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 force of 6,000 men, with thirty galleys, leaving the city almost bare of defenders.

This, then, was the moment for successful treachery. One Koutrilzakes, a Greek voluntary, secured the assistance of certain friends within the town. Either a subterranean passage was to be opened to the Greeks, or they were to be assured of friends upon the walls. Alexis at dead of night brought his army close to the city. At midnight, against a certain stipulated spot the scaling-ladders were placed, where there were none but traitors to receive the men; at the same time, the passage was traversed, and Alexis found himself within the walls of the city. By a similar manœuvre did the Spaniards rob King René, two hundred years later, of his city of Naples. They broke open the Gate of the Fountain; they admitted the Greek men-at-arms and the Coman auxiliaries before the alarm was given; and by daylight the Greeks had complete command of the land wall, and were storming the imperial palace. There was one chance left for Baldwin. He might have betaken himself to the Venetians, and held their quarter until the unlucky expedition to Daphnusia returned, when they might have expelled the Greeks, or made at least an honourable capitulation. But Baldwin was not the man to fight a lost or losing battle. He hastily fled to the port, embarked on board a vessel, and set sail for Eubœa. In the deserted palace the Greek soldiers found sceptre, crown, and sword, the imperial insignia, and carried them in mockery through the streets.

While Baldwin was flying from the palace to the port,


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 of almond, olive, apricot, oak, mesquite, honey locust, walnut, or other fruiting trees which could be planted out in the arroyos of the arid Southwest so that the sheep ranches of our own country might be dotted with productive trees in a manner identical to that of the Berbers who have dotted their sheep and goat ranches with olive trees and date palms. Enough of this has been done in Kansas to merit much more attention than it has received.

Examination of the map will show (Fig. 136) that every continent has large areas of grass land or scrub land on which this is about the only possible form of agriculture.

The world needs immediately eighteen or more experiment stations whose staffs are experts in the breeding of desert trees. Each of these stations would have on the average a million square miles of land to serve. Each station would possibly increase the productivity of at least fifty thousand square miles or thirty-two million acres. Suppose five dollars per

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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 these colours may arise from lack of artistic gift in the cartographer. There is no mistaking what he means by black, however, and black you'll find they colour West Africa from above Sierra Leone to below the Congo. "I wouldn't go there if I were you," said my medical friends," you'll catch something; but if you must go, and you're as obstinate as a mule, just bring me" and then followed a list of commissions from here to New York, any one of which but I only found that out afterwards.

All my informants referred me to the missionaries. "There were," they said, in an airy way, "lots of them down there, and had been for years. So to missionary literature I addressed myself with great ardour; alas! only to find that these good people wrote their reports not to tell you how the country they resided in was, but how it was getting on towards being what it ought to be, and how necessary it was that their readers should subscribe more freely, and not get any foolishness into their heads about obtaining an inadequate supply of souls for their money. I also found fearful confirmation of my medical friends' statements about its unhealthiness, and various details of the distribution of cotton shirts over which I did not linger.

From the missionaries it was, however, that I got my first idea about the social condition of West Africa. I gathered that there existed there, firstly the native human beings—the raw material, as it were—and that these were led either to good or bad respectively by the missionary and the trader. There were also the Government representatives, whose chief business it was to strengthen and consolidate the missionary's work, a function they carried on but indifferently well. But as for those traders! well, I put them down under the dangers of West Africa at once. Subsequently I came across the good old coast yarn of how, when a trader from that region went thence, it goes without saying where, the Fallen Angel without a moment's hesitation vacated the infernal throne (Milton) in his favour. This, I beg to note, is the marine form of the legend. When it occurs terrestrially the trader becomes a Liverpool mate. But of course no one need believe it either way it is not a missionary's story.


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 behind him and around him was the tramp of the rude Coman barbarians, proclaiming that the city was taken. The houses, hastily thrown open as the first streaks of the summer day lit up the sky, resounded with the acclamations of those, yesterday his own subjects, who welcomed the new comers with cries of "Long live Michael the Emperor of the Romans!" The House of Courtenay had played its last card and lost the game. Pity that it was thrown away by so poor a player.

It matters little about the end of Baldwin. He got safely to Eubœa, thence to Rome, and lived twelve or thirteen years longer in obscurity. When he died, his only son Philip assumed the empty title of emperor of Constantinople, which, Gibbon says, "too bulky and sonorous for a private name, modestly expired in silence and oblivion." It took, however, a long time to expire. Two hundred and fifty years later one of its last holders was the inheritor of so many shadowy claims that his very name in history is blurred by them. René of Anjou gave himself, among other titles, that of emperor of Constantinople.

Constantinople was taken, and the Latin empire destroyed at a blow. There were, however, still remaining the Venetian merchants, who had the command of the port, and who might, by holding out until the return of the ships from Daphnusia, undo all. Alexis set fire to their houses, but was careful to leave their communications with the vessels unmolested. They had therefore nothing left but to secure the safety of their wives, families, and movable property, which they did by


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, the founder of the modern Essay, was born February 28, 1533, at the château of Montaigne in Périgord. He came of a family of wealthy merchants of Bordeaux, and was educated at the Collège de Guyenne, where he had among his teachers the great Scottish Latinist, George Buchanan. Later he studied law, and held various public offices; but at the age of thirty-eight he retired to his estates, where he lived apart from the civil wars of the time, and devoted himself to study and thought. While he was traveling in Germany and Italy, in 1580–81, he was elected mayor of Bordeaux, and this office he filled for four years. He married in 1565, and had six daughters, only one of whom grew up. The first two books of his "Essays" appeared in 1580; the third in 1588; and four years later he died.

These are the main external facts of Montaigne's life: of the man himself the portrait is to be found in his book. "It is myself I portray," he declares; and there is nowhere in literature a volume of self-revelation surpassing his in charm and candor. He is frankly egotistical, yet modest and unpretentious; profoundly wise, yet constantly protesting his ignorance; learned, yet careless, forgetful, and inconsistent. His themes are as wide and varied as his observation of human life, and he has written the finest eulogy of friendship the world has known. Bacon, who knew his book and borrowed from it, wrote on the same subject; and the contrast of the essays is the true reflection of the contrast between the personalities of their authors.

Shortly after Montaigne's death the "Essays" were translated into English by John Florio, with less than exact accuracy, but in a style so full of the flavor of the age that we still read Montaigne in the version which Shakespeare knew. The group of examples here printed exhibits the author in a variety of moods, easy, serious, and, in the essay on "Friendship," as nearly impassioned as his philosophy ever allowed him to become.


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 embarking them on board the ships. And when the Daphnusian expedition returned, they found to their surprise that the Greeks held the whole city except a small portion near the port, and had manned the walls. A hasty truce was arranged; the merchants loaded every ship with their families and their property; the Latin fleet sailed down the Dardanelles, and the Latin empire in the East was at an end.

It began with violence and injustice: it ended as it began. There were six Latin Emperors, of whom the first was a gallant soldier; the second, a sovereign of admirable qualities, and an able administrator; the third, a plain French knight, who was murdered on his way to assume the purple buskins; the fourth, a weak and pusillanimous creature; the fifth, a stout old warrior; and the last a monarch of whom nothing good can be said and nothing evil, except that which was said of Boabdil, called El Chico, that he was unlucky; and bad luck is another name for incapacity. As the Latins never had the slightest right or title to these possessions in the East, so the Western powers were never impelled to assist them, and their downfall was merely a matter of time. In the interests of civilisation their occupation of the city seems to have been unfortunate; they learned nothing for themselves, they taught nothing; neither East nor West profited. They destroyed the old institutions, so that the ancient Roman Empire was broken up by their conquest; they inflicted irreparable losses on learning and art; and perhaps the only good result of their conquest was that for the moment at least it de-


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 APRIL 10.

Sunday. Horse hunting; found bull with broken leg doing well.

APRIL 11.

Same work as usual.

APRIL 12.

Two hands at wall, a large piece of which fell in the night.

APRIL 13 & 14.

Men hunting stock, shoeing horses, fetching wood & water. Self in search of ram which Green had been compelled to leave the night before, too ill to walk; found him late; & carried him home a long way; & did what I could for him.

APRIL 15.

Horse hunting, quarrying stone, carting hay.

Withnell arrived at station at about 7 p.m.

Heard 1 gun from the "Ripple" at 8 p.m. previous night & would have gone down, had there been a second.

APRIL 16.

Went down with two horses & Withnall to render what assistance I could; as the poor fellow was much in need of some, after his heavy losses. Told McCourt & Green to start down with bullock dray & dingy at 2 p.m. Met flock of sheep south of marsh; men & sheep scarcely able to walk, or move, for want of water; left one horse with them & told one man to ride with their bucket 6 miles to Dig


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day two peasants were conversing; one of them was boastful and untruthful, the other famed for truthfulness and honesty. The one was saying that it was better to live, telling lies and cheating everybody, and be rich; while the other replied that it was far better to live in poverty, as long as you were honest and truthful. So they began to dispute and quarrel, neither of them wishing to give in. They at last decided to go out into the village high-road, and ask the opinion of the very first person they met.

They walked and walked, and soon saw a peasant ploughing in a field close to the road; they went up to him, and said,—

"Good man, judge our quarrel: how is it better to live in the wide world—honestly or dishonestly?—telling the truth or by telling lies?"

"Ah, my brothers, you cannot possibly live honestly in this world all your life! You must tell a lie now and then! Besides, an honest and truthful man must walk about all his life in straw shoes, while a liar and a dishonest man can walk in handsome boots. Take us, for example, our masters unjustly take our days from us, leaving no time for us to


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234 work in; we therefore have to pretend that we are overcome by sickness, and during that time go wood-cutting in the forest; if wood-cutting is forbidden by day, we go at night. We have always to dodge about in this world, my friends. We could not possibly get on otherwise."

"Do you hear that?" said the liar to the honest man. "What I told you was perfectly true!"

But his companion would not be convinced, so they walked on farther, till they came across a merchant driving a waggon.

"Stop for a moment, good sir!" they cried; "we want you to do us a favour, if you will not resent it, and promise not to be angry with us."

"What is it?"

"We want you to decide our quarrel, and tell us whether it is better to live honestly in this world or dishonestly?"

"Ah, my children! it is difficult to live honestly. For my part, I think it is best to be dishonest; people cheat us, so why should we not cheat them?"

"You hear!" cried the liar to his companion. "This good man is of my opinion, like the other."

Still the truthful man would not listen to his friend, so they went on farther and met a noble coming along the road; they stopped him, and said,—

"Kindly judge our quarrel for us; how is it best to live in this world, honestly or dishonestly?"

"Well, you certainly have found something to quarrel about. You must have been very hard pressed for conversation. Of course, being dishonest is the only way to get on. What honesty and truth


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 She was still wealthy, and the centre of a vast commerce; she could send numerous and well-equipped armies into the field, and her fleets, though once, as we have seen, worsted by Genseric and his Vandals, were powerful enough to command the Euxine and guard her possessions in the Mediterranean. Now all was changed. The Latin Crusader had spoiled and wasted her beyond the possibility of her ever again attaining the pre-eminent wealth and grandeur which had made her seem to be almost a worthy seat of the Cæsars. Her harbour was not crowded with merchant ships, as of old, and her suburbs were no longer the chosen residences of wealthy families from all parts of the world. The republics of Venice and Genoa had succeeded to her riches and her maritime power. The suburb of Galata or Pera was granted by the emperor who, in 1261, restored the Greek empire at Constantinople, as a possession to the Genoese, who had concluded an alliance with the Greeks, and had promised their naval assistance, at least for the defence of their capital. Established in this quarter, which they were to hold as the emperor's vassals on the usual terms of such a tenure, they soon by their enterprise drew into their own hands the commerce of the surrounding seas, and made themselves in fact independent of their nominal head.

The emperor to whom we have referred was the Michael Palæologus whom we have already had occasion to mention. We can but glance briefly at the events of his reign and at those of his successors. Of those events the chief, as far as the Byzantine empire is concerned,


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A256 EDUCATION ORDINANCE 1971. ARRANGEMENT OF SECTIONS.


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 was the progress and conquests of the Turks. It was becoming evident that against this new power the empire would not be able to hold its own without vigorous support from the West. It was the anxious endeavour of some of the last emperors to procure a union between East and West, and one of them, Manuel, even visited France, Germany, and England, as a suppliant, pleading in the name of a common Christianity for resistance to the arms of the "infidel."

It was in the July of 1261, just as Baldwin and the Latins were on the point of flight, that we may say that Michael began his reign as a Byzantine emperor. He had indeed been crowned two years before at Nicæa, but now he was to enter the capital of his empire in triumph, and to hear from Greeks and Genoese the shout, "Long life and victory to Michael and John, the august emperors of the Romans!" John, the son of the late Emperor Theodore Lascaris, was at the time a boy of about eleven years of age. In the course of a few months he passed away into oblivion, his sight having been first destroyed by the singular device of confronting his eyes with the blinding glare of red-hot metal. For three years Michael lay under a sentence of excommunication from the patriarch of Constantinople, Arsenius, who, as the young prince's guardian, resented the crime, and, as a man with a strong sense of duty, thus publicly denounced it. In vain the emperor begged for absolution. He could only get Arsenius removed, and an obsequious monk elected in his room. Arsenius was respected both by people and clergy, and a prolonged schism was the result of his unjust treatment.


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A258


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 Michael found his capital an impoverished and well-nigh ruined city. The Latins during the last days of their occupation had not spared even the churches, and the Franks had polluted the palace with their drunken orgies. Michael applied himself vigorously to the work of restoration, and conciliated the traders of Genoa, Venice, and Pisa, by confirming the charters previously granted to them. He did everything he could to restore the commerce of Constantinople. He showed vigour, too, in recovering for the empire some of its lost territories. Lesbos, Chios, and Rhodes, and other islands of the Archipelago which had been comprised in the Byzantine dominions, were reconquered from the Latins; but the Asiatic provinces of the empire were neglected and left to the mercy of the advancing power of the Turks. There was again also danger from a possible Latin coalition. Charles of Anjou had allied himself with Philip, son of the Emperor Baldwin, with Pope Martin IV., and the Venetians, and an expedition was to be made from Brindisi for the attack of Constantinople. But all ended in failure. A rash and premature attempt at invasion was made by a small body of knights, who were utterly overwhelmed by a Greek army at Belgrade. The designs of Charles recoiled on himself. Sicily was lost to him in 1282, the year of the "Sicilian Vespers," and the Greek emperor, who died that same year, saw both safety assured to his capital and his enemy thoroughly humbled.

The two following reigns—those of Andronicus II., Michael's son, and of his grandson, Andronicus III., or the Younger—bring us down to the year 1341. The first


text: The Harveian Oration 1870

title: The Harveian Oration 1870


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 reign covers a period of fifty years, for which we have indeed abundant historical materials; but the story, as Gibbon says, is a "languid as well as a prolix" one. The emperor was a very different man from his father, who certainly had vigour and ability, though when it served his purpose he could be both cruel and treacherous. Andronicus had a reputation for learning, and he was perhaps a really conscientious man. He was, however, unfortunately priestridden, and his religion was too much that of the mere monk and ecclesiastic. He was not at all a man of the world, and never ought to have been at the head of a small principality, much less of what still claimed to be an empire. After the fashion of his day he made his son Michael his colleague, but the young man, though styled emperor for twenty-five years, was of no service to the state either as a leader of its armies or as a director of its politics. All that could be said of him was that he was docile and well behaved. He had, however, a son, Andronicus the Younger, afterwards emperor, on whom even this negative praise could not be bestowed. Brought up in the palace with the idea that he was heir to the empire, he at first impressed his grandfather with the belief that he was a youth of singular promise, but he soon disgusted the strict and parsimonious old man by riotous living, and by contracting heavy debts with the Genoese money-lenders of Pera. Finally, when he found that he had hopelessly lost his grandfather's favour, and was to be excluded from the throne, he set up the standard of rebellion at Adrianople, and had as his abettor John Cantacuzenus, then the chief


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noon our young friends poured forth from the school-house intent upon having an hour's practicing upon the canal.

They had skated but a few moments when Carl Schummel said mockingly to Hilda:

"There's a pretty pair just coming upon the ice! The little rag-pickers! Their skates must have been a present from the king direct.

They are patient creatures," said Hilda, gently. "It must have been hard to learn to skate upon such queer affairs. They are very poor peasants, you see. The boy has probably made the skates himself."

Carl was somewhat abashed.

"Patient they may be, but as for skating, they start off pretty well only to finish with a jerk. They could move well to your new staccato piece I think."

Hilda laughed pleasantly and left him. After joining a small detachment of the racers, and sailing past every one of them, she halted beside Gretel who, with eager eyes, had been watching the sport.

"What is your name, little girl?"

"Gretel, my lady," answered the child, somewhat awed by Hilda's rank, though they were nearly of the same age, "and my brother is called Hans."


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London, Oct. 1870.


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 imperial minister, and subsequently his successor on the throne. He contrived, it is said, to muster a force of 50,000 troops, far larger, in fact, than could be brought into the field against the foreign enemies who were threatening the remnants of the empire. Civil war, or rather three consecutive civil wars, during a miserable seven years, was the immediate result. In 1328 the old emperor abdicated, asking only his life from his victorious grandson. For a while he lived in the palace, with the name of emperor and a liberal pension. His end was one which will not surprise us. From being a royal prisoner in the hands of keepers who despised and at last even threatened him, he became, or was forced into becoming, a monk, and under the changed name Antonius he died four years after his abdication.

His grandson's reign of thirteen years was a period of rapid decay for the empire. The younger Andronicus was already a worn-out man of pleasure, and he seems to have been quite indifferent to the public misfortunes. He was twice married, his first wife being the daughter of a duke of Brunswick, the head of a petty principality in the north of Germany, and his second the sister of the count of Savoy, who was crowned empress in the Greek Church of St. Sophia under the name of Anne. The time was when such alliances would have been spurned by a Byzantine emperor, but the Latin conquest and empire had somewhat lowered the pride of the "Roman Cæsar." Soon, as we shall see, he would have to stoop to the humiliation of craving succour from powers which his predecessors had disdained as barbarous.


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 "Hans is a stout fellow," said Hilda, cheerily, "and seems to have a warm stove somewhere within him, but you look cold. You should wear more clothing, little one."

Gretel, who had nothing else to wear, tried to laugh as she answered:

"I am not so very little. I am past twelve years old."

"Oh, I beg your pardon. You see I am nearly fourteen, and so large of my age that other girls seem small to me, but that is nothing. Perhaps you will shoot up far above me yet; not unless you dress more warmly, though—shivering girls never grow."

Hans flushed as he saw tears rising in Gretel's eyes.

"My sister has not complained of the cold; but this is bitter weather they say—" and he looked sadly upon Gretel.

"It is nothing," said Gretel. "I am often warm—too warm when I am skating. You are good jufvrouw to think of it."

"No, no," answered Hilda, quite angry at herself. "I am careless, cruel; but I meant no harm. I wanted to ask you—I mean—if—" and here Hilda, coming to the point of her errand, faltered before the poorly clad but noble-looking children she wished to serve.

"What is it, young lady?" exclaimed Hans eagerly. "If there is any service I can do? any"

"Oh! no, no," laughed Hilda, shaking off her embarrassment, "I only wished to speak to you about the grand race. Why do you not join it? You both can


text: Index:The East India Gazetteer Vol - I (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.1477).pdf


text: Index:The East-India Gazetteer, Vol.Ii. (IA TheEastIndiaGazetteerVolII).pdf


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 It had been prophesied in his last moments by a senator during Michael's reign that the re-establishment of the Greek empire at Constantinople would prove the ruin of Asia. The irruptions of the Mogul Tartars into Europe and Asia Minor were a terrible but a comparatively brief calamity, and the senator's prophecy was not fulfilled till the Mogul had made way for the Turk. The reign of the elder Andronicus saw the advance of the Turks up to the shores of the Bosporus. The mountain passes of Bithynia, which ought to have been guarded, by a local militia, had been neglected, and in the year 1299 Othman, the founder of the dynasty and empire named after him, approached the coasts of the Propontis near Nicomedia, of old the chief city of Bithynia. Prusa (Broussa), destined to be a well-known name in Eastern history, surrendered to his son Orchan in the same year, and its capture may be said to mark the first beginning of the Ottoman empire. A rapid advance was now made in these parts, and the reign of the younger Andronicus was particularly inglorious for the Greek empire. The emperor, however, fond of ease and pleasure as he was, did take the field, and encountered his new enemy, but only to be defeated and to lose the cities of Nicæa and Nicomedia, which for centuries had been under the Byzantine sway. Nearly all the western shores of the Archipelago had been already wrested from the empire. The Roman province of Asia, in fact, was now once for all lost to it, and its old cities, with their relics of past greatness and of Greek civilization, were reduced to poverty-stricken villages. The invader had no sympathy


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 with what we admire and regret. He desolated and destroyed as well as conquered, as the condition of the country in our day mournfully attests. The noble and once flourishing city of Ephesus now perished, and it is but in our own generation that some ruins of its famous temple have at last been brought to light by the patient industry of Mr. Wood. Heathen and Christian antiquity alike were almost effaced, and the wasting of this beautiful and historic region is one of the most painful chapters in the history of the world.

While all this miserable work was being done, the empire was torn, as we have seen, by civil strife between the elder and younger Andronicus. But for the feeble effort of the latter at resistance, the enemy went quite unchecked, and the Turkish chiefs (emirs as they were called) were now beginning to harass with their ships the islands of the Mediterranean and the Greek shores. But it was not till some years afterwards that we can say that the Turks established themselves in Europe. A strange incident had meanwhile occurred. The daughter of John Cantacuzenus, the minister who had supported the younger Andronicus against his grandfather, had been given in marriage to Orchan, now become for a time the emperor's ally. The friendship and alliance of the Turk involved the condition that he might sell his prisoners of war as slaves at Constantinople, and we hear of Christians, both men and women, being sold by public auction. Yet the interval between this infamy and the end of all was longer than we might have expected. It seems that Orchan, with barbaric cunning, completely


text: The East India Gazetteer

title: The East India Gazetteer


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 outwitted the imperial ministers, and became master of some fortresses in Thrace, and of the commanding position of Gallipoli. Cantacuzenus saw that a stronger power was rapidly pushing aside the decrepit empire, and in his last counsels advised his Greek subjects to bow to inevitable fate. His advice may have been prudent, but it is some satisfaction to find that it was not followed. The Greeks or some of them still clung to the hope of saving the poor remains of their empire. But Orchan's son and successor, Amurath I., by whom the famous force of the janissaries was at least regularly organised, if not actually created, won a series of easy triumphs, and his arms in Europe and in Asia left Constantinople utterly isolated, and, as we may suppose, quite at his mercy. John Palæologus was emperor only in name. He was Amurath's vassal, and he and his sons had to dance attendance, in court and camp, on the mighty barbarian. If he was to be saved from this degradation, he must appeal to the pope or the Western powers, and even from this quarter deliverance would be by no means certain.

His predecessor, Cantacuzenus, who, like the elder Andronicus, had ended his days in the retirement of the cloister, attempted through Pope Clement VI. to arrange a reconciliation between the East and the West, with a view to the strengthening of the Greek empire. He had, as we have said, almost betrayed its interests by his friendship with Orchan, to whom he had married his daughter, and now his endeavours to undo the mischief of having let the Turkish power establish itself in Europe were all in vain. John Palæologus, whose long reign of


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 places was examined, the air of rooms in which cholera patients were dying was con- densed, that it might afford whatever floated in it for examination; dust was collected. from cobwebs, window-frames, books, sur- faces of exposed food, and every imaginable place, to try it for cholera germs. The rice- water stools and the intestinal evacuations passed in different diseases were scrutinized without stint of labour; but the value of the facts put forth by the promoters of the theory gradually faded under the inquiry. The supposed gerins, when really germs (for many shapes had been included in the supposed direful growth), were found to be spores of known harmless fungi and con- fervæ, of which, if even the startling num- ber of thirty-seven and a half millions should be contained in about two drachms of water, as quoted by Tyndall, from Mr. Dancer's examination, it is probable that the whole or repeated units of such millions might be harmlessly swallowed.

But for the most part the supposed germs


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 were not germs of any kind, but broken scraps of vegetable and animal tissues, spiral vessels from dried horse-dung, hairs, wings, and legs of insects, detrita of dress, and the like. The results were, in fact, entirely negative of any peculiar bodies to which the epidemic disease could be referred.

One general result arrived at at that time, however, agrees with the observation of Tyndall in his recent investigation of dust by a beam of light-viz., that the floating particles in the air are chiefly of an organic nature. This we might have been prepared for, from the specific weight of dried organic material, enabling such dust to float, when the heavier inorganic substances would be deposited.

That infectious diseases, as the name im- ports, spread by emanations from the sick, must have been long known, and that such emanations are of a solid nature we may infer from the fact that they may be dried and conveyed from place to place; but in what state, whether as amorphous material or as


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 germs, we know no more to-day than was known a thousand years past.

No new fact bearing upon the propaga- tion of contagious diseases has been reached by the recent investigations on dust. We cannot infer that summer catarrlı is due to infusoria, because the nasal mucus formed in the disease, and at no other time (?), was found peopled by vibriones, since de- composing mucus is generally populous with these infusorial creatures.

The phenomena of fermentation and pu- trefaction in dead and decomposing sub- stances afford no explanation of the changes. observed in a living body in a fever process. The purulent matter produced in small-pox is not in any way comparable to the yeast plant, growing in fermenting fluids. The microscope shows no forms in variolous pus, which are not contained in other purulent innocuous exudations. It is to be regretted that a confusion in terins has been made. Instead of dust and disease, it should rather have been dust and putrefaction,


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 or dust and fermentation, since the re- lation of dust to disease has not been revealed anywhere in the inquiry. That the air conveys the material causes of in- fectious diseases from the sick to the healthy, is a notorious fact, which had equal force before these inquiries were instituted, though, owing to the exigencies of social intercourse, it is a fact now more neglected than in times of comparative ignorance.

It is difficult to vindicate exactness in progress without seeming to be at the same time a hinderer of it. The onward and the regulating forces of a machine, though not incompatible, but necessary, require the nicest balance. This reflection suggests itself by the way the spread of infectious diseases has been handled. The theories it has given rise to have been so easily put forward as to thereby create distrust. But the spirit of science is no favourer of nega- tions. "Der Geist der stets verneint" finds no greater friend in medicine than in theo- logy. But it will be admitted that no


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 progress can be made by the ready accep- tance of every proposition, however distin- guished the source from which it emanates. The parasitic origin and nature of epidemics may be true, but it has yet to be proved. As a hypothesis, it admits of proof or dis- proof, and so has further claim upon the industry of those who have put it forward as a suggestion. Without going to the length which this hypothesis demands, we must admit, however, that we know enough to guide us much further than we have yet gone in the practice of prevention.

To leave these discursions, and in a few words to conclude my task, I would repeat that the distinction of Medicine, as a study, lies in its comprehensiveness. The student of pliy- sical science admits that he has to deal with but one-half of that truth which is expressed in man. The student of medicine cannot so limit himself. The facts of sensation, whether pleasurable or painful; the in- fluence of the mental emotions, whether exciting or depressing; the dominion of


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 the conscience, approving or disapproving, are for him facts due to the operation of laws into which he must inquire. Looked. at from the point of view which the Student. of Medicine occupies, these higher facts of man's nature are as essentially parts of one law, and control and modify human exis- tence equally with those lower conditions with which physics alone is concerned. This constitutes the unspeakable difficulty which every student of medicine must feel in the present imperfect state of knowledge. To hold the mind in an equal balance as it passes from the contemplation of the lower facts of our existence to those which characterize the highest claims of our hu- manity, so as neither to degrade the one nor neglect the other, is one of the highest attainments. What eye is single enough to survey the range of life from the material atoms which build our structures, to those "mighty hopes which make us men," without faltering in the vision, or without confusion of the objects?


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 thirty-six years, from 1355 to 1391, witnessed the unmistakable signs of impending downfall, made similar attempts with no better success. He is to be remembered as the first of the emperors who himself went a suppliant to the pope at Rome, begging help against the infidel. After having duly kissed the pontiff's hands and feet, and led his mule by the bridle, he was feasted in the Vatican, but he had to leave it with very little encouragement. Pope Urban V. could not revive the enthusiasm of the age of the Crusades, and the emperor was obliged to return in bitter disappointment. He had to pass through Venice, and here he found himself in a miserably ridiculous plight. On his way to Rome he had borrowed largely from the Venetian bankers and money-lenders, and now, as he was unable to pay, his creditors held his person in pawn. His brother Manuel was generous enough to become his security, and by selling and mortgaging all he possessed, he satisfied their claims, and enabled the emperor to return to his capital, whence during the remainder of his reign he had to look on quietly while his empire was being narrowed down by the conquests of Amurath to the mere precincts of the city.

His son Manuel succeeded him, and reigned from 1391 to 1425. Manuel from boyhood must have been well drilled in lessons of humiliation, as with his father and his brother he had been an attendant in court and camp on the barbarian monarch. At the time of his father's death he was a hostage in the hands of Bajazet, Amurath's son and successor, and was living in his palace at Broussa. Thence he contrived to escape, and hurried to Constan-


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 Every student exalts and distorts the work upon which he is chiefly occupied. The anatomist with his microscope hopes thereby to fathom the depths of nature, and the student of the pure intellect despises his labours, each arriving at impotent conclu- sions by not mutually aiding and supporting his fellow-labourer. Yet perhaps the chasm between the two orders of human facts is other than it seems. It may be due to our not seeing that we are not dealing with con- traries, but with opposites: opposites in the highest sense; not as if the terms of the one contradicted the terms of the other, but with the assurance that each will be under- stood by admitting its antithesis. Here, says Herbert Spencer, "we arrive at the barrier which needs to be perpetually pointed out, alike to those who seek materialistic explanations of mental phenomena, and to those who are alarmed lest such explanations should be found. The last class prove by their fear, almost as much as the first prove by their hope, that they believe Mind may


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 tinople. The Turk, a savage warrior of the most furious energy, gave him a brief respite, and completed meanwhile his father's conquests in Europe and Asia. Then at last he sent Manuel a letter, bidding him resign his capital, or tremble for himself and his people. However, he graciously allowed the poor emperor to purchase a truce of ten years, one of the inglorious conditions of which was that there was to be a mosque in Constantinople. But even this truce was too much for the impatient Bajazet, and now Manuel's sole resource was to seek help from the West. The duke of Burgundy and the young princes of France, with Sigismund, king of Hungary, and a host of German knights, fought with impetuous ardour for Christendom in this extremity, and would have won the day but for their overweening confidence and the overwhelming numbers of the barbarian cavalry. The battle of Nicopolis, in 1396, was fiercely contested, and the janissaries had to yield to the chivalry of the West. But in the end Bajazet's victory was decisive, and the duke of Burgundy and the French princes became his prisoners. The peril to Constantinople was now again imminent, and but for the rapid movements of Tamerlane, who was now threatening the newly-acquired Ottoman possessions, it must have fallen. In 1400 Manuel quitted the city, and for two years was a voluntary exile. He was a suppliant at the courts of France, England, and Germany, but with no result. He was courteously and hospitably entertained, and received the honour due to an emperor.


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Rh


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title: The East India Gazetteer/Volume I


text: The East India Gazetteer/Volume II

title: The East India Gazetteer/Volume II


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Now the cause of my leaving Tiverton school, and the way of it, were as follows. On the 29th day of November, in the year of our Lord 1673, the very day when I was twelve years old, and had spent all my substance in sweetmeats, with which I made treat to the little boys, till the large boys ran in and took them, we came out of school at five o'clock, as the rule is upon Tuesdays. According to custom, we drove the day-boys in brave rout down the causeway from the school-porch even to the gate where Cop has his dwelling and duty. Little it recked us and helped them less, that they were our founder's citizens, and haply his own grand-nephews (for he left no direct descendants), neither did we much inquire what their lineage was. For it had long been fixed among us, who were of the house and chambers, that these same day-boys were all "caddes," as we had discovered to call it, because they paid no groat for their schooling, and brought their own commons with them. In consumption of these we would help them, for our fare in hall


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 fed appetite; and while we ate their victuals we allowed them freely to talk to us. Nevertheless, we could not feel, when all the victuals were gone, but that these boys required kicking from the premises of Blundell. And some of them were shopkeepers' sons, young grocers, fellmongers, and poulterers, and these, to their credit, seemed to know how righteous it was to kick them. But others were of high family, as any need be, in Devon—Carews, and Bouchiers, and Bastards, and some of these would turn sometimes, and strike the boy that kicked them. But to do them justice, even these knew that they must be kicked for not paying.

After these "charity-boys" were gone, as in contumely we called them—"If you break my bag on my head," said one, "how will you feed thence, to-morrow?"—and after old Cop with clang of iron had jammed the double gates in under the scruff-stone archway, whereupon are Latin verses, done in brass of small quality, some of us who were not hungry, and cared not for the supper-bell, having sucked much parliament and dumps at my only charges—not that I ever bore much wealth, but because I had been thrifting it for this time of my birth,—we were leaning quite at dusk against the iron bars of the gate, some six, or it may be seven of us, small boys all, and not conspicuous in the closing of the daylight and the fog that came at eventide, else Cop would have rated us up the green, for he was churly to little boys when his wife had taken their money. There was plenty of room for all of us, for the gate will hold nine boys


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 garrulous, exuberant, flowery, preposterously sociable. He holds that great creed of the convivial, the creed which is at the back of so much that is greatest in Dickens, the creed that eternity begins at ten o'clock at night, and that nights last forever. But Yuba Bill is a figure of a widely different character. He is not convivial; it might almost be said that he is too great ever to be sociable. A circle of quiescence and solitude such as that which might ring a saint or a hermit rings this majestic and profound humourist. His jokes do not flow upon him like those of Mr. Weller, sparkling, continual, and deliberate, like the play of a fountain in a pleasure garden; they fall suddenly and capriciously, like a crash of avalanches from a great mountain. Tony Weller has the noisy humour of London, Yuba Bill has the silent humour of the earth.

One of the worst of the disadvantages of the rich and random fertility of Bret Harte is the fact that it is very difficult to trace or recover all the stories that he has written. I have not within reach at the moment

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 the story in which the character of Yuba Bill is exhibited in its most solemn grandeur, but I remember that it concerned a ride on the San Francisco stage coach, a difficulty arising from storm and darkness, and an intelligent young man who suggested to Yuba Bill that a certain manner of driving the coach in a certain direction might minimise the dangers of the journey. A profound silence followed the intelligent young man's suggestion, and then (I quote from memory) Yuba Bill observed at last:

"Air you settin' any value on that remark?"

The young man professed not fully to comprehend him, and Yuba Bill continued reflectively:

"'Cos there's a comic paper in 'Frisco pays for them things, and I've seen worse in it."

To be rebuked thus is like being rebuked by the Pyramids or by the starry heavens. There is about Yuba Bill this air of a pugnacious calm, a stepping back to get his distance for a shattering blow, which is like that of Dr. Johnson at his best. And the effect is inexpressively increased by the background and

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 the whole picture which Bret Harte paints so powerfully; the stormy skies, the sombre gorge, the rocking and spinning coach, and high above the feverish passengers the huge dark form of Yuba Bill, a silent mountain of humour.

Another unrecovered and possibly irrecoverable fragment about Yuba Bill, I recall in a story about his visiting a lad who had once been his protége in the Wild West, and who had since become a distinguished literary man in Boston. Yuba Bill visits him, and on finding him in evening dress lifts up his voice in a superb lamentation over the tragedy of finding his old friend at last “a ’otel waiter.” Then, vindictively pursuing the satire, he calls fiercely to his young friend, “Hi, Alphonse! bring me a patty de foy gras, damme.” These are the things that make us love the eminent Bill. He is one of those who achieve the noblest and most difficult of all the triumphs of a fictitious character—the triumph of giving us the impression of having a great deal more in him than appears between the two boards of the story. Smaller

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 of all the districts of the earth—the truth that, while it is very rare indeed in the world to find a thoroughly good man, it is rarer still, rare to the point of monstrosity, to find a man who does not either desire to be one, or imagine that he is one already.

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Rh done; and if any be offended, it is his own fault; it is scandal, not given, but taken.

Perhaps the disciples themselves stumbled at the word Christ said, which they thought bold, and scarcely reconcileable with the difference that was put by the law of God between clean and unclean meats; and therefore objected this to Christ, that they might themselves be better informed. They seem likewise to have a concern upon them for the Pharisees, though they had quarrelled with them; which teaches us to forgive, and seek the good, especially the spiritual good, of our enemies, persecutors, and slanderers. They would not have the Pharisees go away displeased at any thing Christ had said; and therefore, though they do not desire him to retract it, they hope he will explain, correct, and mollify it. Weak hearers are sometimes more solicitous than they should be not to have wicked hearers offended. But if we please men with the concealment of truth, and the indulging of their errors and corruptions, we are not the servants of Christ.

IV. The doom passed upon the Pharisees and their corrupt traditions; which comes in as a reason why Christ cared not though he offended them, and therefore why the disciples should not care; because they were a generation of men that hated to be reformed, and were marked out for destruction. Two things Christ here foretells concerning them.

1. The rooting out of them and their traditions; (v. 13.) Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Not only the corrupt opinions and superstitious practices of the Pharisees, but their sect, and way, and constitution, were plants not of God's planting. The rules of their profession were no institutions of his, but owed their origin to pride and formality. The people of the Jews were planted a noble vine; but now that they are become the degenerate plant of a strange vine, God disowned them, as not of his planting. Note, (1.) In the visible church, it is no strange thing to find plants that our heavenly father has not planted. It is implied that whatever is good in the church, is of God's planting, Isa. 41. 19. But let the husbandman be ever so careful, his ground will cast forth weeds of itself, more or less, and there is an enemy busy sowing tares. What is corrupt, though of God's permitting, is not of his planting, he sows nothing but good seed in his field. Let us not therefore be deceived, as if all must needs be right, that we find in the church, and all those persons and things our Father's plants, that we find in our Father's garden. Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits; see Jer. 19. 5.—23. 31, 32. (2.) Those that are of the spirit of the Pharisees, proud, formal, and imposing, what figure soever they make, and of what denomination soever they be, God will not own them as of his planting. By their fruit you shall know them. (3.) Those plants that are not of God's planting, shall not be of his protecting, but shall undoubtedly be rooted up. What is not of God shall not stand, Acts 5. 38. What things are unscriptural, will wither and die of themselves, or be justly exploded by the churches; however, in the great day these tares that offend will be bundled for the fire. What is become of the Pharisees and their traditions? They are long since abandoned; but the gospel of truth is great, and will remain. It cannot be rooted up.

2. The ruin of them, and their followers, who had their persons and principles in admiration, v. 14. Where,

(1.) Christ bids his disciples let them alone. "Have no converse with them or concern for them; neither court their favour, nor dread their displeasure; care not though they be offended, they will take their course, and let them take the issue of it. They are wedded to their own fancies, and will have every thing their own way; let them alone. Seek not to please a generation of men that please not God, (1 Thess. 2. 15.) and will be pleased with nothing less than an absolute dominion over your consciences. They are joined to idols, as Ephraim, (Hos. 4. 17.) the idols of their own fancy; let them alone, let them be filthy still," Rev. 22. 11. The case of those sinners is sad indeed, whom Christ orders his ministers to let alone.

(2.) He gives them two reasons for it. Let them alone; for,

[1.] They are proud and ignorant; two bad qualities that often meet, and render a man incurable in his folly, Prov. 26. 12. They are blind leaders of the blind. They are grossly ignorant in the things of God, and strangers to the spiritual nature of the divine law; and yet so proud, that they think they see better and further than any, and therefore undertake to be leaders of others, to show others the way to heaven, when they themselves know not one step of the way; and, accordingly, they prescribe to all, and proscribe those who will not follow them. Though they were blind, if they had owned it, and come to Christ for eye-salve, they might have seen, but they disdained the intimation of such a thing; (John 9. 40.) Are we blind also? They were confident that they themselves were guides of the blind, (Rom. 2. 19, 20.) were appointed to be so, and fit to be so; that every thing they said, was an oracle and a law; "Therefore let them alone, their case is desperate; do not meddle with them; you may soon provoke them, but never convince them." How miserable was the case of the Jewish church now when their leaders were blind, so self-conceitedly foolish, as to be peremptory in their conduct, while the people were so sottishly foolish as to follow them with an implicit faith and obedience, and willingly walk after the commandment, Hos. 5. 11. Now the prophecy was fulfilled, Isa. 29. 10, 14. And it is easy to imagine what will be in the end hereof, when the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means, and the people love to have it so, Jer. 5. 31.

[2.] They are posting to destruction, and will shortly be plunged into it; Both shall fall into the ditch. This must needs be the end of it, if both be so blind, and yet both so bold, venturing forward, and yet not aware of danger. Both will be involved in the general desolation coming upon the Jews, and both drowned in eternal destruction and perdition. The blind leaders and the blind followers will perish together. We find (Rev. 22. 15.) that hell is the portion of those that make a lie, and of those that love it when it is made. The deceived and the deceiver are obnoxious to the judgment of God, Job 12. 16. Note, First, Those that by their cunning craftiness draw others to sin and error, shall not, with all their craft and cunning, escape ruin themselves. If both fall together into the ditch, the blind leaders will fall undermost, and have the worst of it; see Jer. 14. 15, 16. The prophets shall be consumed first, and then the people to whom they prophecyprophesy [sic], Jer. 20. 6.—28. 15, 16. Secondly, The sin and ruin of the deceivers will be no security to those that are deceived by them. Though the leaders of this people cause them to err, yet they that are led of them are destroyed, (Isa. 9. 16.) because they shut their eyes against the light which would have rectified their mistake. Seneca, complaining of most people's being led by common opinion and practice, (Unusquisque mavult credere quam judicare—Things are taken upon trust, and never examined,) concludes, Inde ista tanta coacervatio aliorum super alios ruentium—Hence crowds fall upon crowds, in vast confusion. De Vitâ Beatâ. The falling of both together will aggravate the fall of both; for they that have thus


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 Concernment to the Commonwealth. This Custom I humbly desire may be received into this ingenious Assembly, and that I may have the Honour to be the first Man that shall put it in Practice. For I perceive, we have not only heard all, and more than all, that can be said to the Purpose concerning over-Balance and Propriety, but like those that are out of their Way, the further we go the further we are from our End; and I doubt, in Conclusion. shall come to discover, that there is no such Thing at present in the English Nation, as either the one, or the other—Besides, Sir, as all Rotations and Wheelings cause a kind of Giddiness in the Brain; so if we provide not some wholesome Diversion for those that we have so often heard of, it will not be in the Power of this sober and considerate Coffee to


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the vividness of their fancy, intensified by glorious scenery and sunny skies, the ancient Greeks believed that the gods dwelt on the summit of Mount Olympus and that queer and lovely beings roamed about the land. They heard the raging of the Wind-gods, the dancing feet of wood nymphs, the trip, trip, trip of satyrs and the music of Pandean pipes as this merry god went skipping over hill and lea. They knew that naiads peeped from the mist in fountains and dryads lived in the hearts of trees, while down in the sea, Neptune tossed up the billows with his trident and the little sea-maids sat in them and rocked and sang. Heroes, semi-divine, swept the earth of its monsters, while gods in golden chariots attended to the welfare of mankind. So deeply sincere was this mythological faith that great temples and beautiful shrines were built in honor of the gods, and one can scarce find a spot in all of Greece, or in all the sky that hangs over Greece, that is not hallowed by some wonderful legend.

This beloved country was thought to lie on the center of the earth, which was marked by the oracle of Apollo, at Delphi. In those days, the earth was supposed to hang like a disk in the great hollow globe of the world, its land divided into two parts by the Mediterranean Sea and its edges washed by the turbulent river of the ocean. The upper part of this globe was illuminated by the sun, moon and stars and was called Heaven, but the lower part tended below the earth-disk and formed a terrifying pit of utter darkness. The Milky Way was a road which led to the home of the gods, but this pit was a place of dire punishment.

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 One of the many duties of the gods was to see that the earth was properly lighted by the sun and the moon, and that the stars were "penned in" at dawn and "unpenned" nightly. The sun, moon and stars rose and sank in the stream of the ocean, but the sun, instead of being submerged, was carried around the stream from west to east in a winged cup or golden boat made by the god Vulcan. It was at first thought that Vulcan, with a mighty heave, threw the hot sun-ball over the Caucasus mountains in the east to the Atlantic ocean in the west, and then hastily paddled around the world stream to catch it as it fell, but later it was believed that Apollo, the Sun-god, drove it across the sky in a chariot, the return journey to the country of the sunrise being accomplished by placing both chariot and sun in Vulcan's remarkable boat. Centuries later (about 336 ) Eudoxus evolved the theory of the concentric crystalline spheres which brought the tracks of

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Rh fulness is there in this world? You get sent to Siberia if you are honest and tell the truth!"

"You see, my friend, I am right after all!" said the liar. "Every one thinks as I do, that it is better to live dishonestly."

"No," said the truthful man, "it is not better, and I do not intend to live dishonestly, to please any one. If any misfortunes happen to me—well, let them!"

After this the two men went off in search of work; they journeyed on together for some time. The dishonest man always knowing how to adapt himself to the company he was in, wherever he went he had plenty to eat and drink and nothing to pay; while the honest man had to work for every drop of water and morsel of bread he got—yet he did not grumble, he was perfectly satisfied.

The dishonest man meanwhile laughed to himself as he watched his companion.

When they had at last passed the village and reached the open country, where there were no inns or houses of any kind, the honest man became very hungry, and asked his companion to give him a morsel of bread, for he had plenty.

"But what will you give me for the bread?"

"Take whatever you like, though I have not much to lose."

"Well, then, let me put out your eye!"

"Very well, put it out!"

The horrid man did so, and gave him a very small piece of bread in return.

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236 became hungry, and asked his friend for another piece of bread.

"Very well, on condition that you let me knock out your other eye!"

"But if you do that, brother, I shall be blind!"

"Well, what matters, you are an honest, truthful man, you ought not to mind!"

"Well, if it must be so, it must! One cannot put up with hunger; if you are not afraid of committing the sin, knock out my eye and be happy."

The wretch did so, and giving his unfortunate companion a still smaller piece of bread than the first, left him in the middle of the deserted country-road, and said,—

"Go, find your way by yourself. I am not going to lead a blind man about!"

After having eaten his piece of bread, the blind man felt his way along.

"Perhaps," thought he, "I may manage to find my way to the next village."

But he soon lost his way, and did not know where to go. He stopped, and throwing himself on his knees, began to pray to the saints to help him.

"Do not forsake me, miserable sinner that I am!" he cried.

He prayed and prayed for a long time, and then heard a voice quite close to him saying,—

"Turn to your right, good man, and you will come to a forest where you will hear the murmur of a fountain; feel your way to it, bathe your eyes in the clear water, and your eyesight will be restored.


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 the heavenly bodies under and above the motionless disk of the earth with the stars rolling round in long-drawn notes of celestial sweetness audible only to the gods.

The ancient people imagined that before the earth was smoothed out flat in its present attractive form, the whole world was tumbled together in great confusion,—land, air, sea, sky, hot, cold, soft, hard, light and heavy all mixed and melting in a desolate mass presided over by the god Chaos. Chaos was dethroned by the God of Darkness, who in turn was dethroned by Light and Day. Light and Day, being orderly, industriously sorted the earth from the sea and extracted the heavens from both. The fiery part was cast into the sky where it splintered into stars, while the earth, "a lifeless lump, unfashion'd and unfram'd," was heaped in a big, broad mound with a deep and terrifying stream of waters flowing around it. Then Uranus, the Heavens, noting his superior position, took the scepter away from Light and Day and became the first ruler of the created world. Love was then born and the Earth, entranced, hemmed in her valleys and extended her plains, made paths for the rivers and beds for the lakes. The seeds, relieved of weight, burst their coverings, and the hills became green with foliage and the meadows brilliant with flowers. The world was now beautiful, and Heaven looked down on the colorful earth, and Earth looked up into the starry eyes of Heaven, and love grew, and the Earth became the Heaven's bride.

In the course of time, Uranus began to seriously consider his numerous and somewhat fearful progeny, for the huge Titans, the one-eyed Cyclops and the hundred-handed giants were here and there and everywhere about the land. Foreseeing that his sovereignty might eventually become imperiled, he picked up the Cyclops and Hecatońcheires and thrust them out of sight into the Pit of Darkness.

Such heartless conduct on the part of her husband aroused the

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Rh You will then see a large oak-tree, climb up into it, and stop there through the night."

The blind man turned to the right, and with some difficulty reached the forest. He crawled along a path which soon brought him up to the murmuring fountain, and dipping his hands into the water, he began bathing his eyes. No sooner had he done so when his eyesight returned, and he was able to look about him once more. Not very far from the fountain stood an old oak-tree, under which the grass seemed to have been greatly trampled down, and the earth around was dug up here and there and scattered about everywhere. He climbed up into the tree and waited until nightfall.

At about midnight a number of evil spirits came flying down from all sides on to the trampled grass, and began boasting about what they had done and where they had been. One little devil said,—

"I went to the beautiful princess, the king's daughter, and tormented her all day. I have gone on tormenting her for over ten years, and no one can cast me out, though many a handsome prince has tried, but all in vain; and, between ourselves, no one will ever succeed unless some fellow obtains that large image of the Virgin Mary, which is in the possession of a certain wealthy merchant; but then no one would ever think of that, and besides, if they did, the merchant would never part with it."

In the morning when all the devils had flown away, our friend the truthful man, who had heard the whole of the conversation, came down from his hiding-place in the tree and went in search of the rich merchant.


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238 After inquiring everywhere, he at last found the merchant, and asked him to take him as a workman, saying,—

"I will work hard for you for a whole year, but I want no wages. All I ask for is to have the famous image of the Virgin Mary which is in your possession."

The merchant consented, and the man worked away night and day, without a moment's rest, for he was very anxious to please his master. When the year was over he came to the merchant and asked for his reward.

"I am more than pleased with your work," the merchant said; "but I do not wish to part with the picture. Would not money do as well? You could have as much of it as you pleased, if that would satisfy you."

"No; money would be of no use to me. Give me what you promised, and what you agreed upon when you took me."

"It is hard for me to part with that picture; in fact, I don't know what I should do without it! Still, if you will work another year for me, I will give it to you."

There was no help for it, and the truthful man was obliged to consent.

When the year was over, the merchant was again loath to part with the picture.

"I would rather reward you with all possible treasures," the merchant said, "than part with the picture; but if you are determined to have it, you must stop with me and work for another year."

It was difficult to argue with such a rich and


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Rh influential man as the merchant; besides, it would not have been wise, under the circumstances. So our friend stayed and worked for his master another whole year, better and harder, if possible, than before.

At the end of the third year the merchant actually took down the picture from the wall, and gave it to the man, saying,—

"Take it, my good fellow, for you have worked so hard and so well, without ever grumbling, that I cannot refuse you this time; take it, and may the saints bless you."

The truthful man thanked the merchant, and taking the picture went to the king's palace, where the devil was tormenting the princess.

"I can cure the princess," he said to the servants and people at court. When they heard this they seized him by the hands and brought him before the king, who was sitting on his throne, looking the picture of misery.

The king at once had him taken to the room where the afflicted princess was kept. The man then asked for a large bowl of fresh water, into which he dipped the picture three times, and then bringing the water to the beautiful princess made her bathe her face in it. Hardly had she done so, when out sprang the demon, writhing until he became lifeless. When the enemy had expired, the lovely damsel became quite well and bright again.

The king and queen were delighted, and did not know how they could best reward the good man who had proved such an excellent doctor. They wanted to ennoble him; they wanted to give him a quantity


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 Henry IV. of England was particularly attentive to him, and almost encouraged him to believe that he would give him something more than mere sympathy. But the circumstances of Western Europe were altogether unfavourable to his views. It was the time of the great schism, when the Church was divided between rival popes at Rome and Avignon. Manuel, however, on his return, found himself delivered from his worst fears. The terrible Tartar conqueror, after carrying his destructive arms from Russia to India, had struck down the sultan—a title which Bajazet was the first of the House of Othman to assume—in a great battle in the plains round the city of Angora. Bajazet was utterly overthrown, and according to the old story which has made his name memorable, lived for years in captivity, a prisoner in an iron cage. Tamerlane's victory was a piece of great good fortune for Manuel. The Ottoman conquests were stayed at least for a time, and Bajazet's five sons seemed bent on undoing the work of their father by strife among themselves. Asiatic dynasties, as Gibbon has truly observed, present "an unceasing round of valour, greatness, discord, degeneracy, and decay." In this instance the Ottoman power speedily recovered itself under a prince of unquestionable capacity and some really great qualities, who perhaps deserved success, Amurath II. But its temporary eclipse after the fall of Bajazet gave the empire a little breathing space, and even a transient gleam of prosperity. Some of the Ottoman conquests were lost, and a few of the cities of Thessaly and Mace-


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240 of all kinds of treasures and good things; but no, he would have nothing.

"I don't want anything," he said.

"I shall marry him," the princess whispered to her father, "if he would care to have me!"

"Very well!" replied the king.

As for our friend he did not object in the least, but was delighted. The wedding was then prepared, and the news immediately spread all over the kingdom, so that when the great day arrived there was quite a crowd to see the bride and bridegroom.

From that day forth our friend, the truthful man, lived in the palace, was clad in royal garments, and dined at the king's table.

Time passed, and our friend asked the king and queen to let him go and have a look at his own country.

"I have an old mother living in the village from which I come, and I want to see her again."

"Let us go together," said the princess.

So they drove off in a lovely carriage and pair belonging to the king.

They drove and drove, and on their way they met the wretch who had knocked out our friend's eyes.

When the king's son-in-law saw him he stopped the carriage, and called out,—

"How are you, my brother? Have you forgotten me? Do you not remember the quarrel we had together about honesty and dishonesty? and you knocking my eyes out because I did not agree with you."


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Electronic Transactions Act

 * Electronic Transactions Act 1999 (Cth.), an Australian Act that regulates the legality and validity of electronic transactions.
 * Electronic Transactions Act 2000 (NSW), a New South Wales Act that makes similar provisions.
 * Electronic Transactions Act 2000 (Qld.), a Queensland Act that makes similar provisions.
 * Electronic Transactions Act 2002 (2002 No 35), an New Zealand Act that makes similar provisions.
 * Electronic Transactions Act 2010, a Singaporean Act that makes similar provisions, and implements the United Nations Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts.
 * Electronic Transactions Act 2011, a Western Australia Act that makes similar provisions.

title: Electronic Transactions Act


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Rh


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Rh The wretch began to tremble and did not know what to do or what to say.

"Do not be afraid, my friend," said the other; "I am not angry with you."

And then he began to explain everything to the dishonest man; how he had gone to the forest, and what he had heard there, and how he had worked three years for the rich merchant, and then received the picture of the Virgin Mary, and had at last married the king's beautiful daughter.

When the dishonest man heard this, he thought he would also go into the forest and climb up the old oak-tree.

"Perhaps," said he to himself, "I shall be just as fortunate as my friend!"

So he went to the forest, found the murmuring fountain and the old oak-tree, into which he climbed and waited until nightfall.

At midnight the evil spirits again flew down from all sides on to the grass below; but this time they looked up, and seeing the dishonest man hiding in the tree, they seized him and tore him into a number of very small pieces. R


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242

lived once an old woman who had an only son, called Foma Berennekoff. One day Foma went out ploughing; his horse was a poor, lean creature, and was not of much use. Foma generally left it by the dung-hill to rest, and went on with his work by himself. On this occasion the unfortunate animal was being greatly tormented by a number of flies, which would persist in buzzing round him and tickling his nose.

Foma rushed forward, and taking a dry branch began switching it on the dung-heap where the flies were in great numbers, and then set to work to count how many he had killed. He counted up to five hundred; but seeing that there were still many hundreds more lying dead, he came to the conclusion that it would be impossible to count them all.

He then turned to his horse, and saw twelve gadflies sitting on it; he killed them, and, mounting the animal, rode off home to his mother, and asked her for her blessing.

"I have killed a number of small giants," he said, "so many that I could not count them all, and twelve mighty heroes. And now, mother dear, I want you to let me go and become a soldier, for ploughing is no business of mine, it is only fit for a mujik!"


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Rh the adoption of practical measures for its diminution. Virtually, the state of instruction of more than thirty-five millions of its subjects is before Government, that portion of the Indian population which has lived longest under British rule, and which should be prepared or preparing to appreciate and enjoy its highest privileges. I trust that the expense which Government has incurred in collecting this information will not be in vain, and that the hopes which have grown up in the minds of the people in the progress of the inquiry will not be disappointed.

The instructions which I have received from the General Committee of Public Instruction stated that the inquiry which I have now completed was instituted “with a view to ulterior measures” and I was expressly directed to report on “the possibility and means of raising the character and enlarging the usefulness of any single institution or of a whole class.” In conformity with these views and instructions, in the Second Report, besides reporting on the state of education in the Nattore thana of the Rajshahi district, I brought to the special notice of the Committee the condition of the English school at Rampoor Bauleah in the Bauleah thana, and of the Mahomedan College at Kusbeh Bagha in the Bilmariya thana; but I abstained from recommending any plans or measures for the improvement of whole classes of institutions until I should possess greater leisure and opportunities of more extended observation and experience. I however expressed the opinion that, as far as my information then enabled me to judge, existing native institutions from the highest to the lowest, of all kinds and classes, were the fittest means to be employed for raising and improving the character of the people—that to employ those institutions for such a purpose would be “the simplest, the safest, the most popular, the most economical, and the most effectual plan for giving that stimulus to the native mind which it needs on the subject of education, and for eliciting the exertions of the natives themselves for their own improvement, without which all other means must he unavailing.” Subsequent consideration has confirmed me in this view; and, after noticing other plans which have been suggested or adopted, I shall proceed to illustrate it in detail and to explain the means that may be employed in order to carry it into effect.

The object of this Section is to notice the most feasible of those plans for the promotion of general education which appear to


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 donia were surrendered to the emperor. One of Bajazet's sons, Mousa, who with his father had been taken prisoner at the battle of Angora, did indeed threaten Constantinople both by land and sea. But his fleet was defeated, and his attempt on the city by land resolved itself into nothing more than a few skirmishes under the walls, and could not be called a siege. Manuel, however, was by no means hopeful as to the future, and in speaking about his son to his chief minister, Phranza, the last of the Byzantine historians, he intimated that the time for an emperor was past, and that "a cautious steward was needed for the relics of empire." Acting on this principle, he tried to secure some advantages by a cunning diplomacy, and to recover Gallipoli by supporting the designs of Mustapha, a pretended son of Bajazet, then at Constantinople. His idea was to undermine the strength of the Ottoman by encouraging dynastic quarrels. But his arts failed him. Mustapha, having got Gallipoli, would not cede it to the emperor, saying that he could not give up what was now a Mussulman town. After some successes he was deserted by his partisans, and was taken prisoner and hanged by Amurath. Manuel's unfortunate intrigue soon brought trouble on him. Amurath laid siege to Constantinople with an army, it is said, of 200,000 men, and with some rude specimens of artillery, now used by the Turks for the first time. The city's defences had been strengthened, it appears, by the late Emperor John, and it was now well able to defy the sultan's clumsy cannon, and an assault headed by a famous dervish was repulsed with very trifling loss


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 to the defenders. Of the janissaries, the flower of the assailing army, upwards of a thousand were slain; while of the besiegers, who fought almost in safety from their walls, both killed and wounded did not exceed a hundred and thirty. The siege had been begun in the June of 1422, and lasted two months, and then the sultan, who under different circumstances would no doubt have prolonged it, was hurried back to Broussa by tidings of his brother's revolt. He did not again attack Constantinople. The emperor and sultan concluded a peace, the terms of which were fairly favourable to the former, who, though he had to pay a considerable tribute, still numbered among his possessions Thessalonica and some towns in Thrace. He lived to a good old age, and died in the year 1425, having, after the manner of the Palæologi, become a monk towards his life's close.

His son, John Palæologus II., had, it is said, during his father's lifetime shown signs of a rather enterprising disposition. These Manuel, as we have seen, decidedly discouraged, as ill-suited to the age and even pregnant with danger to the empire, which in his opinion could hope only for a very tame and quiet existence. John, from 1425 to 1448, reigned quite on sufferance as the vassal and tributary of the sultan. Whatever may have once been his thoughts and aspirations, he now contentedly acquiesced in the humble position of "a cautious steward of empire." At the Council of Florence, 1438, he and the patriarch of Constantinople, with the Greek bishops, submitted themselves to the Latin Church; but the ecclesiastics on their return had to repudiate this sub-


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 mission, and were themselves despised and distrusted alike by their own people and the Latins, whom they had wished to conciliate. If the emperor had ever allowed himself to hope for support from the West against the Turk, he must soon have been convinced of his self-deception. It might have once for a brief space seemed possible that the Ottoman power would fall before Ladislaus, king of Hungary, and his brave general, Huniades, but the battle of Varna in 1444 was a decisive victory for Amurath. The emperor thought it well to be civil to the victor, and sent to congratulate him on his success, and to beg that he might again be his friend and ally. His prayer was heard, and for four more years he lived to enjoy the sultan's favour.

We are now within five years of the end. With the reign of one more emperor Byzantine history finally closes. The last of the Cæsars was Constantine Palæologus, a name not inglorious, though associated with a fearful downfall. He was worthy of a happier age, and he perished, we shall see, like a hero, mindful of the empire he represented, and resolved to shed at least some glory on its dissolution. The brother of the late emperor, he succeeded to the throne at the mature age of fifty-four. At the time of his brother's death he was governing with the title of "despot" a little fragment of the empire in the Peloponnese, the defence of which he had maintained with some spirit and bravery against the Turks. He had two brothers still living, Demetrius and Thomas, and of these the former, as the elder and as "born in the purple," had a priority of claim, and


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10 village or hedge School-master called a Guru Mahashay. The village system was a brotherhood, it has survived the ruins of Empires, as Lord wrote, "Hindee, Pathan, Mogul, Mahratta, Sikh and English are all masters in turn—but the village community remains the same.” Bengal is an exception.

Mr. Adam calculated there were more than 100,000 of these schools in Bengal and Behar, and that the great object ought to be not to supersede, but to supplement them. He has furnished in his Reports full information of the subjects taught, the teachers’ pay and emoluments, but one peculiar feature in those schools he has omitted—the singular punishments resorted to. We extract from the Calcutta Review No. IV., p. 331, a description of 15 different kinds of punishments used; these, however are now gradually falling into disuse—

“A boy is made to bend forward with his face toward the ground; a heavy brick is then placed on his back, and another on his neck; and should he let either of them fall, within the prescribed period of half an hour or so, he is punished with the cane.

“A boy is condemned to stand for half an hour or an hour on one foot; and, should he shake or quiver or let down the uplifted leg before the time, he is severely punished.

“A boy is made to sit on the floor in an exceedingly constrained position, with one leg turned up behind his neck.

“He is made to sit with his feet resting on two bricks, and his head bent down between both legs, with his hands twisted round each leg so as painfully to catch the ears.

“A boy is made to hang for a few minutes, with his head downwards, from the branch of a neighbouring tree.

“His hands and feet are bound with cords, to these members so bound a rope is fastened, and the boy is then hoisted up by means of a pullypulley [sic] attached to the beams or rafters of the school.

“Nettles, dipped in water, are applied to the body, which becomes irritated and swollen; the pain is excruciating and often lasts a whole day; but, however great the itching and the pain, the sufferer is not allowed to rub or touch the skin for relief, under the dread of a flagellation in addition.

“The boy is put up in a sack along with some nettles, or a cat, or some other noisomenoisesome [sic] creature, and then rolled along the ground.

“The fingers of both hands are inserted across each other with a stick between and two sticks without drawn close together and tied.

“A boy is made to measure so many cubits on the ground, by marking it along with the tip of his nose.

“Four boys are made to seize another, two holding the arms and two the feet; they then alternately swing him and throw him violently to the ground.

“Two boys are made to seize another by the ears; and, with these organs well outstretched, he is made to run along for the amusement of the by-standers.

“A boy is constrained to pull his own ears; and, if he fail to extend them sufficiently, he is visited with a sorer chastisement.

“Two boys, when both have given offence, are made to knock their heads several times against each other.


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 he was supported by a party. But he was passed over, and the choice of nobles, clergy, and people fell on Constantine, who really deserved it. Their choice, however, was not enough to decide the matter. The sultan, whose tributary vassal the late emperor had been, must be consulted. Constantine himself, it appears, was not particularly eager to accept what he must have felt was little more than a barren honour. He may well have foreseen that very possibly he might be the last of the long line of so-called Roman emperors. It might be a question whether Amurath would even give him the chance, as he had dared to resist his arms during his government in the Peloponnese. The sultan held his court at Adrianople, and thither Phranza went as an ambassador to learn his wishes. With Amurath's assent Constantine was proclaimed emperor. He was crowned at Sparta in 1449.

Phranza, who was a few years younger than the emperor, had his full confidence and managed all business for him, "I am surrounded," said Constantine of his court, "by men whom I can neither love nor trust nor esteem." The Greek nobles of the last period of the empire seem, indeed, to have been a worthless set. They could, no doubt, now and then fight bravely when the capital itself was attacked. But in general they were quarrelsome and intriguing, cunning and mistrustful, and anything like patriotic feeling had quite died out from among them. The emperor, we may be pretty sure, was not too hard on them. Phranza was indeed a noble exception. He was not only an able man, as a minister


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186 to him instead of his brother, and to co-operate with him in an attempt to drive Ràjendra from the throne. The confederate princes marched towards Madura for that purpose; but they were encountered by the Pandya king, defeated, and taken prisoners. Ràjàsinha was detained in confinement during the rest of his life, but the Chola monarch was released and dismissed with civility to his own dominions.

Saundarya Páda Sek'hara, the son of Rajendra, succeeded his father. Like his predecessors, he is said to have been engaged in hostilities with the Chola monarch; and, whatever we may think of the circumstantial details of these repeated conflicts, it seems not at all improbable that a struggle for supremacy in the peninsula did exist, at a remote date and for a long period, between these rival dynasties, which terminated in the temporary ascendency of the Pandya monarchs. On this occasion it is related, that the Pandya king was forced to fly before his invaders, but their prince was drowned in the pursuit of his defeated foes, and the kingdom of Madura was thus preserved from foreign subjugation. Of course, the accident was not a mere casualty, but was brought about by the seasonable interference of the tutelary deities of Madura. Saundarya Pàda died soon after his return to his capital, or, as it is said of every Pandya prince, he went into the adytum, or inner chamber, of the temple of Múla Linga, and was united to the god. If we do not suppose that this was a contrivance of the priests to get rid of those princes of whom they were tired, or with whom they were dissatisfied, we must conclude the ceremony to have been part of the religious institutes of the kingdom, and that the princes and persons of note were carried to the temple, to die in the presence of the tutelary gods, in the same spirit as that which, in Upper Hindustan, conveys the expiring individual to breathe his last upon the banks of the Ganges.

Varaguna, the son of the last prince, succeeded. His reign contains the usual proportion of marvels; but nothing of a historical character in the authorities hitherto followed. This omission is the more remarkable, as the Chola records ascribe the disappearance of the series of their princes to the transfer of the kingdom to Varaguna, by his marriage with a Chola princess, as has been noticed above; and the union of the two principalities under a common sovereign appears to have actually occurred about the period at which this prince may possibly have reigned. The fact is supported by another


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 and a diplomatist, but he appears to have been a really faithful servant. He must have known both Greeks and Turks thoroughly. He had been on many an embassy to the sultan, and more than once had outwitted his ministers. On one occasion he made them look very foolish by making them drunk at one of his entertainments, and then getting hold of some state papers in their possession. Having ascertained the contents, he quietly and politely put the papers back into the Turks' pockets. This is just what we might have expected from a Greek. Phranza, as a minister in a difficult time, must have been invaluable. He certainly is invaluable as a historian of a period which, but for his chronicle written long afterwards in a monastery in Corfu, would be much less distinctly known to us. It is indeed a great thing to have a contemporary record from a man who had so many excellent opportunities. Phranza witnessed with his own eyes the fall of Constantinople, and if his narrative is apt to be rather too prolix and grandiloquent, we may at any rate congratulate ourselves that the story of that memorable event as told by such an eyewitness has come down to us.


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Rh His mother gave him her blessing, and then he sloped a sickle over his shoulders like a sword, and, tying the blunt blade of an old scythe to his wrist, mounted his old horse and rode away.

Foma went on and on until he came to an unknown part, where, in the middle of a broad road, stood a sign-post with nothing on it. He rode up; he had neither gold nor silver, but he happened to have some chalk in his pocket, so he wrote with this chalk,—

"The mighty Foma Berennekoff, who with one blow killed twelve powerful heroes, and an endless number of small giants, rode by here."

When he had finished writing this, he rode on farther.

Riding along the very same road came a handsome young fellow, Elie Muromitch by name, and stopping at the sign-post read what was written on it, and said to himself,—

"That, certainly, was a very heroic action; but whoever this wonderful man is he did not waste his gold and silver to write with, but only used plain chalk!"

And he wrote underneath in silver,—

"After Foma Berennekoff rode the valiant Elie Muromitch!"

He then overtook Foma, and addressed him thus,—

"Powerful hero, Foma Berennekoff! tell me where I am to ride. Shall I pass in front of you or keep behind?"

"Better keep behind!" said Foma.

A little later there came riding along the road a rich and handsome youth, called Aleyosha Papovitch,


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1837.] authority, however, and a cheritra, or history of Varaguna, states his repulsion of an invasion by the Chola king, Karàvar Chola, his subsequent conquest of that kingdom, and its annexation to the Pandya monarchy. A celebrated poet, named Bàna, or Pàna-patra, is said to have flourished in this prince's reign.

Vara Raja, or Raja Rajendra, succeeded Varaguna. In his reign a ridiculous legend is narrated, which so far merits recapitulation, that traces of it are frequent in the sculptures still visible at Madura.

At Kuruvaituri, west of Madura, a rich farmer had twelve sons, who spent their time in various sports, and especially in the chase. They one day attacked a wild hog and his family, killed some, and pursued the rest to the vicinity of a holy sage engaged in profound meditation. Having disturbed the abstraction of the sage, he cursed them, denouncing their future birth as hogs themselves. On their humiliation, however, and earnest prayers for forgiveness, he so far modified his imprecation as to make the temporary degradation the means of future honour and fame.

The twelve youths being reborn in their porcine capacity, lost their tender parents by the spears of Raja Rájendra and his fellow-sportsmen, whilst they were yet too young to provide for their own subsistence. Their pitiful state moved the compassion of Choka Náyaka and Minákshi Amman, who happened to be in the forest during the chase, and they determined to act as the parents of the porkers. Minákshi officiated as their nurse, in which character figures of her occur, and Choka Náyaka as their tutor. One effect of this divine protection was to humanise their bodies, so that they became men with the heads of pigs, in which combination their statues are sculptured. Another consequence of their fortunate destiny was their deriving from their preceptor profound conversancy with arts, sciences, and letters, and their consequent advancement to the ministerial administration of the affairs of the Pandya kingdom.

The reign of Raja Rájendra is followed by an interval which is imperfectly filled up in most of the authorities by a mere string of names. The enumeration does not exactly agree in all cases; but in those which are the most authentic, it appears to extend to twenty-four or twenty-five princes. If we allow twenty years to a reign, and admit the accuracy of the enumeration, we should place the prince who succeeds these shadows in the second century of the Christian era: at the same time, as the data are altogether insufficient, it is obvious, that


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244 junior. He rode up to the post, and reading the inscriptions on it, took out some pure gold, and wrote,—

"After Elie Muromitch rode Aleyosha Papovitch, junior."

He then galloped up to Elie Muromitch.

"Tell me, Elie Muromitch," he asked, "where I had better ride, in front of you, or behind you?"

"Ask my elder brother, Foma Berennekoff, and not me."

So Aleyosha Papovitch, junior, rode up to Foma Berennekoff, and asked with great politeness,—

"Brave champion, Foma Berennekoff! Where do you command Areyosha Papovitch to ride?"

"Ride on behind!" Foma returned

On they went, these three young fellows, through various unknown parts, until at last they came to some beautiful gardens. Elie Maromitch and Aleyosha Papovitch both pitched their white tents, while Foma Berennekoff stretched his smock-frock.

Now these gardens belonged to a king—the White King, as he was called—who was just then going to war with a false king and his six wonderfully powerful warriors, whom no one had yet been able to withstand.

When the white king heard of the arrival of Foma and his companions, he sent him (Foma Berennekoff) a note, in which was written as follows,—

"The false king has declared war against me. May I hope for your valuable assistance?"

Foma was not very good at reading. However after shaking his head, and turning the note over a


text: The History, Design and Present State of the Religious, Benevolent and Charitable Institutions, Founded by the British in Calcutta and Its Vicinity