in one ​of our colonial possessions. My father considered me eminently fitted for such a career, as I was at once enterprizing and persevering, and, being blessed with a robust constitution and a splendid muscular development, he thought I should be able to rough it in the bush.

In another point of view my father considered me just the kind of person to become a colonist. I was well grounded in religion and much attached to the Church, of which he himself was a devoted member and priest. I was a sworn admirer of the institutions of my country, and there was no fear but that I would heartily co-operate with those colonists who were endeavouring to reproduce, in their adopted country, the manners, customs and forms of government of the country of their birth.

My father sincerely believed, and I shared his belief, that it should be the endeavour of all English colonists to dot the world over with little facsimiles of England, as far as the circumstances of the case would permit. But since they could not carry their beloved Sovereign along with them, yet they could show their loyalty to the throne by their devotion to its representative abroad; and they would resist, with all their might, the efforts of demagogues and free-thinkers to introduce new-fangled forms of government, under pretence of securing the greatest liberty and happiness to the greatest number. Under the careful tuition of my revered parent, I came to hate a radical almost as heartily as I abhorred an infidel.

A cousin of my own, by my mother's side, had been some years successfully settled in Australia, and he was anxious that I should join him, as his farming operations were on so large a scale that he required ​an energetic and well-principled young man to share his labours and his profits. This was an opening my father highly approved of and which I was eager to embrace.

It was necessary, however, that I should spend a couple of years in England, in order to learn practically the business of farming. An extensive farmer in a neighbouring county, an old schoolfellow of my father, consented to take me as a pupil and teach me his business, for a very moderate premium.

When I had completed my two years' agricultural education, my outfit was provided, and my passage taken in a sailing vessel, belonging to a firm of shipowners, one of the partners in which was an old friend of my father. Brisbane, in Queensland, was the port to which the ship was bound, that being the nearest accessible point to the scene of my future operations.

My father, mother, and brother came up with me to London to see me off, and we had a melancholy parting at Gravesend. My mother wept long and bitterly at this separation from her first-born, and, I believe, her favourite child. My brother, also, was much affected, and a pang shot through my breast on giving him a fond embrace at the thought that he was still to remain in the land I so dearly loved, and to form one of the ministers of that Church which I believed to be the purest and most scriptural of Christian communities, whilst I was doomed to exile from home and country, in order to labour hard among the unpeopled wilds of a colony situated at the other side of the globe, utterly removed from those congenial influences of an old civilisation that surrounded me in England.

​My father, though outwardly calm, was, I felt assured, only able to repress his emotion by a great effort. When the ship began to weigh anchor, and it was necessary for all visitors to go ashore, he strained me to his breast, and said:—

"Farewell, my son, I know I can trust you to act up to those high principles I have always set before you. Religion and loyalty are the best foundation for a successful career in any condition, and I know my boy has both."

With these words, and with many a tender pressure of my hand, he quitted me, having first given me a volume on which he had been engaged for some time back, and the first copy of which he had that morning received from his publisher. It was entitled "Constitutional Sermons," and contained a collection of his own discourses, in which he endeavoured to show, with complete success I believe, the perfect agreement of the British Constitution with the doctrines of Christianity.

I watched the boat that conveyed my loved relations to shore with eyes dimmed with tears, and a heart almost bursting with emotion. However, the passage down the river soon gave me something else to occupy my thoughts, and I gradually became highly interested in the novelties surrounding me.

Our ship was a perfectly new vessel, built according to the design of a very ingenious gentleman, who, though not a professional shipbuilder, had, by his very original writings and researches, inspired a belief in many quarters that the ordinary modes of constructing ships were all wrong, that the system of shipbuilding he advocated was the only one based on sound principles, and that ships constructed on his ​plan would excel vessels of the ordinary build both in speed and in safety. The owners of the line of Australian packets my father knew, struck with the originality and plausibility of the new system, had entrusted the inventor with the building of a ship on his plan, and the vessel I was now in, appropriately named the Precursor, was the result, and this was her first voyage.

Before we started, she was an object of much curiosity, and though certain old and experienced shipbuilders shook their heads, they did not venture to speak out their objections amid the general clamour of applause that proceeded from the self-constituted critics who understood all about shipbuilding by intuition and without the drudgery of learning. The passengers shared the enthusiasm of the inventor, and were confident we should make the swiftest and pleasantest voyage on record. I was surprised to find that the passengers were so few in number, considering the general chorus of admiration the construction of the vessel had elicited. While some vessels of the old construction, which started about the same time as ourselves for the same destination, were crammed full, we had ample room for three times as many as we had on board.

I noticed, also, that the crew consisted chiefly of young and inexperienced-looking hands, mingled with some old sailors of dissipated and disreputable appearance, who did not inspire me with much confidence in their nautical knowledge, their moral character or their physical powers.

I was informed by one of my fellow-passengers that the underwriters at Lloyd's had insisted on an unusually heavy premium of insurance, but he ​ascribed this to the intrigues of the shipbuilders, who set afloat reports derogatory to the safety of the vessel. In fact, he said, a great deal of prejudice had been excited against her by the underhand proceedings of those interested in her failure, whereby passengers and crew had been deterred from taking passage in her. Had it not been for the noble and generous way in which the editors of influential papers had taken up the new principle of shipbuilding, of the merits of which, in their editorial omniscience, they were fully qualified to judge, it is doubtful whether the inventor would ever have had an opportunity of constructing a ship on his principles in this country. In that case, he would, no doubt, have taken his invention to some other country, and the supremacy of the sea would have passed out of the hands of England, perhaps for ever. At least so thought my informant, who was an enthusiast for the new system of shipbuilding, but who, I regret to say, accompanied us no farther than Plymouth, off which port he quitted us in a pilot-smack.

Our captain was a young man, a relative of the inventor, and an implicit believer in the new principle, which he felt convinced was to revolutionise the whole shipbuilding trade, and render voyages by sailing vessels matters of as much certainty as by steamers.

Any doubts that the lack of passengers, the scratch appearance of the crew, the high rate of insurance, and the youth of the captain, might have inspired, were rapidly dispelled when our ship bore away down the Channel with a favourable wind, under a full spread of snowy canvas.

I soon got over the strangeness of shipboard, and ​in a few days felt as much at home on the sea as though I had been a sailor all my life. We were favoured with the finest weather imaginable all the way to Cape Horn, which we doubled in gallant style, and then bore up in an almost northerly course, running parallel to the west coast of South America, at about one hundred miles distant from land.

Our captain, whose aim it was to make a voyage of unexampled rapidity to Queensland, thought that if he crossed to the north of the line and got into the region of the prevalent north-east trade-winds, which are so much stronger and more certain than the south-eastern trades, he might thus be enabled to reach his destination more quickly than by pursuing a more direct course.

We accordingly held to our northerly direction and every day approached nearer to the torrid zone. The change from the extreme cold of Cape Horn to the warmth of the tropics was pleasant enough at first, but, as we neared the equator, the heat became overpowering. The wind that had hitherto favoured us began to shift about from one quarter to another, and occasionally dropped completely, letting our sails hang idly from the yards.

We had been subject to these caprices of the wind for some days, when the weather became extremely sultry and a sudden fall of the barometer announced an approaching storm.

Our captain, who, to do him justice, was well up in nautical knowledge, and, though a theorist, was a careful and prudent sailor, saw reason to apprehend a storm of some violence. To provide for the worst he had the boats looked to, saw that they were ready for immediate use, and that the life-boat in especial lay ​free on the deck and was well supplied with oars, mast and sail, some cases of preserved meat, some bags of biscuit and kegs of water; for, though he spoke, and I believe felt, as confident of the safety of his ship as ever, he, like a prudent man, was resolved to provide against accidents, however remote they appeared to him.

We had not long to wait for the outbreak of the storm. The sky became covered with a thick pall of black cloud, and the wind came on with a roar, lashing the sea into white-crested billows, that every moment increased in size. We had been laid head to wind, with every stitch of canvas furled, and yet we were driven rapidly astern by the furious gale.

Every instant the wind increased in violence, the darkness became greater, and our condition more perilous. Suddenly the shrill voice of a boy, perched up somewhere among the shrouds, alarmed us with the cry of "Breakers astern!" Our captain ran up beside the boy, and presently descended with a face pale with emotion; but with consummate calmness he gave the necessary orders for avoiding the danger. A jib-sail was unfurled and the rudder put hard a-port. The force of the gale caused the vessel to swing suddenly round, and just as she presented her side to the full force of the wind, she turned right over and almost immediately disappeared beneath the waves. The whole thing happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that there was not an instant of time for making any preparations for the catastrophe. I was standing on the windward side of the vessel, clinging to the bulwarks, and, before I could realise what had happened, I found myself projected with considerable force into the boiling abyss of water. Now, although ​I was almost as much at home in the water as on land, in such a sea and under such circumstances I had no chance for my life. But I had no time to make this reflection. Without knowing how it happened, I found myself overwhelmed by the world of seething waters. I came speedily to the surface, and then the whole gravity of my position forced itself upon me. The only part of the gallant ship still visible was a portion of the hull, keel uppermost, and that was heeling over and sinking rapidly. Had I had leisure to reflect, I would have suffered myself to go down along with the ship, for what chance had I alone in such a wilderness of water? But the instinct of self-preservation was the only faculty awake at that moment, and I struck out from the engulphing whirlpool caused by the sinking ship as vigorously as I could. With a feeling of agonised despair I saw the life-boat, which had been kept ready for other emergencies, floating away broadside on at the distance of half a wave from me, and so much farther to leeward. When I rose on the crest of the wave the boat was down in the hollow, and when I sank it rose. I thought I could reach it by a few strokes, but I found that the rate at which the wind drove it was fully equal to the way I could gain by the utmost exertion. After a few minutes of vigorous swimming, I saw, to my consternation, for I now fully realised my position, that the boat was as far from me as at first. The utmost exertion I could make did not diminish my distance an atom, and I was about to abandon the attempt in despair, when I perceived close beside me the trail of a rope in the water. I seized hold of it, and found it was a loose rope hanging over the stern of the life-boat. A thrill of joy shot ​through me as I clung on to it with both hands, but, oh, horror I as I pulled at the rope it began to pay itself out over the end of the boat, and my heart sank at the idea that it might be a loose coil of rope, without any attachment to the boat. I well remember the feeling that came over me as I observed yard after yard of the rope slide over the edge of the life-boat. It was not fear nor sadness, but a sort of apathetic indifference that took hold of me, the reaction possibly from the exquisite joy I had experienced a moment before. I made up my mind that the rope was unattached to the boat, and I seemed to be reckoning how long it would be ere I should see the end slip over and bury itself and all my hopes with it in the depths of the sea. I had twisted the end of the rope round my right wrist, and, while watching it glide out of the boat, had left off swimming. Suddenly I felt a jerk at my wrist, and at the same moment the rope left off paying out and became taut.

My hopes at once revived. I saw that the other end was fastened to the boat, and I forthwith commenced to haul myself to the boat, hand over hand. The strain on the rope turned the boat round, so that it now presented only its end in place of its side to the wind. In this position, there was no difficulty in getting up close to it. My hands were soon on the gunwale, and the rolling wave assisted me to tumble right into the boat, at the bottom of which I lay for a few minutes, exhausted by fatigue and excitement.

But I did not lie long. Anxiety about the fate of my companions of the ship made me start up, in order to see if there were other survivors of the wreck besides myself. I scanned every wave as it rose to view with eager eyes. Some hen-coops, cases, spars, and other ​deck-lumber were visible, but I saw no one clinging to them, nor could I detect the head of any bold swimmer among those black and hideous waves. The time that had elapsed since the vessel went down (for it had taken me a long time to get to the boat after I had seized on the rope, as the rope was long, and, having stopped swimming while it was paying out, I was separated by its whole length from the boat) would have been sufficient to overwhelm any but a very powerful swimmer; and I knew that few of my companions could swim at all and none of them very well. Had there been any survivor of the wreck in the water at that moment, it would have been utterly impossible for me to reach him, for the wind still continued to impel my boat forward much too powerfully for me to have been able to stay its course, far less to row back to the struggling swimmer, had there been any such.

When I reflected on this, I felt almost relieved that nowhere could I espy a sign of a living being, for I knew that I should have only had to endure the agony of seeing him go down beneath the waves without the power to help him in the slightest degree.

After my fruitless search, I lay down once more exhausted and scarcely thankful that I alone should have been saved whilst all the passengers and crew had accompanied the fine vessel to the bottom of the sea.

How long I lay, worn out and stunned, sensible of nothing but my forlorn and lonely condition, while the boat was tossed up and down amid the vast solitude of the ocean, I know not. But gradually I felt that I must exert myself, if only to get a respite from the sombre thoughts that pursued me.

​I perceived that the violence of the storm was sensibly abating; the wind no longer swept over the sea in the same terrific gusts, and the crests of the waves were no longer blown into white foam. I crept forward to the middle of the boat, and, by great exertions, managed to fix the short mast into its socket, and to hoist the small, sail with which it was furnished, resolved to let the wind, which had now moderated to a stiff breeze, carry me as fast as possible away from the scene of death and desolation.

Almost my first idea was to endeavour to ascertain in what direction the boat was hurrying. I found the compass stowed away among the cases and kegs at the bottom of the boat, and I ascertained that I was sailing almost due north.

I ate some food and took a good draught of water, and, feeling refreshed and invigorated, sat down in the stern, with the tiller-lines in my hands, and kept the boat well before the wind.

After the lapse of a few hours, the sea became comparatively calm, the clouds broke, the sun began to shine forth, substituting dazzling brightness for the previous gloom.

For hours I watched my buoyant craft, as it ploughed its way through the blue waters, until the sun began to sink beneath the western horizon, the wind fell completely, and the sail flapped idly against the mast.

Ere night closed in a dead calm prevailed. I took down my useless sail and lay down to repose among its folds, while the clear stars shone above me, and I gradually sank into a deep and dreamless sleep.

I did not awake until the morning rays of the sun were shining in my face. I started up and for a moment was unable to recall where I was. But ​suddenly the truth flashed upon me, and the awful catastrophe of the previous day rushed into my mind.

I was all alone on the wide still sea; not a breath of wind was there, not a ripple on the surface of the ocean, but only a long swell that rocked the boat lazily up and down—the remains of yesterday's storm.

As the sun rose the heat became intolerable, and I formed my sail into a sort of canopy to protect me from his scorching rays. The dreadful silence of the calm was more intolerable than the hissing and roaring of the tempest. The roar of the wind and the rush of the waters prevent one feeling absolutely solitary. The noise is a voice, though a rough one, and one cannot feel quite alone with such rude voices all around. But the silence of the calm is intolerably oppressive. I tried to dispel it by shouting, by striking the boat with one of the preserved meat tins, by whistling, by singing; but when I ceased the silence seemed to be worse than before.

I threw myself down in the stern of the boat, and for a while a feeling of apathy kept me still; but soon the thoughts of home, of my parents and friends, of the companions of my voyage, came over me, and I could remain quiet no longer.

I looked into the dark blue water and felt a longing to spring overboard; but better thoughts prevailed, and I made a firm resolve to do nothing to cut short the life which had been so wonderfully preserved.

I calculated how long my provisions would last me, and felt almost certain that before they were exhausted some ship would rescue me from my fearful situation.

Three days passed in this way. The dead calm was not constant. Now and then a light breeze would spring up, producing a slight ripple on the surface of ​the sea. I would then hoist my sail, and keep it up until the last breath of wind had again died away.

I took my meals at regular times, economising my store of provisions as much as was consistent with keeping up my strength, and most of the remainder of my time was spent in scanning the horizon in hopes of seeing a friendly sail.

On the morning of the fourth day I thought I discovered some sign of land fax away in the north. It was but a speck, and might well be a cloud, but I was convinced that it must be land. Fortunately a gentle breeze rose, and as it continued to blow from the south, I hoisted my sail and steered straight towards the distant speck.

The breeze was so slight that I made but slow progress. However, by noon the speck had grown a little larger and had assumed a more distinct form. I felt assured it must be the tops of some lofty, though still distant, mountains, towards which I was steering, and I reckoned that, at my present rate of progress, I should be close upon them in another twenty-four hours.

Hope again took the place of despondency, but I experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling when I considered that the land before me might be one of those Pacific islands, inhabited by cannibals, who would probably give me, at my journey's end, a warmer welcome than would be agreeable. I soon dismissed this thought, when I remembered how many of these islands had been brought under the beneficent influences of Christianity and civilisation by the self-denying labours of our good missionaries.

From the position of the sun at noon I guessed that I must be close upon the equator, and indeed the ​heat I had been exposed to ever since the cessation of the storm, was something not to be described. With no possibility of shelter in the open boat, I should have been thoroughly roasted, ready for eating in fact, by my friends the cannibals, by the time I reached their island. The only way in which I could keep myself at all cool was to empty a can of sea water over me every now and then.

The sail, which had served to shelter me a little when there was no prospect of a breeze, was now constantly hoisted in order to catch a chance breath of air. The water all around me looked deliciously inviting, and I would have had no hesitation in springing into it, and taking a long swim in its clear depths, but that sundry ominous pointed membranes, that occasionally showed themselves above the surface, told me that I was followed by one or more gigantic white sharks, which would have been only too happy to welcome me into the water. So I thought that, on the whole, it was safer to take my chance of cannibals on the land, than to trust myself to the tender mercies of the hungry fishes that attended me so closely.

Before the sun set I was able to make out that the land I was approaching so slowly consisted of an archipelago of islands apparently of a volcanic character; as a thin column of smoke ascended from one of the peaks into the clear air and spread out into a soft cloud at a great height in the blue sky. I could see that the lower parts of the land were dark with foliage, and I longed to reach its welcome shade, in which I might obtain shelter from the broiling heat that threatened to shrivel me up in my exposed situation. When the shades of night overtook me I could not sleep, such was my anxiety to hold my ​frail vessel to the right course, and my dread of losing the chance of a passing breath of wind.

All night long I sat with the tiller-lines in my hands, straining my eyes into the gloom. An occasional glow from the burning crater served to cheer me and to keep my boat in the proper direction.

When at last the sun arose above the eastern horizon, I was gratified to observe that I had made some progress during the night, and I was enabled to perceive that I was gradually approaching a beautiful group of islands, with bold outlines of lofty hills and a luxuriant vegetation extending almost to their summits.

As no breath of air was stirring, I lowered my useless sail, and taking the oars in my hands, I began to row with all my might. Though a good oarsman, I could not keep up the exertion long, as the boat was large and the heat of the sun overpowering. However, with occasional spurts and long rests between, I managed to make some way, and every hour brought me perceptibly nearer to my destination. By noon I found myself so near the main island, that I could distinguish the shapes of the trees that fringed the water's edge.

I now also perceived that a reef of rocks, just peering above the water, ran round the island at some miles' distance from the shore; and as I approached this I found that it formed a complete barrier to my farther progress. I skirted it at some distance in order to find an opening through which I might gain access to the inner waters. There were at uncertain intervals on the reef small patches of higher rock on which clumps of palm trees grew, but I could ​discover no gap in the rocky barrier. After spending some time in this search, I resolved to give it up and try to get my boat across a part of the barrier where it seemed lowest.

I was rather astonished that there was no sign of human life on the waters in the inland sea, not a mast of a ship, nor even a boat or canoe of any description. I could not detect any buildings on the land; but the dense forest that clothed it might well conceal larger buildings than any likely to be reared by savages. The absence of shipping and sailing craft of every kind gave me an idea that the land was uninhabited.

However, I resolved to penetrate if possible into the inner sea, if necessary by dragging my boat across the barrier, supposing the rising tide should not enable me to pass over it.

Half an hour more of steady rowing brought the bow of my boat on to the reef. No sooner did the keel grate against the sunken coral than I was startled by a loud barking. Hastily turning to see whence the noise proceeded, I was astonished to observe a large seal floundering along the reef towards me. The ferocious aspect of the brute alarmed me, and I was about to shove off again to avoid its attack, when I perceived that it was tethered to the rock by a chain which was attached to a metal collar round its neck, and that in spite of its frantic efforts it could not come within some yards of my boat.

It continued to bark violently, and I had scarcely time to wonder at the strange phenomenon of a tethered seal, when a new cause of astonishment presented itself.

From the still clear water of the enclosed sea a man's head suddenly emerged. The head was ​surmounted by a sort of helmet, made of some shining material, and he wore a pair of spectacles which gave a very droll appearance to his dripping face.

My surprise was no way lessened when this strange head hailed me with a sonorous "Hulloh!" I replied by repeating his salutation. "Hulloh!" I said.

"Who are you, and where do you come from?" said the head.

"I am the only survivor of a dreadful shipwreck," I replied, "and I beg you to help me to get my boat across this reef, that I may come to the land yonder."

"All right, stranger," he replied, and forthwith he clambered up on the reef, and presently stood by my side. His clothing was of the scantiest, consisting only of short trousers, fastened round the waist with a broad and heavy-looking belt, and descending half way down the thigh like the bathing-drawers worn in England.

With his assistance the boat was hauled up the reef and launched on the enclosed water. He refused my offer to get into the boat beside me, but plunged again into the water, and placing himself at the stern commenced to push the boat towards the land, whilst I assisted its progress with the oars. I thought to myself, if this is a fair specimen of the inhabitants of this country they must be uncommonly fond of the water.

I observed that the water over which we now moved was as clear as crystal and of a beautiful blue tint. Looking over the boat's side, I could see far down into the depths below, which seemed to be filled with the strangest and most beautiful growths of corals and marine plants of all shapes and hues.

As we progressed, my friend at the stern was joined by several companions, who came I know not whence, ​but I supposed they must have been swimming about and I had not observed them; they all helped to push along the boat.

My astonishment at the strangeness of my position, pushed along in my boat by these tritons in bathing-drawers, helmets and spectacles, made me forget to use my oars, but the boat moved steadily onwards by their united efforts.

"Who, and what are you?" I exclaimed; but could get no satisfactory reply.

"Stop till you get ashore," one said; "you will then learn all about it." So I had to restrain my curiosity.

The few miles of sea were soon traversed, and my boat was pushed into a creek, the snow-white sand of which was overhung with a dense foliage of palms and other tropical trees, whose appearance was strange to me.

As soon as the boat stopped, I leaped out, right glad to touch terra firma once more. My attendants emerged from the water at the same time. They were six in number, and each, as he issued from the sea, plucked a broad palm-leaf and threw it over his shoulders. The one who had first assisted me, told me I must go along with them to the office of the Inspector.

A narrow path wound upwards from the beach through the dense forest composed of magnificent trees, many of which were laden with tempting fruit; among which I noticed plantains, oranges, pomegranates and bread-fruit. Among their branches, birds of exquisite plumage darted hither and thither, chattering to one another in discordant notes, uttering shrill cries, and now and then emitting sweet musical sounds.

​Shrubs laden with flowers of resplendent colours, of every shade of scarlet, crimson, yellow, blue and white, formed a thick undergrowth, while climbing plants threw their shoots and tendrils from trunk to trunk and branch to branch. The air teemed with insect life. Butterflies of gorgeous colours and flies of all sorts and sizes danced among the branches, and hovered in countless myriads about us as we walked. In fact, their attentions were extremely annoying, and I observed that each of my companions used a broad palm-leaf by way of flapper, to ward off their attacks.

The noise made by the feathered beauties, and the hum and buzz of the winged insects, rendered it utterly impossible for me to converse with my strange attendants; so we walked on without speaking until we arrived at the mouth of a cave or grotto, excavated, whether by nature or art I could not decide, in a precipitous rock that barred our further progress.

Entering this cave, which extended a considerable way into the hill, I was struck with its agreeable coolness compared with the broiling heat of the external air.

A portly personage, clad in a loose blue cotton robe, rose from a bed of green leaves at our entrance, and I was formally presented to him by my original captor, and given to understand that he was the Inspector we were in search of.

He seated himself at a table, strewed with large books and writing materials. He demanded my name, and questioned me as to whence I came, how I was wrecked, the name of the ship, of the captain, the number of passengers, the cargo, &c., &c., and cross-examined me minutely as to the circumstances ​of my escape, and whether it was not possible that some of my fellow-passengers might also have been saved. He entered all the particulars in one of the large books, and when I, in return, questioned him as to the country I was now in, he said,—

"You will learn all about us and our country from the Instructor, to whom you will soon be introduced; but as you must now be hungry and tired, you shall have food and rest here till morning."

He dismissed my attendants, who speedily decamped and left me alone with the Inspector. He placed before me delicious fruits and some cooked meat of exquisite flavour and evidently most artistically prepared; but what animal it originally belonged to I was unable to say, nor did I care to ask my very laconic, not to say surly, entertainer. I fell to, and ate with great gusto. A few cocoa-nuts supplied me with a refreshing drink. I noticed that my host, after placing the food before me, retired to a distant part of the cave and did not once look at me while I was eating; in fact, he seemed rather to avoid seeing me eat. When I was completely satiated, I told him how well I had dined, to which he answered only by a sort of impatient grunt, and he conducted me to a bed of fresh leaves in a recess of the cave, and told me I might repose there as long as I chose.

I flung myself on the inviting couch, and wearied out with the exertions I had lately made and the excitement caused by all the strange events of this day of surprises, I soon fell into a profound sleep of which I stood greatly in need, as I had had but little rest since I had been so wonderfully rescued alone of all the crew and passengers of the ill-fated Precursor.

THE ARCHIPELAGO ON THE EQUATOR.

IT was bright day when I awoke next morning. I looked about me and found I was alone in the cavern, which I had now leisure to survey. Believing it to be the dwelling-place of the Inspector, I could not help noticing how scantily it was provided with the comforts we consider indispensable in a room. The table on which lay the writing materials and books, a few chairs, several couches of leaves similar to that I lay on, and a sort of cupboard whence my host had taken the food he set before me yesterday, were all I was able to discover. Two or three garments, similar to that he had worn, hung from pegs driven into the rock.

I had not been long risen when I saw approaching, by the path that led up from the beach, the Inspector, followed by a youth of about 17 or 18. Both were clad in the short trousers my conductors of the previous day wore, and a cloak of palm-leaves covered their shoulders. Their wet hair and skin showed me that they must have just emerged from the water, so I concluded that they had been enjoying a sea bath before breakfast, and I formed a high opinion of the decency of the inhabitants from the fact that all the ​bathers I had met with wore drawers, a fashion that does not yet prevail universally in England.

The Inspector greeted me with a hearty "Good morning!" hoped I had slept well, and both immediately divested themselves of their leafy covering and proceeded to array themselves in the loose dressing-gown-like garments that hung from the pegs.

The Inspector directed his attendant to set on the table some food similar to what I had partaken of the day before, and desired me to take my breakfast. On my asking him if he would not sit down and join me, he replied by a very curt negative and a gesture of what I thought contempt. So I concluded either that he had breakfasted, that he was a vegetarian, or that he, had some religious objections to eat with a person who might not be of the same creed as himself.

While I was engaged in despatching, with infinite relish, the very succulent viands placed before me, commenting on their excellence in a manner which I thought would be pleasing to my entertainer, but which only seemed to excite his disgust; he, with his countenance averted, in order, as I supposed, to avoid looking at me eating, told me that his attendant would presently conduct me to the house of the Instructor, under whose care I should be placed. This person, he informed me, would give me all the information I desired respecting the manners and customs of the people I had come among, and endeavour to make me fit for mingling with the society of the country, which, he added, I was evidently far from being at present.

I was rather nettled at this at first, and felt disposed to tell him that I was accustomed to good society in my own country and had no fear but that I should be ​able to conduct myself with propriety in the very best society this country had to offer. But I thought it best to swallow my indignation in silence, as I felt convinced that this was some vulgar Jack-in-office whom it was not my interest to offend.

My repast finished, the boy, who answered to the name of Billy, led me by a winding path through the forest to the abode of the Instructor.

On emerging from the comparatively cool cavern, I was struck by the oppressive heat of the outside air, and as our way lay right through the tangled depths of the thick wood, I had leisure to admire the beautiful foliage of the trees and shrubs, the gorgeous colours of the flowers, the luscious profusion of the fruit, the gay plumage of the countless birds, and to feel the annoyance of the myriads of insects that buzzed and swarmed around us as we walked along, and whose attacks I could not entirely ward off, though I used a flapper like my companion.

On my remarking to Billy that I wondered to see how fresh and rosy he and all whom I had yet seen were, in spite of the terrible heat and the constant attacks of these venomous and irrepressible insects, he replied in what appeared to me at the time an enigmatical manner:—

"Bless your soul, no one stays here longer than he can help. I shall be off as soon as I have brought you to Mr Hamlet's."

"Off!" I said, "I suppose you mean you will go back to the cave."

"Oh, dear, no! not if I know it," replied Billy; "my business there is over for the day."

"Where on earth then will you go to avoid this stifling atmosphere?" I inquired.

​"Nowhere on earth—yonder," pertly replied Billy, intimating by a movement of his head the direction of the sea.

I did not care to question him further, as he was so curt and saucy in his replies, but now walked on in silence, feeling assured that the mystery would soon be explained to me by the person to whom he was leading me. Besides, I felt too much overcome by the sultriness of the air and the annoyance of the flies to pursue my inquiries further at present.

After having sweltered on for about a mile and a half as well as I could, with parched mouth and perspiration dripping from every pore in my body, the forest abruptly terminated, and I found myself on the edge of a beautiful little bay, fringed with fine white coral sand and commanding an extensive view of the inland sea and of several of the other islands enclosed in it. The water was as clear and blue as sapphire. It lay within its enclosing reef as still and motionless as glass, though I could see there was a considerable swell on the ocean outside the reef, for every now and then a column of white foam was thrown up into the air, at different points of the reef, showing where the wave had broken on the encircling barrier.

Sea-birds of all kinds were wheeling in swift and mazy flight over the inland sea, but chiefly about the surrounding reef, where I could see clouds of them rising and falling, and swaying hither and thither, like midges on a summer evening at home.

The circumference of the bay was skirted all round by the same dense tangle of forest as that I had passed through, and the contrast of the dark trees, the white line of sand, and the blue water, with the cloudless ​canopy of heaven above, all formed a very charming picture.

About the centre of the curve of the bay stood the house of the Instructor, to which my guide now led me. It was entirely overgrown with creeping plants, so that it was unrecognisable as a human habitation from the outside.

Separating the depending branches of a beautiful broad-leaved creeper covered with large bell-shaped mauve-coloured flowers, we entered the house or grotto of the Instructor.

As there was no one within, I had time to look about me. The house consisted of a single room, built entirely of specimens of coral of the most beautiful shapes and delicate colours. The obscurity of the interior, when we entered from the dazzling glare outside, would have prevented me seeing anything, had not Billy touched a knob projecting from the wall, whereupon a light immediately appeared in the ceiling, which, from its brilliancy, I conjectured must be owing to electricity.

The purity of the light and its excessive brightness showed off the colours of the coral-built grotto in the greatest perfection. There were no windows, and the door by which we had entered was closed by nothing but the thick curtain formed by the hanging creeper. The furniture of the room consisted of two tables and some particularly comfortable easy chairs. A large bookcase, containing many volumes, occupied the entire of the far end of the room. I had the curiosity to look what kind of books formed the library of the important official I was about to see. I was surprised and pleased to observe that they consisted of some of our most recent English works ​on philosophy and science, together with a fair sprinkling of French and German works on the same subjects. Natural history, natural philosophy, mechanics, chemistry, geography and history were the chief subjects. They were generally the last editions of these works, not reprints, and they seemed to be well used, for their pages bore signs of having been read and studied; and several volumes, taken from the shelves, lay with markers in them on one of the tables.

Among the books on the table were a few of a different appearance from the others. I opened one of them, and saw that its pages were made, not of paper, but of some highly-glazed material, and that they were printed in a character I had never seen before, more resembling the dots and strokes made on the paper ribbons by the telegraphic machine than the letters of any civilised language.

I was still engaged in examining this odd book, of which I could make neither head nor tail, when the leafy curtain opened, and there entered a youngish man, with a fine intellectual-looking head, the glow of health in his ruddy cheeks, and his limbs and body of extremely graceful proportions. Like the others I had seen, he seemed to have just come out of a bath, for he had nothing on but the invariable short trousers or bathing drawers, and he was dripping wet.

He took up a soft towel, gave his face and hands a good wipe, and, not troubling himself about the water that trickled down his skin, he snatched up a dressing-gown of some soft silky material that lay on a couch, and wrapped it round his dripping body.

Surveying me with some curiosity, he addressed me in a kindly voice:—

​"I see, sir, you are a stranger; shipwrecked, I presume, on our protecting reef?"

I related, to him the particulars of my shipwreck, which interested him much, and he expressed his surprise that apparently I alone, of all the crew, was good enough swimmer to avail myself of the means of escape offered by the life-boat. He said that all who led a seafaring life or even went a sea voyage should be taught to be as much at home in the water as on dry land.

On my expressing doubts as to the practicability of this, he said, "Well, I think you will alter your ideas on that point before you have lived long among us."

He informed me that he was one of a staff appointed by Government to instruct strangers, who might come to their country, in all things that were requisite in order to enable them to become good and useful citizens.

The number of strangers who came hither was not great. Formerly the annual amount was something considerable, but that was in the days of sailing vessels. Since the very general introduction of steam, wrecks had been much rarer; and as these islands were not on any of the great lines of traffic, it was sometimes years before a wreck occurred.

"Do none visit you except the shipwrecked?" I inquired.

"Rarely," he replied; "and it comes to the same thing as though they had been wrecked, for we take care that their ship shall never carry them away again. All that is useful we take possession of, and then blow up the ship."

"Then do I understand," I asked in alarm, "that I am to be detained here a prisoner for life?"

​"Well, not exactly," he replied, "because, though, until quite recently, we have never allowed departures from our island, a more liberal policy now prevails. Last year our legislature passed an act permitting strangers to leave the country, if they so wished and an opportunity should offer. Most improbable contingencies," he added, "for, once used to our life here, all other modes of living seem intolerable; and, as for opportunities for leaving the country, they are very unlikely to occur, as vessels that get on our reef speedily become total wrecks, even without our assistance. Moreover, as I told you, we are out of the way of any direct packet-lines—you know it was only owing to the eccentric course pursued by your theoretical captain that you had the chance of being thrown ashore here—so you see you will have to make up your mind to become a citizen of our state, and to adapt yourself to your new circumstances as well as you can. And," he added, "I believe you to be of sufficient intelligence to learn our ways rapidly, and, once you have mastered them, I venture to say you will not be disposed to return to the habits of your native land."

"Indeed, sir," I said, "you make me extremely desirous to commence those studies which I am to go through in order to qualify myself for citizenship in your community. Everything I have observed since I first approached these islands has struck me with the most profound surprise. The tethered barking seals, the aquatic policemen speaking English which seems to be the language of the country, the beauty of your forests, with their gigantic fruit-laden trees, and their magnificent flowering shrubs, the gorgeous colours and varieties of your birds, are to me strange ​and novel; but the broiling, stifling heat and the plague of flies would soon render a residence in this land intolerable."

"On the land, I grant you," interrupted the Instructor, "but we do not live on the land, but in the water."

"You astonish me more and more," I exclaimed; "how is it possible for human beings to live in the water? Their shape and muscular development are but ill-adapted for swimming, and though some of us have overcome the disadvantages of nature and can swim as well as dogs, still, the inconveniences of always remaining in the water and the fearful heat the head must be exposed to from the burning rays of the sun in this hottest region of the world, would suffice to prevent a long sojourn in such a situation."

"Doubtless," he replied, "if we kept our heads above the water, we should suffer, as you have rightly stated, from the heat of the sun, but we are exempt from this inconvenience, for we live under the water."

"That crowns all the wonderful things I have seen and heard since coming here," I exclaimed. "But how can human beings live beneath the water like fishes? They cannot transform their lungs into gills; their eyes are so constructed that contact with water destroys all useful vision. Then their bodies are of such specific gravity, that, unless they use considerable exertion, they must rise perpetually to the surface. In short," I added, rather petulantly, "I cannot regard what you have told me otherwise than as an attempt to hoax me, and, excuse me, but I think you do no credit to the office you hold under your Government, if you attempt to palm off such sorry jokes on those confided to your care."

​He smiled good-humouredly, and replied,—"I am neither surprised nor offended that you refuse credence to what I have said, for it is all so contrary to your previous experience and knowledge that it must be difficult for a man of intelligence and education, which I perceive you are" [here I became somewhat mollified and bowed], "to regard what I have told you otherwise than as a bad joke. However, you shall shortly be convinced that by the ingenuity of man these seemingly insuperable difficulties are capable of being overcome, and that, when driven out of the air by the stifling heat and vermin you have noticed, he can adapt himself to an aquatic life, and prove therein as much superior to the proper denizens of the watery element, as he is, under other circumstances, to the inhabitants of the dry land."

He spoke with so much sincerity and candour, and was so courteous withal, that I begged him to forgive my outburst of petulance, and promised implicit belief to all he was so kind as to inform me of; "for," I said, "what I have already seen is so surprising and incredible that I am not justified in refusing credence to what a gentleman of your courtesy tells me, however opposed it seems to my previous experience."

Our intercourse having been thus put on a pleasant footing, I was fairly installed as his disciple, and he immediately, in reply to my inquiries, began to give me an account of the mysterious country where fate had cast me, and its strange inhabitants. I shall give the substance of our numerous conversations in my Instructor's words, as nearly as I can remember them.

"Some suppose," he said, "that these islands were originally peopled by a shipwrecked crew of ​men and women emigrating to some other part of the world. But our most learned pundits cite many circumstances that militate against this idea, and refer our origin to a much more remote time and quite a different race of men. And this latter idea is borne out by the fact that, scattered throughout the islands, are many monuments which could never have been constructed by an English race, and these monuments are covered with hieroglyphical inscriptions which have been read by the learned and refer to quite other manners and customs than ever obtained among men of European or, at least, Anglo-Saxon blood.

"That English was not always the language of the inhabitants is evident, not only from these monuments, but from numerous ancient documents preserved in our museums, and also from the presence in our spoken language of many words and forms of speech which were never derived from the English tongue.

"It is believed that the general habit of speaking and writing English dates from only a few centuries back, and is chiefly owing to the great number of English-speaking men and women who have from time to time been added to our community by means of shipwrecks; and as, until a very recent period, men of English race formed the vast majority of the seamen and travellers of the world, this predominance of the English language among us is hardly to be wondered at. An additional reason for the adoption of this language is that it is a much more convenient vehicle for thought than the ancient language of the island could ever have been, and that our literature is chiefly derived from the libraries that came into our ​possession from the shipwrecked British and American vessels.

"French and German are by no means unknown among us, and we have at various times received the crews and passengers of vessels from other countries than England. But, for the reasons I have given, English has come to be the only language spoken by us; and our knowledge of all the changes that from time to time take place in the English language is derived from the continued accessions of men and books the wrecks on our reef bring us.

"It is probable that the aboriginal inhabitants were a thick-skinned race who could stand the heat and could bear with impunity the assaults of the insects, for we find throughout the islands many traces of their dwellings and monuments, which; show that at one time the land was occupied by human beings.

"It is not known at what precise period the habits of the people underwent such a change as to lead them to forsake entirely the land, except for certain necessary operations which you will learn hereafter and to betake themselves to an aquatic life.

"It is probable that this change took place gradually. It is supposed that, as the Anglo-Saxon infusion increased, the race became less and less able to withstand the heat and other annoyances of a land-life; that they found immersion in the sea-water spared them many of the discomforts they experienced in the air; and that gradually, by little and little, the genius of our engineers and chemists succeeded in rendering a permanent or quasi-permanent abode under the water not only possible but absolutely preferable to a residence on the land.

"This faculty we found ourselves to possess of ​adapting ourselves to a subaqueous life, early drew the attention of our philosophers to the probable evolution of the human race from some aquatic ancestor; and although all the missing links have not been discovered, it is considered highly probable that an animal allied to the seal-tribe was our not very remote progenitor. Some of our philosophers pretend, from the presence in man of certain rudimentary parts, to trace our origin to a fish; and a few go still farther, and affect to believe his parentage can be traced back I to a mollusc."

"Ah," I interrupted, "our own philosophers go quite as far as yours. From noticing the monthly phases of some of our normal and morbid actions, they pretend to deduce the origin of man from a littoral ascidian mollusc that must have been powerfully affected by spring-tides to account for these phenomena of monthly periodicity in its descendants."

"But," he replied, rather testily—as he evidently did not like to be interrupted, or perhaps he was unwilling to admit that the speculations of our philosophers were worthy to be ranked with those of his countrymen,—"as spring-tides happen fortnightly, I don't see what they could have to do with phases of a monthly character."

"But you are aware," I rejoined, "that fortnightly periodicity has a tendency to become monthly; thus, our Fortnightly Review now only appears once a month."

"Bosh!" he exclaimed, raising his left elbow as high as his shoulder, which I afterwards learned was the gesture employed in this part of the world to denote contempt.

I begged pardon for interrupting him, and he went on:—

​"There can be no doubt that we have solved the problem of life below the water, and whether this be a return to the habits of a remote ancestor, or a totally new faculty we have acquired, is of much less importance than the fact itself.

"It is believed that the first great requisite for our subaqueous life was the invention of a corrective of that defect of vision produced by the contact of the eye with the water. The cause of this defective vision is the optical structure of the eye itself, the refractive power of whose humours differs but slightly from that of water; consequently, when it is immersed in water, the rays of light are not deflected sufficiently to allow the images of external objects, to be accurately focussed on the retina; hence only a very imperfect vision is possible for the unaided eye below the water.

"Our opticians discovered that perfect vision could be restored under water by means of a lens of considerable power. Spectacles were constructed with such lenses, and the first step was made towards rendering life below water practicable.

"At first, we, like yourselves, constructed our lenses of solid glass; but as the refractive power of glass is not very much greater than that of water, there was an enormous difference between the power of a lens used in air and in water. Hence our opticians early adopted the plan of making lenses of all descriptions for use below water, of air. Air being the less refractive medium, our air lenses are of precisely the opposite shape to that of your glass lenses. Our ordinary method of making these air lenses is to have sections of thin glass globes of certain diameters fixed in a ring of metal or bone, with their concavities looking outwards. They thus enclose a concave ​lens-shaped portion of air, which effects the required refraction. In the better kind of lenses the two surfaces of the glass are ground so that both shall be of exactly the same radius of curvature.

"All the lenses of our optical instruments for subaqueous use, microscopes, telescopes, &c., are made in this way. For spectacles these lenses are especially convenient, for while they are lenses of the required power under water, they have no refractive power in air, and consequently may be worn both in and out of the water; in the former case causing, in the latter not preventing, perfect vision.

"The next question that seems to have occupied the attention of the pioneers of our submarine life was that of obtaining the needful supply of air below the water; for it was extremely awkward, and indeed quite fatal to anything like residence under the water, to be obliged to come to the surface every minute or so, to get a chestful of air.

"This difficulty was overcome by the distribution of air-pipes throughout the area occupied.

"At first, as you may imagine, this was done on a very small scale. It was originally not expected that it would ever be possible to remain permanently below the water, but only for a few hours during the extreme heat of the day.

"But as time went on, the ingenuity of our engineers and mechanicians who kept themselves well posted in all the improvements in their arts that were made in Europe—for works on mechanical science formed a considerable proportion of the books rescued from the wrecks that were more frequent formerly than now,—overcame all difficulties; and as the area of inhabited space yearly extended, the net-work of air-pipes gradually spread over every portion of the vast inland sea ​enclosed by our coral reefs, which includes many hundreds of square miles.

"At the same time the air-supply through these pipes was so improved that the air in the pipes, by mechanical contrivances, was kept at a considerable pressure; and by means of valves and stopcocks, the act of breathing below water is performed as easily as in the atmosphere; and there is no need to come to the surface at all for purposes of respiration. The breathing apparatus is so constructed that every mouthpiece is connected with two sets of tubes, one of which receives and carries off the expired air, whilst the other supplies the fresh air to be breathed. In this way the awkward and unsightly gurgling of the expired air is prevented.

"The quality of the air for breathing has also been much improved by the admixture of a considerable proportion of oxygen with the air supplied, so that one respiration of this oxygenated air is only required where many respirations of non-oxygenated air would be needed.

"Thus you will find that it is not necessary to breathe oftener than once in four or five minutes when you are used to this mode of breathing.

"When we make excursions beyond the reef into the ocean we carry with us metal bottles of condensed oxygenated air, whereby we are enabled to remain many hours away from the air-pipes of the enclosed sea without inconvenience."

After this explanation, my Instructor proposed that I should accompany him on a short excursion below the water, in order that I might learn practically something of the mode of life and qualify myself for citizenship in this singular community.

So having taken off my clothes, I donned the ​costume which is de rigueur in the water, namely a pair of spectacles, bathing-drawers and weight-belt.

This last piece of dress is worn for the purpose of counteracting that tendency to rise to the surface of the water which the smaller specific gravity of our bodies produces. It is a broad belt with pieces of lead or other heavy metal let into it. In order to provide me with a weight-belt precisely adapted to my requirements, my Instructor first ascertained my specific gravity by means of a simple apparatus, he then calculated the cubic contents of my body, and finally referred to a printed table to determine the weight of the belt I would require. Having found this, he took from the cupboard, where a number of these belts were kept, one of the precise weight required by me with which I at once girded myself.

I should add that these belts are provided with india-rubber cells which can be inflated at pleasure by the wearer so as to counteract the weight of the pieces of lead, and so restore the buoyancy of the body. This inflation is resorted to when the wearer wishes to bring his head above the surface of the water.

We sallied forth from the coral grotto and walked down the sloping beach of snow-white sand which the fierce rays of the sun had made uncomfortably warm for the naked feet.

The clear blue water felt deliciously cool, coming out of the sultry air, though I was told that its temperature was not much below eighty degrees.

Diving down into the pellucid depths, I marvelled at the extreme beauty of the scene. Corals of the most exquisite shape and colour, branching out into every variety of fantastic and elegant form; here, like the branches of trees as we see them in winter silvered ​over with hoar-frost; there, in great fan-shaped masses, white, red, purple and violet, large round madrepores, sponges of all shapes and sizes, and beautiful seaweeds of the brightest hues and most exquisite foliage, Shoals of brilliantly coloured fishes, bright scarlet, blue and orange, or party-coloured with alternate black and yellow or black and scarlet bands, darted hither and thither among the corals and sea-weeds, or hung motionless in the water above and around us.

I had hardly time to observe all this when I felt the need of air. My conductor placed a pipe to my lips and signed to me to breathe. My first attempt was not very successful, and I felt as if I must go to the surface. But my companion, seeing my embarrassment, produced a small spring clamp which he fastened on my nostrils so as effectually to stop them. I was then able to take a full inspiration, which at once restored me to my self-possession; and after two or three attempts, I found I could use the apparatus with tolerable facility.

I noticed that my Instructor possessed the power of keeping his nostrils tightly closed by their own muscular action; and he told me that all his countrymen had the same power. Indeed, it was absolutely necessary to close the nostrils under water, not only for the purpose of using the breathing tubes, but also to prevent the water penetrating into and filling up the cavity of the nose. I had to use the nose-clamp for some time but I ultimately, by repeated exercise, acquired the power of closing my nostrils voluntarily. But this is a digression.

I found that my weight-belt completely counteracted the tendency of my body to ascend to the surface, and so true was the equilibrium established between my ​body and the water, that I could assume any position, rise, descend or remain stationary in the water, without any conscious effort; there was, in fact, no resistance to be overcome, buoyancy as well as gravitation was completely annihilated. I had, in fact, no weight relative to the medium in which I was. The sensation was at once new and delightful. It reminded me of the feeling of flying I had sometimes experienced in dreams, when I had felt as if skimming over the earth without touching it.

Looking upwards, I was struck with the curious appearance of the outside world seen from the depths of the water. The sky and some elevated objects on land, such as trees and mountain tops, were seen framed in a large circular opening, sharply defined and surrounded by a thin ring of prismatic colours. Objects near the horizon appeared high up, but dwarfed and flattened laterally; and the sun itself, when not right overhead, was of an oval shape, the long diameter being horizontal. The remainder of the space visible was occupied by a vivid reflection of the bottom of the sea, the corals, sponges and sea-weed being reproduced with great distinctness. The deeper the water the smaller the circumference of the circular space through which sky and external objects were seen.

The water being perfectly clear, I could see to a considerable distance, and all objects floating in the water were distinctly seen and of their natural shape.

I was struck by the exquisite whiteness of the skin both of my own body and that of my companion, owing to the blue tinge in the water.

On this first occasion I could not remain long below the surface, owing to the painful sensation ​caused in my eyes by the contact with the sea-water. This smarting sensation was speedily removed by an eye-wash my Instructor gave me, and gradually diminished as I grew used to the immersion; so that after a week's practice I no longer felt any inconvenience from it, and could remain as long under water as I chose without the slightest discomfort in the eyes.

Until I got thoroughly habituated to the new element, I used to pass most of my time in the grotto of my Instructor prosecuting the studies necessary in order to make me fit for mingling with the community among whom I was to pass my time and whose manners and customs I was to adopt.

My progress towards this end gave great satisfaction to my Instructor, who assured me that others had much greater difficulty in becoming accustomed to this new life than I had displayed. This I could very well understand, for I know many persons at home to whom immersion, even for a short time, is attended by very disagreeable effects.

I asked my teacher if it was not the case that some could never become used to the aquatic habits of his countrymen: to which he replied:—

"It is certainly the case that a good many of those who are thrown upon these islands can never adapt their habits to ours, in fact are unable to exist with any degree of comfort in the water. These are, therefore, constrained to remain on the land, and there are many houses and residences on shore where these unfortunate people dwell. The discomforts of a land residence are, however, so great that most of them pine away and die, and of those who are able to stand out against the deleterious influences of the ​climate, most are employed in some of the manufactures, which must always be conducted on the land. They have adopted sundry contrivances for warding off the extreme heat and the attacks of the insects, and so manage to live in tolerable comfort. But they are looked down upon by us, and cannot help feeling themselves to be an inferior kind of beings to us who are endowed by nature with the necessary faculties for a subaqueous life. It is possible that in earlier times, when the land was actually inhabited and that pretty thickly by the race who have left monuments of their art and industry on the land, the climate of this region was very different from what it is now. When the climate gradually changed and aquatic habits became indispensable there can be no doubt that natural selection caused the gradual extinction of those who were unfit for subaqueous life."

"I see," I rejoined, "this is only another instance to be added to the many known examples of the 'survival of the fittest.'"

"Exactly so," he replied, "but as the choice lay between living in water or dying on land, the love of life acted as a very powerful stimulus for promoting the acquirement of aquatic habits.

"Possibly," he continued, "many might become seasoned or acclimatized to the dreadful heat and even to the noxious insects; but there is another plague these islands are subject to which none can resist, and that is the terrible volcanic eruptions to which they are exposed. You noticed that one of the hills on this the largest island is an active crater, at present only emitting a thin stream of vapour. But at uncertain times the most frightful eruptions take place sometimes in this, sometimes in one or several ​of the other islands, when streams of molten lava and showers of ashes and scoriæ are ejected from chasms that open up in uncertain places. These eruptions drive all into the sea, or cause them to take shelter in the numerous caverns with which the islands abound. The red-hot lava and ashes cause terrible conflagrations in our forests, and many of those who are physically incapacitated from living in the water have been smoked or roasted to death in their subterranean retreats. In short, life on land is attended by so many discomforts and dangers that the country would long ago have been depopulated, were it not for the safe asylum afforded by our sub-aqueous abode."

I was much struck by the perfect stillness of the air, which seldom stirred the surface of the water sufficiently to cause the slightest ripple. It was owing to this glass-like smoothness of the surface that external objects were so distinctly observed through the circular opening I before described, and that such a perfect reflection of the bottom of the sea was seen from below.

I had read that even in tropical regions certain winds, which we call trade-winds, prevailed and a steady breeze blew almost constantly in one direction or another. To my inquiry whether this portion of the globe was not subject to these winds, the Instructor replied:—

"This region is situated precisely in the angle between the north-east and south-east trade-winds, and is quite exempt from their influence. We are occasionally visited by terrific cyclones or circular hurricanes, and then the surface of our inland sea is agitated to a considerable degree; but the agitation ​does not extend to any great depth, so that when we are four or five fathoms below the surface we are not aware of the slightest movement of the water, and would only know that a hurricane is raging above by the circumstance that then the mirror above us is broken into fragments, and where the sky is seen when it is calm through the circular opening, nothing but a patch of broken light is visible. But these hurricanes are of short duration, and occur at rare intervals, so that they do not interfere in the slightest degree with the avocations nor even with the amusements of the inhabitants of the watery depths.

It was some weeks before I could trust myself to stay altogether beneath the water, and to sleep there; but at last I accomplished even this most difficult feat. To do this at first, I had to lie down on my back, in a sort of niche among the corals lined with soft sponges, with an air-tube between my lips and a spring-compressor on my nose to prevent me drawing the water in by my nostrils. I practised regular breathing, which gradually seemed to come quite naturally and to be performed without conscious effort, nor was it interrupted when unconsciousness overtook me and I slept soundly. I was soon able to dispense with the nose-clip, the muscles of the nostrils acting automatically and closing the nasal orifices completely.

When I had thoroughly mastered this difficulty, my Instructor pronounced me qualified by aquatic accomplishments for admission as a citizen of this remarkable community.

INTRODUCTION TO THE INHABITANTS.

WHILST fitting myself physically for the new life I was about to enter on, I was also engaged in adapting myself intellectually for the same object.

I have said nothing about the mode in which conversation is carried on below the water. Sound, as is well known, is transmitted more readily and with greater velocity through water than through air, but talking in the ordinary way is not practicable in water; for, with every word uttered, there comes out of the mouth a great bubble of air that very much interferes with the distinctness of the sound emitted, and has a most unbecoming and ridiculous appearance. Therefore, though a single word may occasionally be ejaculated, no conversation could be carried on in this way. And yet these submarine people are as great talkers as are to be found anywhere, and they have several different modes of conversing with one another; but all these modes are based on a common principle.

I have already stated that among the books in the Instructor's grotto were some which were filled with a strange character which I could not understand, consisting of dots and lines, like what we use in our telegraphic printing.

​Conversation below water is carried on either by touch when the conversers are close enough together, or by sight or sound when they are at a distance.

In the former case, the speaker applies his forefinger to any part of the body of the person he is speaking to, and, by a rapid succession of gentle taps and strokes, conveys to him a sensible perception of what he wishes to say. While accompanying my Instructor, he was frequently accosted by persons whose business or pleasure brought them to where we were, and I was astonished at the rapidity and animation with which they seemed to converse by means of the tactile language I have attempted to describe.

When they wished to converse without coming in contact they took from their pockets two thimble-like instruments which they placed on their thumb and middle finger, and, by knocking them together, would produce a clicking noise, which could be distinctly heard at a considerable distance, and which conveyed what they wanted to say by means of slight and louder, rapid or more prolonged taps and pauses, perfectly comprehensible to those familiar with the language.

Or they would converse with equal facility by merely moving their fore-finger hither and thither with a rapidity the unaccustomed eye could scarcely follow, but which was equally efficacious in conveying a meaning to the initiated. As with our deaf and dumb people the conversation was much aided by shrugs, nods, and conventional signs which conveyed a great deal of meaning without the necessity for spelling out each word.

By diligent study of the elementary books I found in the Instructor's house, I soon acquired tolerable ​proficiency in the language; and, as one common principle lay at the root of these three modes of conversing, in acquiring one I learned all three.

I was complimented by my instructor on the facility with which I had mastered all the accomplishments required to make me feel at my ease in the society of the subaqueous community, among whom he proposed to introduce me, when his duties as instructor would cease, and I might become practically acquainted with the institutions, the manners and the customs of my adopted country.

Hitherto we had seen but few of the inhabitants, as the spot where we had been sojourning was a sort of reserved space, not open to the general community, and only visited occasionally by persons who had some official connexion with my tutor, and who came thither to transact business with him.

I burned with eager desire to escape from the narrow limits to which I had all this time been confined, and to see and mingle with the word beyond. I was beginning to weary of the irksome discipline of study and exercise which my instructor imposed on me, and I felt quite capable of taking care of myself in a more extensive field of operations.

It was, therefore, with much satisfaction that I learned from my tutor that he considered my education sufficiently advanced to enable me to dispense with his further services.

"You are not, of course," he said, "by any means perfect in the accomplishments needed in your new abode, but you have obtained a smattering of them sufficient to enable you to mingle in society without much awkwardness, and your further development will ​be best effected by contact with your new fellow-citizens."

He informed me that a house had been assigned to me, the lease of which would be ready for my signature as soon as I should present myself before the magistrate who presided over such arrangements.

He then conducted me to the confines of the little bay, which was divided off from the great inner lake by a barrier of living coral, that did not rise to the surface of the water and therefore could be no impediment to any one wishing to pass in or out of the bay. It was generally understood, however, that the bay was reserved for the use of strangers, until their education was complete and they were able to mingle with the ordinary inhabitants of Colymbia, for that, I learned, was the name by which the subaqueous country went.

Passing the barrier, I at once found myself in the midst of a thickly-peopled region, with numerous elegant edifices of the strangest shapes, constructed chiefly of corals and corallines of every variety of hue.

My appearance seemed to be expected; for a number of young men and women were collected at the other side of the barrier, who warmly greeted me, and began talking so eagerly and quickly in the various manners I have attempted to describe, that I became utterly confused and bewildered.

Seeing this, most of them, with friendly smiles, moved off and left only one of their number with me as a guide, with whom I found it easy to converse. He told me, as we glided along, that it was a considerable time since his country had been visited by strangers, and that those last thrown among them had not been very favourable specimens of the outside world. My ​tutor had sent such laudatory reports of me, that my coming among them had been looked forward to with pleasure; and, as I had seen, a considerable number of the young people of both sexes had assembled to give me a welcome, which had proved so embarrassing to me. But a little practice, he assured me, would soon enable me to feel quite at ease in their society.

I did not explain to him that my confusion was partly occasioned by seeing for the first time some lovely specimens of the opposite sex.

In the well-clad beauties of our northern latitudes, their garments serve more to conceal than to display their shape; their arms are seldom moved from their sides, and the motions of their legs are carefully hidden beneath their flowing robes. But here all this was altered. No tight straps, stiff stays or cumbrous garments interfered with the free action of the limbs and bodies of the fair denizens of this crystal abode.

The graceful movements of their limbs and the lithe suppleness of their bodies gave to them a mode of progression so utterly different from, and so immeasurably superior in elegance to, the mincing gait of our high-heeled and tight-laced damsels at home, that they seemed beings of another and much superior race. Their limbs and bodies were beautifully moulded, exquisitely round and smooth, and their skin looked dazzlingly white in the blue-tinted water. One would have said they were made of flexible marble. The beauty of their feet especially struck me. No shoe or boot had ever compressed the toes or distorted the ankles.

And then the ordinary movements were full of an uncommon grace, that was the very poetry of motion. The body, being of the same specific gravity as the ​medium in which it was suspended, was not subject to the laws of gravitation, and no force had to be expended in supporting the weight of, or lifting the body, as must be done at every step and every movement we perform in air. Movement in this sustaining fluid is a delight, and every attitude a model of voluptuous grace.

I could not take my eyes off the figures who accompanied us in our progress. Without apparent effort, they glided onwards, above, below, and on either hand; now on their front, now on their back, sideways, or darting perpendicularly upwards and downwards.

Every movement seemed to be natural, thoroughly unaffected and effortless. Sometimes only the arms were moved, sometimes only the legs, and sometimes a scarcely perceptible motion of a hand or a foot sufficed to give the needful impulse. Usually their movements were languid and slow, but they could at will dart quickly in any direction they chose.

The dress of the ladies differs but slightly from that of the gentlemen. The trousers are fuller, generally of brighter colours, and ornamented with embroidery, ribbons, and often with gold lace and pearls. The hair is generally arranged in large plaits, twisted round the head, or gathered into a sort of coronet on the top. But some wear their hair of moderate length hanging down the back, with a fillet to keep it smooth round the head, and to me this appeared the most elegant mode of dressing the hair under water.

Of course, both men and women wear the weight-belt to counteract their natural buoyancy. The ladies' girdles are always highly ornamented, the weights being generally in the form of numerous polished pieces of metal of all shapes, suspended by short ​chains from the girdle. The men's belts are more substantially made, and the weights can be increased or diminished at pleasure to suit the varying requirements of the wearer. It is desirable that the specific gravity should be sometimes greater, sometimes less, than that of water, and these alterations are easily effected.

The small party who accompanied me circled and gyrated around me in graceful curves until they brought me to the house assigned me for my residence.

The houses of Colymbia are of various sizes and various degrees of architectural beauty. One principle governs the construction of all. Whether the house consists of one or several rooms, of one or several stories, each room is fitted up with the view of allowing it to be used as a place of rest or repose.

Now, as the specific gravity of the body is considerably less than that of water, and as the weight-belts are generally removed during repose, the body has a tendency to ascend. Hence the floors of the rooms in the private houses in Colymbia are where the ceiling is with us, and the Colymbians sit down to rest or work and lie down to sleep at the top of the room.

The top of the room is grown over with living sponges so as to form a soft elastic bed or couch, the contact of which is very pleasant to the body. But as the slightest pressure against the couch of sponge would suffice to displace the body, straps, hoops or hooks are everywhere attached to the spongy bed, which can be readily fastened across the body or through which one or more limbs may be thrust, so as to retain the body on one spot.

The mouths of breathing-tubes are very freely distributed over every part of the interior of the house, ​and, in addition, each room contains a sort of dome in its centre, which serves as a reservoir for pure fresh air that is kept constantly circulating through it. By this arrangement, the inmates can at any time bring their heads into the air for the purpose of respiration, in case breathing through the tubes should be difficult or impossible from any cause either in the tubes themselves or the person using them. But these air-reservoirs are most frequently used for conversational purposes. People get tired of the telegraphic language, and long to indulge in a good chat with their tongues; so, in place of going up above the water's surface, they can bring their faces into the air-tank and chatter away at their ease.

When the older houses were built the use of these reservoirs as talking places was not contemplated, and their domes are therefore small and inconvenient, but in the more modern houses the dome forms the chief feature in each room, and some of them are of great size, so as to allow of a considerable number to make use of them at once.

In the poorer houses the domes are made of what seemed to me to be japanned iron, but in all houses having any pretensions to luxury they are made of glass, so as to be light and cheerful retreats.

My house consisted of but one room, and was evidently of modern construction, as it had a large glass dome, and the sponges were of the softest kind and were arranged in the most fashionable manner. The walls of the house were built of corals artistically disposed as regards colour and shape, so as to present a very pleasing pattern. The corals forming the walls were not close enough together to prevent the free admission of water, it being necessary to keep up ​everywhere a circulation of water in the house, otherwise it is apt to become stagnant, oxygenless and disagreeable.

There was a glazed window in each wall through which I could see what was going on outside. At pleasure I could completely close the windows by blinds.

The young gentleman who had attached himself to me accompanied me into my dwelling, and kindly initiated me into all the mysteries of my new house. He was a very good-looking lad, about twenty years old, beautifully made, and conspicuous by the elegance of his movements among a graceful set of companions. With frank courtesy he offered to be my guide until I became thoroughly conversant with the mode of life I had just entered on, and I readily accepted his offer. As he belonged to the upper ranks of society, he was able to introduce me to the best company, and I was soon thoroughly at my ease and able to partake of the amusements and diversions which form a large portion of the occupations of this singular people.

The following morning he took me to the office of the magistrate from whom I obtained the lease of my house. By this lease I bound myself to remain in this house during the whole term of my life, a condition I considered singular at the time, but the reason for which was afterwards explained to me. Space is extremely valuable here, and it was found necessary to enact a law forbidding anyone to possess more than one house, in order that all might be accommodated. Why a change of house is forbidden I could not so well understand, supposing the tenant should find his domicile inconvenient or ​unfitted for his wants. It is, however, generally believed and held that to sanction anything of the sort would be to loosen the bonds of society, to sap the foundations of morality and to produce certain disastrous consequences not clearly defined but probably all the more dreaded on that account. All houses are, I was told, thus held for life; and though in particular cases great discomfort is thereby occasioned, on the whole, the law of life-tenancy is believed to act well, and no departure from it is allowed except in cases where, as sometimes happens, the house is destroyed by natural decay or some unforeseen catastrophe. It is only in the case of strangers that houses are assigned to them by the authorities, as in my case. As regards the inhabitants, when they come of age they are allowed to select any house that may be vacant at the time, provided they obtain the permission of the authorities. But once having made their choice they are bound to stick to it for life. Under certain circumstances, such as proof given that the house they have chosen and for which they have signed the lease is prejudicial to their health or incompatible with their employment, by a complicated and expensive legal process they can obtain a release from their engagement and be permitted to make a new selection. But instances of such a change of domicile are extremely rare, and it is generally felt that the lease is binding for life, and those who make an unfortunate choice have to make the best of a bad bargain.

Various attempts have been made to have the law altered and to render the leases terminable at will or after a series of years. But the conservative spirit is so strong, that these attempts have always hitherto ended ​in failure, and the general sentiment is that the law of irrevocable leases is one of the great bulwarks of the constitution. Those few who have succeeded in obtaining a release are generally looked on with suspicion and dislike.

It is curious to remark that, notwithstanding the obvious importance of exercising the utmost care and circumspection in selecting a life-long abode, the choice was often hurriedly made, and after a mere superficial inspection of the house. These hasty selections were, as may easily be conceived, often followed by leisurely repentance and regret, occasioned by the unsuitable character of the house chosen to the requirements of the chooser.

It occasionally happens that a covetous spirit will induce some one to insinuate himself into his neighbour's house during his absence, and attempt to oust him from it; but such offences are severely punished and the offender is held to be a reprobate of the vilest character. And yet such are the strange inconsistencies of society, that several persons were pointed out to me who were well known to have invaded their neighbours' houses, and who yet had never lost the consideration of their fellows nor been punished for their illegal proceedings; even though they retained possession of the houses from which they had ousted the legitimate possessors.

However, these were exceptional cases, and the delinquencies of the offenders were supposed not to be known, though every one knew them. The open and acknowledged possession of two houses, as a town house and a country house, is altogether unknown, and would not be permitted. When I observed that, in my country, people who possessed more than one ​house were rather looked up to, I could perceive that I had produced a painful impression and raised some prejudice against myself, which I could only do away with by remarking that I highly disapproved of the practice.

The magistrate from whom I obtained my lease was a venerable looking man, and the ceremony of signing and registering the agreement was solemn and imposing. Two witnesses were required to attest the signature, and the magistrate delivered an impressive discourse, in which he painted in glowing terms the pure pleasures attending the strict observance of the engagement I had just entered into, and the certain misery that awaited any attempt to evade its obligations.

The friends of the lessee presented him with gifts of more or less valuable ornaments for the decoration of his new abode. My newly found friends showed their goodwill towards myself by supplying me with many tokens of their friendship, which were displayed in my room for the admiration of all the callers who came to congratulate me on this great event of my life.

Strangers arriving in Colymbia are assigned a certain salary, enough to keep them in comfort until they have become sufficiently at home in their aquatic life to enable them to earn their own livelihood. A period of five years is considered adequate for this purpose, after which the salary would be discontinued, unless special reasons were assigned for its continuance. But I was informed that the state was not very particular in enforcing this term, and that I might continue to draw my salary for a much longer time if I did not feel myself quite able to do without ​it. Certain formalities had to be gone through before another official, and when these were completed I was duly enrolled on the pension-list of the state, and become entitled to receive a moderate allowance in monthly instalments.

In the long period during which I resided in Colymbia, I gradually became initiated into all the peculiarities of its people, their occupations, amusements, form of government, and arrangements of all descriptions. Few of their habits, institutions and contrivances resembled anything I had formerly been accustomed to; but in my intercourse with the people I made many agreeable acquaintances, and formed some intimate friendships.

I shall not attempt to give anything like a connected narrative of my life, but I shall, to the best of my ability, endeavour to give a. truthful account of what I observed during my sojourn in this aquatic country.

The air-supply is not undertaken by the central government, but is conducted by private enterprise. Certain districts are allotted to different companies, who undertake to lay the pipes and supply pure air, or rather a mixture of air and oxygen, to their respective districts.

The engines required for pumping in the air are on land. The motive power of these, as well as of most of the machines used in Colymbia, is obtained by the rise and fall of the sea in the tides. The mechanism is simple and effective. The principle is the same as that made use of by our plumbers in the ball- tap they put in our cisterns. Gravity and buoyancy, which they have got rid of entirely as regards their own bodies, is what they avail themselves of for the chief motive power of their machinery. A large basin is excavated, at ​such a level that it shall be filled at high tide and nearly emptied at low tide. On the water in this basin floats a huge iron caisson of a circular shape, but flat at top and bottom, like an ordinary gasometer. According to the power required, these caissons are larger or smaller. The largest weigh many hundreds of tons. It is obvious that as the tide flows and ebbs, the caisson will rise and fall with it. To the top of it is attached one arm of a lever, which is hinged on to a strong upright on land; the other arm of the lever being attached to a crank that moves a shaft. As the caisson rises the crank is depressed, and as the caisson falls it is raised.

But it is obvious that at the turn of the tide both ways, there will be a period of rest during which no force will be exerted. In order to keep up the moving power, so as to communicate a continuous and equable rotatory movement to the shaft, there is a second caisson with another lever attached to a crank, so arranged that when it comes to the perpendicular, the other crank is nearly at right angles to it in advance. The period of rest of this second crank occurs some time after that of the first crank. In fact it is the same arrangement as we see in the shaft in double-cylinder steam-engines. The retardation of the second crank is caused by allowing the tidal water to enter a reservoir, before coming into the basin of the second caisson, and so regulating the admission of the water that it shall still raise the second caisson after the first has come to rest. By this arrangement the shaft is turned round with irresistible force once in little more than twelve hours; and by the common arrangement of cog-wheels, as in a clock, or wheels and endless bands, the slow movement can be accelerated to any required ​velocity. The tides in this region of the ocean only raise the water a few feet, but that is amply sufficient to provide the necessary power to move the huge caissons and their levers.

As the height of the tides differs every day, increasing towards the period of spring-tides, and again declining towards the period of neap-tides, there are contrivances for meeting these variations. A small machine, separately connected with the water and moving up and down with the tides, acts on machinery so contrived that when the tide rises high it shortens the perpendicular shaft of the large caisson to which the lever is attached, and so counteracts the effect of the greater height of water, and lengthens this shaft when the caisson sinks lower, than the average: or the same effect is produced by a similar machinery that lengthens the horizontal arm of the lever of the larger caisson as the tide rises higher. When this plan is adopted, the basin in which the large caisson floats is necessarily longer than when the first plan is followed, in order to admit of the to-and-fro movement of the caisson. Another plan is to supply both of the basins in which the caissons float not directly from the sea, but at second-hand, through reservoirs in immediate connexion with the tide, whereby both the height of the water in the basins and the time of its entrance can be regulated. The engines are not necessarily close to the sea. In many instances they are some miles inland, the tidal water being conveyed to them by canals. The Colymbians avail themselves of this simple motive power to work all their machinery, and they use machinery for all their manufactures to a much greater extent than even we do.

The irresistible power of the ocean's tides, as regular ​as clock-work and as inexhaustible as the ocean itself, acts with unfailing constancy, and without the noise, the smoke and the destructive effects of our steam-engines. The tides are nature's own motive power, which she offers to us without stint and free of expense. The Colymbians utilize the generous gift which we neglect for inferior forces that deafen us with their noise, ruin us with their costliness, and destroy us by their ill-regulated action. These tidal machines are gigantic sphygmographs, recording the pulses of the mighty ocean.

There were occasional complaints about the impurity of the air supplied by the air-companies. In some cases it was found that the air-supply was derived from localities which were incapable of furnishing air of perfect purity.

To preserve the purity of the water, there is a very perfect system of what we would call sewerage, the sewage being conveyed to the land, and deposited in various localities appropriated for the purpose, or employed in fertilizing the soil for the growth of cereals. Now it so happened that some of the air-supply companies drew their air from sources where it was apt to be contaminated by the effluvia of the sewage heaps, and Government inspectors and chemists would be appointed to investigate the quality of the air supplied, and the sources whence it was obtained. But, in spite of the unfavourable reports these experts gave, it was a most difficult matter to compel the air-companies, which are great and powerful monopolies, to make the necessary changes in their plant and machinery, in order to secure the necessary purity of their air. The monopolists would resist the orders of the Government to the last, and when at length public opinion ​compelled them to make the requisite alterations, they took much credit to themselves for their zeal in the cause of the public health and happiness, and rewarded their virtue and philanthropy by charging somewhat more per thousand cubic feet for their purer air.

I expressed my surprise that the Government did not take the air-supply into its own hands, and was told that it had often threatened to do so, but was frustrated by the influences opposed by the monopolist companies, who, though always fighting among themselves for the possession of new districts, invariably combined their forces to resist the interference and encroachments of Government.

On the whole, however, the air-supply was copious and tolerably pure; and if occasionally it was not quite as good as it might have been, very little was said about it, and it was looked on as a necessary but temporary evil that would right itself without any person troubling himself about it.

I should mention that large beds of living bivalves are distributed throughout the subaqueous country, beautifully arranged in various patterns, for which their various colours render them very suitable. These shell-fish answer another purpose besides that of ornamentation: they consume every little impurity that may accidentally escape into the water, and so keep it perfectly transparent, which, without their aid, it would not be.

Living, as the Colymbians do, constantly in the water, they imbibe a sufficient amount of fluid by the pores of the skin to render it quite unnecessary for them to drink; and the same condition of life renders washing and ablutions of all kinds quite superfluous. Therefore, drinking and drinking vessels, ​washing and basins, are only to be met with on land. Below the water nothing of the sort is to be seen.

But in order to impart an artificial hilarity to them when they stand in need of it, they occasionally inhale something different from the ordinary oxygenated air. Houses fitted with tubes supplied with some artificially manufactured gases having curious exciting and exhilarating properties are numerous, and are much frequented, especially by the lower classes. The wealthier classes have private reservoirs of such gases, which they liberally offer to their visitors and friends. Some were reported to be in the habit of partaking of these gases more freely than was altogether good for them.

When the sun shines in full meridian splendour, the light at the bottom of the water is never overpowering, and no shades or screens are required to ward off his rays. And when he is low on the horizon his brilliancy is very much subdued. At sunset darkness sets in with great rapidity, and starlight or even moonlight scarcely affords any illumination. But the ingenuity of the Colymbians and their great acquirements in chemical science had, at an early stage of their existence as a nation, enabled them to illuminate the depths of their aqueous tenement in a very perfect manner.

This illumination is effected by means of electricity or galvanism. Wires are laid in every direction. Every house has its wires for illumination, and all the open spaces betwixt the houses are well furnished with electric lamps. These lamps are globes of dead white glass in which the charcoal points are fixed. As soon as the sun sinks so low ​as to render the depths of the water obscure, the lamps are all lighted at the same moment by connecting the wires with the great electric apparatus on shore, and the whole subaqueous space is immediately illuminated as bright as day. The effect of the thousands of lamps hung in every direction is extremely beautiful. Every nook and cranny of the vast space glows with a marvellous brilliancy. The dazzling white of the coral branches looks like burnished silver, and the elegant forms and exquisite tints of the many sea-plants produce a series of the most charming pictures the imagination can conceive. The exquisite forms and graceful movements of the men and women, youths ,and maidens, darting or gliding rapidly or slowly hither and thither among the natural grottoes and artificial habitations of these watery depths, as their occupations or amusements require, form a scene more lovely than a poet's dream.

The galvanic action that produces this magic illumination is not, as with us, derived from voltaic cells but from the earth itself. While cells of the kind we use are subject to waste and deterioration, the electricity of the earth is practically inexhaustible and the supply never fails. The machinery for drawing off the electricity so bountifully furnished by the earth once set up, no care is required except to regulate its intensity, and this is effected by a self-acting regulating apparatus of the most ingenious construction.

Without some illuminating power of this, sort the watery depths would have been uninhabitable during twelve hours out of the twenty-four. I was told that the illumination of the country had from a very early period occupied the attention of the scientific men. They had discovered the photogenic property of electricity ​long before it had been thought of by us terrestrial mortals. The present perfection of the lighting apparatus, however, has only been attained by slow degrees and after numerous and persevering attempts. The discovery of the mode of extracting the electricity of the earth itself was the crowning event in the series of experiments, as it had rendered the inexpensive illumination of the whole country practicable.

That a constant and powerful current of electricity circulates through the earth in a given direction is well known to physicists, and is shown by the phenomenon of the magnetic needle always pointing to the north; thunderstorms have made us familiar with its stupendous power. In our own country this terrestrial electricity has sometimes been made use of on a very limited scale in the construction of electrical clocks, but the Colymbians have discovered the method of tapping it in any desired quantity and of any required intensity.

The disagreeable glare of the electric light as we know it is removed by the simple expedient of enclosing each light in a globe of milk-white glass, so that the illumination is as soft and pleasant to the eye as the diffused light of a cloudy day.

The Colymbians devote a considerable portion of their time to amusement. One of their favourite pastimes is what they call "gyrating," equivalent to our dancing, though very different in appearance. It is practised in large buildings or halls constructed for the purpose. The amusement is extremely fascinating, and I gladly availed myself of all the invitations I received to join in it. A committee or council of ladies and gentlemen preside over the arrangements of these festal meetings, and determine who shall be invited to them and who excluded. Their decisions ​on all matters connected with the balls are unhesitatingly submitted to. These assemblies only take place by artificial light.

Imagine a vast coral grotto profusely decorated with flowers and plants of the most brilliant colours, and numerous lamps tastefully interspersed, so as to show off the graceful flowers and leaves to the greatest advantage. The flowers are not all sea-flowers; the most exquisite land-flowers are also used for the decoration of the hall. These are preserved in all their freshness under water for a considerable time by being dipped in a kind of transparent varnish, which protects them from the water. Bouquets and garlands of these are largely distributed over the walls of the hall, and many of the young ladies wear a few of the bright blossoms in their hair and about their persons.

The upper part of the hall is a smooth surface of softest and whitest sponges, where those not engaged in the dance recline luxuriously, and amuse themselves by playing at some games or by looking on at the performances of the gyrators.

In the centre of this ceiling-floor is a large glass dome filled with pure fresh air, into which, ever and anon, a performer will plunge his head, or a couple will occasionally remain chatting there for a considerable time, when they wish to let loose their tongues and to discard for a while the telegraphic language.

The bottom of the grotto is entirely formed of branching corals with lamps distributed among them. The length of these halls is sometimes as much as fifty yards, and their height not less than twenty yards. An orchestra placed in a niche at one end or ​at the side of the hall play a succession of lively melodies on their peculiar musical instruments, which are on the principle of our glass and metal accordions or musical glasses, the notes being elicited by sharp taps administered with a small hammer. The thin notes producible from the corresponding instruments at home give no idea of the full volume of sound emitted by the musical instruments of Colymbia, where, indeed, music is cultivated to a much higher degree and much more universally than it is with us.

It is well known that sonorous bodies, though they retain their pitch or timbre when struck under water lose much of their sonorousness. The sound is not prolonged as in air but abruptly cut short as when the damper is applied to the strings of the piano. The ingenuity of the Colymbians has enabled them to overcome this defect, and to give to every note any amount of prolongation required. Unless they had been able to accomplish this their music would have been absolutely expressionless; whereas, on the contrary, it abounds in the most exquisite cadences, and even their ordinary instruments are capable of calling forth an amount of expression and feeling in the notes they produce that is scarcely to be matched by the finest performances on our own wind and stringed instruments.

The company begins to arrive simultaneously with the striking up of the music. The sole garment of the gentlemen is of gayer colours than that usually worn by them in the daytime, and the ladies are further decorated with necklaces of pearls or beautiful shells. The same ornaments are intertwined with the plaits of their hair, and they have armlets and ​bracelets of gold and silver, and similar ornaments on their legs and ankles.

They have various descriptions of dances—as I must call them for want of a better name. Sometimes a number of couples execute a regular figure, reminding me of our quadrilles at home, though very different. A large central space being cleared, a young man darts out from one side of the hall, and is met by a lady from the opposite side. Touching hands, they whirl round one another several times, then dart back to their original position. Sometimes one, sometimes many couples do this at once; sometimes all the performers mingle together, and gyrate round one another promiscuously; then suddenly all dart back to their respective places, soon to recommence with a new figure. In all their evolutions, the performers keep time to the music, which is distinctly heard in the most distant parts of the hall. This dance, with the graceful movements and attitudes of the performers, is like nothing I had ever seen before. It sometimes reminded me a little of the figures executed by good skaters on the ice, but on the whole I think it more nearly resembles the mazy evolutions performed by flies round a tassel on a summer morning.

Another dance, which reminded me of the round dances of our country, consists in a lady and gentleman whirling rapidly round the hall, their hands just touching and their bodies gliding gracefully, now above, now below one another. Sometimes the whole company would thus form into couples, and keep on gyrating round the room as long as the music played.

The lithe and supple figures whose development had not been marred by any straps or cords, whose ​bodies no stays had compressed, whose legs no garters had indented, whose feet no boots had squeezed out of shape,—these pictures of natural beauty skimming about and around, with more than the freedom of birds in the air, never two consecutive instants in the same attitude, it was a delight to behold; but it was ecstasy to thread the mazes of this watery dance in companionship with one of the bewitching mermaidens.

Immersed in the clear, pure water, all positions are alike pleasant. It does not matter whether head or heels be uppermost, for the equal pressure of the water prevents anything like congestion of blood to the head when our position is inverted.

Although at first these dances appeared to me more like the mad orgies of a set of bacchanals than the amusements of a party of self-respecting ladies and gentlemen, this feeling soon wore off, and I found that it was only the strangeness of the scene that made it appear to me indecorous. As I got more used to these entertainments their novelty wore off, and I saw that no feeling of indecorum or immodesty possessed the performers. The young ladies were as correct in their ideas as those we meet with in the best society at home; and, though their garments were scanty, their conversation was innocent, and their thoughts apparently pure. I found that modesty does not require yards of silk or muslin for its preservation, but may exist independently of flowing robes. Manners and customs that differ from those we are used to we are apt at first to consider improper and immodest, until we find that to those who are used to them they convey no prurient ideas, and lead to no immoral consequences.

While going through these graceful acrobatics with a beautiful dark-eyed mermaid, I endeavoured to ​explain to her the waltz of terrestrial mortals. She looked shocked, and exclaimed, "How dreadfully immodest! What would mama say to see me whirled round, clasped in the embrace of a man?" And yet mama smiled placid approval at her more than semi-nude daughter gyrating round the hall, attended by a man as scantily clad, and mixed up with a whole bevy of similarly-attired, or unattired, men and women.

It is not the custom of the Colymbians to eat in company; drinking, I have said is not needed in the water, where quite sufficient moisture is absorbed through the pores of the skin to supply all the wants of the system. Instead of refreshments the performers resort to certain tubes which supply the exhilarating gases I have before alluded to, and which are plentifully distributed throughout the hall. These gases are similar in properties to the nitrous oxyde with which we are familiar; they are never inhaled pure, but diluted with a certain proportion of air, so that they do not stupefy, but only cause a sensation of pleasant excitement.

After some hours spent in this fascinating amusement the company disperses, and the young ladies retire to their respective homes under the careful guidance of their matron chaperones.

I received many invitations to visit at the private domiciles of my fair partners and thus was enabled to see a good deal of the domestic life of the Colymbians.

I became particularly intimate with the family of the beautiful dark-eyed maiden I have before alluded to. Her father held some important office connected with Government, and was usually absent from home most of the day. Her mother was a pleasant lady, scarcely past her prime, and still very handsome. She had a ​brother—the same young man who had attached himself to me and acted as my cicerone in showing me many of the curious ways and institutions of the country. During my morning visits I usually found the ladies occupied. in reading, or engaged in some pretty fancy-work for the embellishment of their house.

The young lady, whose name was Lily, had several pets. She had a cage containing several pairs of the beautiful little paradise or peacock fish, with their brilliant spots and bands of red and green, and their quaintly-cut fins and tails. The habits of these pretty creatures are interesting and amusing. The male gathers up in his mouth the eggs deposited by the female, and conveys them to a nest he has built, and over which he forms a canopy, studded with innumerable air-bubbles, which glisten like gems, and which are emitted from his mouth. The vivacity with which he defends the nest and its contents against all comers, and even against the female whom he drives away if ever she ventures to approach the nest, was a constant source of amusement. The only creature he did not attack was his pretty mistress, who might approach her hand as near the nest as she liked, without any display of irritation on the part of its faithful guardian.

In another cage were some large lobsters, whose singular gait and voracious appetites were very funny.

Her favourite pet, however, was a very diminutive seal, which gambolled about her like a spaniel, and displayed the most lively affection. She could not train this animal to use the breathing tubes, so it had frequently to go to the air-reservoir in the ceiling to breathe or to the surface of the water when out of doors.

​Seals I found to be very numerous in Colymbia, and there are several different sorts, indigenous and imported.

The indigenous seal is a very intelligent and easily-domesticated animal, varying from four to six feet in length and with much longer flippers than those inhabiting our coasts; in fact, they are so long that the animal can walk on shore without its body being in contact with the ground. These seals, being so tame and sensible, are much used for hunting purposes, chiefly for hunting the turtle whose flesh forms a staple article of the food of the country. A small variety of it is kept as a domestic pet, like this one of Miss Lily's. Their intelligence and attachment to human beings are marvellous. They will attack and destroy any cuttles, crabs, or other sea vermin that might invade the house, and will give warning of the intrusion of a stranger. For these good qualities they are in great request in the houses of the better class of people. Great pains are bestowed by the Colymbians on the breeding of them, and by dint of careful selection of stock, numerous useful and beautiful varieties have been produced from the indigenous seal that differ as much from the typical original as our varieties of dogs differ from their wild progenitor.

A large and ferocious kind, with a head like a leopard's, and a formidable array of teeth, are used as watch-dogs along the reef to give notice of the approach of ships and shipwrecked persons. They are chained up in order to keep them at their post on the reef, and by their loud barking noise, which I had heard when I first approached the barrier, they warn the police of the approach of anything strange. I remembered having seen in England a large barking ​seal, which was exhibited under the name of the "Talking fish," and whose bark was similar to that of these watch-seals.

I was told that the naturalists of the country do not consider these fierce seals as indigenous to the country. It is supposed that the original parents had been found on board some vessel—a whaler, probably—that had been wrecked on its voyage from the South Seas, or that they had been captured when endeavouring to make their way from one latitude to another. From some peculiarities about them, the parent stock is believed to have inhabited a much colder region of the earth. However this may be, their descendants seem thoroughly acclimatized to the scorching heat of the tropics, and perform their duties in the most satisfactory manner.

Other pets this charming water Lily possessed, such as sea-anemones, of every variety of shape and colour, which she daintily fed every morning with tiny morsels of mussels, or other common shell-fish. She also kept a hideous squid in a dark hole, and would pull it out and let it crawl all over her with its eight long arms. Crabs and sea-urchins she detested, and she had trained her little seal to attack and destroy any that might venture into her room.

Like other girls of her station in life, Lily had received a tolerable education. She was well read in English literature, an accomplished musician, and skilled in the small ornamental arts which occupy much of the time of the Colymbian ladies. In her parents' house there was a small but select library of English authors; and from a neighbouring establishment all the recent works of lighter literature were procurable. All books used in the subaqueous country ​are printed on the waterproof paper I formerly mentioned, and in many of them the character used is the sort of telegraphic symbols I have endeavoured to describe.

I found great pleasure in conversing with this amiable young lady in the manner of her country, and confess to having experienced a certain thrill through me the first time I was permitted to use the language of intimate friends and spell the words on her soft white skin. Constant use has, however, divested this mode of communication of all feelings of indelicacy among the Colymbians, and ladies and gentlemen tap out their chats on one another's skins with no more sense of impropriety than though they were drumming away on a deal table.

But the tapping conversation implies a certain amount of intimacy and equality among those who use it. Strangers or inferiors always address in the visible or audible language; and the rapidity with which conversation is carried on by either of these methods is the result of constant practice.

In addition to the modes of speech I have described, there is a higher style of language employed by orators, public speakers, and lecturers. The telegraphic system before described forms the basis of this language, but it is expressed musically. The music is not like a tune; indeed the proficients in the musical oratory affect to despise and discard melody, leaving it to nurses and the performers in the gyrating halls.

The time and tact of the music convey the words; the notes themselves the expression. Thus, every note struck has a precise meaning, and the system expresses the highest flights of eloquence, the finest shades of passion and emotion, and is equally fitted ​for conveying the sublimest truths of philosophy, the most important revelations of science, the deepest tragedy, or the most humorous comedy.

The orators of the legislature, and all public lecturers, invariably adopt this mode of speaking. It was extraordinary to observe how well adapted the musical oratory is to express the various themes on which it was employed. If the orator's subject were a dull one, the music became correspondingly dull; and if his subject were interesting, the interesting character of the music never flagged. Tender emotions, refined sentiments, fierce passions, caustic remarks, sarcasm, merry banter, broad jokes, have each their appropriate music; and as every word is distinctly uttered, the harmonious mode in which it is emitted gives a charm to this mode of speaking perfectly indescribable, combining, as it does, the most brilliant eloquence, with the subtlest expression of scientific harmonies.

There are, of course, degrees of eloquence, as there are of other arts. But this art is so carefully cultivated by the Colymbians that it is surprising how many are proficients in it. It does not require one to possess a knowledge of the laws of the highest development of music to be able fully to appreciate the performance of its adepts. The art, however painfully acquired, is at once appreciated by all cultivated persons who listen to the artist.

To uneducated or imperfectly-educated persons, the highest flights of this musical oratory are as incomprehensible as is the eloquence of our most brilliant English statesmen to our unlettered country bumpkins; for it is not to be supposed that a person whose vocabulary is limited to a couple of hundred words would appreciate or thoroughly understand the discourse of ​one who has several thousand words at his command. But the mysteries of counter-point and thorough bass form part of the elementary education of all cultivated Colymbians, and it is only the very stupidest and the ill-educated among these whose knowledge of music does not go beyond the first principles of the art. And even they can understand sufficiently the drift of a brilliant orator to listen to him with pleasure; just as our unlettered rustics are pleased to hear the eloquence of our best speakers, though they cannot be credited with understanding all they hear.

A very brilliant orator, with whom I conversed, would hardly believe that we, in old European countries, still consider pieces of which melodies form the staple as the highest development of music.

"Melodies," he exclaimed, "are mere twaddle. We have long since done with them here. You miss the chief delight of music, if, for instance, in the case of a ballad, whose every verse and every line conveys some different idea, you sing all of them to one unvarying tune; and as a rule you can only hear the tune, and not the words, when it is sung. Pshaw!" he said, "leave tunes to children and fools and cultivate that higher style of art where every note has its meaning, every cadence and every chord expresses an idea, an emotion or a scientific fact; where, in short, the notes are the words, a language of sweet sounds."

I could not altogether share the enthusiasm of the orator, and often, after a seance, when I had listened to the finest outpouring of this highly-finished and scientific music, I longed for some of the sweet melodies of my native land, and could even enjoy the meaningless dance-tunes of the evening assemblies. Just as one does not like to go about always on stilts, so one ​wearies sometimes of hating one's mind always strung up to the concert pitch of the abstractly sublime and beautiful. However, it was sheer heresy to utter a word against the infinite superiority of the musical oratory of the Colymbians over all the melody-music of past times. So, to avoid incurring the contempt of my new friends, I pretended to acquiesce in the assertion of the utterly despicable character of any music with a tune in it.

It is a rule I have made to myself, never to differ from an enthusiast unless I wish to make him angry and quarrel with him; and as I had no desire to do so in the present instance, I kept my opinions to myself, and listened to the musical fanatic with the utmost deference.

HIEROGLYPHICS AND TRANSCENDENTAL GEOGRAPHY.

EDUCATION is pretty generally diffused among the Colymbians, but, of course, all classes are not educated alike. There are schools for the masses where the language, writing, arithmetic and sundry useful arts are taught. As all the places under Government, except the chief offices of state, are obtained by competitive examination, the education of the young men of the upper ranks, among whom places under Government are the great objects of ambition, is, as a rule, very sedulously carried out; but the branches of knowledge taught are chiefly those which form the subjects of examination.

Now, though the employments under Government are of the most varied sorts, requiring, one would think, a different education for each office, I found that the examinations for all are nearly identical. Whatever the office, whether it be a simple clerkship, a secretaryship, an appointment as an inspector of light, air, drainage or police, as a lawyer or an instructor, the main subject on which candidates are examined is the hieroglyphical writing on the monuments and in the ancient documents of the land.

​I was unable to discover that a knowledge of the hieroglyphical writing would ever be of any use to the candidates after they had obtained the office they desired. I was told that no useful information whatever could be got from the writing, that it mostly consisted of absurd myths and incredible fables and displayed an almost total unacquaintance with the simplest and best known physical facts. Yet, notwithstanding this, it was held that every person who aspired to a place under Government should show a tolerable acquaintance with the hieroglyphics, and give proof that he had wasted some years of his life in their study.

The colleges where these hieroglyphics are taught, are frankly denominated "Seminaries of Useless Knowledge," and it is generally believed that the acquirement of this useless knowledge is an excellent thing for exercising and opening the mind, and especially that it distinguishes the gentleman from the common herd.

When I ventured to express a mild doubt as to the expediency of devoting so much time to the acquisition of this useless knowledge, I was immediately met with the unanswerable argument that experience had shown that it expanded the intellect, led to habits of industry and application and enabled him who had been thoroughly grounded in it to acquire thereafter all the branches of mere utilitarian knowledge with the utmost facility. In short, I found the prejudice in favour of hieroglyphics so strong, that it almost seemed to be thought that if the study of hieroglyphics were done away with, the race would incontinently lapse into barbarism.

As it would have done no good to run counter to the settled prejudices of the natives, I did not attempt ​to argue the point, but merely mentally registered the partiality for hieroglyphics as another of the eccentricities of this singular people.

Besides this useless knowledge, the young men are well instructed in natural science, mechanics, chemistry, music and the fine arts.

Music especially, as might have been expected, is thoroughly taught. All who wish to qualify themselves for the higher offices in the legislature or under Government, are well grounded in the intricacies of counter-point, for without a professional knowledge of this, it is impossible to attain a distinguished place in the state or even in society.

Another subject of study, or branch of learning, which is even more generally taught and diffused than any of those I have mentioned, is what goes by the name of "transcendental geography."

The professors of this science are taught in special colleges, in which they obtain diplomas which entitle them to teach the science to others. All ranks and both sexes are expected to acquire a smattering of this science, and there are vast halls where large numbers periodically assemble for instruction therein. This is a science which is cultivated during the whole period of life. No one is deemed to be able to acquire it thoroughly, for all are expected to attend the periodical lectures on it up to the remotest term of life. And yet it seemed to me that all that could be learnt about it might well have been taught in a few lessons. Still it is the established custom of the country to attend the lectures delivered at stated periods, from early youth to extreme old age. None seem to think that they can ever have too much of transcendental geography.

​It was a considerable time ere I could make out precisely what was taught under this high-sounding name. Indeed the bases of the science do not seem to be very clearly defined, as its principles are couched in such vague and hazy language that they are susceptible of very different explanations, and it is seldom that any two professors agree in their interpretation. Indeed there are endless disputations and discussions among themselves with regard to the very first principles of the science. All contend that a knowledge of transcendental geography is essential for every one, that by it alone can society be held together and kept in the right direction, that without it the bonds of society would be loosened and universal confusion ensue.

The common points of agreement among the professors seem to be these. There exists somewhere—but as no one had ever been there, so no one affected to know where—a vast country, whither all Colymbians would some day go provided they had accurate views respecting the said country. But, as no Colymbian had ever, as far as is known, gone thither, it seems to me that none have fulfilled the primary condition of having a perfect knowledge of it. Opinions vary as to the physical characters of this unknown country, and still more as to the character of its supposed inhabitants and the form of government that obtains there. And yet it is thought indispensable that they should frame their own conduct on the supposed conduct of the inhabitants of this unknown country, and act in conformity with the wishes of its ruler or rulers.

There are certain old books supposed to have been written by persons who had peculiar opportunities of obtaining an insight into the way of life in this terra ​incognita and into the wishes of its ruler. But the language of these old books is extremely vague, and often quite contradictory; and even when any distinct intimation of the practices of the unknown people is given, they are obviously so utterly unsuited to the circumstances of the Colymbians, that any imitation of them would be impossible or, at least, very undesirable. So that these books, though theoretically held to be authoritative, are practically discarded, and each professor excogitates for himself a line of conduct which he boldly asserts is pleasing to the ruler of the unknown country, and which is more or less in conformity with the habits of his audience, though it bears no sort of resemblance to, any thing the books tell about the customs of the unknown land, nay, is sometimes the exact opposite of these.

It was, indeed, no easy matter to adapt rules of life framed for a terrestrial people to the regulation of the conduct of an aquatic race. Thus, for example, one of the best authenticated customs of the unknown country is the wearing of long flowing robes, but it is impossible to wear such robes in the water with any comfort. The difficulty is usually evaded by saying that the wearing of long robes is only to be understood "figuratively;" and, indeed, this term is employed to smooth many other difficulties in the teaching of transcendental geography. Whenever a habit of the unknown people is inapplicable to the circumstances of the Colymbians, the professors generally tell their hearers that it is to be understood "figuratively," and that they are to imitate the custom in a "figurative" manner. I am not aware that they or their hearers usually attach any precise meaning to the expression "figuratively," but the use of it ​seems to be a ready method of reconciling all inconsistencies and contradictions between the customs and fashions of the unknown people and their would-be imitators, and it serves the great bulk of the professors with a facile solution of the difficulty.

Some few professors will not adopt this solution, but insist on their disciples imitating literally the customs of the unknown people. These persons are regarded by the general community as eccentric fanatics and not quite right in the head. I don't know in what else they try to conform to the customs of the unknown people, but I know that they wear long flowing robes which have an exceedingly droll and awkward appearance in the water.

The ancient books contain a large number of maxims, as the professors call them, but which seemed to me rather to deserve the name of truisms, which the professors say are peculiar to transcendental geography, and would never have been known had it not been for the books. No professor ever quotes any of these maxims without claiming for them an exclusively transcendental character. I may mention a few of these sayings, which the reader will perceive are of the tritest character, "The whole is greater than a part;" "No one can be in two places at the same time" (they were not as far advanced as our legislator who felicitously added, "unless he is a bird"); "A small loaf is better than no bread." Some of the maxims are not applicable to aquatic life, such as:—"If you try to sit between two stools you will fall to the ground;" "Spur not the willing horse." Many more I could enumerate, but these will suffice. The professors are hard put to it to adapt such sayings to Colymbian audiences, as the Colymbians do not sit ​on stools or ride on horses. They have to fall back on the "figurative" sense in which they allege them to be used in the books.

The books likewise contain sundry precepts of the same trite character, as: "Do not play with sharp-edged tools;" "Do not say or do anything to annoy others;" "Do not eat more than is good for you," and so on.

Once when a professor was vaunting the eminently transcendental character of these maxims and precepts, I ventured to remark that precisely the same maxims and precepts were to be met with in all terrestrial countries, and that I believed they were merely the expression of the common sense of all mankind. But he was thoroughly persuaded that mankind could not have found them out for themselves, and that they must first have been taught them by the ancient books. Without denying that they existed among terrestrial communities, he inferred from that very circumstance that at some remote period a transcendental professor had by some means or other been conveyed to a terrestrial country and had taught the inhabitants some of the wisdom of transcendental geography.

Some of the precepts of the ancient books are quite opposed to the habits of the Colymbians, and even to the doctrines inculcated by the professors. Thus, the books said, that if your enemy kicked you on one shin, you were to present him the other shin to be similarly kicked; and if a pickpocket emptied the contents of one of your pockets, you were at once to offer him the contents of the other pocket. Now, Colymbians of all classes, I observed, kicked those who kicked them, and punished those whom they detected stealing from them; and the professors themselves invariably acted in this way. When I called the attention of one of ​the latter to the apparent opposition of the practice to the precept, he denied that there was any opposition; it was only because my defective transcendental education disabled me from perceiving the perfect agreement between the precepts of the books and the practice of their interpreters. When my transcendental education was complete, he observed, I should be able to see the harmony of the books' precepts with the doctrines and practice of the professors. I felt that my transcendental education was still very far from perfect.

The books convey but little information respecting the physical geography of the unknown country, so little can be said about it; but the professors consider themselves perfectly free to discourse at any length on its metaphysical geography, for an account of which they make large draughts on their imagination; and as it is entirely a matter of fancy, the descriptions of the professors differ infinitely among one another and are often mutually contradictory. But this does, not seem to create any perplexity in their hearers' minds.

It is evident that the latitude the generality of the professors allow themselves in the interpretation of the records of the unknown country, enables them to vary their lectures ad infinitum. In fact, the subject of transcendental geography is used by many merely as a peg to hang all sorts of theories upon; an excuse for inculcating all the notions of the individual lecturer on morality, education, politics, science, or anything else equally irrelevant. Hence, probably, the reason why people can go on year after year nominally attending lectures on transcendental geography, while really they are listening to the views ​of a more or less intelligent and eloquent man on all possible subjects.

Although the Colymbians are such sticklers for the teaching of transcendental geography, I could not observe that the science exercised the slightest influence on their actions or dealings with one another. I found among my acquaintances several who declared the unknown country, which formed the theme of the transcendental geographers, to have no existence; or, if it had, that no human being knew anything about it, or could tell what were the manners and customs of the inhabitants or the form of their government. And yet the mode of life and behaviour under all circumstances of these anti-transcendentalists differed in no appreciable manner from those of the transcendentalists.

I noticed, to be sure, that transcendental geography sometimes produced an effect on the phraseology of its more enthusiastic votaries. One could never be long in their company without hearing some reference to the unknown country, and they were in the habit of rebuking actions they did not approve of by saying, "that is not according to the manners of the unknown people," just as we sometimes say when a person makes a false reckoning, "That's not according to Cocker."

The chief visible effect produced on the Colymbians by their transcendental geography is the singular custom of its professors in always wearing, day and night, a very stiff collar of green-tinted shark's skin, which is certainly not becoming, and must be particularly inconvenient in the conditions of their life. But the wearers evidently attach a high value to this collar, and would not part with it on any account, ​even if they could, which is doubtful, for the collars are fixed in such a firm manner round their throats, that it would be impossible to remove them without utterly destroying them.

These collars they obtain at the colleges of transcendental geography after a very severe examination, which, as is invariably the case with all examinations here under Government control, as this is, is principally on the hieroglyphics and scarcely touches on geography. Along with the collar the successful candidates obtain the title of "Transcendental," as an affix to their name, and of this they are vastly proud. In fact, with their collar and their title they seemed to me to consider themselves, and are regarded by some of their hearers, as beings of a superior race to all not so decorated. Some of the men of Colymbia, moved doubtless by envy at the prestige given to the professors, and believing it was due more to the collar they wore than to the subject they professed, endeavoured to get up an agitation in order to induce the legislature to pass a kind of sumptuary law, compelling the transcendental professors to discard their green collars which gave them an unfair advantage in general society, or at least to confine the wearing of it to the actual time when they were engaged in lecturing. But this move failed most signally, as it was easily to be foreseen it would, and the consequence was that the collars of the professors became greener, higher and stiffer than ever, to the disgust of their opponents, and to the great discomfort of the wearers, who, however, bore their sufferings with fortitude as they saw the annoyance they caused their enemies.

The young men of my acquaintance mostly exhibited a remarkable reluctance to talk about transcendental ​geography, which, however, they must have studied for many years, for some of them still attended, with surprising regularity, £he periodical, lectures on the subject. When I pressed them on the point, they either gave me an astonished stare, as if to express their amazement that I could trouble myself about it, or they would say, "As it was no concern of theirs, they did not profess to understand it." Some would admit in confidence that they did not derive the slightest benefit from the constant instruction given in transcendental geography; but they were, notwithstanding, strong advocates for its retention as a branch of general education, for they were convinced it did a great deal of good to their neighbours, and especially to those who were but scantily educated in other matters. As for themselves, though it could do them no good, they attended the lectures regularly, by way of example, pour encourager les autres.

I encountered few enthusiasts for the science among my male friends, excepting always the professors themselves; but many of the ladies are very zealous for the diffusion of a knowledge of transcendental geography, and some even assist the public labours of the professors by their own private efforts.

It seemed to me that the ladies who chiefly occupied themselves in this manner were seldom very young, and, if young, were rarely among the best-looking. I observed that they did not frequent the gyrating assemblies, which I imagined might be due to their having little chance of being selected as partners by the young men, among their prettier and more graceful female companions. But I was mistaken, for one of them assured me it was entirely by their own choice that they eschewed these frivolous assemblies, as she ​called them, and devoted themselves to the diffusion of a knowledge of transcendental geography.

"Indeed," she added, "the study of this noble science is so fascinating, that it takes away all desire for those amusements and occupations in which the generality of mankind waste so much precious time."

I thought that time could not be so very precious to those who spent it in the acquisition and propagation of such a very useless science as transcendental geography, but I did not say so for fear of offending her. If only, I thought, I could persuade her and others to leave this absurd pseudo-science alone, and study the tenets and elevating teachings of the Church of England, how much more profitably their time y would be occupied!

I occasionally went to hear some of the most celebrated professors of transcendental geography lecture in the great halls I have before alluded to. These lectures were delivered in the musical language employed by other lecturers and public speakers, but it struck me that the music was generally of a dull character, and the audience were seldom roused to the pitch of excitement and interest they displayed when they were addressed by other lecturers. In fact, the majority seemed rather bored than interested, and many would fall asleep during the delivery of the lecture. All appeared relieved when it came to an end. They seemed, in fact, to attend the lectures as a sort of duty, and were glad when it was over.

After the first emotions of surprise and curiosity had subsided, I found these everlasting dissertations on a country and people of which, if they had any real existence, the speakers could know nothing at all, insufferably dull, and I wondered what could induce this ​intelligent people to crowd these halls each time a professor of transcendental geography held forth.

On inquiry, I ascertained that few of the audience were attracted by the interest of the subject, but almost all attended the lectures because it was considered the correct thing to do so, because others did so, because they met their friends and acquaintances there, with whom they could make arrangements for future pleasure parties, or interchange ideas concerning literature, art or politics, or indulge in gossip and sprightly conversation, or even carry on flirtations after the lecture was over.

Many of the professors themselves seemed to dismiss all thought of the matter from their minds as soon as the lecture was over, and would engage in conversation on other subjects, or in the diversions of society just like ordinary mortals; so that, except by the everlasting green collar, they were not to be distinguished from other people.

I never could ascertain what connexion this green shark's-skin adornment had with the subject of their teaching. They certainly had no reason to suppose that the inhabitants of the unknown country wore green collars. In fact, when they attempted to describe the dress worn in that country, no mention was made of a collar of any kind; on the contrary, the throat was said to be destitute of any covering whatsoever, and was always so depicted in the pictorial representations of the unknown people, and green was precisely the colour which was universally held to be peculiarly distasteful to the ruler of the unknown country; moreover sharks, which were the greatest terror of the Colymbians, were, in all the teachings of the professors, said to have no existence in the ​unknown country. So that the wearing of green shark's-skin collars by the professors of transcendental geography was one of those anomalies of which I found so many examples among the Colymbians.

The evidence in support of the reality of the unknown country and of everything relating to it being so slight, the accounts of it in the old books being so vague and contradictory, and the principles of transcendental geography being so deficient in precision and definiteness, the professors differ very much among themselves as to almost all matters connected with the subject. In fact, they often hold and teach precisely opposite views.

There is no board or council connected with the Colleges of Transcendental Geography to whom disputed points can be referred. The highest legal authority—which, by the way, knows nothing of transcendental geography—is alone entitled to decide what is correct teaching—what incorrect. Accordingly, when one professor disapproves of the teaching of another professor, he is at liberty to cite his colleague before the legal tribunal in order to obtain a decision as to the correctness of the matter taught.

A case of this sort occurred during my residence in Colymbia. A professor of transcendental geography had publicly taught that the inhabitants of the unknown country were not of terrestrial habits, as had been usually believed, but inhabited the water like the Colymbians. The chief force of his argument lay in this: that as life in the unknown country was universally acknowledged to be an advance on life here, and as the aquatic habits of the Colymbians were without doubt and by general agreement allowed to be a far higher state of being than life on land, it ​followed that the unknown people, if superior to us, could not be subjected to the inferior terrestrial life, above which the Colymbians had risen. Therefore, the unknown people must be denizens of the water like themselves, and all the references in the books to terrestrial life must be understood in a non-natural sense and as mere metaphors and figures of speech.

That the books said nothing about the aquatic habits of the unknown people was evidently owing to this, that they were written at a time when, and given to a people of terrestrial habits to whom an aquatic life was unknown and to whom a description of aquatic habits would have been incomprehensible. That the language of the books was therefore adapted to the limited intelligence and ignorance of these first recipients; but that it was for the Colymbians to reconcile the descriptions of the books with the habits and customs of the superior beings who lived in water, and to cease to represent the unknowns—who were confessedly their superiors—as bound to the inferior mode of life on land the Colymbians had long ago abandoned.

This doctrine, enforced with a degree of eloquence unusual among professors of transcendental geography, proved very attractive to the Colymbians, and the professor had a great many followers among the people, and even brought several other professors over to his mode of thinking.

The teachers of the old doctrine got alarmed at this; and, with the view of stopping the teaching of the audacious innovator, they cited him before the highest legal tribunal of the country.

The learned pundits of the law laid their heads together, pottered over the books for what seemed an unconscionably long time, comparing the new doctrine ​taught with the ancient documents before them, and at length delivered judgment in the following terms:—

"The matters to which the implicated doctrines relate are confessedly not comprehensible, or very imperfectly comprehensible, by the human understanding; the province of reasoning as applied to them is therefore very limited, and the terms employed have not, and cannot have, that precision of meaning which the character of the argument demands;—therefore, the defendant is at liberty to maintain that the habits of the unknown people are aquatic, for though the books nowhere say they are, it is equally certain that they nowhere say they are not."

This judgment created quite a consternation among the conservative party, and did not please the innovators, who half expected that their novel views would have been authoritatively declared to be the only sound ones, the only ones in consonance at once with the ancient books and with the spirit of the age. The general dissatisfaction that prevailed after the declaration of this judgment convinced me that the professors did not value the perfect liberty accorded to them of teaching their own views unless it were accompanied by the right to impose them on their neighbours.

One remarkable feature about transcendental geography is the opinion obstinately held by the professors and their most zealous partisans, that all the education of the country ought to be confided to the professors of transcendental geography only. Now, though the principles of this science are, if not exactly antagonistic, certainly extremely unlike any that regulate the exact and natural sciences, still these curious people hold ​that mathematics, natural history, and even the elementary branches of knowledge, as reading, writing, arithmetic, and the hieroglyphical language, can only he correctly and safely taught by those who are thoroughly conversant with transcendental geography.

At one time, it appears, all the teaching of the country was in their hands, and every branch of knowledge was imparted to the youth accompanied by a strong dose of the transcendental science. But it gradually became apparent that these branches of useful knowledge were very imperfectly taught by them, and that everything that seemed in any way opposed to, or could lead to a doubt of the truth of, transcendental geography, was not taught at all. So that what was actually taught was not up to the mark of the real progress of those who cultivated the exact and natural sciences unhampered by transcendentalism.

Such being the case, the education of the young was taken out of the hands of the transcendental geographers, and entrusted more and more to instructors who had not graduated at the transcendental colleges. But this change was not accomplished without a severe struggle, and the transcendentalists and their partisans never ceased to lament the change, and every now and then made efforts to regain the sole control of education.

They predicted the direst calamities to the state from the practical separation of education from transcendentalism, contending that it would lead to the ruin of the moral and material welfare of the people. That the general intelligence and even the morality, had palpably gained by the separation, did not reconcile them to it. On the contrary, they denounced the ​progress that had been made, and affirmed, with truth, that the estimation of transcendental geography had declined in at least equal proportion. This was freely acknowledged by their opponents, who had the cruelty to insinuate that this was all the better for the people.

Hence it came to pass that the community was divided into two great parties, called the positivists and the transcendentalists; the former contending that positive science was alone advantageous; while the latter affected to sneer at positive science, alleging that transcendental geography was the only knowledge really useful to mankind.

So bitter did the controversy become, that the transcendentalists took every opportunity of denouncing positive science, and the positivists were not slow in assuming an attitude of unmitigated hostility to transcendental geography, which they affirmed to be a false science, quite unfitted for the wants of the actual condition of society.

EVOLUTION AND PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT.

MY young friend Julian, who, as I have intimated, took a great fancy to me, and whose friendly feelings I reciprocated, besides being an adept at all the amusements and games which occupied so much of the time of the young folks, was very well informed, had read much, and was as familiar with the manners and customs of my dear native land as though he had lived there for years. And yet he had never quitted Colymbia, and did not go ashore once in a twelve-month. In fact, it is not considered "the thing" among the genteel classes to quit the water at all, and any one whose occupation takes him much out of the water rather loses caste among his fashionable friends, and is looked on as decidedly vulgar.

Julian had very advanced views in biology, was an enthusiast for the evolution of species, and thoroughly believed in the continuous advance towards perfection of the human race. He looked on the Colymbians as the most advanced of human beings, and as immeasurably superior to any of the terrestrial inhabitants of the globe.

I could not always agree with him on this point, as the prejudices of my education stood in the way of my regarding the aquatic life of my new friends as ​altogether an improvement on the terrestrial life to which I had been accustomed. Thus it happened that we often had conversations about the relative advantages of the aquatic and terrestrial modes of existence. He would wonder at my preference for our English ways, and would hold forth in something like the following strain:—

"If you consider the structure of the human body, you must allow that it is but ill-adapted for terrestrial life. The smooth hairless skin is so unfitted for exposure to the sun and air, that if you would go about in the air with any comfort, you must cover yourself from head to foot with clothes. Now, these clothes, with their ligatures and fastenings, never fit like the woolly or hairy covering of the brutes; they not only hinder the free play of your muscles, but they cramp and distort the body and limbs out of all their natural proportions. Your tailors, milliners, shoemakers and other providers of clothing have so acted on your frames that your bodies are squeezed in at the waist to the extent of deformity; the various organs of the body are displaced or impeded in their proper functions, and you suffer from innumerable diseases, all occasioned by the pressure of your weight of garments. Your feet are so cramped by the hard leather boots you wear, that the toes soon lose all their natural play, and put you to constant torture, owing to the callosities and distortions they contract from wearing such irrational coverings. Your hats, too, are the cause of perpetual head-aches, loss of hair and congestion of the brain. In short, clothes are the producers of so much misery and ill-health, that it is evident man was never intended by nature to wear them. And yet you cannot exist in the air without them!

​"Look, now, how different it is when you live in the water! Clothes here would be not only useless but could not be worn. The body and limbs have therefore perfect liberty to develope themselves to the utmost degree of perfection, and you see what beauty of form prevails here. No deformed limbs, no crooked backs, no dyspepsia, no disturbance of the functions of any of the organs are to be found in this subaqueous abode. The smooth hairless skin is eminently fitted for gliding uninterruptedly through the water; the equable pressure of the fluid medium in which we float renders it a matter of perfect indifference whether our head or our heels are uppermost. The suspension of the laws of gravitation for us when we inhabit a medium of the same specific gravity as our own bodies, enables us to use our limbs entirely for the purpose of working, moving about or engaging in our games and sports.

"How different is it when we live in the air! There, in order to avoid a rush of blood to the head, we must raise ourselves on our legs, and at every step we have to carry forward the whole dead weight of our body, whereby fatigue is soon produced. Then, on land, the least exertion causes us to perspire, and we must be perpetually drinking to supply the waste of fluids thereby produced. Rest is impossible unless we throw the whole weight of our body on to such contrivances as chairs or couches. In short, life on land is a mere burden.

"Whereas here, we have no sense of fatigue except what is produced by the excessive action of our limbs, and we obtain rest and refreshment by merely ceasing to move them. Diseases which, on land, are mostly produced by the excessive labour of carrying about your heavy bodies encumbered by a mass of heavy ​garments, or by the disastrous pressure of the clothes, which cannot be worn without tight ligatures, or by the mere want of use of the muscles of the body and limbs, owing to the hindrances to free motion these clothes offer,—diseases, I say, are almost entirely unknown here, and we read with astonishment of the multitude of doctors needed in every community of terrestrial mortals.

"And then, consider the expedients you are obliged to adopt on land to obviate the disadvantages under which you labour. When you wish to travel any distance, you must employ horses, carriages or steam-engines, and all this because the burden of your own weight is too great for you; and you must always take along with you great boxes full of clothes. For purposes of locomotion, your erect posture, whereby you have the use of only two limbs, puts you at a disadvantage compared with the lowest class of animals, which have all at least four limbs that they can use for progressive motion, and for supporting the weight of the body. On land, man is inferior, as regards his power of moving, to the horse, the dog, the deer, and even those contemptible animals the hare and the rabbit. These animals, too, have all a special covering of wool or hair that fits them for life in the air, and does not interfere with the play of their muscles or obstruct the action of their organs, like your artificial covering of clothes.

"On the other hand, in water man has no superior, nor even an equal among the lower animals, as far as locomotion is concerned. The long leverage of his arms and the powerful thrust of his legs enable him to excel the seal in speed as well as in all the subtler evolutions that he can perform in the water.

​"When you terrestrials do go into the water you imitate the dog or the horse and swim with your heads above the water, whereby you lose all the advantage for aquatic life your physical construction gives you over these animals.

"The structure and shape of your limbs, of your hands and your feet, show that you were intended not for walking—which you do awkwardly and insecurely on two limbs only—but for swimming; and that not on the surface like a dog or a duck, but below the water like a seal. Look at your broad flat palms, and the fingers capable of being so approximated as to give you precisely the flipper of the seal with the additional advantage of a long lever in the arm. How unlike a dog, whose mode of swimming you yet imitate! He has a narrow paw, incapable of offering any great resistance to the water.

"Then look at your foot, so ill adapted for walking that you have to cover it with stout leather to prevent it being cut to pieces by the ground you walk on; but so admirably fitted for propelling you in the water, whilst its curved and arched back offers the least resistance to the water when you draw up your leg towards your body in swimming, preparatory to striking out again.

"Your physiologists pretend to derive the human race from those hideous monsters, the apes; but some of the most sagacious among them are forced to acknowledge that man shows signs of having been derived from a marine ancestor. How it has escaped them that we must have a common ancestor with the seal, I know not. And yet it is a well-ascertained fact that the brain of a seal in size and general appearance more nearly resembles that of man than ​does the brain of any other animal; and look at the position and appearance of a seal's head when he comes to the surface of the water: can anything more closely resemble the head of a man in like circumstances? You would almost swear it was a human head at the first glance, so round, so elegantly poised on the shoulders, so intelligent-looking, with its large soft eye, and its high broad forehead. And then its voice, which you call a bark, but which is actually the rudiment of the human voice, uttering the first two syllables that children emit, "Mama!" with such distinctness that your ignorant showmen call it the "talking fish." Your men of science may tell you that you descend from monkeys, but I range myself with those who maintain our descent from the seal.

"You terrestrials have never yet been able to understand the use of the spleen; and, indeed, in your aerial life it is of no use at all, except to swell and get painful when you have the ague: it can even be entirely removed without injury to the terrestrial animal. But, if you ask our anatomists, they will tell you that it is of the greatest utility to a lung-breathing animal below the water, for it acts as a receptacle for a large supply of oxygenated blood, to enable us to exist for a longer time submerged, without breathing, than we otherwise could. Of course, as you terrestrials never make any use of it, it degenerates with you to a mere rudimentary organ; but after you have passed some years in the water, you will find that it has gradually regained the function it had lost by long disuse, and you will find that it will enable you to exist a considerable length of time under water without the need of air.

"Another proof of our aquatic origin is afforded by ​the physiological fact, that a certain and constant proportion of children are born with two or more fingers or toes joined together by a web, as in the seal. This is regarded by our physiologists as an instance of 'atavism,' or the reproduction in a descendant of a feature or organ peculiar to a remote ancestor."

I inquired if it would not be desirable, considering the medium they inhabited, that the race of web handed or footed children should alone be preserved, as they might in turn propagate and develop this peculiarity, so that ultimately the whole population might become provided with fins, in place of hands and feet. Of course, I merely meant this as persiflage, but he replied very seriously,—

"No, we do not wish to see a recrudescence of the organs which denote an inferior animal nature; and it is doubtful if we could ever perpetuate or redevelop in the more perfect being an organ which indicates an inferior grade. For though, doubtless, our fingers and toes if webbed would be more powerful swimming organs than they are, still, the separation of the fingers and toes has been necessitated by the other uses we have acquired for them, and we should not wish to sacrifice their utility in the higher manifestations of muscular movement in order that they might be more fitted for a lower such manifestation. I only mentioned the fact of the constant recurrence of this peculiarity among human beings to prove to you our common origin with seals."

"Or fishes?" I remarked.

"Well, you may say fishes; but that is a further remove, for we should require to trace ourselves through reptiles back to the piscine order.

​"Many other circumstances," he continued, "I could adduce to prove to you the community of our origin with aquatic mammalia, but I fear to fatigue you. Thus, when a child is born into the air, it screams with pain and fright, in consequence of entering at once a medium unsuited to its nature. Now, when it is born in water, it shows none of these signs of distress, but continues tranquilly the same sort of existence it had in its mother. It is gradually and quietly taught to use its lungs, without that shock to its system which in air often proves fatal to its tender life. You have, in your own person, experienced the facility with which, when circumstances require it, the power of closing the nostrils by voluntary muscular action, as seals do, is acquired, proving that this is no new faculty, but simply the revival of one which had become obsolete from there being no occasion for it as long as you lived in air.

"In your own part of the world, some of the most ancient inhabitants are shown by their remains to have constructed their dwellings in large lakes. These lacustrine people were, doubtless, the first in descent from the truly aquatic animal the human race sprang from, who, because they inhabited a region too cold to allow them to remain altogether in the water, still retained somewhat of the aquatic habits of their ancestor, and so lived an amphibious life, partly on the land and partly in the water.

"In short," he concluded, "it is obvious that man was never intended to pass his life in the air, where he is the inferior of almost all those he is pleased to call the lower animals. The water is his proper element, and there alone can he assert and prove his superiority to the brute creation, and develop in ​perfection those faculties of his body with which nature has so liberally endowed him."

I should have had no great difficulty in refuting these gross sophisms, but my experience of Colymbians had taught me that they were singularly intolerant of opposition; that, unlike the true philosophers of my native country, they preferred their system to truth, and disliked those who produced facts that militated against their theories. As I did not wish to forfeit the friendship of my young companion, I left his bundle of arguments unanswered, and merely ventured to hint that, though an aquatic life was possible and perhaps even desirable in these tropical regions where the temperature of the water was high, yet it was not practicable in higher latitudes where the water was so cold that it would rapidly abstract all the heat of the body, and any one who attempted to live in the water must soon perish from the mere abstraction of his animal heat.

"I grant," he said, "that at present such would be the case. But, no doubt, the ingenuity of man is equal to the task of finding some method of warming the water sufficiently to enable him to live in it in comfort, even in the highest latitudes.

"But supposing you are not ripe for such an invention yet, why not come and live where the water is always warm enough for you? There are millions of square miles of warm sea in the tropics, which could easily contain the whole human race. Before these are fully peopled, I have not a doubt that a method of heating the colder water will be discovered. Your objection reminds me of the cry of alarm lately raised in your country about the imminent exhaustion of your coal, when you had still remaining a supply for ​some thousands of years. It is not only probable, but certain, that long before your coal seams are exhausted, some discovery will be made which will enable you to do without coal altogether. When you have filled all the warm seas, depend on it the secret of living comfortably in the colder will assuredly be found."

"At all events," said I, "you will grant that by living entirely under the water, you are almost altogether deprived of the charm of the human voice."

"Stop!" he interrupted, "charm, do you call it? You know very well that for one human voice it is pleasant to listen to there are fifty one would rather not hear, on account of their harshness, their want of modulation, their deficiency in musical timbre or other defects. Besides, we may hear our friends' voices as often as we please, without coming to the surface, by merely putting our heads into the air-reservoir at the top of every room. I consider the absence of disagreeable voices one of the chief charms of subaqueous existence."

"Well," I observed, "it may be owing to the prejudices of my education; but I confess to a great love of the human voice, and would rather hear what you call harsh and unmelodious voices than none at all."

"Tastes differ," he replied; "perhaps the extreme length to which our musical education is carried makes us fastidious and intolerant of all unmusical sounds. But to come to another point; look at your system of marriage and compare it with ours. You rightly say marriage is a lottery, for you know not what kind of person you are marrying, as you have never seen her for her clothes; and these clothes are employed to hide the defects and deformities they have themselves ​occasioned. I read that your millinery and tailors have arrived at such a degree of perfection in their art, that they are able, with tight lacing and padding, to make the most ungainly and ill-fashioned figure assume all the appearance of perfect symmetry of form; and I further read, that any kind of complexion and colour of hair may be obtained; that false hair, false eyebrows, false eyes, false teeth, false noses, and false ears, not to mention false arms and legs, are to be had of such surprising naturalness that they cannot be detected. In short, any deceit may be practised in air, but water is incapable of lending itself to such cheats. Here everything is what it seems—our hair and our complexions, our limbs and our other organs, are all our own. Every one is as the hand of nature has fashioned him or her. I can imagine a couple of terrestrials being entrapped into mutual admiration by the beautifying arts of your tailors, milliners, hair-dressers and dealers in cosmetics. And when they got married they would find to their chagrin, that it was not one another they admired, but only clothes and wigs, padding, rouge and powder! When, on the blissful hymeneal evening, monsieur and madame came to unrobe, they would eye one another's movements with the most intense disgust, if not with astonishment. Those coal-black Hyperion curls of monsieur are removed, and a bald or grizzled head exposed to view. Madame takes out a few pins, and lo! the rich fleece of golden tresses falls to the ground. Monsieur doffs his coat and madame sees that those broad and symmetrical shoulders she so admired were only padding. Madame washes her face, and the exquisite red and white complexion changes, as if by ​magic, to a sallow hue. Bit by bit, the adventitious graces are laid aside, until at last the fond couple are revealed to one another in their true shape and ugliness. I can imagine them saying to one another, 'Oh! Augustus, I did not expect to see you like that!' and 'Ah, Julia! I admired you so much, and what a fright you are!' And then, as if to crown your absurdity, you make the marriage contract a life affair. You don't know what sort of creature you are marrying, and yet you bind yourselves to one another for life! You have an expression, 'buying a pig in a poke,' and I think your matrimonial affairs must be good illustrations of this curious mercantile transaction. In many cases you must get very little pig and a great deal of poke."

I felt a shudder run through me to hear the divine institution of marriage thus ridiculed by this sneering infidel, and said in as severe a manner as I could assume:—

"Forbear to ridicule an institution you are incapable of understanding, being destitute of all religion. If you had had the privilege I have enjoyed of being born and bred in a country that possesses a national Church, such as ours of England is, you would have been able to appreciate the sanctity of marriage, and to have understood how advantageous, nay, how necessary it is for the good of the community, that couples, however unsuited they may be to each other, and however miserable they may make one another, should be bound together for the whole term of their natural lives, and be unable to untie the knot that binds them together without committing an offence that shall ever afterwards exclude them from all respectable society."

​"Well," he returned, "I own I am incapable of seeing the excellence of your system, and I think the Church must indeed possess miraculous powers, if it convinces you of the necessity, or even expediency, of making the marriages of ill-assorted couples indissoluble. I am sure you never could persuade our Colymbians of your superiority in this respect."

"I have little doubt of being able to do so," I replied, "if your benighted countrymen would accept the religion and submit to the mild sway of the Church of England—the purest and best of Christian Churches."

I will not record the contemptuous manner in which Julian talked of our venerable ecclesiastical establishment; but though I felt extremely annoyed by his remarks, I made allowances for him, as he was, with all his civilization, learning and refinement, nothing but a heathen.

He soon returned to his favourite theme of vaunting the superiority of Colymbian ways and institutions over those of all the world besides; not excepting those of the unknown country, which were held by most of his countrymen to be the model for universal imitation. He was a positivist and concerned himself only with things that could be seen or proved, and therefore he thought very little of transcendental geography, which he said might be good enough for the lower classes and for women, but was not worthy the attention of a man of sense.

"I am surprised," he continued, "that you do not see the great superiority of the Colymbian institutions in regard to the relation of the sexes. Here, when a man and a woman take a fancy to one another, they know exactly with what and with whom they fall in ​love. It is not a bundle of clothes, nor a wig, nor padding they adore; it is the actual man and the actual woman such as nature has made them, undisguised by any clothes-maker's art. Our marriages are merely engagements we enter into, to live with one another just as long as we find it agreeable to do so. We would all scout the idea of being obliged to live together for ever, even though we should make one another's lives wretched by reason of incompatablity of temper, of incongruous tastes, or some new inclination. Marriage with you, being a life-long contract, is accompanied by solemn ceremonies, much fuss, and the giving of handsome presents, by way of gilding the bitter pill. But with us marriage is an affair that only concerns the parties married. We would no more think of making it an occasion for festivities and rejoicings, public or private, than we would the purchase of a new book or the introduction to a new friend. And yet, I'll be bound, there are more happy and contented couples among us than there are among you. The very knowledge that their contract can be dissolved at any minute, keeps those who really love one another on better behaviour towards one another, and makes them mutually forbearing and tolerant of one another's little peculiarities. A brutal husband and a nagging wife are characters quite unknown here. No man will be cruel to a woman who can leave him when she chooses, nor would any woman submit to brutality when she can so easily avoid it. No woman who loves a man would alienate his affection by nagging, unless she had the assurance that no amount of nagging would justify him in leaving her. Marriage is such a purely individual affair here, that, in the case of some of our friends who are hard to please, we scarcely know ​who is their wife or husband to-day, or who may occupy that position to-morrow. No man or woman loses the least in consideration, however frequently he or she may have been married and separated. It seldom happens but that ultimately the most fastidious get suited, and seek no further change; but we would consider it the height of unreason to condemn those to live together who were manifestly incapable of rendering each other happy."

I need not say how highly I disapproved of all this, and how strenuously I argued in favour of the customs of my own country. It is not necessary to repeat what I said, as my English readers are quite familiar with the cogent arguments in favour of the indissolubility of marriage.

With these loose views, concerning marriage, I found that the Colymbians, or at least many of them, had equally loose views regarding the relations of parents and children. While some seemed to cherish and love their children, pay them as much attention, superintend their education, and see to their advancement in life as zealously as any terrestrial parents would; others, on the contrary, would send several or all their children to the Government foundling institutions, where they are reared at the expense of the state, educated, and afterwards employed in situations for which they seem to be suited. Others, again, who either had no children of their own, or children who did not please them, would adopt children of their friends and neighbours, or select, according to their taste, from the large stock of children always to be found in the foundling establishments.

SHARK-HUNTING.

UNDER the guidance of Julian, I was gradually initiated into all the sports and pastimes of the Colymbians. In some of these the ladies take part; but there is one sport of too violent and dangerous a character for women to engage in, so it is pursued by men only. It demands such agility, address and courage, that it is only the most adventurous and daring among the young men who engage in it. When I mention that it is the pursuit of the formidable white shark, the reader will understand that it must be attended by difficulties and dangers which all but the boldest would shrink from.

In remote times, as I was informed, these finny ogres of the ocean were not unfrequent visitors of the calm inland waters, to which they gained access by numerous gaps in the surrounding coral reef. But all these gaps had long ago been filled up, and the reef rendered a perfect barrier against the incursions of these ferocious monsters.

As the numbers of the inhabitants increased the original boundaries of the reef were greatly extended by the planting of corals outside the existing reef, which rapidly grew up. In place of a separate reef ​which rapidly grew up. In place of a separate reef for each island, one larger reef was thus made, which enclosed all the islands. There are about a dozen islands in all, of different sizes. The largest is about sixty miles in length by about fifteen in breadth, and the remainder range from twenty miles to half a mile in diameter. By this means many hundreds of square miles have been gradually added to the space suitable for human habitation. These new spaces were all amply supplied with air-tubes and electric lamps. The old barriers that had separately surrounded each island were removed, and the additional space was rapidly covered with submarine houses and villas, thus providing accommodation for the ever increasing population. The new reef quickly rose above the level of the highest tides, opposing a perfect barrier against the inroads of the sea. But as it was requisite to secure a continuous flow of fresh water through the enclosed lake, the reef was perforated with tunnels in every direction, which, by means of a system of self-acting valvular doors, permitted the influx and efflux of the ocean currents in a gentle and equable manner. In order to maintain the water of the inland sea at a uniform temperature, these tunnels were pierced at different levels. The water of the ocean near the surface is of a much higher temperature than the deeper water; and when the enclosed water becomes too warm the fresh water is admitted chiefly by the lower tunnels; when it is too cool the influx through the more superficial tunnels soon raises it to the required temperature. By self-acting machinery the upper valves open as the temperature lowers, the lower as the temperature rises. Special inspectors and engineers are appointed to maintain the tunnels ​and doors in perfect efficiency, and to see that the enclosed water keeps at a uniform temperature. So well are their duties performed that while the enclosed water is always sweet and clear, its temperature never varies above a degree or two, and the flow through the lake is so gentle and so regular that it can scarcely be perceived, and it is hardly strong enough to bend the slender-stemmed seaweeds that adorn the submarine country and give such a charm to the open spaces between the houses.

As the mighty game which was to be attacked no longer existed in the inland sea, it had to be sought beyond the coral barrier, and great preparations had to be made for its pursuit.

On the occasion of my first shark-hunting expedition, to which Julian introduced me, our party consisted of ten young men in the prime of life and strength. We were accompanied by two regular huntsmen, one of whom was a tough old salt who had held the situation for upwards of twenty years, and was believed to be thoroughly conversant with all the ways and wiles of the great white shark, many hundreds of which he had assisted to kill and capture. The other was a younger man, who had assisted the chief huntsmen in many of his perilous expeditions, and who was considered to be scarcely inferior to his elder mate in skill and coolness.

As we should have to quit the region of air-tubes, we were all provided with a metal bottle of compressed oxygenated air, which was suspended by a strap round our necks, and provided with a tube to which we could readily apply our lips when we needed a breath of air.

Each of us carried in his hand a short wooden spear ​about three feet in length, having at the end a sharp steel point about ten inches long.

The two huntsmen did not carry spears, but each had an instrument formed of a stout iron rod, about eighteen inches in length, armed at both ends with several sharp barbed points springing from a thick knob. They had also a harpoon, to the handle of which was attached a cord, which had at its free end an apparatus which opened out like a small umbrella when the cord was dragged rapidly through the water, presenting a large surface that opposed considerable resistance to the water.

The air-bottles and spears we carried being made so as to have the same specific gravity as the water did not affect our position in it; but the iron weapons of the huntsmen being so much heavier than water would have sunk their bearers, had they not restored their equipoise by inflating some of the cells of their weight-belts.

Near the coral barrier was a large cage containing a fine pack of lively pilot-fish, each about a foot long, their beautiful grey body encircled by several bands of bright blue. The huntsmen opened the door of the cage and allowed about a score to issue forth. They seemed to understand what they were wanted for, and frisked and gambolled round and about our party just like little dogs, evidently delighted at the prospect of the hunt.

These little fish, as is well known to naturalists, feel a strange attraction for the white shark, and are constantly seen in his company. Unlike other fish they have no fear of the fierce monster, but will pursue him wherever he goes, darting at his eyes, body and fins, and even approaching so near his mouth as to make ​it difficult to understand how they escape certain death from his lancet-shaped teeth, unless the shark entertains a friendly feeling for them.

This propensity of the pilot-fish has been utilized by the Colymbians, who train packs of them in order to scent out the quarry and guide the bold hunters to their huge game.

White sharks in these regions attain to a prodigious size. Specimens have been killed nearly forty feet long, with such capacious mouths that it would be easy for them to swallow a man at one gulp.

Raising the door that closed one of the tunnels, we all, including the pilot-fishes, which danced merrily before us, passed through the tunnel and emerged into the ocean beyond.

The appearance of the water beyond the barrier is quite different to what it is within the reef. There, as I have said, it is not very deep, and the bottom is composed of corals, astræas, madrepores, and seaweeds. But beyond the barrier at this point we came almost at once into water so deep that no bottom could be seen, and we looked down into a dark blue void which reflected no light from its depths. The appearance looking upward was also quite different. There was the circular opening with its thin prismatic border through which the sky was visible and any seafowl that might be flying overhead, but beyond the circular opening all was like a dark mirror, reflecting nothing but the white bodies of those of our party who were at a little distance from me.

As soon as we had gained the open sea, the pilot-fish left off their gambols and set themselves seriously to their work. They kept pretty close together and proceeded to hunt the water like well-trained pointers. ​We let them go some fifty yards in advance, and, preserving that distance between us, carefully watched their movements. For a considerable time they went wheeling about in every direction, always keeping well together, and moving to right or left as if all animated by one impulse.

All at once they left off wheeling about, and moved steadily forward in one direction, but so slowly and cautiously that they hardly seemed to move a fin.

The old huntsman, who was close to me, and under whose special charge I was advised to place myself, tapped on my arm: "He is not far off."

Advancing cautiously after our finny guides, it was not long before we perceived the dim outline of a gigantic shark suspended motionless in the water.

I confess to having experienced a most uncomfortable sensation as our diminishing distance revealed the stupendous proportions of this tiger of the sea.

The plucky little pack of pilot-fishes were soon alongside of him, and quitting their close formation, they distributed themselves on all sides of the unsuspecting brute. They darted at his head, his body, his fins, and especially at his eyes. Their vivacious attacks seemed rather to please the shark, who only showed signs of life by a slight quiver of his dorsal fin, or a languid movement of his dull but wicked-looking eye.

While the attention of the monster was thus occupied by his tiny teazers, the younger huntsman had crept up cautiously behind and beneath him, and on getting within a convenient distance he launched his harpoon at the fish's belly with such a sure aim that it buried itself over its projecting barbs in his body. At the same instant the previous apathy of the animal ​was changed to the wildest and most excited action. With vigorous strokes of his powerful tail he darted rapidly forwards. The little-pilot fish scampered off in every direction, and we followed as fast as we could the retreating form of the wounded, but still powerful creature. The umbrella-like appendage to the harpoon opening up offered a considerable obstacle to the shark's progress through the water, so that we were enabled to keep him well in sight. Our pack of pilot-fish, aware that their services were not required in the present state of matters, formed into a close phalanx and kept behind us. The pain of the harpoon or the obstruction caused by its drag soon caused the shark to relax the speed of his pace and enabled us to come to close quarters.

At once, he seemed to resolve no longer to fly from his tormentors, but, turning rapidly, he rushed boldly among us, his eyes glaring at us with a malignant expression of fishy ferocity. With much address, the hunters avoided his onslaught, and as he darted through their ranks, they dodged on one side, and several well-directed thrusts of their sharp spears added to the fury of the animal. As it passed the old huntsman, he dexterously planted his harpoon in the shark's flank, which doubled the obstacle to his passage through the water. Slowly turning, he again made for his enemies, who scattered to either side as before, all but the old huntsman, who rather threw himself in the direct line of the now slowly moving fish. He was slightly above the shark's level, and as the monster came beneath him, it suddenly turned round, belly upwards, opening its awful jaws, armed with a triple row of sharpest teeth. I was horror-struck, thinking it was all over ​with the gallant old huntsman. But I did not know his resources. Unawed by the gaping cavity that was opened to engulf him, the old hero thrust his hand, in which he held the iron weapon before described, deep into the creature's mouth. The jaws were suddenly approximated, but the pronged and barbed iron instrument, sticking into the flesh above and below, kept them from shutting, and the baffled monster lashed about him in impotent fury, "Now, boys, close in upon him!" signed the sturdy veteran, and we all rushed at the enfeebled creature with a will. A dozen spears were plunged into his bleeding flanks, quickly withdrawn, and plunged in again and again, and in a few moments this thing of terror lay a lifeless corpse in the blood-stained water. We measured him as he lay, and found that his length from snout to tip of tail was just thirty-one feet four inches. His gaping mouth had a triple row of sharp flat teeth, lying inclined towards his throat, rendering it impossible for any living thing that had once got into his capacious mouth to be withdrawn or ejected.

I asked the huntsman how we were to transport our magnificent bag to the reef. "Well," he said, "had we been farther from the reef, we should have had to drag him back as best we might. But as we are only about half a mile from home we need not be put to that trouble. Here, Jack!" he signalled to his companion, "go and whistle for the seals."

Jack immediately Began to mount to the surface, and I accompanied him, anxious to see what was coming next. On our heads rising above the surface of the water, we could just see the top of the reef, where several persons seemed to be on the outlook for ​us. Jack blew a shrill whistle on his fingers, whereupon a man, who was evidently watching for the signal, slipped the chain off the necks of two of the watch seals which lay beside him. These animals immediately flopped into the water and disappeared. In a few minutes their round bullet heads popped up beside us, and their large, intelligent-looking but flattish eye seemed to say, "Here we are; what do you wish us to do?" Jack patted them on the crown, and pointing down below, descended head-foremost. The seals and I quickly followed, and we were soon beside the rest of the company, who were waiting for our arrival. The harpoon-cords, which still hung from the shark's body, were fastened to the collars the seals wore, and they immediately set off with their heavy burden at a pretty good pace.

As the big body moved off, the little pilot-fish frisked around it as if in the exuberance of delight at the visible result of the day's hunt. The huntsmen went along with the seals to assist in getting the shark into the inhabited sea.

The sportsmen followed at their leisure discussing the events of the chase, and disputing with one another as to the relative size, strength and ferocity of this compared with other sharks they had hunted. One of the party produced a bottle filled with compressed exhilarating gas, which was passed from hand to hand, and increased our gaiety.

In this way we gained the enclosed sea, where we found a large number of ladies and gentlemen assembled to meet and congratulate us on our success. None of our party had been injured by the shark, if I except a smart smack on the back one of them had received from a whisk of his tail. I was told that ​accidents seldom happened, for though the shark looked so fierce and formidable, it was, on the whole, a stupid creature, and the awkward position of its mouth on the under surface of the head, rendering it always necessary for it to turn found on its back before it could bite at anything above it, always allowed a tolerably agile person to elude its snap. Legs and arms had occasionally been lost by inhabitants of Colymbia, but such accidents rarely, if ever, occurred to the hunters. The victims were almost invariably unarmed turtle-hunters or pearl-fishers, whom the sharks caught unawares.

The body of the shark, which was the perquisite of the professional huntsmen, was sold by them to the butchers. The flesh, though coarse and strong flavoured, finds a ready sale among the poorer people, and the skin is in great request for professors' collars, for straps and book-covers.

During my stay in Colymbia, I frequently enjoyed the exciting sport of shark-hunting. Sometimes we would fail to find a fish; sometimes the game, after being wounded, would make his escape, with a harpoon sticking in his body; sometimes we were so fortunate as to meet with two in company, both of which we would bag; and, sometimes, we would capture a brace or two of turtle, which we would bring home alive. But I need not detail the incidents of other shark-hunts, as I have so much more to say about other features of life in Colymbia.

POLITICAL CONSTITUTION.

FROM what I have already said about the mode of life of the Colymbians, it will readily be understood that the trades and manufactures of the country differ widely from those of terrestrial countries. The scanty clothing of both males and females does not admit of the great traffic in garments we are accustomed to. A few changes of the short drawers or trousers all wear, constitute the whole wardrobe of a Colymbian. A very few manufactories of the cloth used for these garments, and a small number of tailors to make them, suffice for the whole community. There are shops for the sale of beads, jewellery and other ornaments worn by the ladies, and booksellers' stores and libraries in abundance, for they are a very literary people. Newspapers and periodicals abound, and architects, builders and decorators are in great demand. Most of the manufactures are carried on on the land, where a stringent rule of eight hours' labour is enforced, as it is impossible to keep workmen for a longer time out of the water.

Much is done by machinery, which is all driven by the tidal engines I have described, or, in some cases, ​by electric or magnetic power, the supply of which from the earth is inexhaustible.

There are also great iron-smelting establishments and foundries, where the ironwork for the tidal engines is made. Iron ore exists in large quantities on some of the islands, and tin, copper and lead are found on the larger island. Gold and silver are also obtained among the mountains, and precious stones of all descriptions abound. Glass is extensively used in the submarine constructions, and there are several large manufactories for this very necessary commodity. Charcoal, which the extensive forests provide in abundance, is used for all the furnaces.

The principal traffic of the country is in food, and the great staple article of food is turtles, immense flocks of which are kept in enclosed spaces for the supply of the inhabitants.

The capture of these animals in the open sea employs a large number of people, and the tending and feeding them in their pens requires a considerable staff of keepers. In fact, turtles are to the Colymbians what sheep and cattle are to us. The butchers' shops are hung round with the prime joints of these most succulent reptiles. All kinds of excellent fish are caught and sold for food. Land-animals abound in the islands, and eggs, poultry, venison, and pork enter largely into the consumption of the people.

The great iguana, which formerly used to abound in the forests, is now but rarely met with in a wild state. But large numbers of them are reared for the market, as their flesh is esteemed a great delicacy, and very much resembles the breast of a chicken. The eggs, too, are much used for food, and differ from our hens' eggs in consisting almost entirely of yolk, ​which does not harden by boiling. Spaces in the forest are enclosed, and quantities of young iguanas are hatched from the eggs and reared until they are large enough to be killed for food. When full-grown, they are often six feet in length, but they are considered best for eating when about half that size.

Another lizard occasionally used as food is an ugly monster about three feet long, with a long flexible tail and a formidable row of spikes all along its back to the very tip of its tail. Its habits are aquatic, and it can stay for hours below the water without breathing. It is a very fast swimmer, and uses only its long powerful tail in the water, clapping its short legs close to its body when swimming. They used to be much more numerous than now, but have been nearly exterminated by the hunters, and are only now to be met with occasionally in the more unfrequented parts of the lagoon.

Eating is not looked upon, as with us, as a thing to be done in company. All meals are taken in private, and at no assemblies or festive reunions are any viands offered or thought of.

Some families cook their victuals at home, and for this purpose they have a peculiar apparatus or kitchen-range, heated by electricity. But most families, and all single people, procure their food ready cooked from the provision shops provided for the purpose.

In order to eat conveniently, the usual plan is to raise the head out of the water in the air-reservoirs, with which all rooms are furnished; though some prefer to eat under water, and the food is supplied in vessels of a peculiar construction, which enable it to ​to be eaten without coming in contact with the salt water.

The money current in Colymbia is of three sorts. The lower values, corresponding to our copper coinage, consist of the hard lenticular operculæ that close the openings of certain shell-fish of the genus turbo which abound in the open sea. These discs are engraved by the State with certain elaborate devices, indicating their conventional value. The higher values of money are represented by pearls, which are also procured from the open sea. Numbers of the people are constantly engaged in the pearl-fishery. The value, of each pearl, approximately reckoned by its size, is stamped upon it by the Government mint, and is exchangeable for a given amount of the less valuable money. Lastly, large sums are represented by circular plates of mother-o'-pearl, elaborately engraved by the Government bank, to imitate which is accounted felony and is severely punished.

Banishment to the land for longer or shorter periods is almost the sole method of punishment, besides pecuniary fines.

As the Colymbians have no foreign trade, and no commercial dealings beyond their own community, the coinage with a merely conventional value attached to it answers perfectly. Of course, it would not do for commerce with foreign countries, which would not accept the conventional value put upon their worthless shells by the Colymbians. The pearls, to be sure, possessing an intrinsic value of their own, might pass current abroad, were it not that they are quite disfigured by the Government marks stamped upon them.

The form of government under which the ​Colymbians live may be described as an aristocratic republic, with a monarchical name.

And here, I fear, I shall not be believed when I describe the kind of monarchy that exists in Colymbia. The monarchy is purely fictitious; the king is a roi fainéant being, in fact, neither more or less than a gigantic turtle, which is kept in a handsome house, has a train of highly-salaried officials to wait on him, and has his big carapace elaborately ornamented with engraving, polishing and gilding, so that he really looks a most royal reptile, and plays and looks his part to perfection in those rare ceremonies in which his presence is supposed to be required.

The government of Colymbia has always been monarchical, but its sovereigns have not always been turtles. On the contrary, they were originally powerful, in fact despotic kings, ruling often with a rod of iron, and acting according to their own will and pleasure, issuing edicts, making new laws, abrogating old ones, condemning to death or pardoning, just as they chose.

But as education and intelligence advanced, the educated and intelligent classes contrived to get the management of the government more and more into their own hands. Bit by bit the power of the king passed into the hands of the people, until at last it was completely absorbed by them. A parliament or diet, nominally elected by the whole male population of the state, became the sole depository of authority. This parliament is divided into two parties, and whichever party has the majority, chooses one of its own number to be the chief of the government. This chief chooses his own ministers always from among those of the party of the majority, and the chief rules ​with absolute power, until the other party contrives to secure a majority in the parliament, when it, in its turn, has its innings, chooses its own chief, who rules despotically until the scale is turned against him, and he is deposed to make room for the chosen chief of the opposition.

The method by which the party in opposition contrives to secure a parliamentary majority for itself is by disparaging the measures of the party in power, and promising greater reforms and better measures than those of their rivals.

The Colymbians have a great craze for always tinkering and altering their constitution, and the chief aim of the party in power is to be constantly increasing their own authority in the state. Thus politics are always in a very lively condition, for while the ruling party endeavour to maintain their prestige by sweeping reforms and radical changes, the party in opposition always make a point of promising still greater reforms and more important changes than those effected by the party in power.

The whole parliament is freshly elected every three years, and it generally happens that every new parliament reverses the condition of the parties and gives the opposition the majority they desire.

Elections are nominally the free choice of the people, but this freedom is nominal only, for the electors are cajoled, intimidated or bribed to such an extent that it is more by chicanery and money that members get into parliament than by the honest choice of the electors.

Thus it happened that the party which promised most and had the largest purse invariably secured the ​desired parliamentary majority; and as the party out of office could always trump their opponents' performances by boasting of the much greater things they would do when in power, and being hungry for office, would make greater pecuniary sacrifices to obtain it, they usually contrived to oust their opponents and secure their own turn of power.

In former times there had been an upper house of parliament, or "chamber of first-borns," as it was termed. It seems that the original authors of the constitution of Colymbia feared that if legislation were limited to one elective chamber it would be very apt to go on too fast, that the active spirits of the country, who would naturally be elected by the people, would be always altering the constitution, and introducing premature reforms; so they resolved to create a second chamber, which should consist of members of inferior mental activity, who would naturally be slow to move, and would act as a check on the exuberant activity of the more popular chamber. The sage framers of the constitution seem to have held, with the elder Shandy, and probably for the same physiological reasons, that first-borns must necessarily be of duller intellect than the cadets of a family; so they ordained that the upper house should consist of a number of members selected by lot exclusively from first-borns, to each of whom a handsome salary was paid for his services. To this chamber was assigned the duty of revising all the measures of the popular chamber, and vetoing them if they thought fit. The plan seemed to have worked pretty well at first, but in course of time, the members of the chamber of first-borns grew indifferent to the purely negative rôle they had to play, and could seldom be got to meet in sufficient numbers ​to perform their proper functions, preferring to spend their time in sports, amusements, or money-making occupations; the skill they displayed and the success they achieved in these pursuits proving that the physiological theory ascribing to them intellectual inferiority was not altogether well founded. Or, if they did exercise their power of veto, it was usually done with respect to some measure which the popular assembly and the country had set their hearts on. As intelligence advanced the people and their elected members grew impatient of the check imposed on their wishes by the chamber of first-borns. The members of the popular chamber chafed at the idea of the fruits of their sagacity and intelligence being liable to rejection by a council of hypothetical dullards, and repeatedly urged the Government to devise some means for putting a stop to this intolerable censorship.

In this state of feeling the minister of the period, who shared the popular feeling, had little difficulty in doing away entirely with the chamber of first-borns, which had come to be considered as altogether out of date and as a useless drag on the machinery of the state. Very little excitement was produced in the country by the abrogation of the upper house, and few even of its members regretted their political extinction, as they had long silently chafed at their imputed mental incapacity. The popular chamber was thus left free to effect those constant changes and reforms which were its chief occupation and pleasure, and which were constantly demanded by the change-loving people, or the demagogues who constituted themselves the exponents of popular wishes.

The kings, seeing all power in the state gradually slipping away from them, made no effort to retain ​any. At last the only functions that remained to them were to assist at state ceremonials and to sign state papers.

When it came to this pass, the last king requested to be spared the trouble of signing the state papers, and his request was immediately granted by the chief of the party then in power, and thereafter a commission was appointed to do the signing for him.

But the monarchical fiction was always kept up, and every act of government was said to be performed by the king. The chief of the state was said to be chosen by the king, every act was said to receive the sanction of the sovereign, and though the king had not the slightest power to enact a new law, to choose a minister or to pardon a criminal, no law was passed, no minister appointed, no criminal pardoned, no office in the state bestowed, except in the king's name.

This fiction of the king doing everything was sometimes' made use of by the minister to pass a law against the will of the parliament. When the chief found that he could not persuade the parliament to sanction some measure on which he had set his heart, he would boldly allege that the king had taken the matter into his own hands and passed the measure in spite of the parliament.

Of course, all knew the impossibility of the king doing anything of the sort, but it was considered contrary to etiquette to appear to doubt the king's power in the matter. So the chief would have his own way and the measure became law without a murmur of remonstrance, though all knew what a sham the whole transaction was.

The most striking illustration of this fiction of the king's unlimited power was given when the human king was done away with.

​The chief of the state in those days had a great craze for economy, and he thought he could make a bold stroke for saving money by doing away with the human king, who cost a good deal, and substituting a dynasty of turtles, which would be cheap.

He made his proposal to parliament, and supported it for days by the most cogent arguments. He said the position of a king who had nothing to do was dangerous and demoralizing to both country and king. He might rebel against his lot and enter into a conspiracy against the constitution and even succeed in upsetting it; or, if he did not do so, he would certainly tend to degenerate into a mere idle, luxurious wretch. They had no right to expose the constitution to such danger, or the king to this demoralization. Since they had done away with the king's signature to state documents, the sovereign had now nothing earthly to do except to show himself on occasions of public ceremonials. In other countries the sovereign, however destitute of real power, had always to prove himself to be a person of intelligence by receiving and talking to illustrious persons who might visit the country, or ambassadors who might be accredited to him. But as there was no possibility of such services being demanded from him here, no intelligence whatever was required by him; consequently a turtle would be able to discharge the duties of the office with equal or greater efficiency than the human king. He adduced a hundred other reasons for doing away with the human sovereign, for he was a most fluent orator, but the feeling was so strong against the proposed change, that he saw there was no chance of carrying it by the votes of the members of parliament; so when the progress of the debate convinced ​him that he must certainly be defeated, he suddenly rose in his place, unfolded a paper, called a royal warrant, which had been entirely concocted by himself, without even the king's knowledge, and read to the astonished assembly a formal abrogation by the king of the dynasty of human kings and the substitution of a dynasty of turtles. Parliament was completely checkmated, but they did not resent this self-evident absurdity out of loyalty to the king who had just been superseded; and thus it was that the king of Colymbia formally deposed himself, though it was well known to all that he wished to do nothing of the sort, and had no cognizance of the matter until it was irrevocably accomplished.

The most curious part of the business is that the king accepted meekly his own deposition, and retired into private life without an effort to retain his throne; for, if it was a breach of loyalty in members to find fault with anything nominally done by the king, though he had actually nothing to do with it, so it was unconstitutional in the king to object to anything his ministers or parliament might do, however disagreeable to his feelings, however contrary to his inclinations it might be. Thus it was that parliament submitted to the dethronement of a king they wished to retain, and the king submitted to be dethroned, though he did not like it.

Under the turtle dynasty the same monarchical fiction is kept up, and all actions of the Government are still performed in the king's name—indeed, it made no difference whether the king was man or turtle, for the kingly power was but a name, and even the kingly will had long been nothing but a phrase.

I asked a gentleman who held an important office ​under Government why the fiction of a monarchical constitution was not done away with when the monarchical power was abrogated.

"Well," he said, "we Colymbians do things gradually. We were ripe for the abrogation of the monarchical power, but we are not yet ripe for the doing away with the monarchical name. We all see, of course, as well as you do, that monarchy is a pure fiction, but we are so attached to old names after the thing is gone, that it would probably create a rebellion if a chief of the state were to attempt to do away with the name. Our people are eager for substantial changes in the constitution of the country; but they are so attached to old names and formulas of government that it is only long after the substance is gone that the shadow takes its departure. No doubt when the time comes the name will be abolished, but at present we would feel it strange if our edicts and Government appointments were not made in the name of the king, even though that king is but a turtle."

The hereditary representative of the dethroned human dynasty was a young man of intelligence, passionately fond of sports, and he often made one of our hunting expeditions. He did not seem to regret his exclusion from the throne, in fact, he spoke rather contemptuously of his predecessors who had been contented to occupy the position of royal puppets so long, and said he infinitely preferred the liberty and independence of his own life to the gilded slavery of theirs. He always spoke of the reforming minister who had founded the turtle dynasty with the highest respect, and in a way that showed me he was grateful to him for what he had done. "For," he said, "had I been born in the purple, I should perhaps have ​wished to remain in it, and probably should have felt extremely mortified at being deprived of it"

I frequently attended the meetings of parliament, which are held in a vast hall, built on the most approved acoustic principles; for all the speaking here consists of the musical oratory I have before described, and it is contrary to precedent, and, in fact, quite unconstitutional to speak in any other way.

It would, therefore, seem that a chief qualification for membership of the parliament ought to be a proficiency in musical oratory; but this is by no means the case, for many of the members are mere dummy legislators, never addressing the house, but giving silent votes. The chief, however, and his colleagues in office are necessarily adepts in the musical oratory, and the finest illustrations of this wonderful art are sometimes given in the parliament hall. The notes are struck by machinery brought into play by means of a key-board similar to that of our pianos or organs. Each member sits in a comfortable arm-chair on the floor of the hall, with a desk before him on which is this key-board. The keys are connected by wires with the great instrument occupying the acoustic focus of the hall which is of elliptical shape. Electricity is the means by which the touch on the keys is conveyed to the instrument. A thin rope, composed of the wires that communicate between the key-board and instrument, stretches from each member's seat to the instrument, which is fixed at a considerable elevation. These ropes form a graceful canopy over the members' heads, that is highly ornamental owing to the ropes being variously coloured and harmoniously arranged.

​The bursts of eloquent music, or musical eloquence I should rather say, that are elicited by some of the orators are often magnificent. Others, again, less gifted with oratorical powers, sometimes flounder away among the notes, producing nothing but discord. These speakers are not listened to; their attempts to speak are drowned in a clamour set up by the audience, produced by striking a small hammer on a metallic knob, which causes a loud, harsh noise, and indicates disapprobation.

Applause is expressed by striking a glass bell, with which each member is provided, and which brings forth an agreeable musical note.

It is remarkable how well adapted the musical oratory is for expressing, not only emotions and passions, but raillery, sarcasm, innuendo, refined wit and broad humour.

Some orators would excite the risible faculties of members to such a degree that neither the sanctity of the place, nor the inconveniences attending the art, would prevent them exploding into loud guffaws.

The effect of this laughter was often more comic to my mind than its exciting cause. Along with the cacchination, there issued from the laughers' mouths great bubbles of air, which quickly ascended through the whole height of the hall, threading their way among the ropes, until they attained the large glass dome or air-reservoir at the top. A hundred or more of these large bubbles proceeding out of the mouths of as many members had an exceedingly droll effect.

A MISPLACED AFFECTION.

THE young people of both sexes in Colymbia are excessively fond of racing. They train seals to run, or rather swim, races for them; and much money changes hands on these occasions, for the Colymbians are given to betting like their terrestrial fellow-creatures. Almost every gentleman keeps his seal, as these sagacious animals, whom the Colymbians facetiously term their poor relations, are of a great variety of uses, more especially for watching the house and destroying crabs, cuttles and other vermin. By careful breeding, a very fine-bodied, broad-flippered and long-armed seal has been developed, which is used almost exclusively for racing and hunting purposes.

It is delightful to see the eagerness and intelligence displayed by these animals in their encounters, which form one of the favourite amusements of all classes of Colymbians. The course is marked out by posts, on the outside of which the racing seals must keep, otherwise their chance is forfeited. A starter arranges them in line, and at a given signal the seals, decorated with their masters' colours, dart away with the rapidity of an arrow. They display the utmost sagacity in ​availing themselves of all the ruses the most cunning jockey on the turf could employ. It was beautiful to observe how an artful old seal would allow the younger ones to make the running at the commencement and exhaust themselves, and then putting on a tremendous spurt would gain a forward position, give his opponents his wash, and effectually prevent them getting ahead again.

All classes, and both sexes, assist at these races, which are, indeed, the most popular amusement of the country. But the Colymbians have many other sports. Thus, they have what we may call coursing matches, with seals. A small, bright-coloured fish, with large pectoral fins of a beautiful blue colour, a sort of gurnard, is let loose and two or more seals sent after it. In this case, the sportsmen require to follow their seals, which sometimes lead them a considerable distance before the fish is captured by one of them. The short body and large fins of the fish enable it to turn very abruptly, which the seals are unable to do, and though the latter are the faster swimmers, the fish often baffles its pursuers by its zig-zag course.

The young men have also races among themselves scarcely less popular than the seal races.

In order to increase their speed, they fasten on to their feet sandals with a stout leather sole, from which projects a sort of circular fan that expands when the leg is thrust out and collapses when it is retracted, thus giving a greatly increased resisting surface to help the onward progress of the swimmer. These fans are strictly limited to a certain size, so that no competitor shall have an advantage over the others, and the races are swum with wonderful quickness.

​In some of the races the competitors all start at once and on equal terms, and the strongest swimmer or best stayer is the victor. In other races the competitors are handicapped, some being allowed a few seconds' start in advance of their opponents. In yet other races the handicapping is done by the best swimmers being, not weighted, but lightened by means of bladders full of air attached to them, which reduce their speed and bring them to more equal terms with less powerful competitors.

Crowds assemble to witness the prowess of these athletes, and it is amusing to watch the eager excitement of the friends, male and female, of the swimmers.

Each on starting takes a full inspiration of the oxygenated air, and much depends on the staying power of the swimmer and on his capacity for finishing his course without a fresh inspiration. It often happens that a swimmer who seems to be certain of an easy victory, is forced to sacrifice his chance in order to get a fresh breath of air, and it is curious to observe the rush the victor immediately makes to an air-pipe the instant he reaches the goal.

When the course is very long the swimmers are allowed to carry with them a bottle of compressed air, but for the shorter courses this is not permitted, and the competitors have to do with the one inspiration they take at starting. The victor in the shorter races often owes his victory more to the capacity of his lungs than to his muscular power.

There are races also for the ladies, and nothing could be more delicious than to see their graceful forms gliding through the crystal waters, their ​animated looks and the beautiful play of their white rounded limbs.

As my intimacy with Julian and his family increased, I was thrown a good deal into the company of his lovely sister Lily. I was much charmed with her intelligence and winning ways. She was very curious about the manners of the ladies of England, and used to put to me the most embarrassing questions concerning them.

She could not understand the dresses of our ladies, with the external appearance of which she was well acquainted from the illustrated English works that frequently came into her hands.

"If the ladies of your country," she would say, "have to dress themselves in those complicated robes and change their costume several times a day, in addition to arranging and re-arranging their elaborate constructions of false hair, how can they possibly have time to do anything else?"

I replied that in fact many of them did little else, whereupon she expressed her wonder that they could be so enslaved to an occupation that, after all, was of no benefit, but only did harm to themselves.

I explained that it was by their elaborate costumes that many of our ladies endeavoured to obtain admiration more than by the qualities of their minds or by the agility of their bodies. Female dress, I observed, was considered usually as a means to an end, that end being the attraction of the opposite sex, with the view of forming matrimonial alliances.

"How dreadful I" exclaimed Lily, "I am sure I could not bear to be swathed in those terrible garments with their tight bands, pins and hooks-and-eyes. ​And then the stays they wear under them,—do tell me what they are like."

I described as well as I was able these stiff constructions which ladies wear for the support of their backs, and for the production of what they consider a fine figure. As I cannot boast of any intimate acquaintance with these articles of dress, it is highly probable that my description did not quite do them justice, for Lily burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

"What!" she exclaimed, as soon as her merriment had subsided, "do they actually wear a machine stiffened with whalebone and steel, and laced so tight they can hardly breathe in it, much less bend their bodies about in a natural way? They must reduce themselves to the condition of our poor turtles, who cannot, for the life of them, bend their backbone either forwards or backwards. Do tell Julian all about those stays; he will certainly conclude them to be a striking instance of what he calls 'atavism,' and affirm this to be a proof that you terrestrials are descended from tortoises or crabs! How I pity those poor English ladies encased in their carapace of bone and steel! Why, no English lady could move about so!"

With that she threw herself backwards, and executed a succession of the most graceful and ravishing circles in the water.

"No," I said, "certainly no English lady could do that, but they have no need to do it; and indeed it would be dangerous to attempt it, for you must remember that they live in air and move about on land, and not in the water like you."

"Ah!" she said, "how I commiserate them ​condemned to inhabit such a medium as air! I know, when I have ventured on shore, the mere weight of my own body nearly bore me to the ground, and though my limbs were in perfect freedom I could hardly keep myself erect or walk along without a painful sense of fatigue. What must it be for those poor creatures with that mass of clothes to weigh them down, with that top-heavy-looking head-dress to over-balance them, and with that inflexible corset to embarrass their movements? Surely that very unnatural mode of life must make them very often ill."

I admitted that there was a great deal of delicacy among my fair countrywomen, and that much of it might be owing to the faulty character of their attire.

"Why then do they wear clothes at all?" said my pretty companion, "surely they have less need to wear them than we have, as the weight of every thing is so much greater in air than in water."

I explained, as well as I could without giving offence, that it would be considered indelicate in ladies to go about in England so scantily clad as she was.

"Indelicate!" she exclaimed, "why, I should think the indelicacy consisted in making themselves larger in some places than they ought to be by padding, and smaller in others than they really are by tight-lacing, in supplying a deficient complexion by rouge, in increasing the height at one end by enormous erections of false hair, and at the other by those preposterous high heels which nearly upset the wearers on their noses. Besides, I think you must be hoaxing me when you talk of the indelicacy of my costume, for I have read descriptions of theatrical ​performances in your country and seen illustrations of them in your papers, where the young ladies on the stage were scarcely more clad than we are, and yet the performances were said to be attended by the highest and noblest of the land, both ladies and gentlemen."

I confess this was a home-thrust I found some difficulty in parrying, but I tried to get out of it by saying that people expected to see on the stage the very opposite to what would be approved of in private life.

This explanation did not satisfy my fair questioner, nor was I altogether satisfied with it myself. She perceived my embarrassment, and, with fine feminine tact, immediately changed the subject of conversation.

"What I think I would like best in your terrestrial life, would be to go up in a balloon. When sailing about in the air, ascending or descending at pleasure, one would feel oneself emancipated for the time from those everlasting laws of gravitation which keep you plodding about on the dirty earth. In a balloon, you must experience some of our sensations in the clear water that buoys us up."

I explained that the temperature fell rapidly as we mounted, so we had to encumber ourselves with a still greater load of garments than we required down on earth.

She shrugged her white shoulders at this; and made a pretty mouth indicative of dislike.

"After all, then," she said, "there is nothing like the water for comfort and pleasure."

One evening, when she was my partner at a gyrating assembly, in the pause between two dances, she said:—

​"How is it possible to dance those waltzes and galops you are so fond of in Europe? With your small rooms, choke-full of people, and every lady with yards of superfluous skirt trailing after her, I should think that, when you began to turn round, the ladies' dresses would twist about the gentlemen's legs, and you would all come to the ground together."

I told her that such a catastrophe would often happen were it not that the ladies' ball-dresses were usually made of such flimsy material that they readily gave way when they became twisted round any object.

"Then after a fast and furious dance," she said, "your ladies' costumes will not be much more ample than ours."

I tried to make her comprehend the mysteries of underclothing, and told her that they might lose several layers of their dress and after all be still sufficiently covered. This amused her greatly, and she made a hundred quaint remarks about the dilapidated and forlorn appearance of the fair dancers at the end of a ball, with their beautiful and costly dresses torn to ribbons, their hair all dusty and disheveled, their complexions spoiled, and their bodies sinking with fatigue.

Of course I told her it was not half so bad as she thought, and, besides, we never noticed how young ladies looked at the end of a ball, provided they looked well at the beginning.

On another occasion, Lily said:—

"One of the most disgusting of your amusements, must be your feasts, great and small, where ladies and gentlemen are not only not ashamed but actually take pride in assembling together to cram themselves with all sorts of food and drink. No wonder, with ​your frequent dinner parties, most of you suffer from indigestion, for you must, on those occasions, eat and drink more than is good for you. We, who are accustomed to swallow our food when alone, thinking that the art of eating can never be a graceful one, but so very much the reverse, that we would be ashamed to eat before our most intimate friends,—we cannot understand the pleasure of sitting for hours crowded round a table, and watching one another during all that time making those horrid contortions of features which accompany the act of chewing and swallowing. I can imagine nothing more calculated to disenchant a man or a maiden of that worship and adoration that belong to love, than the sight of the beloved object stuffing a superfluity of meat and pudding into his or her gaping mouth, and washing it down with a totally unnecessary quantity of intoxicating liquors."

"Ah," said I, with a half-suppressed sigh, elicited by the fond remembrance of some joyous feasts, "you can never know the delights of a good dinner, seasoned with the witty sallies or instructive discourse of a select company of intelligent men and lovely women."

"Are your dinner parties, then, always composed of witty men and lovely women?"

I was obliged to confess that the guests did not always answer to this description, but then we would generally find a solace for the lack of brilliant conversation in the well-cooked dishes and the exquisite wines supplied by the entertainer.

"I could understand that," she replied, "if the excellence of the cookery and the cellar were always in an inverse proportion to the agreeableness of the ​company; but you do not mean to say that that is always the rule?"

"Alas! no," I said, "the dinners are sometimes as bad as the company is dull, and then we are regularly bored. However," I added, "when a gentleman gives a feast he generally takes care to secure the presence of some literary or scientific celebrity, or some person of a rank superior to that of the generality of his guests; and the satisfaction we get by merely sitting at the table with such a superior person, though he may be neither entertaining nor handsome, is a sufficient compensation for bad cookery and general discomfort. Indeed," I assured Lily, "many persons who have no pretensions to wit or learning themselves acquire a sort of prestige for both from the mere circumstance of being able to boast of having dined in company with some literary lions; and I know some otherwise not very distinguished men who are very much looked up to in consequence of its being known that they have occasionally sat at the same table with a lord."

I could not get this beautiful water-nymph to see these things from the true British point of view. In fact I thought I saw something like an expression of contempt steal over her charming features, and I fear I rather blushed and betrayed some awkwardness at having to apologize as it were for some of our most cherished English habits and ideas, which in England need no apology, but which I felt could not appear in the same light to a Colymbian.

If any such feeling possessed Lily she took good care to give no expression to it in words, but merely said:—

"I fear I should be quite incapable of appreciating the pleasure of your dinner parties under the most favourable conditions of agreeable company and nice ​food, and still less when either the company or the food or both were indifferent. Now, candidly, do you not think it would be better to eat your nice food and drink your nice wine at home, than in company of a number of stupid uninteresting people, whose society must be more of a bore than a pleasure?"

I could not deny that it would often be preferable to do so, "but then," I observed, "custom has reconciled us even to the infliction of stupid dinner parties, and we often partake of these feasts more as a matter of duty and to give pleasure to our entertainer, than from any real enjoyment we derive from them."

"In short," she archly rejoined, "whereas your ancient saints did penance by starving themselves in solitude, your modern sinners do penance by stuffing themselves in company. But, after all," she continued, "you must allow that our mode of being convivial is a great improvement on yours, for our festivities are never interrupted by the necessity of sitting for hours in one spot, by the side of some possibly disagreeable and uncongenial person, in order to eat without appetite more food than is good for us, with the prospect of an indigestion or at least a headache the next morning as a consequence of our excess."

Of course I pretended to be quite converted to her way of thinking, and indeed, there is in the entertainments of the Colymbians an amount of ease, refinement and grace that can seldom be found in the grosser sensual indulgences of our European festivities.

The beauty of Lily's, face and form, the exquisite grace of her movements, and the charm of her sprightly conversation (which I fear I have failed to convey in the specimens I have given from memory) ere long began to make a very decided impression on ​my susceptible heart. She too, I thought, regarded me with feelings beyond those of ordinary friendship. As I grew more accustomed to the life I now led, I began to reconcile myself to the idea of a life-long residence here; indeed, I saw no escape from it had I wished it; I thought my position, on the whole, would be more comfortable if I could set up a domestic establishment. The thought of having Lily to be my life's partner laid every day a stronger hold on me. Though I was thrown into the company of many beautiful and charming young ladies, who all treated me with frank familiarity, and strove, not unsuccessfully, to render my sojourn in Colymbia agreeable, I felt that there was a peculiar tenderness in Lily's behaviour towards me, and that she derived pleasure from my society and conversation.

I had almost made up my mind to ask her to be my wife, but somehow day after day went by without my being able to summon up courage to put the momentous question.

It invariably happened that when I was just on the eve of coming to the point, the refrain of a ridiculous song one of my companions in England used to sing at our convivial meetings would obtrude itself on my memory, and, in place of asking Lily to be mine, I would find myself involuntarily humming,—

"I'm marriéd
To a mermiaid
At the bottom of the sea!"

which quite disconcerted me and turned me from my resolve.

As soon as I was away from her sweet companionship I felt how much I longed to call her mine, and I vowed I would pop the question the very next time I saw her; but the absurd circumstance I have ​mentioned always occurred to annoy and distract me from my purpose by placing the contemplated marriage with this lovely and accomplished creature in a ridiculous light.

About this time a grand shark-hunting expedition, to start from a distant part of the lagoon, was organized, which was to be followed by games and races that would occupy several days. I was invited to form one of the party, and accepted the invitation all the more readily, as I wished to ascertain precisely the state of my feelings towards Lily, and whether absence from her charming society would prove to me that these feelings were really based on such true affection as would justify me in asking her to share my lot. I had always been told by my mother that marriage without love was certain to lead to unhappiness, so I was determined I would not run the risk of marring the happiness of this beauteous and innocent creature by offering her my hand, if I could not, at the same time, offer her my whole heart.

I found, as I anticipated, that days of absence only intensified my passion. Neither the excitement of the shark-hunt, nor the amusement the games and races afforded, nor yet the bewitching manners and looks of the new fair acquaintances I made, dulled in the slightest degree the impression left on my heart by the lovely Lily. In fact, in spite of the attractions and distractions around me, I longed every day more and more to be beside my sweet girl; and towards the end of the visit I fairly yearned to be with her, in order that I might tell her how truly I loved her, and how impossible existence was without her.

Soon after my return a gyrating assembly was given by one of the principal men of the town, to which I ​was invited, much to my contentment, as I was certain to meet Lily there.

When I entered the hall, I beheld the object of my affections looking more beautiful and more irresistible than ever. She was engaged in executing one of those graceful performances I have before described, with a tall and handsome youth named Phoebus, who was one of my familiar friends, but who had not accompanied us on the late hunting expedition. When the music ceased, Lily espied me and gave me such a sweet smile, that I was at her side in an instant, and engaged her for the next dance. Phoebus left us to seek another partner for himself I gave Lily a warm pressure of the hand, which I fancied she returned with a lingering tenderness.

"You have been absent a long time," she began.

"Ah," replied I; "it has indeed seemed long to me. May I flatter myself that you have missed me a little?"

"Indeed, I have missed you a great deal," she returned with emphasis;" I wanted to ask you so many questions about your funny English ways. I am so glad you are back again."

The dear girl really looked so pleased to see me, and her large lustrous eyes seemed to me to smile so tenderly on me, that I resolved to ask her then and there to be mine. I longed to know if she had felt the same void during my absence as I had. I almost wished to hear her say that she had felt sad and melancholy while I was absent. I said with affected carelessness:—

"How have you been amusing yourself since I had last the happiness of seeing you?"

"Oh! moderately," she replied; "there was a ​dramatic reading the night you left, which was very well. The following day there was the periodical lecture on transcendental geography, which, you know, I make a point of attending, but which was rather dull. We had a very nice ball the night before last; and as there was nothing particular going on yesterday, Phoebus and I got married."

"Married!" I exclaimed, while I felt almost as though I had received a deadly thrust of some sharp weapon through my heart; and had I been on land I feel sure I should have fallen to the ground;—"Married! O heavens!—is it possible?—alas! for my hopes of happiness!"

"What do you mean?" she inquired, with a look of the utmost concern.

"I mean," I stammered out, hardly conscious of what I was saying, "that I loved you better than my life—that it was the dearest wish of my heart to be able to call you my wife!"

"How can that be?" she said; "you have known me all these days and never asked me to marry you, far less told me that you loved me. I could not guess your wishes, as you never expressed them, though you had every opportunity."

"And would you," I stammered out in my agitation, "would you have been mine had I asked you?"

"I don't quite understand what you mean by being yours; but," she naively said, "had you asked me to marry you, I would undoubtedly have done so at once."

The extraordinary character of the conversation did not strike me at the time. As for Lily she seemed to see no impropriety in it.

"But now," I proceeded, "I am doomed to grief and ​disappointment, and must gnaw my heart in solitude and despair."

"Oh I no," she cheerfully retorted; "there is no occasion to do any thing so horrible. Very likely Phoebus and I will not suit one another; and, in that case, we can get a divorce, and then I can marry you, if you still wish it."

She said this with so much simplicity and sincerity, that I had not the heart to tell her how contrary such a proposed course of conduct was to all my ideas of what was right and proper.

Stammering out some stupid expressions of gratitude and thanks, I feigned some pressing engagement I had forgotten, and muttering an apology for my rudeness, I fled and sought the solitude of my home to collect my thoughts and recover from the shock I had received. As I retired, I marked her look of bewildered astonishment, at what, according to her notions, she must have considered my unaccountable behaviour.

Alone in my house, I had time and leisure to brood over my disappointment, and also to reflect on the strange ideas of the Colymbians with regard to marriage and the relations of the sexes. Here was a lovely and innocent girl with simple tastes and a well-cultivated mind, marrying all of a sudden a man whom she could not be said to love, evidently with the view of seeing whether they would suit one another, and so far from being sure on that subject, she seemed rather to incline to think that they would not, in which cases he would have no hesitation in discarding him and trying another. And no one seemed to think such conduct at all extraordinary or improper. We would hardly treat a partner in a ​waltz less ceremoniously than these Colymbians treat the partners of their domestic joys and sorrows. They marry as we try on boots in a ready-made shop. If one does not fit another may, and so they try a succession of conjugal partners, until at last they get themselves well mated.

A man or a woman who was constantly changing was considered by his or her friends as hard to please, but no one thought of attaching blame to conduct which would be deemed outrageous in my own country.

While I was cogitating over these matters and endeavouring to reconcile myself to my loss, by the reflection that perhaps Lily would have found me too unsuitable after a short trial, I received a visit from an intelligent young professor of transcendental geography of my acquaintance, with whom I was on such intimate terms that we used to be constantly popping in on one another to have a friendly chat. To him I mentioned my disappointment in the matter of Lily.

"Oh, console yourself," he said, with a smile, "there are as good fish—I mean girls—in the sea as ever came out of it. I fear I do not make a very happy adaptation of your proverb to the circumstances of our life, but you understand what I mean: you may marry any other girl you please here—almost."

"But I shall never care about marrying any other, now I have lost Lily."

"You astonish me," he replied; "there are hundreds as good-looking and as accomplished as she."

"Doubtless," I answered, "but I can only love her."

"Love!" he repeated, with an incredulous smile (for which I hated him), "how can you love a girl until you know how she will suit you morally? We ​all know exactly what the lovely creatures axe like physically, but it is not the mere physique we can love; you might as well say you love a picture or a statue. It is the mental disposition we love, and that we can never discover until we marry and begin to live together. A man may show the most amiable manners in public; he may be obliging, good-humoured, witty, and in every way agreeable in society; but look at him in the privacy of domestic life, he may there prove harsh, arrogant, exacting, in short everything that is detestable. Our people have no concealments to make with regard to their physical qualities; but all are deceivers, consciously or unconsciously, with regard to their moral constitution. This is a fact so generally recognised here, that no attempt is made to ascertain the moral adaptedness of couples till after they are married. If they then find themselves unsympathetic and morally unsuited to one another, we should consider it highly immoral that they should continue to live together. Our bodies are held to be so secondary in importance to our minds, that we never give them a thought in judging of our mutual adaptability. Now, the main purpose of marriage is to secure a partner with whom it would be pleasant and profitable to spend your life. The most beautiful body would not reconcile you to a thoroughly unsuitable mind; and a really congenial mind might easily be found in a body which did not display perfect symmetry of proportion and perfect beauty of features. You terrestrials know little of the mere physique of one another, as you are always enveloped in those clothes that serve to conceal your bodies and often to hide defects. Of the moral qualities of one another you can know, before marriage, just as little ​as we do of each other; and yet you contract indissoluble marriages, and form life-partnerships with beings who may be perfectly unsuitable, physically and morally. And then you talk of the sanctity of marriage, and consider it a heinous offence even to think of dissolving the perhaps irksome bond by which you have bound yourselves to one another. No wonder that complaints are so frequent among you of unhappy marriages, and that your satirists find a constant theme for their unpleasant wit in the miseries of married life. To us it seems extraordinary that your marriages so often turn out the reverse of what we would naturally expect them to be, and that contented and even happy couples are produced by such unlikely means."

It may easily be imagined how profoundly I was shocked at hearing such sentiments, so utterly at variance with all that I had been taught at home. But I felt some relief for the grief of my great disappointment when I reflected that, without doubt, the sentiments expressed by my transcendental friend were entertained by Lily also, and I felt it impossible that I could have led a happy life with a young creature, however charming in other respects, whose ideas were evidently so diametrically opposed to everything my education had led me to believe right and proper. I could not let him go without telling him how entirely I differed from him.

"Your notions respecting our English marriages," I said, "are almost entirely wrong. It is true that couples often find themselves but ill matched. But the knowledge that they have made a life-contract, if they have common sense and amiability, leads them to accommodate themselves to one another, to overlook ​faults and to develop latent virtues, so that, after a few months, or perhaps years, of greater or less discomfort, they generally settle down into a calm and peaceful contentment; and the love of children, which with us is a master-passion, tends to endear them to one another, and to make them overlook those little incongruities and discrepancies which , without the absorbing sentiment of parental love, they might be disposed to magnify into real incompatibilities, that would render married life a purgatory. You know nothing of the power of parental love, for your attachment to children, where it does exist, seems to have no reference to the parentage of the children. I observe that you part with your own offspring to the state establishments without regret, and adopt such children as you please, though you may have had no hand in the begetting of them, and cannot claim even a blood-relationship with them."

"In this too," he replied, "I think we have the advantage of you. Your own children are not necessarily loveable, though they are of your own blood. They may be ugly, disagreeable, disobedient and perverse. They may be so numerous as to be a serious burden upon you. And yet you are bound by law and by custom to love, cherish and provide for them all; to clothe, feed and educate them, though they may annoy and vex you every day of your life, and render your life miserable by their outrageous conduct. You have an idea that your children ought to love you, and pretend to consider it unnatural when they do not. But we do not see things in this light. Our children owe us no love for the mere fact that we are their parents. If we stand in the way of their advancement, if we prevent them obtaining the food and education ​they require, they will certainly hate us. If a poor man has a large family, and from some sentimental feeling which he calls parental love, insists on keeping all the children at home with him, subjecting them to constant privations, and stinting their education by reason of his poverty, instead of sending them to the national institutions, where they would be well fed, well educated, and fitted for a useful and honourable career, can you affirm that this man does his duty by his children? Can you contend that to the parental sentiment must be sacrificed the whole future fortune of the children? We think quite otherwise here, and consider ourselves bound to stifle the parental sentiment if it militates against the well-being of our children. Thus, it is contrary to that well-being that uncongenial parents and children should live together, and it is prejudicial to both parents and children that a man with small means should attempt to bring up a large family. The parents are racked with anxiety, and the children are deprived of what they have a right to, sufficient food and a good education. On these principles we act. If our children are disagreeable or too numerous, we send them, or as many of them as we please, to the national educational institutions. We may, of course, retain as many as we please with us, and may even keep at home a far more numerous family than we have means to support. But though there is no law against this, the opinion of society is so opposed to such a selfish proceeding, that few would dare to brave the censure of their fellow-citizens by adopting a course so detrimental to the true interests of their families. If we have no children, or do not feel pleasure in those we have, and still wish to have children, we can select such as we ​think we can love and of whom we may be proud. Why should we make ourselves wretched with uncongenial children, whom we never could bring up well, if they made themselves disagreeable to us? It is mere selfishness to love a thing because it is our own; the true philosophy is to love what is loveable."

I felt it was no use protracting this discussion with one from whose very principles I must dissent. So I gave him my hand, thanked him for his visit, and said:—

"You have indeed comforted me in my affliction and reconciled me to my loss of Lily; not by converting me to your views, but by showing me the incompatibility of the customs of your country and the modes of thought of your people with those I have been brought up in and of which I cannot divest myself. I feel I am only outwardly a Colymbian, and I fear I shall never cease to be an Englishman at heart."

He took his leave with an expression of regret that I was unable to see the superiority of the Colymbian customs in regard to marriage and children; and he hoped that a longer residence would enable me to get rid of what he termed my irrational English prejudices, which he asserted with solemn gravity were far from being in accord with the perfect life of the unknown people, or in unison with the wishes of their ruler.

I could not refrain from saying that I had read all the old books and had been unable to discover in them a word on the subject of marriage or parental affection.

On which he shook his head, and said with solemn emphasis:—"My dear young friend, I fear you have ​not read the books in a right spirit Unless the mind is penetrated with transcendentalism, the language of the books cannot be comprehended."

There was no answer to this, for I could not say that my mind was in a transcendental state, as I did not in fact know what that phrase implied and had never yet been able to obtain an explanation of it. So I wished him again good night and went to bed.

NAMES AND GOVERNMENT OFFICES.

THE Colymbians do not bestow permanent and indelible names on their infants as we do. Every person on coming of age selects the name which pleases himself best. Up to that time the young people go by pet names, such as Dick, Tom, Harry, Molly, Betty, Madge, or some other familiar and endearing appellation, that is not intended to be the permanent one. All come of age when twenty years old, if they have not earned their majority sooner. The age of twenty is selected on physiological grounds. Thus, the natural duration of man's life is held to be one hundred years, divided into five periods of twenty years each. At the end of the first period he is considered to have arrived at maturity, and to be fit for holding office under Government. At the end of the next period, when forty years of age, he is thought to have attained the utmost perfection of development. During the third period, that is from forty to sixty, he is considered to remain at his full vigour of mind and body. From sixty to eighty he is said to decline slowly, and the last period witnesses a more complete failure of his faculties, during which he is exempted from the occupations and labours of life, ​and receives a pension from the state, if he have no private fortune, to allow him the repose his failing powers require.

Up to eighty years of age, he is still considered fit for work and may be employed in a post under Government. But at eighty he is compelled to give up his place or office and to go on the retired list, in order to make room for younger and more vigorous men.

The two periods of twenty and eighty are celebrated by rejoicings and festivals, more or less imposing according to the social status of the individual. At the former period, he is congratulated on becoming fit for public life, at the latter period he is again congratulated on gaining exemption from work.

He may anticipate his majority by a year or two, by passing a rigorous examination in hieroglyphics; by making some scientific discovery; by inventing some ingenious machine; by executing some great work of art, or by showing a certain proficiency in musical oratory.

On attaining his majority by the lapse of the required number of years, or in any of the ways adverted to, he has to appear before a magistrate, and assume the name he is thenceforth to bear.

Under this system it is impossible that any one can have a name he dislikes, as he might easily have, if his name were bestowed on him in his infancy by others. The same rule is applied to the female portion of the community; and they too can anticipate their majority in the same way as the males, though this very rarely, if ever, happens.

The names selected by the young men are usually those of some heroes of antiquity, or of some ​celebrated historical characters. But they often prefer to pay some living or deceased friend a compliment by assuming his name; and sometimes they will retain the pet name by which they had hitherto been called. This is particularly the case with the young ladies, who frequently elect to retain the trivial name their loving parents had bestowed on them, rather than take any new name. Thus there are lots of Pollys, Jennys, Millys, and such like. If they dislike their childish name, or think that it is not sufficiently pretty, they often take the name of some terrestrial flower they know or have read of, which strikes their fancy, as Lily, Rose, Daisy, and so on. Occasionally they select the name of some interesting character of romance or history. The names of Shakspeare's heroines are much affected by them. They have better sense than to select the name of some moral quality, such as Patience, Mercy, Charity, which fond parents in England sometimes inflict on their daughters.

Thus it happens that one seldom meets with ugly names among the Colymbians, for, though parents or guardians sometimes do not scruple to give their children and wards most unæsthetic names, it is very unlikely that any one will give himself a name that might excite ridicule or contempt.

The Colymbians rightly consider that there is a great deal in a name, and that one's future career is often made or marred by an appropriate or an injudicious name. Hence they hold that no one has a right to bestow a name on another without his consent, and they attach great importance to allowing a perfect liberty of choice to all on arriving at years of discretion.

The selection of a name is with some a most important event, and as the time approached for doing so, ​they would ask the advice of their friends, and spend days in poring over lists of names which are published in order to aid them in their choice.

A name once assumed and registered cannot be laid aside and another substituted. So most feel it is important to select a name that they will always feel pleasure in bearing, and which will make them more attractive and be useful to them in their future career.

As most of the literature of the Colymbians, when not indigenous, is derived from English sources, the names they chiefly affect are familiar English ones; but some prefer French or German names, others ancient classical names, and some even select the quaint names of their ancestral Colymbians. But whatever names they adopt are sure to be highly euphonious, as is to be expected among a race where music is so universally and so thoroughly cultivated. Indeed, many of the ladies choose appellations made up of some two of the names of the musical notes, as Laré, Mido, Fala, Simi, Solla, &c.

Surnames or family names are often such as are familiar to us, as Smith, Brown, Jones, &c., showing the English origin of the family's founder. But some of the surnames are derived from the race that originally peopled these islands. These native names usually terminate in "ik" or "ob," "Ngasik," "Mburob," and so on. The surname can be changed at will; and as the ancient names are considered unfashionable, very few families or individuals retain them. They are ever ready to drop them for some high-sounding English or French name, which they have got out of books. So there are Stanleys, Montmorencys, De Guesclins, Montagues, &c., who, one ​might swear, are the descendants of a native stock which had changed its name.

Little importance is attached to their family names by the Colymbians, so that it is only a few who go to the trouble to change them, even if they are decidedly ugly. It is not considered etiquette to address any one by his family name, but only by the name of his choice. Thus it often happens that some very intimate friends do not actually know one another's surnames. It is only on the solemn occasion of taking a lease of a house that the surname is used at all. In society one only hears people called by their chosen name, as Ajax, Rupert, Gustavus, or Daisy, Cleopatra, Lucretia, &c.

But it is not only in their names that the Colymbians go on quite opposite principles from those that obtain among terrestrials. In the selection of persons to fill the various offices under Government, they also seem to act on principles the exact reverse of what we consider the right method. They never give a place to any one who has given evidence of his fitness for it by an acquaintance with the matter with which he will afterwards have to deal; but only to one whose whole previous career shows him to be entirely ignorant of it. Thus, if it is an inspectorship of public buildings that has to be filled up, one who is utterly ignorant of architecture is appointed, and the new inspector, on entering on his duties, is accustomed to boast of his peculiar fitness for the post, by reason of knowing nothing of the construction of houses. In consequence of his entire ignorance, he would say, he would be able to fulfil the duties entrusted to him with strict impartiality, free from all prejudices in favour or against any particular method of building. If, under his supervision, houses are built that soon fall to pieces, ​this is looked upon as inevitable and no blame attaches to him or to the authorities who appointed him. And so with all other offices held under Government. The chief of the state appoints his friends and supporters, and never troubles himself about their qualifications, or rather he purposely appoints such only as we should consider utterly disqualified.

The same system is not followed in private life. Those who wish anything done for themselves, employ only those who have proved themselves by their studies and experience the best workmen. Thus it happens that everything done by private enterprize is well done; whereas everything done by Government is so wrongly done, that it has to be continually patched and tinkered, or all taken to pieces and done over again from the beginning. Government buildings are continually tumbling down or being repaired, Government contracts invariably lead to never-ending law-suits, Government works of all kinds are constantly going wrong.

This plan has certainly the effect of creating an enormous amount of extra work. But this gives great satisfaction to the people, for it gives employment and high wages to artisans and workmen of all sorts, and nothing would be so unpopular with the multitude as that Government should do its work effectually; for the labouring classes look to Government to give them the maximum of work and wages for every job undertaken by it.

Even when the Government selects a person for the execution of a work who is known to be a skilled artist, it takes care that his skill is not in the particular kind of work he is appointed to do. Thus, if it has to appoint an architect to build a great public ​hall, it selects one who has never built anything but small private houses. In this way, the hall, when built, is certain to be so defective as to require constant repairs, or it perhaps tumbles down altogether, amid the general approbation of the working classes, ever on the outlook for jobs.

This mode of conducting its business gives, as I have said, general satisfaction. There are, to be sure, a few grumblers, who contend that Government should be economical and get its work always done in the best possible style, which it could easily do as it has the whole extent of the country to choose from. But these form an insignificant minority and are looked upon as selfish tax-payers or impracticable ideologists.

If one of these grumblers and sticklers for economy, by his persistency and his eloquence, seemed to be producing an effect on the public, and was otherwise dangerous and annoying to the party in power, the chief would bestow on him the appointment of minister of some important department of state, for which he was especially disqualified by education and experience. That would not have mattered much, and he might have done as well as the other heads of departments, had he been willing to let things alone. But this he would never do. His services had been acquired and his place had been obtained by his economical theories. So he at once commenced to put them in practice. Knowing nothing about the subjects to which his department referred, he could look at them only as things to be financially pruned. In his zeal for economy he cared not how he offended and morally trod on the tender toes of those placed under his authority. Thus he set every one against him, and after a short tenure of office became the most ​popular of ministers. This was just what the chief of the state wanted, and what he foresaw would happen. He could now safely depose the unpopular minister and did not need to fear him hereafter, as his actions, when in office, had fairly deprived him of all influence when out of office. The very circumstance of his having accepted office would ruin him in the estimation of some; his offensive conduct to better men than himself would cause him to be disliked by others, and his economical cheeseparing's would alienate from him all interested in the expenditure of Government money, so that his career as a demagogue was cut short.

The politics of the Colymbians are of a very simple character. There are those who want place and power, and those who want work and pay. These latter place the former in power, if not with the expressed intention, at fill events with the full expectation, that when in power they will repay their electors by plenty of work and high wages. A government which professed its intention of being economical, became at once unpopular. None interest themselves in politics, save the place-hunters and the inferior sort of working-classes; and yet these last, who constitute almost the whole of the electors—for persons who have no interest in Government jobs seldom take part in elections—never elect one of their own class, but always one of the members of the upper ranks, rightly judging that people who are not under the necessity of earning their livelihood by work will know less of the value of money than those that are, and consequently will be less chary of lavishing the public wealth by which they (the electors) profit.

​The taxes in Colymbia are all of the nature of income-tax and are only levied on those having a certain minimum income. The daily, weekly or monthly wages of the labouring classes are exempt from taxation; hence their hearty approval of a freely-spending government. As there are no imports or exports there is of course no source of revenue from customs.

The building operations below water are very extensive and are constantly going on. The facility with which the workmen move about the largest blocks of coral-rock seems wonderful. This is owing to the weight of bodies in water, as compared with the same bodies in air, being so much less by the difference between the weight of air and of water. Thus it may readily happen that a body may weigh hundreds of pounds in air and not above an ounce or two in water; it may of course even be lighter than the water.

One advantage attending the building of houses in Colymbia is that accidents to the workmen are almost impossible. Of course it is obvious that if they fall off the top of a house, they will not practically fall at all, nor yet rise, their equilibrium with the water being maintained by their weight-belts. If a mass of the building material fall on a workman, its specific gravity being but little greater than that of water, it will fall on him as gently as a feather-bed in air, and he has no difficulty in extricating himself. Labour is thus comparatively light, and free from the risks attending it in air. And yet the hours of labour are shorter in Colymbia than they are with us. The law has rigidly fixed eight hours as the limit of working hours for hired labour. No overtime is ​allowed. Thus the day is divided into three periods of eight hours each, to wit, eight hours for work, eight hours for play and eight hours for sleep.

As the Colymbians do not require to drink, none of the wages of the labourers are spent on beer; and as food is plentiful and cheap, and as few clothes and no coal or candles are used, the workman has always something to spend on his amusements and has always time to amuse himself.

CHILDREN-BEARING ESTABLISHMENTS.

THE establishments for rearing children, of which there is one in every town, are endowed by the State, but managed by directors elected by the citizens. This is one of the most astonishing institutions of this strange country. I carefully inspected several and found them conducted on the most perfect scientific principles.

Children are received at any age up to two years; after that, only in the event of the parents, actual or by adoption, dying or receiving some appointment incompatible with the proper care of their children. No person will undertake to rear children for whom he is unable or unwilling to sacrifice the time and incur the trouble necessary to bring them up well and fit for making careers for themselves. Parental affection, which might interfere with the future welfare of the child, is sternly repressed from a sense of patriotic duty.

Many to whom I talked on this subject, and on whom I endeavoured to impress our English ideas of the meritoriousness of rearing a large family on very small means, replied that they did not so understand the duties of parents and citizens.

​"Before indulging," said one, "our parental affections, a quality of the mind, or of the heart as you would say, which we have in common with many of the inferior animals, we should consider what is best for the state and what is best for the child. Obviously it would be bad for the child to give him a defective education, to neglect the cultivation of his natural talents, and to let him grow up without a due amount of supervision. In like manner it would be bad for the state to have any of its citizens growing up incapable of rightly fulfilling their duties of citizenship. If our means or our engagements do not permit us to educate and train our children properly, it would be a most selfish act, in fact it would be the mere indulgence of a purely brute instinct to retain these children with us, and allow them to grow up uneducated and not properly cared for. In order to gratify that low animal passion you dignify by the name of parental affection, why should we make bad citizens, and rear ungrateful children, who will, with justice, hate us when they discover that their prospects have been blighted in order that their parents' feelings might be spared?"

The reader will understand that I employed all the usual stock arguments to refute this revolting sophistry. I need not repeat what I said, as no British parent requires to be reminded of what is to be urged in defence of that purest and most sacred of the affections, parental love.

But I might as well have spoken to a stone wall. The arrogant conceit of these Colymbians is so great that they are incapable of appreciating the profoundest wisdom if it clashes with the maxims they ​have accepted. So after a few polite attempts I gave up the idea of inducing them to come round to our rational English notions on many subjects on which they differ toto cœlo from us.

To return to the child-rearing establishments, I went over several of them, and was much struck with the completeness of the means and appliances for bringing up and educating the children. The nursery has an efficient staff of nurses, who administer to the children their natural food, or bring them up by hand in the most careful and tender manner. In the absence of cows or other animals to provide milk, the cocoa-nut trees, that grow in profusion on the land, supply any amount of the most nutritious and digestible milk, on which the infants thrive to perfection.

I learned that the child born under water does not immediately require to breathe as is the case when born in air. During foetal life it is unquestionably an aquatic animal, and if not instantly exposed to the stimulus of air, its foetal aquatic life may be prolonged for a considerable period without injury. Of course it eventually requires that its lungs should be filled with air, in order to carry on its perfect life when separated from its mother, and accordingly it is gradually taught to respire in order to enable it to assume its proper place in the scale of creation, and perform all the functions of an air-breathing animal.

The main difficulty is to get the new-born infant to breathe through the air-tubes, but the ingenuity of the people has overcome this difficulty, and from the first days of its life it can breathe the air by means of a simple and effectual mechanism as well as if it were in the air. Each room has its large air-reservoir, ​into which the child's head can be readily brought, if there is any difficulty in using the air-tubes; but after a little care the infant soon breathes as comfortably through the tubes as its elders, and never needs to resort to the air-reservoir.

At a very early age the children are arranged into various classes, according to their intellectual capacities, and education suitable to each is carefully given. Those whose mental capacity suits them for it are educated for the higher scientific employments; others are brought up to be skilled artisans; others again, to follow the more mechanical trades; and the lowest capacities of all are trained for the position of unskilled labourers.

These establishments turn out men and women of the highest calibre, philosophers, naturalists, engineers, architects, musicians and artists, as well as skilled and unskilled workmen in every department. Ample employment is given to each as he completes his education; and the pupils of these great educational establishments generally contrast favourably with those who have been brought up at the private houses of their parents and guardians. Far from there being any disgrace or shame attached to the bringing up in the public schools, it is rather the other way, and those reared by private persons are generally thought less of than those who have received the advantages of the state establishments.

For every one who can work there is always employment of some kind or another to be had in Colymbia, and, as the necessaries of life are cheap and wages good, all classes are comfortably off. Crime of every kind is extremely rare, and the punishment for it, banishment to the land for a longer or shorter period, ​sufficiently severe to have an excellent deterrent effect on any who may feel disposed to commit a felony.

I inquired if there were not many cases of children received at the establishments who were incapable of a subaqueous life, or who, from some inborn defect of constitution or congenital deformity, are incapable of turning out useful members of society. I was informed that such cases did undoubtedly occur, but as infants so afflicted were not worth the trouble of rearing, they were not reared.

"What!" I exclaimed, "do the laws of Colymbia sanction infanticide?"

"Well," replied the resident director of one of these institutions, to whom my question was directed, "if you like to call it so, they do. But in this, as in other respects, the laws are formed on what you would undoubtedly call cold-blooded philosophical principles. They are drawn up and enacted with the sole view of the good of the community. Now it is not good for the community to be burdened with the charge of crippled, blind or deaf members. Every baby is carefully examined on entrance by a committee of learned anatomists and physiologists, and if they find it affected with any malformation, or deformity, or disease, which renders it likely that the child will not be 'viable'—i.e., capable of making its way in life—it is not reared, and thus society is spared a useless member, and a human being spared a wretched life."

"But," I replied, "we find from experience that cripples, blind and deaf people are often extremely useful members of society, and are by no means universally wretched."

"It may be so," he returned with calm indifference, but at all events the integrity of society is impaired ​by defects in its members. Our legislators have, in their wisdom, determined that the integrity of our society shall be preserved, and so we act in conformity with the law by preserving it."

"Such laws are cruel, heartless"—I commenced, but he interupted me with:—

"Keep yourself calm, my friend; you should remember that the law knows nothing of sentiment; but if sentiment is opposed to the general well-being of society, sentiment must yield, not society. It is true that our pseudo-humanitarians have often attempted to put in a plea for the preservation of the lives of those who would only be a burden on society, and have brought many specious arguments to support their views; but salus populi suprema lex est, and the well-being of the people is even more regarded by our legislators than the maxims of a fanciful morality."

This dreadful justification of the slaughter of the innocents shocked me beyond measure, and I could not restrain my indignation.

"What!" I exclaimed, "do you dare to destroy human souls who have as much right to live as you have?"

"My dear sir," he replied, "your feelings are so excited that you forget the proprieties of language. We allow the bodies of these unviable children to perish, but we make no attack on their souls, if they have any. Our philosophers do not generally countenance the idea of souls in human beings, as they say that all the phenomena of life may be satisfactorily explained without supposing the existence of an immortal essence or spirit as you imagine the soul to be. But granting the presence of a soul in your sense, ​you cannot contend that the death of the body is attended by that of the soul. And yet we notice that your writers frequently express themselves in a very loose manner on this subject, when they say, for instance, "so many souls perished in such a battle or by such an accident." If these infants have souls as you believe, we do these souls a service by freeing them from the bondage of a deformed or imperfect body, in which they would have fretted and chafed away a few years of miserable existence. But the child, we contend, can only be said to become an individual human being when it acquires consciousness; if not allowed to reach the period of consciousness, it may be said that it has not existed. We merely carry out, in a scientific and merciful manner, the process performed in a clumsy and cruel manner by nature, which your learned men term 'the survival of the fittest.' In England you pursue a diametrically opposite course, for while you make frantic efforts to preserve the lives of your lame, your blind, your deaf, your idiots, and your imbeciles, you allow thousands of sound and perfect children to be annually slaughtered by neglect and starvation, or reared in ignorance and crime, because you insist that parents shall bring up all their children, however numerous and however inadequate their means for doing so. That our system is infinitely more humane than yours you may imagine when I tell you that it is very seldom indeed that any defective or diseased child is born in this country, for the parents are all so well shaped and so healthy that they are most unlikely to produce offspring unlike themselves in these respects. Our system has the same effect as the care you exercise in England has on stock-breeding. The parents are examples of all the good points ​in the human breed, and their children follow suit or even improve on their parents' qualities. It is a marvel to us how you in England can allow unlimited freedom in marriage, when you have among you so many deformed, defective and diseased people, who are likely to propagate their imperfections and deteriorate the race, or at least prevent it attaining perfection with due rapidity. It would be for your advantage to permit no couple to marry without a thorough examination by competent physiologists to see if the match would be suitable in the point of view of the production of good offspring. We have a still better method here, we quench the evil at its source, and refuse admission into society of any that are likely to deteriorate the race. After that we can safely allow the most unlimited freedom of choice in matrimonial affairs without much risk of producing defective children. And look at our people! Did you ever see more perfect specimens of all that is graceful and healthy in humanity? No deformities, no diseases, no incapacity for work or for fulfilling all the obligations of life; the highest intellectual development in the most perfect physical frames."

"Sir," said I, "were you all Admirable Crichtons, this would not make your arguments other than what they are,—namely, the sheerest sophistry." I then went on to expose the fallacy of his reasoning, and the shallowness of his sophistry; but as my line of argument must be familiar to every reader, I will forbear repeating it here. The director listened to me with courtesy, but I saw that the reasoning which would have had a convincing effect among terrestrials, failed to produce the slightest conviction on this aquatic. I felt annoyed to see my well-turned points and ​down proofs glance off hie mind like water off a duck's back, and in my petulance I exclaimed:—

"These detestable tenets and practices could only exist among a people destitute of all religion and morality."

"The greatest good of the greatest number—the few must suffer that the many may be happy,—that is our morality," he retorted, "and the same maxims are freely inculcated in England, only you fear to carry them out to their logical consequences,—we don't. We, like you, acknowledge the obligation of the state to supply education to all. Without exhausting our efforts in the thankless task of rearing those who are extremely unlikely to be of service to the state, we place all sound and perfect children in a position to profit by the education we give, so that they may become useful citizens. You leave the children you propose to educate in squalid over-crowded dwellings, with insufficient food and clothing and vicious surroundings, so that, it seems to me, the education you give them will only make them more expert thieves or more crafty beggars."

"You forget," I said, "that the state has wisely ordained that the poison of secular knowledge shall only be administered along with its antidote the Bible, so that there is no fear of the education we give being perverted to vicious purposes."

With these words I hurriedly took my leave, feeling satisfied that I had had the best of the argument, but knowing from my experience of Colymbians that he would never acknowledge his defeat.

RECREATIONS AND SPORTS.

AVERY favourite pastime of the young men is the capture of the flying-fish. This pretty little fish has a body somewhat resembling that of our herring, but is furnished with side fins of disproportionate size, which enable it to travel a considerable distance through the air. It does not readily take to the air unless pursued by some of its finny enemies. The chief of these is the beautiful coryphene, or dolphin as it is called by our seamen. The Colymbians train those coryphenes to pursue the flying-fish, and capture them in nets as they fall exhausted by their flight into the water. As the flying-fish frequent the still waters of the lagoon at particular seasons, parties are formed for their pursuit.

My friend Julian came to me one morning and told me a party was formed to have a flying-fish hunt, and inquired if I would join them, an offer I readily accepted. We numbered about a dozen, and arming ourselves with a hand-net, somewhat resembling an ordinary landing-net, proceeded in search of the game. One of the party had with him a brace of fine lively coryphenes, which he kept close beside him, and which excited my admiration by their agile and graceful ​movements, and by the brilliant and ever-changing colours of their bodies. The coryphene is a remarkable fish in shape. Its head is large and blunt, its body tapers away to the tail, which is terminated by a swallow-tail-shaped fin. Its back fin is remarkable, extending all along its back, from the top of the head to within a short distance of the end of the tail. It is a large fish, those we had with us being between five feet and six feet long, and sometimes they attain even larger dimensions. Any want of elegance in its shape is compensated by the wonderful beauty of its colours, which at one time are like burnished gold or silver, at others of every colour of the rainbow. Its strength and activity are very great, its sight of the keenest, and its voracity is amazing. When we came near the spot where the flying-fish were supposed to be, we opened out into extended order in search of our game. Presently one of the party intimated that there was a fine covey in front of us. We no longer moved straight forward, but under the guidance of one of the sportsmen, we turned off to one side so as not to disturb the unsuspecting fish. Making a detour, we arranged ourselves in a line, at the distance of about one hundred yards beyond the covey. The young man who had charge of the coryphenes remained behind, keeping—his hounds I was going to say—his fish quite quiet and motionless, until he saw that we were in our places. He then allowed the coryphenes to dart forward among the flying-fish. The latter soon spied their enemy, and, rushing to the surface of the water, spread their wings, and fluttered through the air straight in front of them. Their powers of flight are limited; for, after flying about one hundred yards, ​they are compelled by the drying of their wings to drop into the water. We had so well calculated our distance, that the shoal fell right among us, and as they fell, a considerable number were captured by us in the hand-nets, and immediately killed by squeezing the head. The most skilful captured in this way six or eight, and even the least adroit managed to bag two or three. The whole business reminded me of driving partridges or grouse at home, and altogether it was most exciting sport. A shoal once started could not be easily induced to rise again; but as shoals were numerous, we managed in the course of the day to get a very heavy bag, which, on arrival at home, we distributed among our friends, to whom these fish were very acceptable, as they are considered a great delicacy.

Another favourite amusement of the Colymbians is shooting wild-fowl. This they do in the following way. They have a straight tube, about two feet long, and a case full of small arrows, about four inches long. Inserting an arrow into the tube, they cautiously approach any birds that may be sitting on the overhanging branch of a tree, or a projecting point of the reef. When sufficiently near their game, they quietly extrude one end of the tube—the other being between their lips—and when they have got the aim, they blow the arrow sharply through the tube, and in this way the more skilful seldom fail to hit a bird at ten or fifteen yards' distance. I was told that the idea of this method of shooting birds was suggested by that curious fish, the beaked chætodon, whose mouth is prolonged into the form of a tube, which the creature brings cunningly above the water, and levels at any insect that may happen to be basking in the sun on ​an overhanging twig or bank, and, by a well-directed shot, tumbles the unsuspecting insect into the water. A drop of water is what the fish uses as its bullet.

With their little arrows and shooting tubes, the Colymbians kill a great many birds, some of which are tolerably good food. I found the sport rather tame after a few trials, for it somehow went against my native instincts to slaughter sitting game.

I much preferred the shark and turtle hunts in the deep external sea, and would sometimes join the pearl-fishers in their distant expeditions. The pearl-oysters are not found in very deep water, and we had to seek them at a good distance from the islands, in places where the depth of water was not above ten or fifteen fathoms. As we had to traverse a considerable breadth of ocean before reaching these shoal grounds, in order to avoid the attack of sharks, we carried short sticks, with sharp steel points, and if by chance one of these monsters attempted to interfere with us, a few pricks from our weapon soon sent him about his business.

The pearl-oysters are found in extensive beds, and as they are of considerable size, we could not carry off very many. So they are generally opened on the spot, and the pearls, if any, extracted. Immense shoals of fishes surrounded us whilst we were engaged in the work of opening the shells, and the bodies of the oysters were gobbled up as fast as they were extracted. In this way we could gather a considerable number of pearls; and the finest shells were carried off to be used in the manufacture of the Colymbian bank-notes.

The pearl-fishers are sometimes anticipated in their visits to the oyster-beds by shoals of enormous skates, ​which crunch the shells with their powerful jaws, devouring oysters and pearls, and leaving nothing but broken shells to mark where the bed has been. Sometimes the pearl-fishers find their disagreeable rivals at work on the oyster-bed when they arrive, in which case they have to dispute the possession of the oysters with these ugly fishes. The pointed weapons of the fishers are used with effect upon the skates, who, however, often show fight, and have a vicious way of lashing about their long spiky tails, a blow from which is by no means pleasant.

In these and all other operations in the ocean, each person was provided with a bottle of compressed air for respiration. It sometimes happened when the excursion lasted long, that the compressed air was exhausted before we could get back to the lagoon. In that case we had to ascend to the surface of the water to breathe, dive below again to swim, and again rise to breathe.

CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LAW.

THE legal profession forms a very important and numerous caste in Colymbia, and as the people are very litigious, there is plenty of what we would call civil business transacted in the courts. The laws have been enacted by the legislature at various periods, but whether from accident or design, have usually been so clumsily worded that their precise meaning is known to none. Every law requires some case to be tried in order to determine its meaning. Such cases are referred to as precedents in the event of future cases to which the laws are applicable being tried, and it is the great aim of the lawyers on either side to deny or contend for the applicability of the precedent to their client's case, according as it is made for or against him. When no precedent applicable to the case in hand is recorded, the judge proceeds to try the case by the relative weight of the arguments on each side. He has before him a nicely adjusted balance, one scale of which is for the plaintiff, the other for the defendant.

When the counsel for the plaintiff is about to speak, the judge asks him solemnly, "How many ​arguments have you for your client?" The counsel tells the number, which must not exceed twenty. The judge has then to determine the weight of each argument separately, as it is delivered by the advocate; and he places in the scale a material weight corresponding to what he judges its value. He has a whole heap of these weights beside him, ranging from a drachm to a pound. If he has any difficulty in determining the weight of any particular argument, he consults with one or more of his brother judges, with respect to the material weight that should be placed in the scale. When the advocate for the plaintiff has concluded his pleading, the plaintiff's scale is more or less filled with the weights of different values, corresponding to what the judge deems the respective weights of the arguments. He pursues the same course with the arguments of the defendant's counsel; and, according as the one or the other scale inclines at the end of the pleadings, the cause is determined for the plaintiff or for the defendant. If, at the end of the pleadings, the scales prove to be equally balanced, the cause is determined by hazard. The judge puts his hand into a bag containing an equal number of black and white balls, and, according as he draws forth a black or white ball, the one party or the other gains the suit. The result is duly chronicled in a large ledger, kept for the purpose; and this forms a precedent for other similar cases.

As owing to the very equal cleverness of the advocates on either side, it usually happened that the arguments on both sides were equally balanced, and the ultimate decision had to be made by hazard, clients began to perceive that they might as well save the legal expenses, and decide their own causes, by ​agreeing to toss up for themselves, without employing the costly machinery of the law courts. This private settlement of causes was, however, so much against the interests of the lawyers, that they discouraged it as much as possible; and the judges themselves disapproved of it, as causes thus privately determined could not serve as precedents. The legal profession, consequently, tried hard to induce the legislature to pass an act making the private determination of causes by hazard not only illegal, but punishable as a misdemeanour; but hitherto they have not succeeded in their efforts; and many cases are thus irregularly determined to the great disgust of the whole legal profession. Nevertheless, there is always a great number of litigants who prefer that their cases should come before the regular courts; so that, as I said before, there is plenty of occupation for the lawyers in civil cases.

Criminal cases, such as robberies, assaults, forgeries, murders, and the like, are conducted in a different manner. The head of the police in the district where the crime was committed, is entrusted with the collection of the evidence. He is generally an intelligent person, and the way he sets about his work is peculiar. He first of all forms a theory as to the commission of the crime, and he sets his officials to get up evidence, all with the view of substantiating his à priori theory. All evidence that rims counter to the theory is set aside as irrelevant, and whatever seems in any way to corroborate it is carefully collected and methodically arranged. When the chief of the police deems his case complete, he brings it before the judge in court along with the person incriminated. Lawyers are engaged on either side, and the trial commences. ​The advocate engaged against the criminal makes a long speech, in which he presents all the facts and surmises that tell against the prisoner in the strongest light, embellishing his discourse with all the flowers of eloquence at his command; when the evidence is defective, supplying its place with invective, insinuations and all sorts of ingenious arguments, to show the antecedent probability of the prisoner being the author of the crime. The prisoner's advocate does his best to whitewash his client, slurring over the strong points against him, and demolishing the arguments of his opponent, when these are unsupported by sufficient evidence. If he succeeds in satisfying the judge that the evidence and arguments against his client are not conclusive, the prisoner is acquitted, and nothing further is done; for the chief of the police, by whom the case is got up, relies exclusively on his theory; and when that is proved erroneous, he never takes the trouble to form another; so the real criminal escapes scot free. In fact, it is a Colymbian maxim that two persons cannot be tried for the same offence.

If, on the other hand, the evidence brought against the prisoner is irresistible, his advocate makes such a piteous appeal in his favour, offering all sorts of excuses for him on the ground of his youth, his age, his poverty or his wealth, his want of education or his vast intellectual acquirements, his miserable bachelor condition or his happy married state with a fond wife and loving children, his usefulness to the state or his absolute uselessness, that if he does not move the judge, he acts so powerfully on the sensibilities of the public that the prisoner, though possibly a thorough rogue, becomes an object of universal interest. His looks, his demeanour, his every action ​are recorded in the newspapers. He is made the hero of the hour, and every circumstance of his life, whether real or fictitious, becomes the subject of general conversation. Petitions and deputations without number incessantly pour in upon the minister of justice, demanding his pardon or at least the remission of his sentence. Such is the weight of public opinion brought to bear upon the minister that he generally yields to the solicitations of the humanitarians, and either liberates the prisoner or lets him off with an insignificant punishment.

The rarity of crime in this curiously constituted society, and the great amount of leisure of the people, conspire to give an undue interest in the criminal, and in place of exciting an excessive horror in the public, rather lead them to doubt the possibility of the crime unless it be proved to the utmost degree of certainty. Hence the great amount of sympathy always raised on behalf of the criminal. Every case is as it were tried over again by the public, and as a large section of the people are convinced that every case is got up by the police and that the condemned prisoner is really innocent, the pressure they exercise on the minister of justice proves irresistible, and the object of their compassion is spared the punishment he perhaps richly merits.

LECTURES AND SOCIETIES.

ITHINK the Colymbians are the greatest lecturers and the greatest lovers of lectures in the world. Every town has several lecture-halls, and these are occupied almost every night with orators declaiming and audiences listening with rapt attention to their utterances, delivered always in their exquisite musical oratory. But, as in their government it is customary to entrust the supervision of every department of state to some one utterly unacquainted with the subject matter of that department, so their lectures are usually, though not necessarily, delivered by persons who cannot possibly have any experience of or acquaintance with the subject lectured on. So just as the minister who presides over the natural history department is ostentatiously ignorant of natural history, can scarcely tell a bull from a bullfinch, or a cocoa-nut from a ribston-pippin, so a lecturer, say on the duties of the poorer classes, is invariably one belonging to the richer classes of society; a lecturer on the education of women is invariably a confirmed old bachelor and woman-hater; a lecturer on athletic exercises is certain to be one who never takes any exercise at all. And then the ​listeners to lectures, they are sure to be composed of such as can derive no possible benefit from the lecture, even were it to the purpose, as they are certain to consist of persons who have no interest whatsoever, one would think, in its subject. Indeed, so well is this understood, that the greatest pains are taken to exclude those who might possibly have a direct interest in the subject of the lecture, and to whom the lecture is ostensibly addressed.

Thus if a fashionable lecturer announces that he will give a lecture to the working-classes with advice to them as to their behaviour, &c., no working-man by any chance is ever to be found among the audience, but the hall is filled with a distinguished company of rich and idle ladies and gentlemen, who understand just as little of the matter in hand as the lecturer, but who applaud him to the echo.

So also if a transcendentalist gives a lecture on the turpitude and immorality of not holding by the tenets of transcendental geography, he never expects to see at his lecture any opponent of transcendentalism, but only its staunch friends, who will cheer him when he launches out against the absent opposite party, because they all entertain precisely the same views as the lecturer himself.

In this way lectures are of a double advantage. It gratifies the audience to hear their own opinions elegantly expounded, and it gratifies the lecturer to find that he has an appreciative audience.

I attended many of the lectures, and whatever the subject I found one general principle pervaded them all. The lecturer invariably represented those to whom the lecture was supposed to be addressed as utterly bad, depraved, and almost criminal in being ​what they were or in thinking what they did. On the other hand, he made out that those who belonged to his class, or who thought as he did, were all that was good, elevated and virtuous. But as his audience never by any chance consisted of the people to whom the lecture was nominally addressed, as all were of his own way of thinking, every word he spoke flattered and complimented them and disparaged those who were not of their sect. Thus, if it were a lecture given by one of the rich classes nominally to the poor—or by one of the working-classes nominally to the wealthy idlers, or by a transcendentalist to anti-transcendentalists, or vice versâ—the audience in each case, being exclusively of the lecturer's way of thinking, felt all the gratification naturally experienced by persons who are listening to laudation of themselves and depreciation of their neighbours.

I was astonished to find that the same sort of thing prevailed among men of science. They constituted themselves into a guild or close corporation, and none were admitted into their clique or set unless trained and educated in a certain way. Everything done by a member of the guild was praised and defended by the other members to such an extent that one would have said it was "a society for mutual admiration" rather than an assembly of scientific men. It was amusing to see how a scientific discovery by an outsider was received by the scientific clique. At first it was ignored—no one noticed it. But if the public took it up, then the scientific fraternity condescended to notice it, but only to condemn it, and that without inquiry, "It does not come from one of us, therefore it is naught." By and by, when ​the discovery forced itself into notoriety by its intrinsic merits, the scientific corporation declared that they knew it all along, that in fact it was not new, but had been discovered by one of themselves ever so long ago. As useful discoveries were seldom made by the members of the scientific guild, who moved altogether too much in the old grooves to be able to strike out novelties, but generally proceeded from outsiders, who were not trammelled by cut-and-dry notions and observances, so it almost invariably happened that really important discoveries were treated in the way I have described. In fact it was so well understood that extra-academical discoveries would never be recognised by this self-constituted Academy of Science, that few discoverers took the trouble to apply for recognition by the Academy in the first instance, unless they were already of the guild. The plan was by lectures, writings and other means to gain over a certain number of the public to a belief in the correctness or utility of the discovery, and to leave the Academy out of consideration altogether. Long after the public had recognised and generally adopted the discovery or invention, the Academy would ostentatiously open its doors to the new-comer, and with a great flourish of trumpets—beating of drums would perhaps be a more correct term, for trumpets are unknown in Colymbia, while drums are common—set forth the manifold advantages they conferred upon science, how ready they always were to recognise the claims of new scientific discoverers (after all the world had acknowledged them), and how ill off the science of the country would be without such an institution to foster and encourage rising merit.

​Though every one knew the groundlessness of the claims continually set up by the Academy to be the encourager and promoter of unaided scientific genius; though every one knew that an outsider had no chance of admission to the guild unless he forcibly broke open its doors with the assistance of a powerful public; though every one knew that the Academy had left out in the cold, to perish of neglect and to gnaw their hearts in disappointment, many who had had no influential public to back them, but whose discoveries had been afterwards utilized to the great advantage of the community, and whose monuments decorated the public places, still such was the force of custom and the power of shams in Colymbia, that the merits of the Academy were almost universally acknowledged. Some few there were, but they took good care to give no public utterance to their heretical sentiments, who said that in place of Academy of Science it should be called Academy for the Retention of Things as they are and for the Obstruction of Advances in Science.

I suppose it is the dense medium in which they live that makes the Colymbians so fond of retaining the shadow after the substance has long passed away. Possibly in distant ages the Academy of Science merited its name, and acted really as a foster-mother to rising genius whom it sought out and introduced to the public. But if so, the actual character of the Academy differs vastly from its original one. The public are now the patrons of genius, and it is through the public alone that the Academy are brought to acknowledge scientific merit. Thus, just as the sovereign title remains in Colymbia long after the sovereign has ceased to exercise any power; just as a ​knowledge of hieroglyphics is still regarded as the most useful of acquirements, though its utility, if it ever had any, has long been inappreciable; just as transcendental geography is generally acknowledged to be the most consummate of all studies, though nobody can explain what good it can do, and certain persons, who are held by the transcendentalists to be shallow and frivolous, roundly assert that it does harm and no good; so the Academy of Science is held to be the greatest and best of institutions, the true foster-mother of genius, the liberal patron of rising merit—though all know it is just the reverse of all these.

"What a happy contrast," I mentally exclaimed, "does not my dear native country present to these shams! I suppose it is the lighter medium in which we live that enables us at once to discard everything after its inutility has been shown. What reality there is in our glorious system of constitutional government, with its King, Lords and Commons, whose duties and rights are so accurately defined that none can trench on those of the rest! What a splendid and perdurable creation is not the glorious union of Church and State—a church regulated by fixed rules of divine origin, deriving influence and beauty from its connection with the secular government; a state acquiring divine illumination from its connection with such a church! The best years of our youth are not employed in the acquirement of useless knowledge, and the portals of our science halls are always wide open for the reception and encouragement of struggling genius."

But though admission among the self-elected elect of science is difficult to the unknown and ​extra-academical votary of science, it is comparatively easy to some whose pretensions to science are but small or none at all. If a man have accumulated a large fortune, not only does he take a high social rank but he is universally accredited with attributes he certainly did not possess before he grew rich, and which he would as certainly lose were he to grow poor. Supposing he made his money by breeding turtle or fishing pearls, the coryphæi of literature, art, and even science, would, without hesitation, allow him to possess a competent knowledge of all the accomplishments appertaining to their several specialties. I was sadly at a loss to account for this phenomenon, and at first thought that this rich man must employ his wealth in bribing the representatives of literature, art and science in order to make them attribute to him those qualities he assuredly did not possess. But I was mistaken, the rich man needed not to spend the value of a farthing on any of the subjects mentioned. It was some quality in his wealth that gave him all the attributes and advantages of genius without having had the slightest natural gift of it. I have noticed in a society of Colymbians the learned, opinion of a competent person on some matter of art or science treated with contempt, while the utmost deference was paid to the inane and ignorant deliverances of the muddle-headed possessor of a pen of 50,000 turtles.

I expressed my surprise to a distinguished member of the Academy of Science at this curious propensity of his countrymen to credit the rich man with the possession of all the talents he was conspicuously deficient in.

"Of course," said he, "you do not think us such fools as to believe that these rich noodles have those ​talents they are credited with. But the fact is we find it needful to set up some authority besides the cultivators of the several arts and sciences. Now, rich men possessing precisely what is the ultimate aim of science and art, to wit, wealth and its accompaniment power, appear to us to be the fittest conventional judges of those sciences and arts. We know it is highly illogical to do this, but when you have lived long in Colymbia you will find that we are little governed by logic in our public actions, but almost entirely by precedent, tradition and convention. And yet we get on wonderfully well; as you would perhaps say in spite of our lack of logic, but, as we think, in consequence of having other standards besides that of logic to regulate our actions. The history of the world shows that when a nation attempts to discard the fictions of convention and strives to regulate all its actions by the strict rules of logical induction, it falls into terrible confusion and unutterable grief. The reason of this unexpected result may be that our premisses may not be so true as we think them—indeed the variations that are perpetually occurring in these premisses show that they are not so incontrovertible as we fondly imagine. Logical deduction from false premisses is certain to end in universal confusion. Where a conventional fiction is found useful we retain it until we can do without it. Thus our conventionalisms are, as it were, the apology for the truth; they are make-shift halting-houses to serve us till we have arrived at perfect truth, when they will no longer be of any use and will become extinct. You, in England, have similar conventional fictions, which are useful to you until you can ascertain the truth. Thus in chemistry you have your atomic ​theory, your electric fluid, your caloric, perceptible and latent, and fifty other conventional fictions, which you know to be not the truth but which serve your purpose until the truth shall be revealed."

I felt he was utterly and decidedly wrong, but not being conversant with scientific matters, I could not contradict him, so was content to leave him master of the field. On another occasion when I remarked on the different manners in which the Academy treated useful discoveries and inventions proceeding from outsiders, and the useless discoveries those of their own guild were perpetually making; the former being treated by the Academy with contemptuous silence or pooh-poohed as if of utterly insignificant importance, the latter being lauded to the skies and represented as of the greatest importance to science and humanity; he defended this action of the Academy warmly and said:—

"The Academy acts perfectly right in this. Useful discoveries will soon obtain their due reward from the public who profit by them, but a useless discovery may be, as a discovery, a much more brilliant scintillation of genius than a useful one, but what would the public care for it? The author would live and die unknown and neglected were it not for the Academy, whose main object is to award praise and reward for discoveries in the inverse ratio of their utility. The inventors of electric illumination, of tidal machines, and of all the mechanical works whereby the community profits, have been slighted by the Academy; but look how they have been rewarded by the public, they obtained substantial pensions during their lives and their statues grace our public ​places since they died. But look whom our Academy delights to honour. The latest recipients of the rewards the Academy has to bestow are three distinguished Academicians for their observations—the first, on the intestinal parasites of the sand-hopper; the second, on the influence of the moon's phases on the growth of the periwinkle's shell; the third, on the infinite indivisibility of ultimate atoms. These great and surprising discoveries would have been treated with indifference by the public, as they do not minister to comfort or convenience."

"But suppose," I said, "that the useless discovery was made by one not belonging to the scientific guild?"

"Ah, then," he replied, "it would stand but a poor chance of being noticed at all, either by public or Academy. It would have to wait until it was rediscovered, or assumed as his own discovery by an Academician, when it would meet with due honour."

"A very satisfactory dénouement for the real discoverer!" I observed. To this my academical friend deigned no reply.

Although the scientific guild, or coterie, or clique, does not include a very large proportion of the population, it yet exercises an amount of influence disproportionate to its numbers, as it commands the pens of most of the public writers; and it is considered quite "the thing" to express the utmost admiration and reverence for science, even though its worshippers may have no pretensions to it themselves. Thus it was that the Government, or at all events the chief of the ministry, invariably treated scientific men with the utmost deference, and took good care not to offend them—at least personally—otherwise their influence, which was great, might have been used to upset him. ​But occasionally the pretensions of the men of science would become more than the chief himself could put up with, and then he would administer to them a proper snubbing, hot directly, but by means of one of the inferior ministers of state. The scientific men being so influential, as I have stated, had naturally obtained a good many of the lucrative appointments at the disposal of Government, and though they did not manage much worse than the incompetent persons usually appointed by Government to such offices, their scientific labours sometimes did interfere with the proper working of the departments over which they were placed. When such an event happened. Government was only too glad to avail itself of the opportunity of giving, a not undeserved rebuke to the great science-guild, in the person of one of its members. Of course the outcry from the inculpated philosopher and his whole fraternity was great; but as there really was a good foundation for the rebuke, the public sided with the Government, and the discomfited philosophers had to "order themselves accordingly," that is to grin and bear it. A case of this sort occurred during my stay in Colymbia, which illustrates what I have stated so well, that I have no hesitation in giving the details of it.

The illustrious philosopher Schnüffelpilz had made himself so renowned by his investigations into the minute anatomy of minute organisms, that the scientific world with one accord named him as the fitting person for appointment to the office of inspector of the water-valves of a section of the barrier, that had just become vacant by the retirement of the previous inspector, by reason of old age. Now, as there was practically little or nothing for the inspector ​to do, as the valves were self-acting, and it only required a common workman to see that they did not get locked from any stray fish or bit of seaweed becoming entangled in them; the post was unanimously pronounced by the scientific world to be just the thing for Schnüffelpilz; as he might be able to pursue his researches with greater effect, with so much leisure time and such a capital income at his command. Accordingly he was appointed to the office, though the chief of the state felt rather sore at being obliged to give away among the scientific clique a lucrative post, which he would rather have bestowed on one of his immediate supporters.

As soon as Schnüffelpilz was duly installed, he commenced a series of experiments to solve a problem in natural history it had long been his ambition to determine; but want of time and means had hitherto prevented him working it effectually.

It was well known to Schnüffelpilz, who was a great reader, that the celebrated naturalist Sir Joseph Banks had held the opinion that the flea and the lobster were closely connected in the scale of the animal creation; indeed, he went so far as to imagine that they might be the same animal in different stages of development. In order to put his theory to the proof, he bethought himself of resorting to the test of boiling water. The lobster, as is well known, turns bright red when subjected to the action of water at a temperature of 212° Fahrenheit. If, reasoned Sir Joseph, the flea, when introduced into water at the same temperature, changes his sable hue to scarlet, this will be strong primâ facie evidence that he is of the lobster genus. It is well known that the experiment, though conducted with ​every possible care, did not corroborate the views of the great naturalist, and it is said that when Sir Joseph saw that the boiling water caused no change of the flea's colour, he exclaimed impatiently, "Fleas are not lobsters, d——n their souls!" But it is highly improbable that he indulged in any such illogical exclamation, which, though it is recorded in the writings of the celebrated contemporary poet, Peter Pindar, must be held to be merely a poetical version of some expression of annoyance he may really have given utterance to.

The renowned Schnüffelpilz was much struck by the opinion originally entertained by Sir Joseph, that fleas and lobsters had an identical origin, and he was far from satisfied that the test adopted by the English naturalist was conclusive. So, as soon as he was installed in his new office, he commenced a series of experiments that extended over several years and were prosecuted with a perseverance and zeal characteristic of the great philosopher and worthy of his important subject. His patience and energy were amply rewarded by a discovery he made, which proved distinctly that the flea and the lobster were closely allied if not identical species.

His natural sagacity suggested to him, that if the identity of the two animals was to be established, it must be proved by the analogy of the anatomical structure of some portion of both animals which would be unaffected by the difference of the medium each usually inhabited. Careful consideration led him by a process of reasoning by exclusion to decide that the antennæ or feelers must be this organ. These, to a mind unexercised in the deepest profundities of comparative anatomy, would appear to be the most ​unlikely of all the organs of the two animals, to prove, by their comparison, the identity of the creatures. For whereas the antennae of the lobster, as is well known, are enormously long and many-jointed, those of the flea are conspicuously short and few-jointed. I shall not attempt to give the exhaustive reasoning of the great naturalist, whereby he proves that in the antennae alone can the identity or difference of the two animals be discovered; for this occupies 324 pages of his great work on the subject, which has for its title a felicitous parody of Sir Joseph's imputed exclamation: "Fleas are true lobsters, bless their hearts!" It will suffice to say that Schnüffelpilz proved the identity of the flea and the lobster by the exact similarity of the distribution of the arteries at the base of the antennae of both animals.

While the scientific circles were still ringing with the plaudits of admiration elicited by this great discovery, and while the newspapers, catching the enthusiasm from the philosophers, were asking why some exalted order of nobility was not created for the purpose of appropriately rewarding such great discoveries as this, Schnüffelpilz was by no means contented with his labours, but was steadily prosecuting them to a further development. Not satisfied with having proved, to the satisfaction of the most prejudiced, the identity of origin of the flea and the lobster, he now set himself to solve this still more difficult problem, "Is the lobster an improved and highly developed flea, or is the flea a degraded lobster?"

In order to answer this most important question, he had to conduct simultaneously two sets of experiments. He had on the one hand to endeavour to adapt fleas to the habits of lobsters, and on the other to ​cause lobsters to take to the mode of life of fleas, and to observe what changes the animals underwent in consequence. In order to carry on his experiments, he had to clear a space of the lagoon, close to the coral-reef, where he could keep the lobsters he required, and where he could initiate the fleas into the mysteries of aquatic life. Most of his time was spent on shore, whither he transported his lobsters in order to accustom them to the habits of fleas.

After repeated trials, varied in every manner that human ingenuity could suggest, he found it impossible to accustom the fleas to aquatic life, nor would they touch the food that lobsters delighted in. All the fleas died shortly after their transference to the water. With the lobsters he was more successful. He rolled them up in blankets, and that the change of life might not be too sudden, he damped the blankets. He fed them on human blood, supplied from the veins of himself and a few enthusiastic co-operators. The lobsters all died under this treatment, but a few survived sufficiently long to raise hopes that eventually some might get quite accustomed to the new life. Schnüffelpilz was delighted to find that the few survivors underwent such changes before their death as to convince him, that were the experiment to be sufficiently long continued, and could the lobsters live long enough in the blankets, their physiological constitution and their habits would ultimately assimilate to those of the flea. Their antennae broke off short, they cast their huge claws, no longer required under the novel circumstances of their life, their tails curled up under them, so that their whole appearance was not unlike that of a flea seen through a magnifying glass, and before they died their ​blue-black colour took on a brownish tint about the articulations. From these experiments Schnüffelpilz concluded that fleas could not be developed into lobsters, but that lobsters might be degraded into fleas. It might, and doubtless would, require aeons of time to effect the perfect change of lobsters to fleas, but these experiments had shown that the metamorphosis was possible, and in this direction only.

The patience with which he carried on these interesting experiments, the sufferings he underwent by his long absence from the water and his exposure to the heat and noxious insects on the land (no one thought of the sufferings endured by the wretched lobsters), the exhaustion he produced by his repeated blood-lettings, all excited the admiration of the whole scientific world; and his reputation as the profoundest observer of his age, and the most zealous votary of science, to which he had almost proved a martyr, was acknowledged on all hands.

But in the course of his operations below the water he, without thinking of the consequences, had employed some of the tunnels as receptacles for his stores of lobsters; and by so doing had seriously interfered with the action of some of the valves. The consequence was, that on various occasions the surrounding water had varied as much as two or three degrees in temperature, to the great discomfort of the inhabitants of that portion of the lagoon, who lodged formal complaints against him with the Government.

The chief of the state eagerly seized on this opportunity for snubbing the scientific world in the person of one of its most illustrious representatives. Without appearing himself in the matter, he secretly directed the minister of public works to administer a ​severe reprimand to Schnüffelpilz. This minister, whose manners were the reverse of courteous, addressed a missive to the philosopher, couched in terms of studied insult, requiring him immediately to cease interfering with the proper action of the valves.

Schnüffelpilz, who was as irritable as any man of science could be whose scientific operations were interfered with, replied in indignant terms to the official missive. He said that men of his standing in the scientific world were not in the habit of being so reprimanded by a mere minister of state; that his experiments, which were of the utmost importance to science, were not to be interfered with, however much discomfort they might occasion to a few unscientific persons, and that if the minister did not allow him to act as he pleased, he would throw up his appointment.

The minister replied that the threat did not alarm him; that any common unscientific person could perform the duties of inspector at least as well, probably better, than the great philosopher; that he did not consider these so-called scientific investigations of any use, and that his own duties as minister of state were of infinitely more importance to the community than all the labours of all the scientific men of Colymbia.

The hostile correspondence between those two magnates was published, and immediately a great clamour was raised by all the scientific world against the minister. The papers, one and all, joined in the outcry, and a deputation of the leading men of the Academy of Science waited on the chief of the state, to urge the claims of their renowned brother to respectful treatment. They enumerated all his great services to science, dwelt on the personal and ​pecuniary sacrifices he had made in his search after truth, and concluded by demanding the instant dismissal of the obnoxious minister.

The chief received the deputation with the utmost urbanity, expressed in the most fervid terms his respect for science in general, and his appreciation of the transcendent merits of the great Schnüffelpilz, admitted that the wording of the minister's missives was anything but respectful to the man of science, but apologised for him by saying, that on the whole he was a useful man, with whose services he could not readily dispense, and that his discourteous style was only his way of doing business, which was unfortunate, but that he meant no harm. He advised that Schnüffelpilz should let the valves alone, and that no further notice should be taken of the affair. And so the great hubbub in the scientific world was allayed, and the minister carried his point, for Schnüffelpilz ceased to interfere with the valves and withdrew his threat of resignation.

WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND WRONGS.

IN the assemblies, lectures and entertainments, where my evenings were chiefly spent, and in the various excursions and parties formed to witness or engage in the races and other exercises that take up so much of the time of the Colymbians, I frequently encountered Lily. I had quite overcome my passion for her, and felt no desire to avail myself of her conditional offer to be mine, should she and her husband not agree. It appeared to me, indeed, that they agreed well enough, and I would not for worlds have done anything to interfere with their domestic arrangements. I did not avoid my former flame, but on the other hand I did not seek her society, as I had done before that fatal evening. She perceived my coldness, and, far from resenting it, she once said, "I suppose, from your manner, you no longer think of me as a future wife, and indeed I am very well content with Phoebus, and he, I think, is equally so with me."

I was, I confess, greatly relieved to hear this, as it was not the least to my taste, nor at all consonant with my ideas of morality, to take away a man's wife from him. I intimated as much in the most delicate manner to Lily. She said:—

​"Well, you terrestrials have such queer notions on all subjects, that it is not to be wondered that your ideas about marriage are as perverse as the rest. You must remember that it was you yourself who first declared to me that you were in love with me, and your woe-begone appearance when I announced to you my marriage with Phoebus convinced me that your disappointment was great. I was filled with the liveliest pity for you, and one of your own poets says, 'Pity is akin to love.' I should rather say, it often leads to love. I did not love Phoebus, and I knew he did not love me; we only liked one another, and married in order to see if we could love. I might have loved you had I seen that you retained your affection for me; but now that I see you have lost all caring for me, nothing prevents me giving my whole heart to Phoebus, and I dare say we shall make a most exemplary and happy couple."

I saw it was in vain to impress on this fascinating creature the notions respecting marriage which prevail in England. She could not have understood how we insist on love being a condition precedent to the formation of a matrimonial alliance. On this subject she one day said:—

"As you terrestrials know little or nothing of one another's bodies physically or mentally, you must marry your ideals, and what if the reality does not correspond with your ideal, and you are tied for life to one another? How you must hate one another! And how dreadfully immoral to compel persons who detest one another to live together! I could kill any man I hated were I tied to him for life! If Phoebus finds he cannot really love me, or if I find I cannot really love him, after an honest trial we should ​never think of waiting till we tired of, still less till we hated, one another, but we would separate the best of friends, and always retain esteem if not affection for one another."

"I fear," said I, "I never can reconcile myself to the Colymbian views concerning marriage, and my first shall be also my last disappointment, for I shall not allow myself to think of marriage again."

"Well, certainly, I think you are right not to think of marrying until you get correct views on marriage."

"I am sure," I said, "my present views will never be altered: they are grounded in my mind ineradicably by the teachings of the great and good men of the Church of England—a church," I exclaimed with fervour, "whose principles have a more than human authority."

"Ah!" replied my light-hearted friend, "I forgot I was engaged for the next dance to Charlemagne yonder; I see he is waiting for me, and his politeness forbids him interrupting our interesting talk, which I hope to be permitted to resume on a future occasion."

So saying she darted off to where her partner was, and presently they were gyrating away as gracefully as could be wished.

As shark-hunting proved one of the most fashionable amusements among the young men of the better classes, and it was an object of ambition with all to be able to throw the harpoon with precision,—for it was not always that young men were attended by professional huntsmen as skilled in throwing the harpoon as a Spanish banderillero is in casting his somewhat analogous weapon at the noble animal he ​tortures,—practice at a target with the harpoon was a very frequent occupation of the young men. The target was a dummy shark, being in fact the stuffed skin of a large specimen, which was kept moving by a small screw revolving near the tail and driven by clock-work in the body of the stuffed fish. The harpoon used in this sport had no cord with the circular parachute attached, nor was it barbed like the real harpoon. It had a sharp point, with a shoulder about three inches from the end to prevent it penetrating deeply, in fact, allowing it to drop out immediately. The best spot for fixing the harpoon was indicated by a circle, and this was considered the bulls-eye of the target. The skin being set in motion, the competitors had to approach it from behind and below, and launch their weapon from a given distance. He who made most bulls-eyes out of a given number of shots was the victor, just as in our own rifle-competitions at home.

These and other games and exercises of the youth of Colymbia were generally witnessed by considerable numbers of their friends and acquaintances of both sexes. The old gentlemen were very fond of witnessing the prowess of the rising generation, and boasting of their own skill in days gone by. The young ladies looked on with affected interest; but it struck me that they attended these games more for the purpose of displaying their own charms than from any interest they felt in the competition, and that their talk savoured more of flirting than of an appreciation of the skill of the harpooners. But perhaps I did them injustice, for it is no easy matter to read what is passing in other people's minds and thoughts, more especially when these others are young ladies ​who, the world over, are the greatest adepts in concealing their thoughts.

I noticed at all these public games and sports that there were a good many very pretty and graceful young ladies who were never spoken to or noticed by any of the ladies I knew, and whom I did not recollect to have seen at any of the assemblies or parties I had frequented. They seemed on excellent terms with many of the gentlemen, and were as lively, and apparently as intelligent, and certainly as good-looking, as any of the ladies of my acquaintance.

I called the attention of one of my fair friends to these ladies who kept apart from the rest, and asked her who they were. She did not deign to look towards them, but, with a haughty toss of the head, said, "I don't know; don't ask me! No respectable person knows such creatures,"

I was completely mystified, but said no more to my pretty companion about these young ladies. There was evidently something improper about them, or she would not have spoken of them in that scornful manner.

Julian, who had just been competing very successfully at the harpooning, came towards us just then. I slipped my arm within his, and said, "Tell me, my friend, what is the mystery about those pretty girls yonder, that they are treated so scornfully by our lady friends here?"

"Oh," whispered he, "those are young ladies who have been tampering, or are suspected of having tampered, with the air-tubes."

"Tampering with the air-tubes!" I exclaimed; "what, in the name of all that's wonderful, is that?"

"Well," said he, "I can't very well tell you, ​for in truth I don't know myself; but it is the unpardonable offence in Colymbia. The very suspicion of it is enough to exclude any lady from respectable society."

"Do gentlemen, then," I said, "tamper with the air-tubes?"

"Oh, undoubtedly they do, and that very often; but it is not esteemed a grave offence in them, and no one thinks the worse of a man even though he is well known to have tampered with the air-tubes frequently. The offence has been created by the ladies for the purpose of excluding some of their own sex from society. Pretty creatures! they must have some to persecute, and nothing gives them so much pleasure as to persecute their own sisters. If it depended on the men, probably no notice would be taken of the alleged crime; but the ladies insist on it, and any gentleman who dared to bring one of the tabooed ladies into society would incur their mortal hatred, and be perhaps for ever afterwards excluded from society himself."

"How very droll," I exclaimed, "that what is a trivial error in the one sex should be a mortal sin in the other."

"Well," said Julian, "it is the ladies themselves who have invented the paradox. Though the penalty attaching to the offence affects themselves only, they insist on inflicting it in almost every case inexorably. I say in almost every case, for there are ladies moving in the best circles who are not only suspected but known to have tampered with the air-tubes, but, with admirable inconsistency, they are not only received but courted and flattered by those very ladies who are so inexorable with regard to their other erring sisters. ​But then these exceptions must belong to very rich and influential families. Some rare instances there are of tabooed women being restored to a certain measure of favour if they have succeeded to large fortunes and distinguished themselves by their great acquirements in transcendental geography. In such cases the influence of the transcendental professors has been enlisted on their side: and, as these professors are all-powerful in female society, they have succeeded in rehabilitating the lost characters of their protegées, but the restoration is never quite complete and their position in society is seldom quite comfortable."

In pondering over this curious trait in the character and conduct of the Colymbian ladies, I came at last to the conclusion that it and some other anomalies I observed must be owing to the want of regular occupation for the females of this strange society. I found that this absolute idleness, as far as useful work was concerned, was owing to their own determination not to work. Exemption from the cares and trials of life was claimed by them as a privilege of their sex. Attempts had been frequently made by agitators to compel women to take a fair share in active life. Books had been written and many lectures delivered, in which it was stated and attempted to be proved by the writers and lecturers, that there was nothing in the physical organization or in the intellectual endowments of women to incapacitate them from many of the occupations and employments engaged in by men; that a fair amount of the work and drudgery of life would be of benefit to women in physical and moral respects, that the mere difference of sex should not be alleged as a reason for throwing all the burdens on the ​male sex. Appeals were made to the women themselves to come forward and take their share in the operations and employments, the arts and the manufactures that tended to the advantage of the community, and efforts were made to induce the legislature to pass laws compelling women to engage in work suited to their capacities. It was generally believed by men that the position of women would be much improved if they were to assimilate their mode of life to that of men. But these attempts had all, hitherto, ended in failure. Some women, indeed, were convinced of the equality of the sexes, and would have been willing to engage in useful occupation, but they were deterred by the clamour raised by some of their sisters, who declaimed passionately against the whole scheme, which they denounced as an insidious attack on their rights and privileges. It was a monstrous absurdity, they alleged, to represent that they were fitted for work. Their comparative feebleness, their delicate limbs, and elegant rounded forms would be utterly destroyed were they to engage in continuous work. Their capacity was for pleasure only, they were the toys and playthings of men, they were in the world to soothe and refine the rougher sex by their soft and winning ways and their exalted and intellectual conversation. Once allow them to share the occupations of men, all the charms of life would be lost. The poetry of life would be gone for ever, and society would relapse into a state of barbarism. Were women ever to be degraded to the hard mechanical ways of men, life would be one long dull round of irksome labour, uncheered by the civilizing and elevating intercourse of a softer sex, and men would soon find that, while ​lessening their own labours, they had completely eliminated the pleasures of existence.

"Fellow-countrywomen," exclaimed one of this shrieking sisterhood, "do not allow yourselves to be trampled on. Resist this insidious proposal of tyrant man. Be not cajoled by this sophistical talk about equal rights and equal duties for both sexes. Women, coerce your husbands in parliament, in the government, at the elections; give them no peace until they quash altogether this brutal attempt to induce you to perform what is clearly their own work. Once allow yourselves to be cajoled or forced into doing any useful work, and your despotic master, man, will soon make you do all the work; you will be reduced to the melancholy condition of Red Indian squaws, who are the hewers of wood and the drawers of water for their male oppressors, who pass their time in indolence or fighting. In place of being, as you are now, the ornaments of humanity, the glorious realisation of the perfection of human loveliness, the gems and rare flowers of creation, you will resemble the beasts and the birds, in whom the males usurp all the beauty of form, colour and voice, while the females are mere dowdy, voiceless drudges. Let us never allow ourselves to be degraded to a level with the lower animals. Wherein does the human race differ from the lower orders of beings but in the exaltation of its females above the drudgery of daily life to the æsthetical position of things of beauty, which are joys for ever? Wherein does the civilized human being differ from the outer barbarian but in the exemption of his womankind from all occupations, save those that tend to the beautifying, the adornment and the amenities of life? Resist with all your energy this vile attempt to ​dethrone you from your present moral ascendency. Let those paltry crawling creatures who would make you mere beasts of burden and pieces of animated mechanism see that you are the cream of creation, the glittering diadem on the head of humanity. Show these artful schemers that you are their betters—a more perfect creature than they are or ever can be. Man's place in nature is to work for woman and worship her, woman's to contribute to the recreation and amusement of man after his labour of the day is over. If both work, life will lose its charms; for the exhausting effects of toil will deprive either of the power of contributing to the entertainment of the other. Therefore, fellow-countrywomen, resist with all your might this encroachment on your proper position, that of embellishing and beautifying the daily life of the community!"

Such appeals to women to maintain their rights and to resist the efforts of men to trample them under foot, had the desired effect of raising such a spirited opposition to the proposition that women should be employed in useful work, that it had to be abandoned, and the women remained mistresses of the situation. They were thus free to develop the beauties and graces of their exquisite figures, and to devote themselves to all those arts and occupations that contribute to sensuous and intellectual enjoyment? And, in truth, they took infinite pains to render life pleasant to the rougher sex after the labours of the day were over. They were ever devising new amusements and diversions, and took care that sameness should not produce satiety.

The proposal to make women work at trades, manufactures, book-keeping, to turn them into ​clerks, secretaries, heads of departments, &c., was violently opposed, not only by the women themselves through the noisy mouthpieces of their own sex, but also by many men who constituted themselves women's champions, and opposed their admission to the labour-market on various grounds.

Some went in for the sentimental business, and insisted that the softer sex should be spared the burdens for which they were neither physically nor morally adapted. They appealed to the delicacy of woman's frame, their excitable and impulsive character, their want of perseverance, their love of change, as disqualifying them from engaging in man's continuous work. They alleged that woman was so constituted as to be only fit for love and the tender emotions, and they contended that by rude manual or tedious intellectual occupations women would be rendered unfit for the one great business that nature had imposed on them, the propagation of the race. If hard work did not utterly disqualify them from child-bearing, it would have a most injurious effect on their progeny, and the race would either become extinct, or suffer such a degradation, that mankind would degenerate from the high standard of perfection it had attained.

Others, and these were the majority of the working men of the community, opposed the introduction of women into the occupations hitherto filled by men, on the ground that there was not sufficient work to give employment to both men and women. If women were to be allowed to flood the field of labour many men must starve; and it was a lesser evil to endow all women with a regular allowance from the state as at present, than to suffer them to earn their ​own livelihood by dispossessing men from their posts.

Others took a more cynical view of the question, and loudly contended that women were by their nature and constitution unfitted for any serious occupation. If put in any position that required continuous attention, they would be tempted to neglect their work for every trifling cause, and everything committed to them would be utterly mismanaged and go to ruin. The beautiful harmony that at present prevailed, whereby all parts of the intricate machinery of the state worked smoothly and regularly, would be disturbed, and anarchy and confusion would be substituted for order and regularity.

In short, it was the opinion of the great majority of both sexes, that man should work at the real business of life, and that women should remain as the mere ornaments and decorations of society. So the feeble attempt of the would-be reformers resulted in nothing; and, if any women sought to break through the conventional rules that bound them by engaging in productive occupations, they were denounced on all hands as unwomanly and especially shunned and despised by their own sex.

I have hinted that woman's rights were more hotly contended for by their advocates of the opposite sex than even by themselves—but this was not looked on as anything extraordinary. Indeed, I noticed at a very early period of my residence in Colymbia, that every body seemed to understand his neighbour's business and interests much better than the neighbour himself; and they got excited and eager about a thing in the, inverse proportion of their own concern with it.

​This may appear anomalous, but it is nevertheless true, and I am bound to record what I found, however incongruous it may seem, rather than make out a picture consistent in all its details for the sake of getting it the more readily accepted as true. Truth, they say, is stranger than fiction, and I can readily understand it, for a fiction writer would naturally take pains to make his inventions wear an air of probability, which is often not to be met with in nature.

The reason why the Colymbians were so addicted to interfering with each other's affairs, I could only attribute to the great deal of leisure time they enjoyed. The ladies, of course, had as much as they chose, the gentlemen engaged in business were never occupied more than eight hours a day, and there were very many more, who, having a competence, were not compelled to work at all. The great amount of leisure among the people led them to invent congenial occupations for themselves, and as a rule nothing seemed to give them more delight than fault-finding, unless it were the endeavour to force others to do as they thought right. And all that they did in this way was, as they believed, out of pure philanthropy, and a wish to benefit their fellow-creatures. Whatever any one disliked himself, that he thought must be in itself bad, and ought to be put down, and the less he knew about it the more he was convinced that it was wrong and ought to be suppressed.

Like-minded people formed themselves into societies for the purpose of putting down things they themselves had no inclination for, and from which others seemed to derive enjoyment. Thus there was a society of unenterprising people who wished to suppress shark-hunts. They said that hunting sharks ​ruined people by imparting to their natures a ferocity not unlike that of the fish they pursued; that it was a dangerous pastime in which the hunters ran the risk of losing their lives, or at least their limbs; that it was wrong to destroy the shark on account of its usefulness in keeping down the excessive swarms of other fish, and in eating up the offal that fell into the sea; that all the efforts of the hunters could never produce any appreciable diminution of the number of sharks which swarmed round the reef; that finally, it was contrary to the principles of transcendental geography to slay sharks, as the books made no mention of sharks having been slain by the inhabitants of the unknown country. I need scarcely add, that the denunciations of this society had not the smallest appreciable effect in deterring persons from engaging in shark-hunts, which were indeed the most popular of all the pastimes of Colymbia.

Then there was a society which objected to the use of what they called contaminated air in the air-tubes, by which expression they meant its admixture with oxygen for breathing purposes, which had proved such a boon to the subaqueous inhabitants. Those worthy people contended that the air as it existed in the atmosphere was the proper air for man to breathe, and that its admixture with any foreign ingredient whatsoever was prejudicial, if not to the body, at all events to the mind of those who used it in that state. They proved by the experiments of chemists and physiologists that a candle would burn with frightful rapidity, and any animal would quickly die in an atmosphere of pure oxygen, that therefore it must be unfit for human beings even though ​largely diluted with air. These and a thousand other equally cogent reasons they adduced for the abandonment of the practice of mixing oxygen with the breathing air; but their efforts were unavailing, the people insisted on having oxygen in their air, and the very members of the society were fain to avail themselves of the mixture, and would have been heartily disgusted—so their enemies alleged—had they found the air-tubes supplied with unoxygenated air.

Then there were anti-gyrating societies, and these curiously enough, were chiefly composed of the zealous transcendental geographers; although dancing, which was the terrestrial analogue of gyrating, was especially mentioned in the books as being a favourite pastime of the unknown people. The society contended that the dancing of the latter was quite different in its nature from the gyrating of the Colymbians, that it was a solemn pas seul executed in privacy and never performed by two or more persons in public assemblies; though the books gave no intimation of the mode in which dancing was practised in the unknown country.

There were also societies for putting down the reading of works of fiction, for suppressing amusing lectures, for discouraging the use of personal ornaments, for prohibiting the eating of the flesh of reptiles, for emancipating the tethered seals, for putting a stop to the employment of the oral language, for the abolition of the punishment of deportation to the land. In short, there were societies for putting down almost every amusement and occupation of the people.

Though all these societies inveigh against the ​things they desire to suppress in the most active and energetic manner, their efforts are never in the slightest degree successful. This does not seem to discourage them in the least; indeed, my friend Julian assured me that they did not in reality wish to put an end to the pet objects of their aversion, for had they succeeded, their occupation would have been gone, which was the last thing they really desired.

Each society had its president, vice-presidents, treasurer, secretary and staff of officials, whose pleasure it was to keep it in active operation, to meet, talk, and indulge in denunciations and invectives against the practices they condemned, but who had no wish to do anything that would lead to their own extinction.

I attended meetings of many of these societies and was much struck by the earnest manner and the vigorous eloquence of the chief speakers. The musical oratory invariably employed exercises a strange fascination over both speaker and audience. The former never seems to tire of declaiming, the latter are never weary of listening. I suppose it was my want of a thorough musical education, or perhaps the impossibility I experienced in getting up the needful amount of enthusiasm in the subject discoursed upon, that caused me to feel comparatively little interested by these bursts of eloquence. A certain sameness pervaded all the speeches. The orators invariably argued as if their own peculiar subject were the most important, indeed, the only important thing in the world; as if the putting down of their pet aversion or the carrying out of their pet scheme, were the only thing needed to make life in Colymbia perfect, and to complete the happiness of the whole community. And they never failed to denounce those who differed ​from them as actuated by the basest motives, or as endowed with the most infinitesimal portion of intelligence. In fact, those who did not go along with them were held up to public ridicule and contempt, as mere knaves or fools, or a combination of both. They never would allow that an opponent had either honesty or intelligence. But they invariably claimed these attributes for themselves. And yet it was remarkable that, though they denounced their opponents so fiercely in public, they lived with them and associated with them on terms of intimacy and friendship, and behaved to them as courteously in private as they handled them discourteously in public. It seemed to be quite an understood thing, that these public denunciations actually meant nothing, but were to be adopted as mere flowers of rhetoric.

The principal orator of these societies was often presented by his admirers with a testimonial of greater or less value to mark their sense of his labours and eloquence. Such presentations were often the occasion of a special burst of eloquence from the fortunate recipient, in which he eulogized the objects of the society and his own special efforts on its behalf, and loaded his opponents with every epithet of contumely he could devise, to the great delight of his admiring audience.

I was present at several of these presentations, and one in especial I remember, where the favourite orator of the society for the liberation of the tethered seals was presented with a magnificent suite of ornaments for the decoration of his wife. He held forth in something like the following strain, though I am sure my memory does not do justice to his burning eloquence:—

​"The beautiful and costly testimonial you have just presented to me assures me, if that assurance were needed, that my humble efforts on behalf of the poor chained seals have met with the approbation of a large and influential portion of my fellow-countrymen. It is refreshing to me to find that there are so many good and true men in Colymbia, and that the relentless and wicked conduct of those who keep these poor animals in bondage meets with the disapprobation of so many wise and upright men, who will not quietly submit to see such hideous injustice inflicted on the meanest of animals. If I have been at all instrumental in checking the further extension of the practice of enslaving those intelligent and inoffensive creatures, and in preparing the way for the emancipation of all, it will be the proudest reflection and the greatest solace of my declining years. I have laboured with all my might, actuated by the purest motives, and your approbation is more cheering to my heart than any other event of my active and, I hope, not useless career. I cannot imagine what will be the feelings of our opponents when they learn that you have thus crowned my labours in this great and glorious cause with such a magnificent and appropriate token of your esteem. I envy not the sensations of those who are so lost to all feelings of humanity that they can take delight in the enslaving of their humble fellow-creatures. The cruelty of the deed is not justified by its utility, for though it is conceded that the poor animals perform the task imposed on them with admirable skill and patience, it would be better, a thousand times over, that we should leave our frontiers unwatched, than have them guarded at the expense of the sufferings of intelligent and ​unoffending animals. But our task is still incomplete. The ignorant and prejudiced promoters of this cruelty are still in a majority, and as long as I have strength remaining and a voice to plead the cause of the helpless and oppressed, you will ever find me in the foremost ranks of those who would strike down oppressors and discomfit the schemes of our ruthless and unscrupulous adversaries."

In something like this strain he continued to hold forth for a long time, to the great satisfaction of his auditors, who seemed to find an ample reward for their trouble and expense, in hearing their favourite topic lauded; and especially, as I thought, in hearing those who differed from them soundly rated.

In private life, this ferocious rhetorician was a mild and amiable man, who would not willingly do the slightest injury to those he so vehemently denounced, and with whom, I was assured, he lived on terms of perfect cordiality.

FUNERAL RITES AND MONUMENTS.

THE only occasion on which the Colymbians issue in any considerable numbers from their watery abode, and appear on land, is when they attend the funeral of some defunct Colymbian.

Diseases, as I have said, are almost unknown among them, owing to the care exercised in rearing only children who are pronounced absolutely sound by the competent authorities. Life below the water is extremely conducive to health, the clear pure water prevents all epidemics and infectious diseases, and keeps all the functions of the body in perfect order. Even accidents are almost impossible; for the heaviest weights fall on the body as softly as a down cushion; and if, for example, a child falls out of a window, it only mounts quietly to the surface of the water. When they die it is almost always of old age, and their burials are conducted with a certain amount of pomp and ceremony, varying according to the status occupied by the departed during his life.

The corpse, if of a poor person, is enveloped in a shroud formed of the fibres of a tough grass-like seaweed that grows in profusion in certain parts of the lagoon; if of a wealthy person, it is encased in the ​shells of large turtles, skilfully put together, so as to form a very elegant coffin or casket. The funeral arrangements are made by a company of undertakers, by whom the body is conveyed on shore, attended by the friends of the deceased, who don large cloaks and hats made of palm-leaves, and form themselves into a procession which accompanies the body up the side of the volcanic hill, to where a large crater displays its yawning mouth, from which issues, at all times, a column of smoke, coming from unknown and unfathomed depths. Near this crater stands an immense crane, from the top of which depends a long chain, supporting a kind of scuttle, on which the corpse is laid. The chief mourners, at a given signal, launch the scuttle with its burden into the air; the undertaker's men, at the same moment, work the machinery of the crane, which swings round, and by the impetus thus given, the corpse is accurately projected into the yawning abyss. In a few minutes a bright flash of fire and a puff of dark smoke announce to the assembly that the combustion of the corpse is completed, and the friends of the deceased slowly descend the hill, and on attaining the water's edge, drop their cloaks and hats and plunge beneath the clear cool water. Sometimes a short speech is made at the crater's mouth, eulogistic of the departed friend; but the discomforts of the brief sojourn on land make them cut the ceremony as short as possible, in order to regain, with all speed, their more congenial element.

The ease-loving Colymbians found these funeral processions so irksome, that they had set to work to make a railway from the sea-side to the crater's mouth, and it was nearly finished when I left the country. It is on the atmospheric system, and is to be worked by one of ​the tidal machines. When completed, the mourners will be conveyed in tanks to the top of the hill, and when that is the case, one of my friends remarked, a funeral procession will be quite a pleasant affair, in place of, as at present, a terrible penance to the poor mourners.

The first funeral I witnessed in Colymbia was a dreadful shock to me. There was something so repugnant to all my English ideas respecting the sanctity of death, and the respect due to the corpse of a departed friend, in this grotesque procession up the burning hill, and the unceremonious projection of the body into the horrible smoking cavern, that I could not help expressing my horror and disgust at the whole business to the friend who had brought me there.

"To see the corpse of a beloved friend or relative chucked into the jaws of a fearful hole, as though it were the body of a dead dog, seems to me to be subjecting it to the utmost dishonour. Why not bury your dead in the ground, and mark the spot with a stone, so that you may know where the loved one lies, and occasionally come and pay the tribute of a tear at the spot where all that is mortal of him remains?"

My friend, who had the reputation of being a shrewd man of business, but who, believing his especial forte to be philosophy, had assumed the name of Plato, replied:—

"Your terrestrial prejudices disqualify you from seeing the beauty and appropriateness of our burial custom. You should know that it is generally believed that the early races who inhabited these islands are supposed to have been addicted to cannibalism, a ​supposition that receives confirmation from the discovery of gnawed human bones in various parts of the land, in connection with the rude flint implements of an early and barbarous people. As the Colymbians advanced in civilization, they became possessed with an extreme horror of assimilating any portion of the mortal remains of their fellow-creatures. They knew that if they buried their dead in the earth, the corpses might be dug up and preyed upon by some of the wild animals of the land, which might afterwards be used as food, or even if they escaped this calamity, still the decomposed elements of the body might nourish the plants that grow in the soil, which might subsequently be used as food, and thus we should be eating our friends and relatives at second hand; and in the bread-fruit we ate, or the juice of the orange we sucked, we might be partaking of elements that originally entered into the composition of our deceased fellow-men. In order to avoid such a horrible banquet, it was resolved to employ the means offered to us by nature for effecting the instantaneous and perfect combustion of the dead, and insuring the complete destruction of the material portions of our fellow-countrymen. The gases into which these are transferred issuing from the burning crater in the form of flame and smoke, as you just now saw, are wafted high into the air, and cannot be used in the nourishment of the plants that supply us with food. We thus avoid the horrible iniquity of preying upon our fellow-men. As for your idea of finding any pleasure in visiting the spot where the bodies of our friends are interred, that is mere sentiment. In your grave-yards you do not expose the bodies of your dead, but cover them up with many feet of earth; so ​when you visit the spot where they are buried, you only see the earth and the grass that grows thereon; and you know that after a short time the body is no longer there, but has been decomposed into its chemical elements, which rapidly escape in all directions. Your sheep and your oxen browse upon the grass that derives its luxuriance from these elements of decomposition, and you eat these animals, and assimilate the flesh, which is chiefly made up of what previously entered into the composition of your fellow-men. Such palpable cannibalism would be infinitely shocking to our feelings, and our mode of burial avoids this desecration altogether. We never think of disposing of the dead bodies of our domestic animals in any such manner. They are merely buried in the earth, where they afford sustenance to the plants, or are thrown over the reef into the ocean, where they are speedily disposed of by the sharks and other fishes which swarm around us, and no sentiment forbids us to partake of these plants and fishes as food."

I could not help remarking that the utter destruction of their mortal remains would be a grievous disappointment to future ethnologists and anthropologists, when the Colymbian race should be extinct; for that it would prevent them determining whether the extinct race was dolichocephalic or brachycephalic, a point to which the present representatives of these scientific men seemed to attach the greatest importance. He did not seem to be greatly concerned by the inevitable disappointment of these future philosophers.

Though the Colymbians are so strangely indifferent as to the final resting-place of their dead friends and relatives, and attach no sort of value to a grave, but ​rather hold such a thing in abhorrence, they are by no means averse from erecting monuments to the memory of their deceased worthies. These monuments give fine opportunities to the sculptors and architects to display their genius and taste. A statue is a common form of these memorial monuments, and I am bound to say that in their attitudes or poses, as well as in the beauty of their forms, the statues of Colymbia far excel anything we see in our English towns. The statues are never represented as draped, but always nude. They are made of a certain fine porcelain, coloured so as to resemble nature, the flesh tints being well rendered, and the eyes and hair of the proper hue. The attitudes of the statues are very various. I never saw any thing at all resembling the statues of illustrious men we have at home, who are either habited in the classic toga, or the ungraceful clothes of the period, and who generally stand awkwardly enough, with one hand planted above the hip, and the other holding a sword, a roll of paper, a book, or some other thing to indicate the profession of the person represented. A draped figure and a standing attitude would have appeared dishonourable in the eyes of a Colymbian, as it would have seemed to represent an inhabitant of the land, which was to his mind always connected with something vulgar, if not infamous.

In Colymbia the sculptor does his best to represent his subject in the prime of life and the perfection of human beauty, engaged in some one of the sports or exercises that take up so much of the time of the Colymbians, and show off their fine proportions to such advantage. Thus there is no tameness in the attitude of the numerous statues that adorn the lagoon; and a stranger, unaccustomed to the ways of the people, ​might have thought they were representations of acrobats at work.

I do not think that a faithful likeness of the deceased is attempted; indeed, as the Colymbians all die in advanced life, and the statues always represented them in the pride and prime of manly or womanly beauty, it is impossible that an accurate likeness could be always attained; still it has often happened that the statue was executed at the instance of admiring friends, during the life of the subject, and when he was at the height of his beauty. In such cases a fair likeness might be obtained; but in all cases the sculptor idealized his model, and attempted to improve on the graces with which nature had endowed him. These statues, though executed during life, are never erected in public places until after death, as it is a maxim among the Colymbians that it can be predicated of no man that he is worthy of a monument until he is dead.

Other memorial monuments they have in abundance. Elaborate architectural structures, built mostly of various coloured glass and precious stones, whose transparency and brilliant colours are much enhanced by being in contact with the pure crystalline water of the lagoon, and which form beautiful objects amid the generally dazzling white coral edifices around.

One of these structures particularly impressed me. It was in the form of a kind of open temple or shrine. It stood on a sort of pedestal or platform, of smooth dome-like shape, formed of various coloured marbles, arranged in a simple but graceful pattern. On the apex of this dome stood the shrine. The base of it was of a simple circular form, deriving its chief beauty ​from the exquisitely harmonized colours of the agates, jaspers, lapis-lazuli and other coloured stones of which it was composed. From this pediment rose a number of exquisite pillars of ruby-coloured glass, fretted over with beautiful figures in opaque white glass, representing many of the occupations and amusements of the Colymbians. The capitals of the pillars, which were of no order of architecture known to us, were all various, and represented various groups of beautiful seaweeds, treated in a conventional manner. These pillars supported a deep architrave, which again gave an opportunity for the display of the builder's perfect skill in harmonizing the colours of brilliantly-hued stones. The general form of the roof of the shrine was a dome. It was formed of many pieces of variously coloured glass cut into innumerable facets. It looked splendid from the outside, but when one entered the temple, the sun being high in the sky, the brilliant flood of gorgeously coloured light that streamed down the roof had a most wonderful effect; it was the poetical realisation of colour without form.

The Colymbians appeared to me to understand the harmonies of things better than we terrestrials do. Their highest form of speech, as I have already said, is the perfection of harmonized sounds; their arrangement of colours is equally perfect. Their grouping of figures, whether the living human figure, or their statuary, or their architectural devices, shows a marvellous acquaintance with some laws of harmony that are almost unknown to us, or only very partially known to some. To the Colymbians these laws seem to be as familiar as the first principles of mechanics are to our engineers, and they are as incapable of ​producing an inharmonious result as our best engineers are of building a bridge or a house that would tumble down as soon as the scaffolding was withdrawn. They believe that there is a general law that governs the harmonious combinations of all sensual objects, and that this general law lies at the root of, in fact constitutes, that unwritten code we term "taste," A book I met with, which was written by one of their most intelligent authors, was called "The Correlations of the Harmonies of all Sensual Impressions," in which the author attempted to reduce all the harmonies of sensual impressions to one general law. Whether he succeeded in this I am unable to say, as the book was too deep for my thorough comprehension; but as it was very highly spoken of by those most able to appreciate it, I presume the author had accomplished his task satisfactorily.

BEFORE I had quite completed my third year of residence in Colymbia I was thoroughly at home in the country, and had acquired the manners and customs of the people so completely that I was scarcely regarded as a stranger. My time was agreeably divided between study and recreation. I read with avidity the works that treated of the social and political institutions of this strange people. I passed much of my time in the lecture-rooms and the legislative assembly. I frequented the public and private assemblies, and took part in the games and sports of the young men, and derived much pleasure from my intercourse with all classes of society. The little experience I already had of the matrimonial arrangements of Colymbia, had quite disenchanted me of the idea of marriage with any of the charming young ladies with whom I flirted and danced and associated on the most friendly terms. I could not emancipate myself from my English prejudices in regard to the sanctity of marriage, so I determined that I would not run the risk of falling in love again. I had frequent longings for home and the purer delights of our domestic life; and I sighed as I thought of my ​probably permanent separation from all I loved in old England. I never quite abandoned the hope of one day escaping from this subaqueous life and visiting the scenes of my younger days. I felt enervated by the pursuits that occupied so much of the time of the Colymbians, and I longed to feel my feet once more on terra firma, even though I should have to support again the whole weight of my body, and to contend daily and hourly with the force of gravitation. At times the more than Sybarite softness of existence in this tepid lagoon would inspire me with disgust, and I longed to feel my cheek fanned and my pulses quickened by the fresh breezes of my native land.

My companions would frequently rally me on the sadness I in vain endeavoured to conceal, and when they had wormed from me the secret of my melancholy, they would launch out into praises of the aquatic life, and draw comparisons between the aquatic and terrestrial existence, wholly unfavourable to the latter.

Sometimes I would suffer myself to be convinced by their arguments, and for a while would throw off my low spirits and heartily enter into all their amusements; but the longing for home and terrestrial life would ever recur, and I could not bring myself to think that I was destined to pass my whole existence in this fish-like manner. The winds and tempests they so much dreaded seemed to me to be infinitely preferable to the dead calm that reigned in this submarine abode; and I often felt that I could with delight exchange this luxurious monotony of voluptuous ease for the bleakest and bitterest weather on the flat shore of my native Norfolk.

Hence, as there seemed no prospect of deliverance from the life into which I had been so wonderfully ​thrown by fate, I tried with all my might to adapt myself to that life; and in this I succeeded so far that I may say, without boasting, that I attained to a more than average proficiency in all the accomplishments and pastimes of the Colymbians. Externally I was as one of themselves, but internally I felt myself to be at heart a terrestrial, and, though I accommodated myself tolerably to the manners and customs of my adopted countrymen, I secretly rebelled against their strange morality and startling deviations from what my education had taught me to consider right principles. I was irritated by their arrogant conceit, and by the supercilious contempt with which they treated my mildly-expressed preference for some of the usages of my native country. I disliked being spoken to as if I were a being of inferior race to themselves, when I knew that almost all their literature was borrowed from us, and that when their science excelled ours, it was only because the peculiarity of their conditions of life had forced them to develop special branches to the degree required by their necessities. The clue that led to these developments had been furnished to them by our philosophers and men of science, without which they might never have attained their actual perfection. Above all, I sadly missed the beautiful and refreshing services of our venerated Church, where our reiterated confession of being miserable sinners guards us against that intolerable pride and self-sufficiency that is such a blemish in the Colymbian character. The longing for home and for the terrestrial life, which I felt to be more suited for my nature than this aquatic existence, imparted an irritability and dogmatism to my conversation, and I frequently defended with, more heat than was necessary the customs of our country, ​even such of them as I knew to be inferior to theirs. I made myself eminently disagreeable to my friends and acquaintances by attacking them on their tenderest point, their fancied superiority to all other human beings. I departed from the line of conduct I had originally laid down for myself, not to attempt to refute their sophistries respecting their origin, and I sneeringly observed that discarding clothes could not be looked upon as a sign of superior civilization, when there were many races of men who wore even fewer garments than themselves, but who were well known to be mere savages. They of course replied that these were black-skinned races with whom they protested against being supposed to have any affinity. These black creatures, they contended, might well be derived from monkeys, to whom they bore a striking resemblance in feature, form and intellect, but no white race, they argued, could do without clothes except in aquatic life. This showed that the black races were intended for terrestrial life, while the white races were constituted for aquatic existence.

I ridiculed the idea of their musical language, being a proof of superior cultivation, for, I said it was held by our foremost philosophers that man employed musical notes to convey his feelings and ideas before he had any articulate language; and, moreover, this boasted musical language was a strong proof of their derivation from a simious ancestor, as the only other animal who could sing an octave was a gibbon ape.

This was not the way to ingratiate myself with my companions, who I remarked began to regard me as ​rather a bore, which all discontented people must naturally be.

The more conscious I became of this growing antipathy towards me, the more aggressive I became, until I felt that my society and conversation were rather shunned than courted by my acquaintances, and, though I still continued to mingle with them in their assemblies and pastimes, I felt that there was a great falling off in the cordiality with which I had at first been greeted.

A few of my earliest friends still remained staunch in their friendship, and bore with my outbursts of petulance with great good humour, divining their real cause, and being more disposed to pity than to blame me.

One charming young lady in particular, rejoicing in the musical name of Solla, a fair, blue-eyed, compassionate-souled girl, tried to soothe and comfort me, and endeavoured to reconcile me to my fate. She did not indulge in vainglorious boasts about the superiority of the Colymbians to all the rest of the world, but she led me to talk of the life I had formerly led, and entered with pitying interest into all my regrets and longings; and, by the interest she displayed in the accounts I gave of my terrestrial occupations and employments, gradually induced me to take a less gloomy view of my present situation, and even made me hope that eventually I might be restored to my family and my country.

"Do not," she would say, "indulge in vain regrets, but make the best of the situation in which you now find yourself. It will assuredly not be long before the advent of some ship will afford you the opportunity you desire of regaining some region of the earth where you ​may resume those habits which we are unable to appreciate, but which are evidently adapted to your nature. It must be hard for you, brought up in such a different manner, to accommodate yourself to those ways which come so natural to us who have never known anything else. Repining will, however, never help you; on the contrary, if you indulge in the moroseness of a disappointed spirit, you may easily lose the chance that may at some future time be offered you of escape."

"I fear," I replied, "that I may appear strangely ungrateful to you and all those who have been so kind to me, in wishing to return to that mode of life which appears to you so immeasurably inferior to this. And in spite of the permission granted by your laws, to all who are willing to leave the country should opportunity offer, might not the authorities or the people be still unwilling to allow me to quit the country that, I confess, has treated me with more kindness and consideration than I, as a stranger, had any right to expect?"

"No fear of that," she returned; "on the contrary, it is one of the first maxims of our people to grant perfect liberty to all, and above all things to place no constraint on any one whereby his happiness could be impaired. So far from meeting with opposition, I believe that every one would be only anxious to forward your views, and assist you to leave Colymbia at the very first opportunity. Of course we should regret your loss, some of us, no doubt, more than others; but what we would regret still more would be to see you detained an unwilling and an unhappy resident here, when your heart longs to be elsewhere."

I felt very much cheered by these words, and ​determined not to allow my longings for home to influence my conduct as long as I remained in Colymbia. My spirits revived, and I again entered into the amusements and occupations of my companions with as much zest as heretofore. Though I recovered my cheerfulness, I made no concealment of my wish to embrace the first chance to get back to terrestrial life, and though my resolution occasioned surprise, I encountered no opposition, but, on the contrary, the most cordial assurance of assistance in my project. I discovered that it was not a suspicion of my wish to leave Colymbia that had led to the coldness of my friends, but merely my cross and petulant behaviour. Displays of ill-humour and irritability cause discomfort to those who are subjected to them, and no average Colymbian would willingly expose himself to anything that would interfere with his comfort.

The shark-hunts, which were very numerous, had a great attraction for me. They were carried on at all parts of the country and issued from the reef in every direction. I attended as many of them as I could, and frequently took the trouble to join those that were formed at quite the opposite side of the lagoon. I joined them not only for the exciting sport they afforded, but also with the idea that I might one day espy some friendly sail, by means of which I could satisfy the longings of my heart and be able once more to revisit the scenes of my past life, which appeared to me so distant, oh! so very distant. The multitude of new experiences I had gained since I came to Colymbia had made the time during which I had been here so long to look back upon. Though it was barely three years since ​I had left home, I seemed to be separated from old England by at least a decade.

These shark-hunts often led us many miles from the reef, and I never failed to come to the surface when we were at the greatest distance from the lagoon, and carefully scan the horizon in hopes of seeing a vessel. Again and again and again I repeated my search, on every side of the archipelago. As often was I disappointed but not discouraged. The dead calm that almost invariably prevailed in this part of the world was much against the chance of a visit from any sailing vessel, but as steamers were so numerous on the ocean, it was not impossible that one might pass this way, though there was not enough of breeze stirring to raise the pendant of a man-of-war. So I expected rather to see a long line of smoke than a sail in the horizon, but neither smoke nor sail appeared.

The fact is Colymbia lies so much out of the track of the lines of steam-packets that ply between the principal seaports of the world, and is so destitute of anything like regular or irregular breezes, that it is a very rare event for a steamer or a sailing vessel to pass sufficiently close to be visible to the inhabitants, who, when they do emerge from the depths of their lagoon, so seldom raise their heads much above the sea-level.

Nor was it likely that a distant sail would be noticed from land, for those that were employed there were forced, on account of the terrible heat and the insects, to carry on their work by artificial light in the recesses of the caverns which abound in this volcanic country, or in artificial constructions from which the sun's rays were carefully excluded. ​So it might well happen that a ship occasionally passed these supposed uninhabited volcanic islands with their dangerous coral-reefs, without being observed by any of the inhabitants and without any inclination on the part of the captain to touch at such an unprofitable and perilous group of islands.

On several parts of the great outside reef there are elevated spots, which are covered with a soil composed of disintegrated coral, decomposed sea-weed, the remains of various shell-fish, especially echini, and the droppings of sea-fowl which congregate in large numbers on them. On this soil there is generally a group of palm-trees, particularly cocoa-nut. When there was nothing particular going on in the way of shark-hunting or the other sports and amusements that engrossed so much of the time of the unemployed youth of Colymbia, I would make an excursion by myself to one or other of these little oases, and sheltered by the foliage of the trees, would sit or lie for hours scanning the vast expanse of calm blue ocean and dreaming of home and the friends from whom I was apparently separated for ever. These islets are singularly free from the inroads of those pestilential insects that render life so intolerable on the mainland. I could repose in comfort and quiet under the shade of the umbrageous foliage of the palms, and I often lay there until the sun had sunk beneath the horizon and the stars began to sparkle in the deep-blue vault of the sky. I would then quit my peaceful resting place and plunge below to the brilliantly-lighted abodes of the pleasure-loving people, and join the merry assemblies at the gyrating-halls or lecture-rooms, or pass a more quiet evening at the ​house of some of the families with whom I was on intimate terms.

One day I went at an early hour to one of my favourite islets to pass a few hours under the thick shade of the palms. As usual I scanned the horizon carefully on first emerging from the water. My heart beat wildly with excitement when I detected a small speck far away to the south-west which I was sure could be nothing but the masts of a distant vessel. I eagerly climbed one of the tallest trees, and then I could make out a three-masted vessel with all sails spread, evidently bearing down towards our islands. I rapidly descended, plunged into the lagoon, and hastened to inform my friends of what I had seen. A party of my young companions was soon collected, who cheerfully consented to accompany me out into the ocean in order to assist me in getting on board the strange vessel. Taking a hurried leave of some of the chief families who had been so kind to me during my stay among them, we armed ourselves with our shark-spears and sallied forth into the ocean to meet the advancing ship. We swam near the surface of the water, every now and then rising to the top to see that we were travelling in the right direction. The breeze was so slight that the ship advanced but slowly. Its course was evidently not intended to bring it on to the reef, but would lead it past the group of islands at some miles from the reef. So we directed our course with the view of intercepting it when it should arrive at the neatest point of the archipelago. We had calculated our line of approach so well, that the ship bore down right towards us. As she advanced I could see that she ​was a fine ship, beautifully rigged and with a well-shaped hull. The light breeze that scarcely ruffled the surface of the ocean caused her to move but slowly, and we had to wait long before she came within hailing distance. We lay with our heads above the surface of the water watching her steady advance, and when she was within fifty yards of where we lay, I was horrified to observe a man at the bow deliberately covering us with a rifle, I shouted as loud as I could, "Hollo! there: don't fire," when he dropped his weapon, and responded, "Kreuzdonnerwetter! I dought you was seals." "Well, now you see we are not," said I, as we came alongside; "so let down something that we may come on board." "Not so fast, young man, how shall I know you are not birates, mit dese sharp bikes in your hands; berhaps you vill kill us all and dake my ship." "Never fear," I said; "we are quite innocent of any piratical intentions, our weapons are only to protect us from the sharks; and what could we do against all your crew?"

The captain, for such was the rank of our questioner, reassured by what I said, ordered one of the sailors to let down a rope-ladder, by means of which we all scrambled on board. I briefly explained that I was an Englishman, and wished for a passage on board his ship to some port whence I could embark for my native country. I introduced my companions, who, I explained, had only accompanied me in order to see me safe on board, and who had no intention of remaining with me in the ship.

The captain who was a good fellow, with a rough exterior, willingly consented to give me a passage in ​his ship, and we were all regarded with much curiosity by the crew, and eagerly questioned by those who spoke English as to who and what we were.

My companions were much interested with the ship, and readily answered the questions put to them respecting their country and their mode of living. But there was not much time for conversation, as the ship still continued on its course and would soon have carried them to an inconvenient distance from home. So taking an affectionate leave of me, and expressing a hope that I would again come among them when I had tired of the terrestrial life I was going to enter on again, they dropped over the side of the ship and disappeared beneath the water, to the no small astonishment of the captain and crew.

"Potztausend!" cried the captain, "I denk I was not wrong to take you for seals, for you are in ze vater like fishes. You must be mermans at ze least."

"Well," I said, "you are nearer the mark now."

When I told him of the great country, with its numerous inhabitants within the enclosure of the coral-reef, he would hardly believe me, and said that these islands were marked in the chart as uninhabited, and so dangerous of approach that it was believed that many vessels had been wrecked in endeavouring to effect a landing there.

I confirmed his information on this point, and told him a good deal about the manners and customs of the Colymbians. I related to him how I had been wrecked, by what strange luck I alone had been saved, and how, after days and nights spent on the open sea ​in the life-boat, I had at last arrived among these extraordinary people. The circumstantial nature of my narrative and my earnest manner convinced him that I was not hoaxing him. He listened with eager curiosity to the accounts I gave him, and formed such a favourable idea of the strange country from my glowing description of the mode of life prevailing there, that he at last wondered how I had been able to tear myself away from the delights of Colymbia in order to engage in the comparatively dull and plodding occupations of terrestrial life.

The ship was called Der Fliegende Holländer, bound from the Bohemian port of Weissnichtwo to Nirgendsburg, in Van Demon's Land, and the captain's name was Hans Wurst. The crew was a composite one, consisting chiefly of Germans, Swedes, Danes, and Russians. The vessel was well appointed in every respect with a mixed cargo of all sorts of merchandise. I had no money to pay for my passage, but the captain was obliging enough to accept my promissory note for the amount of my passage-money.

I was soon rigged out in a suit of sailor's clothes, in which I felt awkward enough for a few days, but gradually my terrestrial habits returned to me and I felt quite at home in the atmosphere. Walking was, at first, rather a difficulty, so little had I been accustomed during the three years of my residence in Colymbia to use my legs for that purpose or to retain an upright posture. However, all things at last adjusted themselves to my changed condition, and before I had been a week on. board, I felt quite at ease. My greatest difficulty at first was getting to sleep in my hammock. As consciousness began to ​leave me, I would frequently start up in affright, and grope about for the air-tube to insert in my mouth, and I was forced to get the carpenter to make me a wooden tube, which I placed between my lips on going to bed, and by this means I succeeded in sleeping soundly. For many days I felt encumbered with my own weight, and this fatigued me so much that I spent much of my time in the recumbent posture. The captain, who was a good-natured fellow, would often sit for hours beside me listening to my accounts of the aquatic people and their odd ways. Now that I had made my escape from Colymbia, I often felt a sort of regret that I had left it, and an irrepressible longing for the watery life I had abandoned. However, I managed to conquer this feeling, and I looked forward with pleasure to once more seeing my family and friends in England, who, I felt assured, must be extremely anxious on my account.

After an uneventful voyage we arrived safely in Hobart Town, where I persuaded the captain to touch, as I knew I should find there some friends who had been settled there for a few years, and who would assist me to return to England. Captain Hans Wurst bade me an affectionate farewell, and advised me not to say anything of my sojourn in Colymbia to the people in Hobart Town, as he was sure I should not be believed, and might only raise a prejudice against myself, and get the character of a romancing traveller if not of an absolute madman. He frankly confessed that had he not picked me up in the manner he did, he would not have believed a word of my story, though sailors were naturally disposed to believe about mermen and mermaids. He was sure that no landsman would believe that I spoke the truth.

​I thought it prudent to follow the captain's advice, and when I found out my friends in Hobart Town, I said nothing about the extraordinary habits of the people among whom I had been living, but merely mentioned the circumstances of my shipwreck, the marvellous escape I had made, and my residence for three years among the inhabitants of one of the Pacific islands, by whom I had been kindly treated until taken off by Captain Hans Wurst, and brought by him to Hobart Town.

My friends—who were the son of a small landed proprietor in the neighbourhood of my home and his wife—were deeply interested in the account I gave of my shipwreck, but had fortunately little curiosity respecting the locality where it took place, and did not even inquire the name of the island on which I said I had lived for so long. They were good sort of people, friendly but dull. They were much more taken up about the affairs of all our neighbours at home, and though it was upwards of three years since I left England, I could still tell them a great deal that they wished to know respecting the changes that had occurred since they had left some ten years previously. Who was dead, who married, what births had taken place, what farms had changed hands, how this or the other boy had turned out, and a hundred such matters, were far more exciting for them than any adventures that I might have gone through. Like many other good but uninquiring people, I believe they knew very little about the islands of the Pacific and cared less. They probably thought they were all peopled by uninteresting savages, and governed by a Wesleyan or Baptist missionary, who would see that any stranger was well taken care of, and shipped off as speedily as possible.

​Mr Paterson had no difficulty in recognising me, though it was so many years since we had last met; and if my features had changed, my knowledge of the localities and people about the home he had left would have removed all doubts as to my identity. He was very kind to me during my stay in Tasmania, and as he was in flourishing circumstances, having done well in commerce since he had settled here, he willingly advanced me money to acquit my debt to Captain Wurst, provide for my personal expenses in Hobart Town, and pay my passage back to England.

It was not long before the steamer in connection with the packet-line from Melbourne to England, by way of the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, in which I had engaged a berth, steamed out of the beautiful estuary of the River Derwent.

I need not dwell on the incidents of my voyage home, which was as prosperous and uneventful as it generally is in the well-appointed vessels of the ubiquitous P. and O. Company. As soon as I got to Southampton I telegraphed to my father, and followed my message as fast as the rail could carry me.

On arriving at my father's house in Norfolk, I was received with every demonstration of heartfelt affection. Nothing having been heard of the vessel in which I sailed, it was generally supposed that she had been lost with all souls on board. All despaired of ever seeing or hearing from me again, except my mother, who would not consent to wear mourning, but persisted in hoping against hope, though latterly she had been, less confident in asserting that I would surely turn up again.

When my account of the loss of the Precursor became public, it was curious to see how those who had been the most eager advocates of the principles on ​which that ill-fated vessel was built, now came forward and declared how they had always been of opinion that the construction was faulty, and was certain to lead to the catastrophe that had overtaken her. The very newspapers that had written leading article after leading article to prove that the advocates of the old mode of ship-building knew nothing about the art to which their lives had been devoted, but were mere antediluvian old-fogies, and were influenced in their opposition to the new lines of the Precursor solely by envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, now presented their readers with learned disquisitions on the glaring faults in build of the unfortunate vessel, how her centre of gravity was placed too high or too low, how she was over-masted or under-masted, how she should have had two keels or a broad bottom, or something or other which she either had or had not; for, as they evidently knew nothing at all about ship-building, and least of all about the Precursor's real construction, one thing was just as good as another to allege respecting her. One intelligent writer contended that the principles on which she had been built were the best possible, only that she should have had an out-rigger on either side, to prevent her heeling over in a gale. In short, so much wisdom and prescience—after the event—were displayed on all sides, that it was a wonder to me that the Precursor was ever allowed to go to sea, or, having gone, that she could ever have sailed a mile, or having sailed so much, that she had not stood out against every gale whatsoever; which she would undoubtedly have done, had the advice of these omniscient critics—which was never given—been taken.

Some who had committed themselves too completely to the advocacy of the novel construction of the ​Precursor, affected to disbelieve entirely the truth of my account of its loss, swore that I had never been on board the vessel, that I was an impostor, a myth; and prophesied that the ship would soon be heard of, and her log would be a triumphant refutation of all the dismal fables that had been invented concerning her faulty construction and loss.

As some fragments of my story respecting the Colymbians and their ways began to ooze out, probably in a very distorted form, these irritated and discomfited advocates of the Precursor's build, returned to the charge against me, urging that a person who could tell such palpable falsehoods was unworthy of belief on any subject whatever. They went so far as to say that I was not the person I represented myself to be, that I was somebody else altogether, some low adventurer who had succeeded in persuading the parents of De Courcy Smith that he was their lost son; no difficult task, as they were simple rustics who had never abandoned the idea of the restoration of their son, and were consequently in a fit state of mind to credit the plausible tale of any unscrupulous adventurer. They doubted that I had ever been picked up at sea as I alleged; if so, where was Captain Hans Wurst and his ship Der fliegende Holländer? Why could I not produce even one of the crew? As if that were at all necessary to prove my identity. Might not the ship have foundered at sea, been burnt, or been sent to the bottom by an erratic iceberg, after she had landed me at Hobart Town? or might not the trade in which she was engaged have been one that rendered it a matter of prudence and safety for the captain to conceal his movements?

As time went on and nothing was heard of the ​Precursor, they admitted the probability of its having perished in a storm; and if so, young Smith had undoubtedly perished with it. They prophesied that nothing would ever be heard of either, and advised my parents to turn me out of doors as a rank impostor and lying rogue.

Of course, all the above had no effect upon the minds of my parents and intimate friends, who still remained convinced of my identity, as I had neither grown enormously fat nor forgotten my mother tongue since my departure from England; but it caused many of my less familiar acquaintances to look rather coldly on me; and some of them even cut me entirely. I bore up against these disagreeables as well as I could, conscious of my own integrity, and quite confident that time would prove the truth of my assertions. I was supported under these trials by the increased display of affection towards me of my very excellent parents, who never for an instant doubted that I was their son—that being impossible—or of the truthfulness of my statements—which was quite possible.

As my outfit and other expenses had been a considerable pull on my father's limited means—though I must do him the justice to say that he never alluded to the subject, far less made it a matter of reproach, as many fathers might have done—I was very unwilling to make any further demands on his generosity. So I gave up the idea of emigrating altogether, and looked about for some suitable employment at home.

The faculty I had acquired in Colymbia of talking their language of signs and taps suggested to me a post in the telegraphs, which had recently been transferred to the Post-Office authorities. After a few lessons I acquired complete command over the technicalities of telegraphy; and, backed by the influence ​of some of my father's friends, who were now in the Government, I got a good appointment, which, if not accompanied by a very high salary, at all events renders me independent, and holds out the prospect of an advance to better things. My experience of the Colymbian language has enabled me to suggest numerous improvements in the telegraphic signs and symbols, which have been favourably received at head-quarters, and I believe I have been recommended for promotion on account of my useful suggestions.

I have made many attempts to obtain the electricity for the telegraphic instruments directly from the earth, as is done in Colymbia, but hitherto without success. It may be that I have not been able to construct my apparatus properly, or that the electrical force is much more considerable in amount in that very volcanic region, where enormous chemical decompositions, attended by proportionate electrical action, are always going on, than in our non-volcanic country. I am in hopes of being able some day to perfect a tidal machine, which will be especially welcome to manufacturers in these days of dear coal, but at present I am rather bothered with the excess of power at my command, the tides having a rise and fall here so much greater than in the Pacific Ocean.

When sending messages to all parts of the globe, I sometimes think how near some of them must pass to that strange country, which was so entirely unknown to all geographers and travellers, I mean, of course, the inhabited portions of it; as the archipelago itself is put down in the charts, but marked "uninhabited and uninhabitable." I can sometimes hardly persuade myself of the reality of my residence there; all ​the events of my three years' exile from England appearing to me often like a dream; so utterly different were my experiences during that time to all I had known before or since. I have to look at my oddly constructed spectacles—so totally different in principle from anything known to our opticians—my compressed-air bottle, my shark-spear, my weight-belt, and the few specimens of the coinage of Colymbia I brought away in my pockets, before I am thoroughly persuaded of the reality of it all.

At times a longing for subaqueous life possesses me. My clothes feel oppressive, I seem to be borne down by the weight of my own body, I am tired of halving to preserve the upright position, and I cannot bear the draughts and dust of ordinary life. On these occasions, at the first opportunity, I rush off to the sea, from which my telegraph-station is at no great distance—as I am chief telegraphist at the fashionable sea-side town of Easton-super-Mare—and I dive below the water and amuse myself with some of the gambols I learnt in Colymbia. The low temperature of the German Ocean, however, soon compels me to return to land, teaching me the impossibility of an aquatic life, except in the tepid water of the tropics.

I once attempted to fill my air-bottle with compressed air and oxygen gas, but I could not make it answer. Either I had not hit the right proportions, or I did not understand how to compress the air properly, so that I could not make a comfortable respiration below the water, and I soon gave up the attempt.

I sometimes almost regret that I was in such a hurry to return home, and wish I could re-visit those charming coral grottoes, and mingle in the sports and amusements of my late companions. But I do not ​see how this can be accomplished, unless I were to charter a vessel for the purpose, and even then I doubt whether I could reach that fascinating country, protected as it is by the dead calm that generally prevails in the region in which it is situated.

The fragmentary accounts I have from time to time communicated to my friends and acquaintances of the manners and customs of the Colymbians, have usually been received with a certain amount of incredulity, which has deterred me from talking much about them; and I fear that the circumstantial details of this truthful narrative may not obtain general credence; but I live in hopes of seeing my account corroborated by future explorers, to whose adventurous spirit the mysteries of Colymbia and the ways of its charming inhabitants cannot long remain concealed.

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