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430 guess, they were sure to say France, Andalusia, or Spain, but "an American never!"

The portrait of Gregoria Queros represents one of these functionaries, and also the pure type of an Indian that she is. One might easily imagine her to be the mother of a hero, not only by her face, but also by her conversation.

On entering her house, she began by asking the usual question, and guessing I was from France. But when told I was an American, she turned her head doubtfully to one side, as if in reflection. The silence was broken by my asking her:

"What do you think of the Americans!" and the somewhat startling reply came:

"Los Americanos son como los Indios barbaros" ("The Americans are the same as wild Indians").

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Because," she answered," in 1847, when I was sixteen years old, they came down here and fought terrible battles all over this country. Just think of Chapultepec, Molino del Rey, and Churubusco; ah! what sad days those were to us!"

"Well," I added (endeavoring to recall her from reflections so painful), "what other objections have you to them?"

"They are never satisfied. They always want more land and more money. This is what they live for."

During this interesting colloquy she preserved a politely respectful demeanor, and felt evidently pained to


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Rh be compelled to tell me such absolute truths. A sharp neuralgic pain in her face brought forth a moan and a sigh, when she explained that for a whole year she had never been able to go for one day without the handkerchief on her head.

I asked her if she knew President Diaz.

"Who? Porfirio? I don't know him personally, but he has the reputation of being a very good and brave man; but—he has already been married twice."

I could only infer that his bravery and courage would vanish, if he should ever try matrimony again. I never found either a man or woman of that class, who spoke of the president by any other than his Christian name.

The lavandera is an important outside servant. Owing to the construction of the houses, in part, and to the fact of the water being conveyed to them from the city fountains, washing is rarely done on the premises.

The lavanderas also have their own rules and regulations, and are as rigid in exacting the observance of them by their subordinates and satellites as any other class.

In some cities and towns the lavandera is not also the planchadora. She does not even starch the clothes, but is supplied with soap for the washing. At those places presided over by a patrona, the contract is taken for all, but the custom is to charge by the piece and never by the dozen. But in the smaller towns and cities she will receive a real a dozen for washing alone, having soap furnished.

When she returns them, the planchadora comes, counts, and, on being supplied with starch and coal or wood, again takes them away to finish the job. There is, however, an agreeable offset to all this—the planchadora is also the apuntar; she mends carefully every article requiring it before taking her work home. At the capital there are laundries inside the houses where lavanderas may go and rent, for a medio a day, a compartment of brick in which the water flows from a fountain.

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432 Springs usually burst from some steep declivity of the neighboring mountains, and not infrequently in the descent to valley and lowland the water circles and winds about through the adjacent trees. In such desirable locations are the spots coveted by the lavanderas. Sometimes for the distance of two miles they may be seen like a bright fringe along the edge of the stream, in costumes which would delight a painter in search of the unconventional.

On these occasions their hair is unbraided and hangs in a superb mass of rippling waves to the end. The only dress is a red woolen petticoat and the chemise, both of which serve only to enhance the classic beauty of form disclosed by the peculiar costume.

Six or seven days of the week, kneeling in graceful attitudes, these laundresses may be seen expending their tireless energy on the


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Rh ropa (clothes). Armed with the crude washing equipments of the ancient Egyptians—only a stone slab, or at best a wooden tray resembling our bread-trays—they make their week's washing whiter than the whitest. However it is accomplished, the fact remains that without boiling, washing-soda, washboard, tub or bucket, and even in many cases without soap, this perplexing branch of domestic life is brought to perfection.

The aguador is the most noted of all the classes who serve outside the residence. As there are few houses furnished with pipes, the water supply is transported by this functionary.

His costume is peculiar to himself and well adapted to his vocation. It varies in every province. That worn in the City of Mexico is the most picturesque, and deserves a description. Over a shirt and drawers of common domestic he wears a jacket and trousers of blue cloth or tanned buckskin. The latter are turned up nearly to the knee. With his leathern helmet, broad leather strap across his forehead, called frontera (from which depends the chochocol, or water-vessel), leathern apron, and sandals of the same, called guarachi, we might imagine him to be a man in armor, so completely is he enveloped in this substantial equipment.

The piece that covers the back, and on which the chochocol rests, is called respaldadera, or back-rest; that which reaches from the waist to the knee, delantal or apron; and that which protects the thigh, the rosadera. All these pieces are fastened by means of thongs to a


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434 leather waistcoat, which serves to support and balance the large jar. Both jars are attached to straps which cross on the head over a palm-leaf cap with leather visor. It is essential that these vessels correspond in size and perfectly balance. If either be suddenly broken, the aguador at once loses his balance and falls to the ground.

On the opposite side to the rosadera he carries a deerskin pouch called barrega, adorned with figures. This pouch serves for carrying the nickel coins and pitoles, or small red beans with which he keeps an account of the number of trips he makes, being paid at the end of a week or fortnight, according to the number of beans he leaves at a house. He also keeps a corresponding "tally-sheet" with beans, and compares notes with his employer when being paid.

The aguador is a person of importance; nobody knows better than he the inner life of the household that he serves. He is often made the messenger between lovers, and when for any reason he may refuse to perform that office, the ingenious lover resorts to artifice, and by means of wax fastens the missive upon the bottom of the chochocol, and the unconscious aguador thus conveys it to the expectant fair one, who informed of the device, is ready to remove the epistle. He often wonders why the young mistress comes out so early in the morning to meet him, and that he so frequently finds her lover standing at the door of his house.

The aguador scarcely ever dines at home. His wife meets him with a basket covered with a napkin at the entrance to some house, and there, together with his children and companions, he dines with good appetite and without annoyance of any kind. Then he goes to the fountain where he is accustomed to draw water, frees himself of his jars, and stretches himself in the shade to take his siesta; or he spends the rest of the day at some pulque shop, playing a game called "rayenla" with his companions, or repeating pleasantries and proverbs to the maids that happen to pass near him, and drinking pulque. But in the midst of this monotony, they also have their days of enjoyment, their days of merriment and diversion. The feast of the Holy Cross arrives, and when day begins to dawn, they burn


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Rh an endless number of rockets and bombs, which they call salva or salute.

When the sun rises, the sign of the cross has been already placed on the spring of the fountain, or in the center, if the fountain is in a public square. The said crosses are adorned with rosaries or chains of poppies and cempazuchitl. On that day the water-men bathe, dress themselves in their holiday clothes and go to dine in community, eating heartily and drinking white and prepared pulque the greater part of the day.

One of the poor waterman's joys is the Saturday of Passion Week, or Sabado de Gloria: but this day is not so animated as the former, for it is confined to strewing flowers on the water of the fountain and burning an image representing their profession.

The following account of the superstitious beliefs of the Nahoan Indians is taken from Mexico á traves de los Siglos. They had singularly materialistic views in regard to death. They believed that Mictlan (literally hell) was reached by the dead after a long and painful journey. Their hieroglyphics indicate that the dead must first cross the Apanohuaya river, and to do this it was necessary to have the aid of a little yellow dog (techichi) with a cotton string tied around his neck, which was placed in the hands of the dead. Dogs of no other color could be used, as neither white nor black dogs could cross the river. The white ones would say, "I have been washed," while the black ones rejoined, "I have been stained." These dogs were reared by the natives for this special purpose, and the techichi is that well-known favorite among perros, now called the Chihuahua dog.

After crossing the river, the dog led his master, devoid of clothing, between two mountains that were constantly clashing together, then over one covered with jagged rocks, and then over eight hills upon which snow was ever falling, on through eight deserts where the winds were as sharp as knives. After this he led him through a path where arrows were flying continually; and, worst of all, he encountered a tiger that ate out his heart, when he fell into a deep, dark, foaming


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436 river, filled with lizards, after which he appeared before the King of Mictlan, when his tortuous journey was ended and his identity ceased.

It was also a belief that when the body began this journey it must have been buried for a period of four years. In this belief it was not the soul, but the body in actuality that made the mysterious journey.

For those who enjoy euphonious names, I will state that the name of the last stopping place was "Izmictlanapochcalocca, on which the alligator Xochitonal is encountered; the alligator is the earth's symbol and Xochitonal the last day of the year, which shows the body here reached the last stage of its existence and became dust of the earth."

When the two are united we see readily the connecting link in their ideas: that at the end of a certain time the body is converted into dust, and the dead are finished forever.

The Milk Tree for Dead Children—El Arbol de Leche de los Niños Muertos, embodies another superstitious tradition of the Nahoa Indians, which was the existence of a mansion where children went after death. This was called Chihuacuauhco, from a tree which was supposed to grow there, from the branches of which milk dropped to nourish the children which clung to them. It was believed that these children would return to populate the world after the race which then inhabited it had passed away.

The superstitions of to-day among the Mexican lower classes, though without this post-mortem materialism, are quite as strong and as closely adhered to. They are almost numberless, and the most


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Rh insignificant has its own place, not to be substituted by any other. Evidences of this appear in the performance of the simplest duty. Let them begin to make a fire, and the first movement is to make the sign of the cross in the air before the range; or if about to cook any such articles as tortillas, many of them, as preliminary, make the cross and utter a few words of prayer. The moon has much to do with these fancies, and many of their individual failings are laid to the account of that luminary.

These are carried with humorous effect into the smallest minutiæ of household labors. In killing fowls, they pull the head off, then make the sign of the cross with the neck on the ground, and laying the chicken on the place, declare it cannot jump about; but I noticed they always held it firmly on the cross.

Many of them keep a light burning both day and night in their houses. In the majority of instances, the light is merely a wax taper placed in a glass half filled with water, with a little oil on the top. Beside the taper a cross is fixed.

On one occasion, I went into a tortilla establishment where were eight or ten women grinding corn, and seeing the light I asked the patrona why she kept this light burning.

"Because," she answered, "I want God and all his saints to keep this house from evil spirits. We have to work very hard all day, and when this light is burning they dare not come near."

"Do you keep it burning always?" said I.

"Yes, always; without it we would be in total darkness." Then, turning to me, she asked:

"Have you not God and saints in your country?"

"Yes; but we believe that God will protect us without the light, and we do not depend on the saints;" which ended the colloquy.

I have been at times much impressed with the seriousness and sentiment so evidently underlying these little superstitious actions. The old tamalera, the music of whose grito appears in these pages, came to our house the evening I left the capital. She released her


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438 burden from her back, and then began as usual to chat with me, her extreme age and trembling frame appealing strongly to my sympathies. When I had sung her grito over and over with her, she made the sign of the cross over the olla in which she kept her tamales, then crossed herself, saying: "In the name of the Divina Providencia may I have enough customers to buy these tamales, that I may go early to my home. I am weary of trudging these streets, and mi pobre casa is far away." Before leaving, she turned to me, and, with tears streaming down her face, placed her hand on my head and said: "Niña, you leave us to-night to go to your home, that is far, far away in another land; may the Divina Providencia take you safely there; may you find your people well, and some day before I die, may you return to us here, and sing again with me this grito!"

On the feast of All Souls, they place a table on the sidewalk containing such articles of food as their dead friends and relatives liked best—even to the pulque. When morning comes, it is, of course, all gone, and the donor is duly happy, because she imagines the dear dead ones have returned and partaken of their favorite food, when in reality, mischievous boys have consumed these precious edibles. On this day the various venders and outside help come for their gifts, just as newsboys come for their contributions on New Year's. These gifts are disguised under the name of calaveras—skulls. Each one asks in his own characteristic fashion, the paper carrier in the following verse:


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Rh The curandera is another outside household appendage. She is the professional nurse, and as such is faithful, ready, and attentive. In this capacity her services are invaluable. She may also assume the rôle of practicing physician, and with numerous remedies and herbs of every kind, she becomes quite a power in the land. There is a world of witchcraft and superstition in the practice of the curanderas, and the common people stand in great awe of them.

In the rural districts their pharmacy consists of ground glass, beaten shells, white lead, and an infinity of herbs. Their diagnosis embraces calor y frio (heat and cold), and their therapeutics are always directed toward these two conditions. A disease quite common which these women assume to cure is empeche, a condition where undigested food adheres to some part of the stomach. To dislodge the empeche, they give white lead and quicksilver, at frequent intervals, in compound doses. For paralysis, they have been known to give blue and red glass beads, ground up in equal portions, a table-spoonful at a dose. Strange to relate, the patient recovered.

If a child is slow in learning to talk, they recommend a diet of boiled swallows. This is infallible. If he is slow about walking, his legs should be rubbed with dirt. This accounts for the fact that pelado (poor) children acquire the use of their limbs sooner than those of the higher classes.


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440 The portrait of Vicenta gives an excellent idea of the intellectual development of these women doctors. From a conversation I held with her, I feel confident she had some believer in "Altruistic Faith" as partner in the practice of her profession; for when I asked her how she became a doctor, she coolly replied: "By my natural intelligence."


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left the capital at early dawn for a visit to Puebla and other places of interest, along the Mexican or Vera Cruz Railway, which penetrates the tropic glories of the tierra caliente.

Swiftly we sped along the smooth rails, passing numerous wayside shrines, where, in the not remote past, earnest devotees halted for a prayer as they wended their way on their knees to renew their vows at the great temple of Guadalupe. Picturesque Indian burden-bearers trotted along beside the cars, peering through the windows, now and then taking off a hat or waving a hand in salutation to some passing acquaintance.

We whirled through fields of maguey, growing in parallel lines which intersected each other. The rapid motion of the train causing these lines to successively converge and diverge, the figure of a star was constantly being presented, and I could not but be delighted in fancying I saw pictured on these distant plains the emblem of my own great State.

At San Juan Teotihuacan our nineteenth century civilization


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Rh

T was my intention to have postponed troubling you with the following experiments upon the condensation of the gases, until I had brought them to a greater degree of perfection; but being informed that several of them have already, by means of which I am ignorant, and probably in a mutilated state, found their way to the press, any further delay seems improper. If then you deem the present communication worthy a place in your interesting Journal, it is entirely at your service.

It had long ago occurred to me, that the various affinities which take place among the gases under the common pressure of the atmosphere, would undergo considerable

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 internal conception of mind; and, in the second place, from a merely external conception of subject-matter.

(1) Any one who has grasped the conception of an interest as an activity that moves toward an end, developing as it proceeds thought of this end and search for means, will never fall into the error of thinking of mind (or of the self) as an isolated inner world by itself. It will be apparent that mind is one with intelligent or purposeful activity—with an activity that means something and in which the meaning counts as a factor in the development of an activity. There is a sense in which mind is measured by growth of power of abstraction, and a very important sense this is. There is another sense in which it can be truly said that abstractness is the worst evil that infests education. The false sense of abstraction is connected with thinking of mental activity as something that can go on wholly by itself, apart from objects or from the world of persons and things. Real subject-matter being removed, something else has to be supplied in its place for the mind to occupy itself with. This


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 something else must of necessity be mere symbols; that is to say things that are not signs of anything, because the first-hand subject-matter which gives them meaning has been excluded or at least neglected. Or when objects—concrete facts, etc.—are introduced, it is as mere occasions for the mind to exercise its own separate powers—just as dumb-bells or pulleys and weights are a mere occasion for exercising the muscles. The world of studies then becomes a strange and peculiar world, because a world cut off from—abstracted from—the world in which pupils as human beings live and act and suffer. Lack of "interest," lack of power to hold attention and stir thought, are a necessary consequence of the unreality attendant upon such a realm for study. Then it is concluded that the "minds" of children or of people in general are averse to learning, are indifferent to the concerns of intelligence. But such indifference and aversion are always evidence—either directly or as a consequence of previous bad conditions—that the appropriate conditions for the exercise of mind are not there:—that they are


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70 alteration by the influence of condensation; and the success attending the violent method adopted by the French chemists, which violence did not appear to me requisite, afforded additional encouragement to my undertaking some experiments upon the subject.

I communicated this to the late chemical operator in the Royal Institution, a gentleman eminently conversant in the science, and with whom I was then engaged in a series of experiments: he not only approved of my design, but seemed to think it not improbable that an extensive field might thus be opened to future discoveries. Whether these opinions are justly founded, is now left for you, Sir, and the public to judge.

In entering upon a field entirely new, obstacles were of course to be expected: nor without reason; for though I had applied to one of the most eminent philosophical instrument-makers in London, Mr. Cuthbertson, yet I began to fear, even at the outset, that his skill would be set at defiance. The first instruments which he made for the present purpose were, a brass condensing-pump, with a lateral spring for the admission of the gas by means of stop-cock and bladder; two pear-shaped receivers, one of metal of the capacity of seven cubic inches, and another of glass of about three and a half: these were connected by a brass stop-cock, having a screw at each end. The metallic receiver was soon found to be of little or no utility, as well on account of its liability to be acted upon by the generated acids; its being too capacious, and thus consuming too large a quantity of gas: as because, though the result of an experiment might thus be known, yet the changes which the subjects might undergo would necessarily escape observation. The glass receiver obviated all these difficulties, and one or two imperfect experiments were performed with it: but the stop-cock speedily failed in its effect. For the power of

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Rh the compressed gases was so great, partly from their elasticity, and partly (where affinities had operated) from their corrosive quality, as absolutely to wear a channel in the metal of which the plug was made, and thus to effect their escape. But not to trouble you any further with the obstacles that occurred, and which are mentioned only to prevent unnecessary expence to others, I have at last, by Mr. Cuthbertson's assistance, procured a connecting-tube, to which a spring-valve is adapted that has hitherto answered every purpose.

The instruments which I now use, are, 1st. An exhausting syringe; 2d. A condensing-pump, with two lateral springs for different gases; 3d. The connecting spring-valve; and lastly, glass receivers, which should have been of various sizes, but the one mentioned above having burst, that which I have principally used in the following experiments, is of about five cubic inches and a quarter in capacity, and made of glass well annealed and a quarter of an inch in thickness. Besides these instruments, I have occasionally applied Mr. Cuthbertson's double syphon-gage, by which the number of atmospheres condensed in the receiver, or rather the elastic power of the gases, may be measured; but this is rendered of less service, because a stop-cock must then be placed between the receiver and spring-valve, which frequently impairs the whole experiment; and also because, after a certain degree of condensation, and more particularly upon the admixture of the gases, new affinities usually take place, which tend to diminish the elasticity: the greatest number of atmospheres my gage has yet measured, is eighteen. These, Sir, with some bladders and stop-cocks, various iron screw-keys, and a wooden guard for the legs in case of bursting, constitute the principal part of the requisite apparatus.

I now proceed to the experiments, premising that the

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72 first four were made with the imperfect apparatus, when the gas was continually making its escape through the stop-cock.

Into the glass receiver, of three cubic inches and a half capacity, were compressed in the following order: Hidrogen, two (wine) pints; oxigen, two pints; nitrogen, two pints. The result was, water which bedewed the inside of the receiver; white floating vapours (probably the gaseous oxide of nitrogen); and an acid which reddened litmus paper. Mr. Accum was present at this experiment, and from his opinion, as well as from succeeding experiments, I have reason to think that this acid is the nitric.

As a difference of arrangement in the order of the gases tends considerably to vary the result, I repeated the former experiment (having first poured a little lime-water into the receiver) by injecting first the oxigen, about three pints, then equal quantities of hidrogen and nitrogen. Much of this gas escaped, owing to the imperfection of the instrument; but upon the affusion of the nitrogen, the white vapours again appeared in the receiver; water seemed likewise to be formed; and some yellow particles were seen floating upon the lime-water. These particles probably arose from the resinous substance, used in fastening on the cap of the receiver, being dissolved by the nitrous gas formed during condensation.

I would just observe, that the magnet seemed to be affected during this experiment; but as there is iron used in the machine, this may be otherwise accounted for.

Two pints of carbonic acid, and two of hidrogen, were

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Rh subjected to condensation. The result was, a watery vapour, and a gas of rather offensive smell.

Trying to inflame phosphorus by the condensation of atmospheric air, the bottom of the machine (where it had been repaired) burst out with an explosion. This happened when I had immersed the apparatus in water to discover where the air escaped. The receiver was full of the fumes of the phosphorus, which was itself dispersed in the vessel of water. I afterwards repeated this experiment with the more perfect apparatus, but I could not inflame the phosphorus, and the fumes which arose at first soon disappeared. There was just enough acid (probably phosphoric) formed in the inside of the receiver to tinge litmus.

Having now the spring-valve, and new receiver of five cubic inches and a half capacity, I poured in two scruples of solution of potash, and then injected two pints of hidrogen, two of nitrogen, and three of oxigen. This quantity was hardly sufficient for the capacity of the receiver, and the result was only a smell of the gaseous oxide of nitrogen, a few yellowish fumes, and scarce enough acidity to tinge the edge of the test paper: of course, I could not effect the formation of nitrate of potash.

I now determined to begin with the nitrogen, which always appeared to me to undergo the most important chemical changes, and therefore injected two pints of nitrogen, three of oxigen, and two of hidrogen. Upon the condensation of the nitrogen, it speedily assumed an orange-red colour, which upon the accession of the oxigen, gradually diminished, and at length disappeared,

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74 though at first it seemed rather deeper. A moist vapour, coating the inside of the receiver, arose upon the compression of the hydrogen, which moisture was strongly acid to the taste, coloured litmus, and, when very much diluted with water, acted upon silver.

Nearly the same as the last, but with different arrangement. The nitrogen, three pints and a half, was first introduced; then the hidrogen, two pints; and next the oxigen, three and a half. The nitrogen formed the orange-red colour as before; the hidrogen produced white clouds at first (quœre ammonia?) which afterwards disappeared, and the orange-red colour became lighter; but upon the affusion of the oxigen, the colour did not disappear as in the last experiment, but, if any thing, became darker. I then injected two pints more of hidrogen, but this had little or no effect upon the colour. Some vapour was generated, which was, as usual, strongly acid.

Previous to the bursting of the small receiver, I had put in it a scruple of lime, and condensed upon it three pints of nitrogen. The result was, a little reddish colour at first, which soon vanished. Upon repeating this experiment in the large receiver, I could produce no colour at all. In my present state of knowledge I am unable to account for this circumstance; but as soon as I get my new receivers of a smaller capacity, I mean to repeat the experiment.

Besides the above, I have made various other experiments with different gases, but I think it right to repeat them with greater accuracy before I submit them to the

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Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/61

 INTRODUCTION TO THE DREAM.

, which was written at Diodati in July, 1816 (probably towards the end of the month; see letters to Murray and Rogers, dated July 22 and July 29), is a retrospect and an apology. It consists of an opening stanza, or section, on the psychology of dreams, followed by some episodes or dissolving views, which purport to be the successive stages of a dream. Stanzas ii. and iii. are descriptive of Annesley Park and Hall, and detail two incidents of Byron's boyish passion for his neighbour and distant cousin, Mary Anne Chaworth. The first scene takes place on the top of "Diadem Hill," the "cape" or rounded spur of the long ridge of Howatt Hill, which lies about half a mile to the south-east of the hall. The time is the late summer or early autumn of 1803. The "Sun of Love" has not yet declined, and the "one beloved face" is still shining on him; but he is beginning to realize that "her sighs are not for him," that she is out of his reach. The second scene, which belongs to the following year, 1804, is laid in the "antique oratory" (not, as Moore explains, another name for the hall, but "a small room built over the porch, or principal entrance of the hall, and looking into the courtyard"), and depicts the final parting. His doom has been pronounced, and his first impulse is to pen some passionate reproach, but his heart fails him at the sight of the "Lady of his Love," serene and smiling, and he bids her farewell with smiles on his lips, but grief unutterable in his heart.

Stanza iv. recalls an incident of his Eastern travels—a halt at noonday by a fountain on the route from Smyrna to Ephesus (March 14, 1810), "the heads of camels were seen peeping above the tall reeds" (see Travels in Albania, 1858, ii. 59).

The next episode (stanza v.) depicts an imaginary scene, suggested, perhaps, by some rumour or more definite assurance, and often present to his "inward eye"—the "one beloved," the mother of a happy family, but herself a forsaken and unhappy wife.

He passes on (stanza vi.) to his marriage in 1815, his bride "gentle" and "fair," but not the "one beloved"—to the wedding day, when he stood before an altar, "like one forlorn," confused by the sudden vision of the past fulfilled with Love the "indestructible"!


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Rh eye of the public: if upon that repetition they appear to me to be attended with results of sufficient importance to occupy a place in your Journal, I will take the liberty of communicating them to you, and am. Sir, Your most obedient servant, THO. NORTHMORE.

P. S. I think it necessary to add, that during the course of the above-mentioned experiments, there was a great variation of temperature in the atmosphere, from the heat of 70 degrees of Fahrenheit to the cold of 33.

SIR,

NOW take the liberty of presenting you with a continuation of my experiments upon the condensation of the gases, but first beg leave to make one observation, viz. that the quantity of gas said to be injected in each experiment, cannot (particularly in the preceding article) always be depended upon; for its tendency to escape is so constant and powerful, as frequently to elude every effort of mine to prevent it, and if it can find no other exit, it will sometimes escape by the side of the piston of the forcing pump. In the preceding experiments I have endeavoured as much as possible to obviate this evil, but not always with the success that I could wish.

Repeating the eighth experiment mentioned in my former letter, (see Vol. XII. p. 372-3) viz. the

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76 of nitrogen upon lime, in order to discover the cause of the loss of colour in the nitrogen, I perceived that this arose from its fixation, and a nitrate of lime was the result. This experiment, on account of the elasticity of nitrogen previous to its change of habitude, requires some caution; for one of my best receivers, three-eighths of an inch thick, was shivered in pieces with a violent explosion, after I had set it aside to see the effect of time upon the compressed gas.

Experiment 9. Upwards of a pint of nitrogen was condensed, and upon this I pumped one pint of gaseous oxide of carbon. The colour of the nitrogen was destroyed; nitrous acid was formed; and upon collecting the liberated gaseous oxide, it burnt not unlike alcohol. The two gases together were at first highly elastic.

From the facility with which nitrogen becomes united and fixed in various bodies, and from its expansive force when liberated from that state, I know not whether I am sufficiently warranted in suggesting an opinion, that the explosive force of various compounds may in a great measure be attributed to the sudden liberation of this fixed gas. To this cause I partly attribute the fulminating silver of Berthollet; the fulminating gold, and various nitrates; and the detonation which accompanies the decomposition of ammoniac by oxigenated muriatic acid gas.

Exp. 10. Having been unsuccessful in my endeavours to inflame phosphorus by the compression of atmospheric air, (see Exp. 4.) I now tried oxigen, but with little better effect. The phosphorus appeared to be somewhat discoloured, and I thought had a tendency to liquify, as it does when put upon a heated plate of iron. Indeed I have no doubt that some heat is generated by the condensation of air, since the thermometer rises upon external application to the receiver.

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Rh Exp. 11. Upon the compression of nearly two pints of oxigenated muriatic acid gas in a receiver two and a quarter cubic inches capacity, it speedily became converted into a yellow fluid, of such extreme volatility under the common pressure of the atmosphere, that it instantly evaporates upon opening the screw of the receiver. I need not add, that this fluid, so highly concentrated, is of a most insupportable pungency. When atmospheric air was pumped into the empty receiver, it was speedily filled with dense white fumes. There was a trifling residue of a yellowish substance left after the evaporation, which probably arose from a small portion of the oil and grease used in the machine, mixed with some of the concentrated gas; it yielded to sulphuric ether, and destroyed vegetable colours.

This gas is very injurious to the machine, and on that account difficult to work.

Exp. 12. Upon half a pint of oxigen was injected one pint of oxigenated muriatic acid gas. The result was a thicker substance, which did not so soon evaporate, and a yellowish mass was left behind.

Exp. 13. Upon half a pint of nitrogen was injected one pint of oxy-muriatic gas. The result was a still thicker substance, and the yellow colour deeper, nor did it appear to act so powerfully upon vegetable colours. Much of the grease of the machine was carried down in both these last experiments, which formed part of the yellow residue, and yielded only to ether.

Exp. 14. Having condensed about a pint of carbonic acid, the receiver very unexpectedly burst with violence. This circumstance I attribute to the vicinity of the furnace, and I mention it to guard others against standing too near a fire in these experiments; nor perhaps may it be useless to add another precaution, that of using

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78 goggles, or at least a thick plate of glass when examining the results.

I now took a new receiver of three cubic inches of capacity, and pumped in one pint of carbonic acid, and upon this rather more than a pint of oxigenated muriatic acid gas.

The union produced a light sap-green colour, but no fluid, though as usual the oil of the machine had retained enough efficacy to destroy vegetable colours.

Exp. 15. Upon rather more than a pint of hidrogen, which was highly elastic, were compressed two pints of the oxigenated muriatic gas. The result was a light yellow-green colour, and no fluid. Some smoke or vapour seemed to issue out of the receiver upon turning the screw, and the gas was highly destructive of colouring matter.

Exp. 16. I now proceeded to the muriatic acid gas, and upon the condensation of a small quantity of it, a beautiful green coloured substance adhered to the side of the receiver, which had all the qualities of muriatic acid; but upon a large quantity, four pints, being condensed, the result was a yellowish-green glutinous substance, which does not evaporate, but is instantly absorbed by a few drops of water; it is of a highly pungent quality, being the essence of muriatic acid. As this gas easily becomes fluid, there is little or no elasticity, so that any quantity may be condensed without danger. My method of collecting this, and other gases which are absorbable by water, is by means of an exhausted florence flask (and in some cases an empty bladder) connected by a stop-cock with the extremity of the retort.

An idea here occurs to me, that the facility of fixation which is the property of the compressed muriatic, oxy-muriatic, and some other gases, may be made of some utility to the arts, since by previously pouring in

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Rh a little water, or other fluid into the receiver, an acid may be obtained of almost any degree of concentration.

Exp. 17. Having collected about a pint and a half of sulphureous acid gas, I proceeded to condense it in the three cubic inch receiver, but after a very few pumps the forcing piston became immoveable, being completely choked by the operation of the gas. A sufficient quantity however had been compressed to form vapour, and a thick slimy fluid of a dark yellow colour began to trickle down the sides of the receiver, which immediately evaporated with the most suffocating odour upon the removal of the pressure. This experiment corroborates the affirmation of Monge and Clouet, mentioned in Accum's chemistry, vol. I. p. 319. viz, that "by extreme artificial cold, and a strong pressure exerted at the same time, they rendered sulphureous acid gas fluid. From the injury which this gas does to the machine, it will be very difficult to perform any experiments upon its elective attractions with the other gases.

Your obedient humble Servant, T. NORTHMORE.

Devonshire Street, Portlaiid Place, Feb. 15, 1806

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Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/62

32 In stanxa vii. he records and analyzes the "sickness of the soul," the so-called "phrenzy" which had overtaken and changed the "Lady of his Love;" and, finally (stanza viii.), he lays bare the desolation of his heart, depicting himself as at enmity with mankind, but submissive to Nature, the "Spirit of the Universe," if, haply, there may be "reserved a blessing" even for him, the rejected and the outlaw.

Moore says (Life, p. 321) that The Dream cost its author "many a tear in writing"—being, indeed, the most mournful as well as picturesque "story of a wandering life" that ever came from the pen and heart of man." In his Real Lord Byron (i. 284) Mr. Cordy Jeaffreson maintains that The Dream "has no autobiographical value.... A dream it was, as false as dreams usually are." The character of the poet, as well as the poem itself, suggests another criticism. Byron suffered or enjoyed vivid dreams, and, as poets will, shaped his dreams, consciously and of set purpose, to the furtherance of his art, but nothing concerning himself interested him or awoke the slumbering chord which was not based on actual fact. If the meeting on the "cape crowned with a peculiar diadem," and the final interview in the "antique oratory" had never happened or happened otherwise; if he had not "quivered" during the wedding service at Seaham; if a vision of Annesley and Mary Chaworth had not flashed into his soul,—he would have taken no pleasure in devising these incidents and details, and weaving them into a fictitious narrative. He took himself too seriously to invent and dwell lovingly on the acts and sufferings of an imaginary Byron. The Dream is "picturesque" because the accidents of the scenes are dealt with not historically, but artistically, are omitted or supplied according to poetical licence; but the record is neither false, nor imaginary, nor unverifiable. On the other hand, the composition and publication of the poem must be set down, if not to malice and revenge, at least to the preoccupancy of chagrin and remorse, which compelled him to take the world into his confidence, cost what it might to his own self-respect, or the peace of mind and happiness of others.

For an elaborate description of Annesley Hall and Park, written with a view to illustrate The Dream, see "A Byronian Ramble," Part II., the Athenæum, August 30, 1834. See, too, an interesting quotation from Sir Richard Phillips' unfinished Personal Tour through the United Kingdom, published in the Mirror, 1828, vol. xii. p. 286; Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey, by Washington Irving, 1835, p. 191, seq.; The House and Grave of Byron, 1855; and an article in Lippincott's Magazine, 1876, vol. xviii. pp. 637, seq.


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 them. Only within the last generation have the advances of science and philosophy brought about recognition of the direct value of actions and a freer utilization of play and occupational activities. Conceived in this freer and more scientific way, the principles of Froebel undoubtedly represent the greatest advance yet made in the recognition of the possibilities of bodily action in educative growth. The methods of Montessori are based on a like recognition, with the advantage of additional technical knowledge; and if the tendency to reduce them to isolated mechanical exercises (a tendency unfortunately attendant upon the spread of every definitely formulated system) can be resisted or overcome, they undoubtedly suggest further resources that can be utilized with younger children, or with older children whose sensori-motor development has been retarded.

2. In this discussion of physical activity I have had in mind for the most part that of the organs of the body, especially the hands, as employed directly with simple materials, or at most such simple appliances as a pencil, a brush, etc.


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I.

life is twofold: Sleep hath its own world,

A boundary between the things misnamed

Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,

And a wide realm of wild reality,

And dreams in their developement have breath,

And tears, and tortures, and the touch of Joy;

They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,

They take a weight from off our waking toils,

They do divide our being; they become

A portion of ourselves as of our time,

And look like heralds of Eternity;

They pass like spirits of the past,—they speak

Like Sibyls of the future; they have power—

The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;

They make us what we were not—what they will,

And shake us with the vision that's gone by,

The dread of vanished shadows—Are they so?

Is not the past all shadow?—What are they?

Creations of the mind?—The mind can make

Substance, and people planets of its own


text: The Liquefaction of Gases/Appendix

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text: Interest and Effort in Education/Outline


text: Category:Neuroscience

title: Category:Neuroscience


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Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part IV. A. 2.djvu/27

Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive commitment to the Korean war. In a somewhat premature judgment of outcomes, a progress report on the implementation of NSC 64 (March 15, 1951) stated that "American military aid furnished the States' forces and the Army of the French Union may have been the decisive factor in the preservation of the area against Communist aggression." Through 1952 and into 1954 "the MDAP shipments to Indochina increased steadily: by February 3, 1953, the United States had shipped 137,200 long tons of material (224 ships' cargoes); by July 1954, approximately 150,000 long tons had been sent, including 1,800 combat vehicles, 30,887 motor transport vehicles, 361,522 small arms and machine guns, 438 naval craft, 2 World War II aircraft carriers, and about 500 aircraft. By the conclusion of the Geneva agreements in July, 1954, the U.S. had delivered aid to Indochina at an original cost of $2,600 million. Nonetheless, protests of the French at the slowness of deliveries and the "interference" of MAAG with French requests were recurrent, and peaked, during the crisis days of 1954. Yet these complaints probably reflected less genuine U.S. shortcomings than French resentment of American efforts to advise, screen, inspect, and verify, and sheer frustration. Moreover, the vagaries of the French logistic system not only made the MAAG job more difficult, but further impeded combat supplies.

 * b.

In spite of the conditions under which U.S. assistance to France and the Associated States was given, the MAAG during the period of the Indochina war was little more than a small (70 in 1950, 3^2 in 195+) supply-support group which exerted far more influence upon U.S. decisions than on the French. The French, never eager for American advice, not only succeeded in limiting the function of MAAG to order-taking in the commercial sense, but in fact — through adroit pressuring of officials above the MAAG — sometimes reduced MAAG to the position of taking their military orders. Available data do not permit detailed evaluation of the efficiency of MAP, but it seems clear that French restrictions on the U.S. MAAG reduced it to virtual impotence.

However, to relate any judgment of the effectiveness of the United States assistance program simply and directly to the outcome of the war would clearly be inappropriate. For the most part, U.S. expectations were not high. In the words of the American Ambassador to France in February, 1950, "obviously any program of external assistance was marginal in character and entirely dependent for its success upon the solidity of the base — in this case, the firmness of French policy and actions in Indochina." French determination to resist American advice was not matched by firmness in proceeding with granting independence to Vietnam, or otherwise meeting the political situation in Indochina. Hence, as the U.S. apparently expected, a favorable outcome to the Indochina war continued to elude France, even with American material and financial help. U.S. assistance enabled France to wage a military battle while it lost its political war — in Saigon and in Paris. (The military defeat at Dien Bien Phu was important primarily from the point of view of its psychological and political impact on the French, and was so interpreted in the relevant U.S. intelligence estimates.) Rh


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Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive If it would be an error to evaluate the effectiveness of the U.S. program in terms of war outcome, and if the efficiency of MAP and MAAG cannot meaningfully be analyzed, it remains to evaluate the degree to which France met the conditions under which assistance was tendered, which presumably impinged directly on U.S. political objectives:

 * (1) The United States objective of insuring "that the primary responsibility for the restoration of peace and security in Indochina rests with the French" was fulfilled; in fact, it was insisted on by the French. On the one hand, U.S. military forces were never directly engaged in the Indochina war. On the other hand, the French, in retaining this primary responsibility, preserved the prerogative to determine policy and the freedom to reject U.S. advice. U.S. "leverage" was minimal.

 * (2) The condition of basing the assistance program on "an urgently prepared French plan acceptable to the Associated States and to the U.S." was frustrated in several ways. At the outset no overall plan was presented, and those portions of existing plans to which U.S. authorities were privy (, Allessandri's pacification plan for the Tonkin Delta) were not acceptable to U.S. thinking. Second, when the Letourneau-Allard and Navarre plans were finally prepared (in 1953, three years after the U.S. decided that a plan was a necessary precondition for aid), some U.S. observers realized that these were more concepts than plans. U.S. acceptance of the plans was more reluctant than the granting of $385 million in additional assistance might indicate. Finally, the plans, once "accepted," were not vigorously carried out.

 * (3) The French met the condition that they provide the U.S. assurances that they would grant self-government for Indochina, and form national armies for the Associated States. But it was clear throughout the war that, regardless of the amounts of U.S. assistance rendered, France's declarations of intent were grudgingly issued, and were seldom followed by action. The French Indochina war had to be lost before Vietnam was granted genuine independence.

 * (4) Although France did expand its forces in Indochina, these forces were never sufficient to the task. French draftees were never employed in Indochina. France

Rh


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The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither/LETTER XIII

RESIDENCY, SUNGEI UJONG, January 30.

We have been here for four days. The heat is so great that it is wonderful that one can walk about in the sunshine; but the nights, though the mercury does not fall below 80 degrees, are cool and refreshing, and the air and soil are both dry, though a hundred inches of rain fall in the year. These wooden bungalows are hot, for the attap roofs have no lining, but they are also airy. There is no-one but myself at night in the one in which my room is, but this is nothing after the solitude of the great, rambling Stadthaus. Since we came a sentry has been on duty always, and a bull-dog is chained at the foot of the ladder which leads to both bungalows. But there is really nothing to fear from these "treacherous Malays." It is most curious to see the appurtenances of civilization in the heart of a Malay jungle, and all the more so because our long night journey up the Linggi makes it seem more remote than it is. We are really only sixty miles from Malacca.

The drawing-room has a good piano, and many tasteful ornaments, books, and china—gifts from loving friends and relations in the far off home—and is as livable as a bachelor would be likely to make it. There is a billiard table in the corridor. The dining-room, which is reached by going out of doors, with its red-tiled floor and walls of dark, unpolished wood, is very pretty. In the middle of the dinner table there is a reflecting lake for "hot-house flowers;" and exquisite crystal, menu cards with holders of Dresden china, four classical statuettes in Parian, with pine-apples, granadillas, bananas, pomegranates, and a durion blanda, are the "table decorations." The cuisine is almost too elaborate for a traveler's palate, but plain meat is rarely to be got, and even when procurable is unpalatable unless disguised. Curry is at each meal, but it is not made with curry powder. Its basis is grated cocoa-nut made into a paste with cocoa-nut milk, and the spices are added fresh. Turtles when caught are kept in a pond until they are needed, and we have turtle soup, stewed turtle, curried turtle and turtle cutlets ad nauseam. Fowls are at every meal, but never plain roasted or plain boiled. The first day there was broiled and stewed elephant trunk, which tastes much like beef.

Babu, who is always en grand tenue, has taken command of everything and saves our host all trouble. He carves at the sideboard, scolds the servants in a stage whisper, and pushes them indignantly aside when they attempt to offer anything to "his young ladies," reduces Captain Murray's butler to a nonentity, and as far as he can turns the Residency into Government House, waiting on us assiduously in our rooms, and taking care of our clothes. The dinner bell is a bugle.

In houses in these regions there is always a brick-floored bath-room, usually of large size, under your bedroom, to which you descend by a ladder. This is often covered by a trap-door, which is sometimes concealed by a couch, and in order to descend the sofa cushion is lifted. Here it is an open trap in the middle of the room. A bath is a necessity—not a luxury—so near the equator, and it is usual to take one three, four, or even five times a day, with much refreshment. One part of Babu's self-imposed duty is to look under our pillows for snakes and centipedes, and the latter have been found in all our rooms.

I must now make you acquainted with our host, Captain Murray. He was appointed when the Datu Klana asked for a Resident four years ago. He devotes himself to Sungei Ujong as if it were his own property, though he has never been able to acquire the language. He is a man about thirty-eight, a naval officer, and an enterprising African traveler; under the middle height, bronzed, sun-browned, disconnected in his conversation from the habit of living without anyone in or out of the house to speak to; professing a misanthropy which he is very far from feeling, for he is quite unsuspicious, and disposed to think the best of every one; hasty when vexed, but thoroughly kind-hearted; very blunt, very undignified, never happy (he says) out of the wilds; thoroughly well disposed to the Chinese and Malays, but very impatient of their courtesies, thoroughly well meaning, thoroughly a gentleman, but about the last person that I should have expected to see in a position which is said to require much tact if not finesse. His success leads me to think, as I have often thought before, that if we attempt to deal with Orientals by their own methods, we are apt to find them more than a match for us, and that thorough honesty is the best policy.

He lives alone, unguarded; trusts himself by night and day without any escort among the people; keeps up no ceremony at all, and is approachable at all hours. Like most travelers, he has some practical knowledge of medicine, and he gives advice and medicines most generously, allowing himself to be interrupted by patients at all hours. There is no doctor nearer than Malacca. He has been so successful that people come from the neighboring States for his advice. There is very little serious disease, but children are subject to a loathsome malady called puru. Two were brought with it to-day. The body and head are covered with pustules containing matter, looking very much like small-pox, and the natives believe that it must run its course for a year. Captain Murray cures it in a few days with iodide of potassium and iodine, and he says that it is fast disappearing.

Captain Murray is judge, "sitting in Equity," Superintendent of Police, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Surveyor of Taxes, besides being Board of Trade, Board of Works, and I know not what besides. In fact, he is the Government, although the Datu Klana's signature or seal is required to confirm a sentence of capital punishment, and possibly in one or two other cases; and his Residential authority is subject only to the limitations of his own honor and good sense, sharpened somewhat, were he other than what he is, by possible snubs from the Governor of the Straits Settlements or the Colonial Secretary. He is a thoroughly honorable man, means well by all the interests of his little kingdom, and seems both beloved and trusted.

On Sunday morning we had English service and a sermon, the congregation being augmented by the only other English people—a man from Australia who is here road-making, and his wife; and in the afternoon, disregarding a temperature of 85 degrees, we went through the Chinese village of Serambang.

Tin is the staple product of Sungei Ujong, and until lately the Malay peninsula and the adjacent regions were supposed to be the richest tin producing countries in the world. There is not a single tin mine, however, properly so-called. The whole of the tin exported from Sungei Ujong, which last year (1879), even at its present reduced price, was valued at 81,400 pounds, and contributed as export duty to the Government 5,800 pounds, is found in the detritus of ancient mountains, and is got, in mining parlance, in "stream works"—that is, by washing the soil, just as gold is washed out of the soil in Australia and California. It is supposed that there is a sufficient supply to last for ages, even though the demand for tin for new purposes is always on the increase. It is tin mining which has brought the Chinese in such numbers to these States, and as miners and smelters they are equally efficient and persevering. In 1828, the number of Chinese working the mines here was one thousand; and in the same year they were massacred by the Malays. They now number ten thousand, and under British protection have nothing to fear.

It is still the New Year holidays, and hundreds of Chinamen were lounging about, and every house was gayly decorated. The Malays never join house to house, the Chinese always do so, and this village has its streets and plaza. The houses are all to a certain extent fire-proof—that is, when a fire occurs, and the attap-thatched roofs are burned, the houses below, which are mostly shops, are safe. These shops, some of which are very large, are nearly dark. They deal mainly in Chinese goods and favorite Chinese articles of food, fireworks, mining tools, and kerosene oil. In one shop twenty "assistants," with only their loose cotton trousers on, were sitting at round tables having a meal—not their ordinary diet, I should think, for they had seventeen different sorts of soups and stews, some of them abominations to our thinking.

We visited the little joss-house, very gaudily decorated, the main feature of the decorations being two enormous red silk umbrellas, exquisitely embroidered in gold and silks. The crowds in this village remind me of Canton, but the Chinese look anything but picturesque here, for none of them—or at all events, only their "Capitans"—wear the black satin skull cap; and their shaven heads, with the small patch of hair which goes into the composition of the pigtail, look very ugly. The pig-tail certainly begins with this lock of hair, but the greater part of it is made up of silk or cotton thread plaited in with the hair, and blue or red strands of silk in a pigtail indicate mourning or rejoicing. None of the Chinese here wear the beautiful long robes used by their compatriots in China and Japan. The rich wear a white, shirt-like garment of embroidered silk crepe over their trousers and petticoat, and the poorer only loose blue or brown cotton trousers, so that one is always being reminded of the excessive leanness of their forms. Some of the rich merchants invited us to go in and drink champagne, but we declined everything but tea, which is ready all day long in tea-pots kept hot in covered baskets very thickly padded, such as are known with us as "Norwegian Kitchens."

In the middle of the village there is a large, covered, but open-sided building like a market, which is crowded all day—and all night too—by hundreds of these poor, half-naked creatures standing round the gaming tables, silent, eager, excited, staking every cent they earn on the turn of the dice, living on the excitement of their gains—a truly sad spectacle. Probably we were the first European ladies who had ever walked through the gambling-house, but the gamblers were too intent even to turn their heads. There also they are always drinking tea. Some idea of the profits made by the men who "farm" the gambling licenses may be gained from the fact that the revenue derived by the Government from the gambling "farms" is over 900 pounds a year.

Spirits are sold in three or four places; and the license to sell them brings in nearly 700 pounds a year, but a drunken Chinaman is never seen. There are a few opium inebriates, lean like skeletons, and very vacant in expression; and every coolie smokes his three whiffs of opium every night. Only a few of the richer Chinamen have wives, and there are very few women, as is usual in a mining population. A good many roads have been made in the State, and the Chinese are building buggies, gharries, and wagons, and many of the richer ones own them and import Sumatra ponies to draw them. To say that the Chinese make as good emigrants as the British is barely to give them their due. They have equal stamina and are more industrious and thrifty, and besides that they are always sober, can bear with impunity the fiercest tropical heat, and can thrive and save where Englishmen would starve. The immense immigration of Chinese, all affiliated to clubs or secret societies, might be a great risk to the peace of the State were it not that they recognize certain leaders known as "Capitans China," who contrive to preserve order, so far as is known by a wholesome influence merely; and who in all cases, in return for the security which property enjoys under our flag, work cordially with the Resident in all that concerns the good of the State. How these "Capitans" are elected, and how they exercise their authority, is as inscrutable as most else belonging to the Chinese. The Chinese seem not so much broadly patriotic as provincial or clannish, and the "Hoeys," or secret societies, belong to the different southern provinces. The fights between the factions, and the way in which the secret societies screen criminals by false swearing and other means, are among the woes of the Governor and Lieutenant-Governors of these Settlements. Though they get on very well up here, thanks to the "Capitan China," the clans live in separate parts of the village, have separate markets and gaming houses, and a wooden arch across the street divides the two "Nations."

We went to pay complimentary visits for the New Year to these "Capitans" with the Malay interpreter, and were received with a curious mixture of good-will and solemnity. Wine, tea and sweet-meats were produced at each house. Their houses are very rude, considering their ample means, and have earthen floors. They have comfortable carriages, and their gentle, sweet-mannered children were loaded with gold and diamonds. In one house, a sweet little girl handed round the tea and cake, and all, even to babies who can scarcely toddle across the floor, came up and shook hands. A Chinese family impresses one by its extreme orderliness, filial reverence being regarded as the basis of all the virtues. The manners of these children are equally removed from shyness and forwardness. They all wore crowns of dark red gold of very beautiful workmanship, set with diamonds. When these girl-children are twelve years old, they will, according to custom, be strictly secluded, and will not be seen by any man but their father till the bridegroom lifts the veil at the marriage ceremony.

After these visits, in which the "Capitans China," through the interpreter, assured us of their perpetual and renewed satisfaction with British rule, Mr. Hayward, the interpreter, and I, paid another visit of a more leisurely kind to one of the Chinese gambling houses, which, as usual, was crowded. At one end several barbers were at work. A Chinaman is always being shaved, for he keeps his head and face quite smooth, and never shaves himself. The shaving the head was originally a sign of subjection imposed by the Tartar conquerors, but it is now so completely the national custom that prisoners feel it a deep disgrace when their hair is allowed to grow. Coolies twist their five feet of pigtail round their heads while they are at work, but a servant or other inferior, only insults his superior if he enter his presence with his pigtail otherwise than pendent. The gaming house, whose open sides allow it to present a perpetual temptation, is full of tables, and at each sits a croupier, well clothed, and as many half-naked Chinamen as can see over each others' shoulders crowd round him. Their silent, concentrated eagerness is a piteous sight, as the cover is slowly lifted from the heavy brass box in which the dice are kept, on the cast of which many of them have staked all they possess. They accept their losses as they do their gains, with apparent composure. They work very hard, and live on very little; but they are poor just now, for the price of tin has fallen nearly one-half in consequence of the great tin discoveries in Australia.

Along with Mr. Hayward I paid a visit to the Court House, a large whitewashed room, with a clean floor of red tiles, a tiled dais, with a desk for the judge, a table with a charge sheet and some books upon it, and three long benches at the end for witnesses and their friends. A punkah is kept constantly going. There are a clerk, a Chinese interpreter, who speaks six Chinese dialects, and a Malay interpreter, who puts the Chinese interpreter's words into English. As the judge does not understand Malay, it will be observed that justice depends on the fidelity of this latter official. Though I cannot say that the dignity of justice is sustained in this court, there is not a doubt that the intentions of the judge are excellent, and if some of the guilty escape, it is not likely that any of the innocent suffer. The Datu Bandar sometimes sits on the bench with the Resident.

The benches were crowded almost entirely with Chinamen, and a number of policemen stood about. I noticed that these were as anxious as our own are to sustain a case. The case which I heard, and which occupied more than an hour, was an accusation against a wretched Chinaman for stealing a pig. I sat on the bench and heard every word that was said, and arrived at no judicial conclusion, nor did the Resident, so the accused was dismissed. He did steal that pig though! I don't see how truth can be arrived at in an Oriental court, especially where the witnesses are members of Chinese secret societies. Another case of alleged nocturnal assault, was tried, in which the judge took immense pains to get at the truth, and the prisoner had every advantage; and when he was found guilty, was put into a good jail, from which he will be taken out daily to work on the roads.

Malays being Mussulmen, are mostly tried by the "Divine Law" of the Koran, and Chinamen are dealt with "in equity." The question to be arrived at simply is, "Did the prisoner commit this crime or did he not?" If he did he is punished, and if he did not he is acquitted. There are no legal technicalities by which trial can be delayed or the ends of justice frustrated. Theft is the most common crime. One hundred and fourteen persons were convicted last year, which does not seem a large proportion (being less than one per cent.) out of an unsettled mining population of twelve thousand. Mr. Hayward, through whose hands the crime of Singapore and Malacca has filtered for twenty years, was very critical on the rough and ready method of proceeding here, and constantly interjected suggestions, such as "You don't ask them questions before you swear them," etc. Informal as its administration is, I have no doubt that justice is substantially done, for the Resident is conscientious and truly honorable. He is very lovable, and is evidently much beloved, and is able to go about in unguarded security.

It is not far from the Court House to the prison, a wholesomely situated building on a hill, made of concrete, with an attap roof. The whole building is one hundred feet long by thirty feet broad. There are six cells for solitary confinement. A jailer, turnkey, and eight warders constitute the prison staff. The able-bodied prisoners are employed on the roads and other public works, and attend upon the scavengers' cart, which outcome of civilization goes round every morning! The diet, which costs fourpence a day for each prisoner, consists of rice and salt fish, but those who work get two-pence halfpenny a day in addition, with which they can either buy luxuries or accumulate a small sum against the time when their sentences expire. Old and weakly people do light work about the prison. One man was executed for murder last year under a sentence signed by the Datu Klana. I have not been in a prison since I was in that den of horrors, the prison of the Naam-Hoi magistrate at Canton, and I felt a little satisfaction in the contrast.

The same afternoon we all made a very pleasant expedition to the Sanitarium, a cabin which the Resident has built on a hill three miles from here. A chair with four Chinese bearers carried Miss Shaw up, her sister and the two gentlemen walked, and I rode a Sumatra pony, on an Australian stock-man's saddle, not only up the steep jungle path, but up a staircase of two hundred steps in which it terminates, the sagacious animal going up quite cunningly. One charm of a tropical jungle is that every few yards you come upon something new, and every hundred feet of ascent makes a decided difference in the vegetation. This is a very grand forest, with its straight, smooth stems running up over one hundred feet before branching, and the branches are loaded with orchids and trailers. One cannot see what the foliage is like which is borne far aloft into the summer sunshine, but on the ground I found great red trumpet flowers and crimson corollas, like those of a Brobdingnagian honeysuckle, and flowers like red dragon-flies enormously magnified, and others like large, single roses in yellow wax, falling slowly down now and then, messengers from the floral glories above, "wasting (?) their sweetness on the desert air." A traveler through a tropical jungle may see very few flowers and be inclined to disparage it. It is necessary to go on adjacent rising ground and look down where trees and trailers are exhibiting their gorgeousness. Unlike the coarse weeds which form so much of the undergrowth in Japan, everything which grows in these forests rejoices the eye by its form or color; but things which hurt and sting and may kill, lurk amidst all the beauties. A creeping plant with very beautiful waxy leaves, said by Captain Murray to be vanilla, grows up many of the trees.

When we got up to the top of this, which the Resident calls "Plantation Hill," I was well pleased to find that only the undergrowth had been cleared away, and that "The Sanitarium" consists only of a cabin with a single room divided into two, and elevated on posts like a Malay house. The deep veranda which surrounds it is reached by a stepladder. A smaller house could hardly be, or a more picturesque one, from the steepness and irregularity of its roof. The cook-house is a small attap shed, in a place cut into the hill, and an inclosure of attap screens with a barrel in it under the house is the bath-room. The edge of the hill, from which a few trees have been cleared, is so steep that but for a bamboo rail one might slip over upon the tree-tops below. Some Liberian coffee shrubs, some tea, cinchona, and ipecacuanha, and some heartless English cabbages, are being grown on the hillside, and the Resident hopes that the State will have a great future of coffee.

The view in all directions was beautiful—to the north a sea of densely wooded mountains with indigo shadows in their hollows; to the south the country we had threaded on the Linggi river, forests, and small tapioca clearings, little valleys where rice is growing, and scars where tin- mining is going on; the capital, the little town of Serambang with its larger clearings, and to the west the gleam of the shining sea. In the absence of mosquitoes we were able to sit out till after dark, a rare luxury. There was a gorgeous sunset of the gory, furnace kind, which one only sees in the tropics—waves of violet light rolling up over the mainland, and the low Sumatran coast looking like a purple cloud amidst the fiery haze.

Dinner was well cooked, and served with coffee after it, just as at home. The primitive bath-room was made usable by our eleven servants and chair-bearers being sent to the hill, where the two gentlemen mounted guard over them. After dark the Chinamen made the largest bonfire I ever saw, or at all events the most brilliant, with trunks of trees and pieces of gum dammar, several pounds in weight, which they obtained by digging, and this was kept up till daylight, throwing its splendid glare over the whole hill-top, lighting up the forest, and bringing the cabin out in all its picturesqueness.

I should have liked to be there some time to study the ways of a tribe of ants. Near the cabin, under a large tree, there was an ant-dwelling, not exactly to be called an ant-hill, but a subterranean ant-town, with two entrances. Into this an army of many thousand largish ants, in an even column three and a half inches wide, marched continually, in well "dressed" ranks, about twenty-seven in each, with the regularity of a crack regiment on the "march past," over all sorts of inequalities, rough ground, and imbedded trunks of small trees, larger ants looking like officers marching on both sides of the column, and sometimes turning back as if to give orders. Would that Sir John Lubbock had been there to interpret their speech!

Each ant of the column bore a yellowish burden, not too large to interfere with his activity. A column marshaled in the same fashion, but only half the width of the other, emerged equally continuously from the lower entrance. From the smaller size of this column I suppose that a number of the carrier ants remain within, stowing away their burdens in store-houses. Attending this latter column for eighteen paces, I came upon a marvelous scene of orderly activity. A stump of a tree, from which the outer bark had been removed, leaving an under layer apparently permeated with a rich, sweet secretion, was completely covered with ants, which were removing the latter in minute portions. Strange to say, however, a quantity of reddish ants of much larger size and with large mandibles seemed to do the whole work of stripping off this layer. They were working from above, and had already bared some inches of the stump, which was four feet six inches in diameter. As the small morsels fell among the myriads of ants which swarmed round the base they were broken up, three or four ants sometimes working at one bit till they had reduced it into manageable portions. It was a splendid sight to see this vast and busy crowd inspired by a common purpose, and with the true instinct of discipline, forever forming into column at the foot of the stump.

Toward dusk the reddish ants, which may be termed quarriers, gave up work, and this was the signal for the workers below to return home. The quarriers came down the stump pushing the laborers, rather rudely as I thought, out of their way; and then forming in what might be called "light skirmishing order," they marched to the lower entrance of the town, meeting as they went the column of workers going up to the stump. They met it of course at once, and a minute of great helter-skelter followed, this column falling back on itself as if assailed, in great confusion. If this be the ordinary day's routine, why does that column fall into confusion, and why, after throwing it into disorder, do the reddish ants close their ranks and march into the town in compact order, parallel with the working column going the other way, and which they seemed to terrorize? Is it possible that the smaller ants are only slaves of the larger? Inscrutable are the ways of ants! However, when the advancing column had recovered from its confusion it formed up, and, wheeling round in most regular order, fell behind the rear-guard of the working column, and before dark not an ant remained outside except a dead body.

Soon after the last of its living comrades had disappeared, six ants, with a red one (dare I say?) "in command," came out and seemed to hold a somewhat fussy consultation round the corpse which had fallen on the line of march to the stump. After a minute or two, three of them got hold of it, and with the other four as spectators or mourners, they dragged it for about six feet and concealed it under a leaf, after which they returned home; all this was most fascinating. A little later Captain Murray destroyed both entrances to the town, but before daylight, by dint of extraordinary labor, they were reconstructed lower down the slope, and the work at the stump was going on as if nothing so unprecedented had happened.

I should have liked also to study the ways of the white ant, the great timber-destroying pest of this country, which abounds on this hill. He is a large ant of a pale buff color. Up the trunk of a tree he builds a tunnel of sand, held together by a viscid secretion, and under this he works, cutting a deep groove in the wood, and always extending the tunnel upward. I broke away two inches of such a tunnel in the afternoon, and by the next morning it was restored. Among many other varieties of ants, there is one found by the natives, which people call the "soldier ant." I saw many of these big fellows, more than an inch long, with great mandibles. Their works must be on a gigantic scale, and their bite or grip very painful; but being with a party, I was not able to make their acquaintance.

When it grew dark, tiny lamps began to move in all directions. Some came from on high, like falling stars, but most moved among the trees a few feet from the ground with a slow undulatory motion, the fire having a pale blue tinge, as one imagines an incandescent sapphire might have. The great tree-crickets kept up for a time the most ludicrous sound I ever heard—one sitting in a tree and calling to another. From the deafening noise, which at times drowned our voices, one would suppose the creature making it to be at least as large as an eagle.

The accommodation of the "Sanitarium" is most limited. The two gentlemen, well armed, slept in the veranda, the Misses Shaw in camp beds in the inner cabin, and I in a swinging cot in the outer, the table being removed to make room for it. The bull-dog mounted guard over all, and showed his vigilance by an occasional growl. The eleven attendants stowed themselves away under the cabin, except a garrulous couple, who kept the fire blazing till daylight. My cot was most comfortable, but I failed to sleep. The forest was full of quaint, busy noises, broken in upon occasionally by the hoot of the "spectre bird," and the long, low, plaintive cry of some animal.

All the white residents in the Malacca Settlements have been greatly excited about a tragedy which has just occurred at the Dindings, off this coast, in which Mr. Lloyd, the British superintendent, was horribly murdered by the Chinese; his wife, and Mrs. Innes, who was on a visit to her, narrowly escaping the same fate. Lying awake I could not help thinking of this, and of the ease with which the Resident could be overpowered and murdered by any of our followers who might have a grudge against him, when, as I thought, the door behind my head from the back ladder was burst open, and my cot and I came down on the floor at the head, the simple fact being, that the head-rope, not having been properly secured, gave way with a run. An hour afterward the foot-ropes gave way, and I was deposited on the floor altogether, and was soon covered with small ants.

Early in the morning the apes began to call to each other with a plaintive "Hoo-houey," and in the gray dawn I saw an iguana fully four feet long glide silently down the trunk of a tree, the branches of which were loaded with epiphytes. Captain Shaw asked the imaum of one of the mosques of Malacca about alligator's eggs a few days ago, and his reply was, that the young that went down to the sea became alligators, and those which came up the rivers became iguanas. At daylight, after coffee and bananas, we left the hill, and after an accident, promptly remedied by Mr. Hayward, reached Serambang when the sun was high in the heavens. I should think that there are very few circumstances which Mr. Hayward is not prepared to meet. He has a reserve of quiet strength which I should like to see fully drawn upon. He has the scar of a spear wound on his brow, which Captain Murray says was received in holding sixty armed men at bay, while he secured the retreat of some helpless persons. Yet he continues to be much burdened by his responsibility for these fair girls, who, however, are enjoying themselves thoroughly, and will be none the worse.

We had scarcely returned when a large company of Chinamen, carrying bannerets and joss-sticks, came to the Residency to give a spectacle or miracle-play, the first part consisting of a representation of a huge dragon, which kicked, and jumped, and crawled, and bellowed in a manner totally unworthy of that ancient and splendid myth; and the second, of a fierce melee, or succession of combats with spears, shields, and battle-axes. The performances were accompanied by much drumming, and by the beating of tom-toms, an essentially infernal noise, which I cannot help associating with the orgies of devil-worship. The "Capitan China," in a beautiful costume, sat with us in the veranda to see the performance.

I have written a great deal about the Chinese and very little about the Malays, the nominal possessors of the country, but the Chinese may be said to be everywhere, and the Malays nowhere. You have to look for them if you want to see them. Besides, the Chinese are as ten to two of the whole population. Still the laws are administered in the name of the Datu Klana, the Malay ruler. The land owned by Malays is being measured, and printed title-deeds are being given, a payment of 2s. an acre per annum being levied instead of any taxes on produce. Export duties are levied on certain articles, but the navigation of the rivers is free. Debt slavery, one curse of the Malay States, has been abolished by the energy of Captain Murray with the cordial co-operation of the Datu Klana, and now the whole population have the status and rights of free men. It is a great pity that this Prince is in Malacca, for he is said to be a very enlightened ruler. The photograph which I inclose (from which the engraving is taken) is of the marriage of his daughter, a very splendid affair. The buffalo in front was a marriage present from the Straits Government, and its covering was of cloth of gold thick with pearls and precious stones.

We visited yesterday a Malay kampong called Mambu, in order to pay an unceremonious visit to the Datu Bandar, the Rajah second in rank to the reigning prince. His house, with three others, a godown on very high stilts, and a mound of graves whitened by the petals of the Frangipani, with a great many cocoa-nut and other trees, was surrounded, as Malay dwellings often are, by a high fence, within which was another inclosing a neat, sanded level, under cocoa-palms, on which his "private residence" and those of his wives stand. His secretary, a nice-looking lad in red turban, baju, and sarong, came out to meet us, followed by the Datu Bandar, a pleasant, able-looking man, with a cordial manner, who shook hands and welcomed us. No notice had been given of our visit, and the Rajah, who is reclaiming and bringing into good cultivation much of his land, and who sets the example of working with his own hands, was in a checked shirt, and a common, checked, red sarong. Vulgarity is surely a disease of the West alone, though, as in Japan, one sees that it can be contagious, and this Oriental, far from apologizing for his dishabille, led us up the steep and difficult ladder by which his house is entered with as much courteous ease as if he had been in his splendors.

I thoroughly liked his house. It is both fitting and tasteful. We stepped from the ladder into a long corridor, well-matted, which led to a doorway with a gold-embroidered silk or valance, and a looped-up portiere of white-flowered silk or crepe. This was the entrance to a small room very well proportioned, with two similar doorways, curtained with flowered silk, one leading to a room which we did not see, and the other to a bamboo gridiron platform, which in the better class of Malay houses always leads to a smaller house at the back, where cooking and other domestic operations are carried on, and which seems given up to the women. There was a rich, dim light in the room, which was cool and wainscoted entirely with dark red wood, and there was only one long, low window, with turned bars of the same wood. There were three handsome cabinets with hangings of gold and crimson embroidery, and an ebony frame containing a verse of the Koran in Arabic characters hung over one doorway. In accordance with Mohammedan prohibitions, there was no decoration which bore the likeness of any created thing, but there were some artistic arabesques under the roof. The furniture, besides the cabinets, consisted of a divan, several ebony chairs, a round table covered with a cool yellow cloth, and a table against the wall draped with crimson silk flowered with gold. The floor was covered with fine matting, over which were Oudh rugs in those mixtures of toned-down rich colors which are so very beautiful. Richness and harmony characterized the room, and it was distinctively Malay; one could not say that it reminded one of anything except of the flecked and colored light which streams through dark, old, stained glass.

The Datu Bandar's brother and uncle came in, the first a very handsome Hadji, with a bright, intelligent countenance. He has lived in Mecca for eight years studying the Koran under a renowned teacher, and in this quest of Mussulman learning has spent several thousand dollars. "We never go to Mecca to trade," he said; "we go for religious purposes only." These men looked superb in their red dresses and turbans, although the Malays are anything but a handsome race. Their hospitality was very graceful. Many of the wealthier Mohammedans, though they don't drink wine, keep it for their Christian guests, and they offered us champagne, which is supposed to be an irresistible temptation to the Christian palate. On our refusing it they brought us cow's milk and most delicious coffee with a very fragrant aroma, and not darker in color than tea of an average strength. This was made from roasted coffee leaves. The berries are exported. A good many pretty, quiet children stood about, but though the Rajah gave us to understand that they were the offspring of three mothers, we were not supposed to see any of "the mean ones within the gates."

Our hosts had a good deal to say, and did not leave us to entertain them, though we are but "infidel dogs." That we are regarded as such, along with all other unbelievers, always makes me feel shy with Mohammedans. Some time ago, when Captain Shaw pressed on the Malays the impropriety of shooting Chinamen, as they were then in the habit of doing, the reply of one of them was, "Why not shoot Chinamen? they've no religion;" and though it would be highly discourteous in members of a ruled race to utter this sentiment regarding their rulers, I have not the least doubt that it is their profound conviction concerning ourselves.

Nothing shows more the honesty and excellence of Captain Murray's purposes than that he should be as much respected and loved as he is in spite of a manner utterly opposed to all Oriental notions of dignity, whether Malay or Chinese. I have mentioned his abruptness, as well as his sailor-like heartiness, but they never came into such strong relief as at the Datu Bandar's, against the solemn and dignified courtesy of our hosts.

We returned after dark, had turtle-soup and turtle-steak, not near so good as veal, which it much resembles, for dinner; sang "Auld Lang Syne," which brought tears into the Resident's kindly eyes, and are now ready for an early start to-morrow.

Stadthaus, Malacca.—We left Serambang before daylight on Thursday in buggies, escorted by Captain Murray, the buggies, as usual, being lent by the Chinese "Capitans." Horses had been sent on before, and after changing them we drove the second stage through most magnificent forest, until they could no longer drag the buggies through the mud, at which point of discomfiture three saddled ponies and two chairs were waiting to take us through the jungle to the river. We rode along an infamous track, much of it knee-deep in mud, through a green and silent twilight, till we emerged upon something like English park and fox-cover scenery, varied by Malay kampongs under groves of palms. In the full blaze of noon we reached the Linggi police station, from which we had started in the sampan, and were received by a company of police with fixed bayonets. We dined in the police station veranda, and as the launch had been obliged to drop down the river because the water was falling, we went to Sempang in a native boat, paddled by four Malays with paddles like oval-ended spades with spade handles, a guard of honor of policemen going down with us. There we took leave of our most kind and worthy host, who, with tears in his kind eyes, immediately turned up the river to dwell alone in his bungalow with his bull-dog, his revolver, and his rifle, a self-exiled man.* [*In 1881, Captain Murray, feeling ill after prolonged exposure to the sun, went to Malacca, where he died a few days afterward at the house of his friend Mr. Hayward. Sir F. A. Weld writes of him in a dispatch to Lord Kimberley:—"I cannot close this notice of the State of Sungei Ujong without recalling the memory of Captain Murray, so lately its Resident, to whom it owes much, and who was devoted to its people and interests. A man of great honesty of purpose and kindliness of heart, Captain Murray possessed many of those qualities which are required for the successful administration of a Malay State, and though he labored under the disadvantage of want of knowledge of the native tongue, he yet was able to attach to himself, in a singular manner, the affections of all around him. For the last six years, Captain Murray has successfully advised in the administration of the Government of Sungei Ujong, consolidating order and good government, and doing much to open out the country and develop its resources. His name will ever be associated with its prosperity, and his memory be long fresh in the hearts of its inhabitants."]

After it grew dark we had the splendid sight of a great tract of forest on fire close to the sea. We landed here at a pier eight hundred feet long, accessible to launches at high water, where several peons and two inspectors of police met us. Our expedition has been the talk of the little foreign world of Malacca. We had an enthusiastic welcome at Government House, but Captain Shaw says he will never forgive himself for not writing to Captain Murray in time to arrange our transport, and for sending us off so hurriedly with so little food, but I hope by reiteration to convince him that thereby we gained the night on the Linggi river, which, as a traveling experience, is worth all the rest.

I. L. B.