these things into account, he will probably arrive at a conclusion that the new undertaking has a fair chance of success. This success, of course, depends in great measure on the cost of the undertaking. The expenditure at Brompton will be far heavier than that which was incurred in Hyde Park. True, certain liberal men have guaranteed to the extent of L430,000 against loss; and this enables the commissioners to borrow money abundantly on easy terms; still, the ultimate result must depend on the balance between outgoings and incomings, in this as in all other undertakings. The commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851 have lent to the commissioners of the Exhibition of 1862 a piece of ground at Brompton or South Kensington, bounded on the east, west, and south by well-made roads, and on the north by the new Horticultural Gardens. On this piece of ground the structure is being built for the forthcoming Exhibition. The bargain is too complicated to be easily understood; some parts of the building are undoubtedly intended to be permanent, some temporary, some doubtful; and the arrangements between all the parties concerned, on this point, seem to be made contingent on the success of the enterprise. All that we can certainly say is, that the expense will very far exceed that of the former building. The former commissioners threw over all the regular architects, and accepted a plan from a gardener, Mr (now Sir Joseph) Paxton; the present commissioners have similarly ignored the architects, by adopting a plan suggested by a military engineer, Captain Fowke. The architects, of course, do not like this; and their adverse criticisms are possibly tinged in some degree by this dissatisfaction. However, Messrs Kelk and Lucas are working hard, and leave the critics to dispute among themselves. This Journal, for the most part, keeps clear from long ranges of figures-numerals followed by a frightful array of ciphers. We must, however, on this occasion, go a little into such a region. The question is being put, all around us-Will the Exhibition building for this year be larger or smaller than the Crystal Palace constructed in Hyde Park eleven years ago? This is a reasonable question; and we will endeavour to present an answer, by comparing the two buildings in various ways. We concerned in the matter will make due provision The floor-space and the galleries are the parts to In the first place, then, concerning the area. The which the majority of exhibiters anxiously look, for space set apart in Hyde Park for the Exhibition of it is on those that the amount of exhibiting space 1851 was 2300 feet long by 500 wide, or about 26 mainly depends. At the Hyde Park building in 1851, acres; but roads and open spaces had to be formed the floor and galleries comprised about 1,000,000 out of this, thereby limiting the extent of the actual square feet of boarding. At Brompton, if the second building to 19 acres about seven times the area annèxe is made, the flooring alone will exceed this covered by St Paul's Cathedral. At Brompton, the quantity, at or near the level of the ground; while area of the main portion of the building will be 164 300,000 square feet more will present itself in the acres, with 4 acres more for the annexe, on the western form of galleries, at a height of about 25 feet from the side of the Horticultural Gardens, to be appropriated to ground. The reader will at once, therefore, see that heavy machinery; and there is a promise of an eastern the new building very far exceeds the old in horizonannèxe of 4 or 5 acres more. The reader may there- tal or floor space, to say nothing of wall-space, which fore comfort himself with the certainty, that the new we shall speak of presently in connection with picbuilding will be larger than the old, in the space tures. We are told to expect a mile and a half of covered Should the eastern annèxe be formed, the galleries running round the nave, the transepts, and new building will cover as much ground as the old the crystal courts, with all the riches of man's ingeCrystal Palace plus fifteen Westminster Halls- nuity displayed to us on either hand; and if we could tolerably large increase, it must be admitted! In count up the number of avenues between the ranges the next place, as to site. The Hyde Park structure and stalls of exhibited goods, the tempting treasures was a little above the natural surface of the ground. of all regions, on the vast area of the ground-floor, it The spot for the new building, although not actually would extend to a greater number of miles than one excavated, is 5 feet below the level of the new would like to walk on a hot summer's day. roads made on all sides of it; and apprehensions are entertained in some quarters that, unless a very careful drainage-system be adopted, the building will be damp in the lower stories. Certain it is, that on a gloomy November day, many hundreds of visitors had to wade through a very slough of despond'-a batter-pudding of unctuous mud, in their progress from one part of the works to another. However, let us hope that the many wise heads · -a The grand novelties, however, in comparison with anything in the Hyde Park building, will be presented by the domes, those wonders of the world,' which architects are criticising with some severity, and which practical men say will delay the completion of the building in an inconvenient way. will be of very little use; and as they will necessarily be costly, it is only their beauty that will bring them into public favour. Whether they will possess this The domes beauty, is just the point in question. Many persons think that each dome will be beautiful in itself; but that two, near the ends of a long building, will make the centre of the structure appear too low and mean. Captain Fowke evidently expects something grand in the interior view from dome to dome; and it is only fair to give a brief note of what is intended and hoped for. The domes are to be duodecagonal, or twelvesided, and larger than any others in the world. Their diameter is to be 160 feet, and height 250 feet. Now, the dome of the Pantheon at Rome is only 140 feet diameter by 70 feet high; that of the Baths of Caracalla, 111 feet diameter; that of Florence, 139 feet diameter by 133 feet high; that of St Peter's at Rome, 158 feet diameter by 263 feet high; that of St Paul's, 112 feet diameter by 215 feet high; and that of the new Reading-room at the British Museum, 140 feet diameter by 106 high. Each of those at Brompton will, therefore, be a trifle larger in diameter than St Peter's dome, although not quite so high. The new erections will be quite unlike the old in structure. They will consist almost entirely of iron and glass, and will shed an extraordinary flood of light down upon the floor underneath. Each dome will have an inner and an outer gallery. Some grand results are expected to be made visible from the spacious area beneath each dome. Although the general level of the building is, as we have said, five feet below that of the roads outside, there will be an ascent of a foot or two to the great platform or dais under each dome, and then a descent of six or seven feet, by three magnificent flights of steps, each eighty feet wide, to the floor of the nave. From the one dome to the other will be a distance of about one thousand feet; and the designer hopes and expects that a very majestic coup d'œil will be obtained from both these elevated spots-the one eastward, and the other westward. Each dome will spring from the intersection of the nave with a transept; and as the two transepts will have the same level as the nave, the commanding vista from each dais will be north and south, as well as towards the other dais. All we will here venture upon is, an expression of a hope that this grand effect will compensate for the comparative paucity of light in the nave; at any rate, there will be something such as the world has never yet seen in these two crystal domes. The picture-galleries are another feature which did not exist in the Hyde Park building of 1851. Art as well as industry, taste as well as manufactures, is to attract our attention in May next. True, we had sculptures in Hyde Park; but now we are to have pictures as well as sculptures; and very glorious pictures too, if prophets speak aright. Captain Fowke prides himself on the picturegalleries. They constitute the entire architectural feature of the south or main front. On this side, the largest gallery will be 1150 feet long by 50 feet wide; uninterrupted throughout its whole length, except by certain piers or projections for ornamental effect. The length is about equal to that of the great gallery at the Louvre. The work of this gallery is unmistakably intended to be permanent; substantial brickwork, piers at the entrance seven feet thick, and a thickness of five feet of concrete to form a basis beneath-all denote this. The brick-walls will be lined with wood, which will be painted of some uniform tint. The wall-space will be such as to allow of pictures being hung to a height of thirty feet, if the persons learned in art should wish so to do. But how to light the pictures? When we consider what wranglings there have been at the National Gallery and the Royal Academy on this point, we can well understand that it became an anxious question in connection with so vast a collection as that promised for next May. Luckily, the commissioners had some basis to rest upon. When the Sheepshanks collection of pictures was to be arranged at the South Kensington Museum a few years ago, Captain Fowke was requested to construct a gallery which, however bare of pretensions in other respects, would at least allow the pictures to be well seen. It must be candidly admitted that he was successful; for the pictures are well seen, by gaslight as well as by daylight. The ingenious designer now hopes to effect on a very large scale what he there accomplished on a small one. The desired result is, first, that the quantity of light should be as great as possible, be subject to control, and obtained from above; and, secondly, that the rays from the sky incident upon the pictures should not be reflected from their varnished surfaces, so as to strike the eye of a spectator while standing at a convenient distance for examining the pictures. A particular arrangement of lantern-lights, in the roofs or ceiling, is adopted for the attainment of these ends, so as to leave the walls unbroken by windows of any kind. It is a great experiment, the success of which we must all warmly desire; for the nations of the earth will send us their pictorial treasures, and it is only right that we should place those treasures where they can be best seen. This large gallery is not by any means the only one devoted to pictures. There will be one beneath it, lighted by side-windows only; and if this be deemed not well suited for this purpose, there are abundant services which it can be made to render. There are also, running up Exhibition Road and Prince Albert Road, picture-galleries about 550 feet long each, 25 feet wide, and 30 feet highintended for the reception of small oil-paintings, water-colour drawings, architectural drawings, and engravings. Excluding the lower floor or story, and admitting only the galleries which have the improved mode of lighting at the top, it will be seen that there will be considerably more than 4000 feet length of wall-space, 30 feet high, on which to serve this great pictorial feast. Another matter, very important in the eyes of persons engaged in pleasure-seeking, is the refreshment department. Few subjects excited more astonishment than this at Hyde Park. Most of us remember how difficult it was, on a hot and busy day, to obtain those creature-comforts which 'exhausted nature' insisted on demanding; but few persons suspected, until the six months of exhibiting were over, how enormous had been the consumption. More than 50,000 quartern loaves of bread; 120,000 small loaves, rolls, and biscuits; 870,000 plain buns; 930,000 Bath buns; 220,000 Banbury and other cakes; 50,000 pounds of plum-cake; 80,000 meat patties; 70,000 pounds of ham; 260,000 pounds of beef and tongue; 800,000 pounds of ice; 80,000 pounds of salt; 65,000 quarts of milk and cream; 21,000 pounds of tea, coffee, and chocolate; more than 1,000,000 bottles of lemonade, soda-water, and ginger-beer; with minor items-were sold at the Hyde Park Crystal Palace in 1851. Wine was included among the minor items,' for in those days French wines could not, as now, reach us at a cheap rate; and we were certainly not a wine-drinking people. The viands were not consumed wholly by visitors; for there was an exhibiters' dining-room, where sometimes 2000 cold dinners were disposed of in a day. The contractors gave L.5500 for permission to hold this refreshment department; and they admitted afterwards that they had made a rich harvest out of it. What they really received 'over the counter' was not publicly known; but it is a matter of easy calculation that the buns and the effervescing drinks alone must have brought L.30,000. Now, when the commissioners for the Exhibition of 1862 set to work, they resolved that the refreshment department should be profitable to themselves and pleasant to the public. The first thing was, to set aside a sufficient space. They settled this matter by appropriating the whole of the space where the Exhibition building abuts upon the south side of the beautiful Horticultural Gardens. We believe, indeed, that the refreshment-gallery will, in part, be built on the very arcades which form the south boundary of the gardens; but whether this be so or not, windows from that depart-it. Years ago, when the road I was travelling over ment will look out upon the parterres, terraces, walks, cascades, and fountains of the gardens, all rejoicing in the summer sunshine. We are promised arcades 1500 feet long by 25 wide, for light refreshment counters; besides more elaborate results of culinary art in dining saloons 300 feet long by 75 wide. The déjeuner à la fourchette, the luncheon, the plain dinner of roast meat, the Paris dinner of recherché viands-all are promised; besides the sandwiches and the buns, the ginger-beer and the coffee, which must satisfy economical John Bull and his large family. It is said that the enormous sum of L.30,000 is to be given for the rent or royalty of the refreshment department for the six months. As the picture-galleries on the south are intended to be permanent, so will these brick refreshment-galleries on the north be permanent also. 'At the close of the Exhibition,' we are told on something like official authority, they will become the most delightful dining-halls in the metropolis, supplying a great public want in this respect.' Of the buildings as a whole, considered as examples of constructive ingenuity, the Hyde Park Crystal Palace was more sui generis than the structure at Brompton; the latter contains a vast amount of brickwork, whereas the former was almost wholly of iron, wood, and glass. Each boasts, through the mouth of its chief designer, of the quantity of materials it has absorbed or will absorb. I, said the Crystal Palace, 'appropriated 3300 iron columns, with 1074 base pieces to rest them upon; 3500 girders to connect them together; and other pieces which make up a total of 4000 tons of ironwork; also a million square feet of flooring and galleries; and 20 miles of wooden gutters; 200 miles of sash-bars; and other pieces, making up a total of 600,000 cubic feet of woodwork: I had 17 acres of glass in my roof, besides 1500 vertical glazed sashes.' 'And I,' says the Exhibition building at Brompton (what a pity we have not a short name for it, such as was found so appropriate for its progenitor in Hyde Park!), 'shall use up 10,000,000 bricks; and nearly 1000 iron columns, larger and thicker than yours, oh Crystal Palace! and 1165 girders; and five miles of pipes and gutters; and three miles of iron railing and balustrade; and other articles which will make up my weight of cast iron as great as yours, 4000 tons; besides 1200 tons of wrought iron for the domes and roofs; and windows which, if perched one on another, would reach nearly twenty times as high as St Paul's; and thirty miles of sash-bars for the roofs of the crystal courts. There!' Enough for the present. We have given the reader some materials for instituting a comparison between the past and the present the building for the last, and the building for the forthcoming great International Exhibition. Of the exhibitions themselves, and the differences in the characteristic displays of the two great collections, more anon. A LADY'S ADVENTURE ON THE ATLANTIC. A SINGULAR adventure once befel me on the wild coast of the north of Ireland, where the Atlantic heaves its billows against that giant barrier of black rock, which seems in stern defiance to say to the invader: Here shall thy proud waves be stayed.' It brings a shudder to my heart to reflect in calmness on the only time in which I saw that threatening coast. I was a total stranger in that part of the world, and wanted to get to Scotland. I was told a Glasgow steamer called at a small town or village on the coast; and I took an Irish car, and set off on a journey of about twenty miles to meet the said steamer. I am not going to record any witty sayings of my droll Irish driver; they say wretchedness in Ireland has greatly passed away, and somehow, it appears to me that Irish wit and humour have greatly passed away with was very bad, and the Irish miles were nearly half as long again as they are made now to measure, an Englishman, borne along on the same singular kind of conveyance as I was, complained to the driver most bitterly concerning the state of the roads and the length of the miles in his unfortunate country. 'Ah! sure, then, your honour, that's the very reason the miles be so long,' was the answer; because they're bad, we give you good measure.' But now the roads are made better, and the miles shortened, so that travellers do not so much require to be kept in good-humour. Arrived at a poor-looking small town, lying flat on the sea-shore, my driver announced the object of that arrival to a man, who at once informed me I must go round the corner' in a boat, to get to the steamer. Seeing a white wall in the direction he pointed, I concluded that that wall concealed the steamer from sight, and only took the precaution of bargaining for the sum to be paid for putting me on board of it. That, indeed, was speedily settled; it was not a great sum. An autumn afternoon was drawing on, and 1 had no inclination to check the hurried departure which the man seemed anxious to make. Without entering a house, I followed him to a boat, where he left me, to hasten away in search of another passenger. He secured two, rather young men, and an old widow; they were all Scotch, and strangers like myself. When we got 'round the corner," the aspect of matters began to look strange. There was no steamer to be seen; but on went the boat out into the open sea on and on it went; whither bound I knew not, nor do I believe the man himself did. The wind had been high all day, though the sun was bright; it rose higher and higher; the black wall of rock was seen at a distance, chafed by the white surge that tossed against it. The waves lifted up our fragile skiff, and from their summit we looked into gulfs from which it seemed impossible we could ever re-ascend. Seriously alarmed, I called to the boatman, entreating him to put back. I pointed landward—perhaps towards the rocks and the breakers-and begged him to land us over there. His answer was: We will keep her afloat as long as we can.' But his perplexed look, his wandering, anxious eye frightened me more than his words. The storm increased-land disappeared-the autumn afternoon drew on. No sign of a steamer in sight. Terror took hold of our souls; the men were white with fear. Beside me sat the little old Scotchwoman, her widow's cap closely circling her small face, her hands clasped on her bosom, her eyes looking neither at the sea nor sky, but immovably directed straight before her; her lips incessantly repeating, in a clear, steady voice, heard distinctly amid the roar of wind and waters, an accumulation of texts which it seems surprising that her mind could at once collect on the same subject. The voice of the Lord is on the deep: the voice of the Lord is on many waters.' Such words came calmly sounding out amid the roar of the elements with a wonderful power, at least on my own troubled mind. When our heaving boat rode on the crest of a mighty billow, and the valley of the shadow of death seemed to open to us from below it, that calm, devout voice brought me that sense of relief which one feels when knowing that you are not in danger of meeting death in the midst of godless companions. He holdeth the winds in the hollow of his hand. Fear not, for I am with thee: be not dismayed, for I am thy God. When thon passest through the waters, I will be with thee.' There is something in the retrospect of a storm at sea so terribly magnificent, that those who have ever witnessed such can imagine what a strange sublimity was added, by such a visible commentary, to words in themselves so sublime. Never did I at all fully conceive the weight of those expressions until, while our mortal life seemed almost the plaything of the raging ocean, I heard that quiet old widow saying: Fearful in praises; doing wonders. He holdeth our soul in life. He arose and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Be still.' That our strange boatman was now thoroughly terrified, and indeed at his wits' end (which, I believe, it was not very hard to reach), became quite evident; and his exclamation, after another survey of the dark horizon, gave us additional cause of fear, as we gathered from it his own apprehension that the steamer he had so madly come out to look for might have already passed on her way. A murmur of horror, and, from the two male passengers, of rage against him, broke forth as the fearful doubt arose; but on my part it was somewhat quieted by the voice beside me: 'He maketh a path in the waters. He rideth on the wings of the wind. His footsteps are not known.' There was a short interval of deep silence. Evening was fast closing in; the sky was darkening and darkening. My old comforter was perhaps silently praying; for I could still see the hands clasped on her black dress. The eyes were now closed; but, after some minutes of such silence-whether it was the conclusion or not of her prayer, I do not know she uttered the words: For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.' How energetic, how real, seemed such an ascription of praise, such an acknowledgment of Divine power! But singular, almost unlike reality, it seems, to add that almost simultaneously - at least, before they were well ended-there was a cry from the boatman: 'There she is! Praised be the Lord!' Poor fellow! he was an Irishman, and half-witted as he must have been to have brought himself and us into such imminent peril, he uttered a thanksgiving not so often heard from more enlightened men among those who go down to the sea in ships. The men started up. In the twilight was seen a trail of smoke-then a white chimney-then the great dark hulk; and soon the stamping paddles, walking through the clashing billows, in which for six hours we had been tossing, still spared, while still almost ready to perish. Now all our fear was that we should not be seen-be hidden in the trough of the sea just as our life-preserver passed us by. The men held red handkerchiefs aloft, and the boatman shouted. But the roar of the wind was louder than their shouts; and, as the means of safety approached, so did the torments of fear and suspense increase in intensity. I recollect holding up a white handkerchief, that was soon rent from my feeble hand, and borne away on the wings of the wind; and as I uttered a cry that had not escaped me before, the old Scotchwoman murmured: "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom, then, shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?' On comes the great steamer; her noise is heard, her paddles are seen; but can she see us? Shoutshout louder still! We who cannot shout, cry to those who can. The shouts are not heard-the cries are borne away with the howling wind; the waves appear to roll over and bury them. But Mercy is around us. We are seen. The steamer stops; and amid and above the roar of wind and wave, comes the deep-toned voice of the captain's speaking-trumpet, in sailor fashion, demanding, with the usual expletive: 'Who the devil are you? and what are you doing there?' Our boat nears the vessel, that looks a leviathan beside it; and a storm of furious objurgations is showered by the captain on our luckless boatman. A rope-ladder is hastily let down; the bulwarks are lined by all on board, full of wonder and compassion; up jump our two male companions, and are the first eagerly to ascend the ladder of safety, leaving the two women to follow if they please. I determined to follow the Scotch widow; though she was not the first to rise, I made her go before me. The pitching of the boat alongside of the steamer was frightful. The firm voice of the captain and sailors above us, by offering safety, seemed to make each instant of danger more sensibly felt. But lo! the calm, pious, steadfast heart of the old widow fails at the final moment; she has crept about half-way up the ladder, and there she sticks, flat against the side of the tossing steamer. In vain the captain commands, the mate entreats, the sailors encourage; there she sticks, as if fastened to the ship's side. Her hands have grasped, with a sort of death-clutch, to a step of the ladder of rope, and nothing can unclasp them, nor can she be moved up or down. In vain I urged her to let me save myself. There I am in the pitching boat, the unhappy boatman urging me from below, and the sailors urging her from above. The men were wise to save themselves first; they are looking down on us now, perhaps, and thinking what foolish, helpless creatures women are. At last the words 'Haul up the ladder!' are pronounced by the captain; comfortable for me to hear, without knowing if it will ever be lowered again. The smiling, good-natured sailors repeat the order, and up goes the rope-ladder. Lay it flat on the deck' is the word, and ladder and clinging Scotchwoman are laid prostrate there she on her face, with hands closed in that death-clasp round the rope, senseless and cold as if life had indeed departed. they cut that step of the ladder away to which she clung, or found some other means of extricating it from her grasp, I know not, but just as I was believing myself abandoned, I hear a sailor's cheery voice: 'Another woman in the boat!' 'Lower the ladder; and as soon as she puts a foot on it, haul up and lay it on deck,' says the mate. Now, I had a small basket and an umbrella in the boat, and I wished to save them with myself; so, when the hope of doing so revived, I took up my basket and umbrella, and before I got well on the ladder, I let the mate who gave these orders see that I had them in charge, and then said: Will you be so good as to let me go up by myself, if you please?? If They did so; and the captain himself gave me his hand and drew me up on deck, saying: You are a brave woman: your life is worth saving.' Ah, captain, you ought to be a good judge, but not half so brave am I as that good Scotchwoman whom you have just hauled up and laid on your deck, clinging to a morsel of rope. I did not say those words: undeserved praise perhaps overcame me, for I burst into tears, and shewed the stout captain I was anything but a brave woman or a good sailor, or, indeed, at all worth saving, though I could climb up a ladder of rope by the side of a steamer rolling heavily on the billows of the Atlantic. PRECIOUS TIME. WHEN we have passed beyond life's middle arch, Which brings us nearer to the shadowy bourn Which would be treasure, did we learn to quell Vain dreams and passions. Wisdom's alchemy Transmutes to priceless gold the moments as they fly. J. C. P. Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by WILLIAM ROBERTSON, 23 Upper Sackville Street, DUBLIN, and all Booksellers. SOLDIERS' BUSINESS. THERE are necessary evils. These are very elastic in their essence, and in many cases care and skill can reduce them to a minimum. Fires may be avoided or put out, pestilence may be kept at bay by sanitary means, and shipwrecks are lessened by a reliance on the warnings of Admiral Fitzroy and his Board of weather-wise prophets. But, so long as human nature remains the flawed, fallible thing it is, no sane person expects to see a complete stop put to fire, wreck, and epidemics. So with war. We all know that war is bad, wicked, foolish. Even Jenkins Minimus, smallest of schoolboys, can carry up to awful Dr Wigsby, the stern head-master, a Latin exercise or English theme replete with wholesome denunciations against war and its grim brood of wrongs. The ideas, to be sure, are not native to the mind of Jenkins Minimus; but he borrows them with ease. He need not go far to seek for them. Heathen bards and Hebrew seers have poured forth bitter phials of indignant eloquence against the giant sin; myriads of pulpits have rung with the severest censures on the wholesale trade in murder; grave philosophers have battered the mighty evil with all the force of logic the most lucid; learned men have proved it, in the most brain-breaking folios and tremendous tomes, to be both a crime and a folly; satirists have lampooned it; immortal poets have pilloried it in verse that can never die. Cui bono? Moloch can survive the assaults of poet, priest, and sage; he cares no more for a comic cartoon than for the strictures of a political economist: sarcasm, piety, sense, common or uncommon, fail to kill him. In truth, Master Jenkins might just as well pen his unanswerable arguments against other vices-Ambition, Greed, or any of the company of deadly sins. We could as easily abolish covetousness, exterminate the selfish, or make truthtelling universal, as root out that bellicose instinct out of which war starts into being. But ten short years ago, millions of well-intentioned folks were boasting that we were wiser than our fighting forefathers. War was over for ever; the Great Exhibition had solemnly inaugurated a millennium of peaceful buying and selling, and the stain of blood was off our souls for ever. It was a kindly hope, a pleasant imagination, but we know what the predictions were worth, and how roughly the fair dream PRICE 1d. was broken. The trumpet-call of actual warfare shewed that the old spirit only slumbered, and quiet Britannia, dragged once more into the arena, caught up her dinted arms, and maintained against sevenfold odds, in Europe and in Asia, the renown won long ago. Nor are we islanders alone in our pugnacity; our neighbours are always making ready for a fight, or fighting, or reposing after a contest; Europe resounds with the clash of steel, and America is one vast camp. As, therefore, it is evident that the soldier's work in the world, for good or for ill, is not yet brought to a close, war must continue not the least important of the arts and sciences. Let us look at the monster as he is, and as he was. He has changed greatly with the changeful condition of mankind. In his primitive state he was much more repulsive than in his present phase. A sketch of savage war may not be out of place. I will not select as illustrations the lowest types of humanity; I will not tell how the mopheaded Mayals of Australia muster their black hordes, with waddy, spear, and boomerang, to wage a timid but pitiless strife. There are nobler barbarians than these, and in an American forest lies the scene. A great village among the black pine-trees, wigwams of bark and lodges of buffalo-hide, bleached white, and stained with rude pictures of battle and chase, are crowded together by hundreds. All the dusky population-men, squaws, children, and young girls-are out of doors; and a striped post is planted in the ground, and round it is formed a silent circle of plumed and painted warriors. What bravery of decoration, what savage dandyism have we here! Not without deep thought and cunning skill have those subtle devices, in blue, in black and white, in red and yellow ochre, been laid on; every streak has its meaning, its vaunt, or its menace. Barbaric heralds have decreed to one a skeleton, in memory of past deeds; to another a bleeding heart, in token of future promise. And those young men, those exquisites of the forest, how admiringly do the Indian maidens eye the bright vermilion, the flaunting azure, the threatening sable, with which they have bedaubed their coppercoloured skins, and the fox-tails, eagles' wings, and strips of scarlet cloth, that flutter round their haughty heads. That tall chief, too, about to take command of the party setting out on the war-path! How proudly does he shew his scars, and the scalps whose hair fringes his moccasins and robe, and the |