with the brutes, be it as species, genus, order, or sub-class, than do the possession or non-possession of a hippocampus minor, or a posterior cornu to the lateral ventricles. It is these alone that entitle him to his position as a little lower than the angels, as an heir of God and joint-heir of Jesus Christ. And here we may rest in our faith, well assured that science, earnestly and reverently questioned, returns no answer to the thoughtful mind that is not in perfect accordance with revealed truth. EPILOGUE ON AFFAIRS. WAR still rages in Poland. 'The entire Polish nation, each and 'every class, according to its means, actively or passively, according to its place or circumstances, has identified itself, soul and body, 'with the insurrection.'* Yet Russia insists that the cause to which the nation has thus given itself is not national. It is the work, we are told, of a few men in other countries who live in a region of demagogy and conspiracy. Russia will not see, that according to the immutable laws of things, effects must be measured by their causes. The European powers say-Let there be at once a suspension of arms, and a frank statement of the fitting terms of peace. The court of St. Petersburg replies-Let the Insurgents lay down their weapons, and let Poland wait to receive from the clemency and wisdom of the Russian Government the satisfaction she requires. Unhappily, the experiences of the past have made such trust in Russian honour and humanity impossible. On Russia now rests the responsibility of the future. The rebuke of Europe is upon her; and the injustice, inhumanity, and insolence branded by the counsels of the wise, will not be forgotten in the retributions of Providence. То pass from Russian Poland to the States of America should be to enter on a brighter scene. But it is not so. No amount of sophistry can save the slave system of the South from the execra * Despatch by M. Drouyn de Lhuys. Epilogue on Affairs. 499 tion of good men. But we cannot see the religion or the morality of attempting to put down one horror by means of a flood of horrors still more horrible. Such is the present policy of the North, even in the case of those who are sincere abolitionists. In the case of the great majority, who use the slave question for purely political purposes, the cant of insincerity is added to the other ingredients of the strife. Popular principles, and the good name of Puritanism, have suffered injuries during the last two years which the next halfcentury will hardly suffice to retrieve. It is with deep sorrow that we thus write. The hoarded miseries for humanity with which the Northern States of America are charged will be felt in their time. England, do what she may, will have her full share of them. But England will know how to do her duty. Louis XIV. aimed to make France the dictator of Europe. Napoleon I. pursued the same policy. And we know what the cost of lodging that idea in the mind of Frenchmen as to the mission of France has been, both to France and to Europe. The old aspiration of France has become the aspiration of American Unionists, and like causes should be expected to produce like effects. We shall be glad to be found false prophets. We are constrained to apprehend the contrary. OUR EPILOGUE ON BOOKS. LITERATURE. The Tracks of McKinlay and Party across Australia. By JOHN DAVIS, one of the Expedition. Edited from the Davis Manuscript 'Journal;' with an Introductory View of the Recent Australian Explorations of McDonal, Stuart, Burke and Wills, Landsborough, &c. By WILLIAM WESTGARTH. With Map and Illustrations. Low & Co.-Mr. Westgarth gives us the result of Australian exploration, so far as it has now extended, in a single sentence. 'interior of Australia is a country we can make use of, and there is every reason to believe that the greater part of it will soon, and 'with marvellous rapidity, be overspread by pastoral settlements.' The successive efforts to explore that vast continent-for such it may be called-have given us this knowledge; and those who are interested in a piece of modern history so full of significance for Englishmen, will do well to procure Mr. Westgarth's volume. One romantic episode in the experiences of white men among the aborigines of Australia, may be placed beside anything of its kind in history. At a far interior station on the Bowen river, the herdsmen were one day startled by the appearance of a man quite naked, and of reddish yellow hue, whom they could see was no aboriginal native. 'On the shepherds seizing their fire-arms, under a sense of possible danger, he called out in English, although speaking with difficulty, that he was their countryman. He then informed them that he had lived for seventeen years with the aborigines in the neighbourhood, being the sole survivor of the crew and passengers of a ship that had been wrecked, so far back as the year 1846, upon a reef of the adjacent coast. He had been wandering over the country about Mount Elliott-a lofty hill, above 4,000 feet in height, near the mouth of the Burdekin-and he must have been but a short way to the east of McKinlay's party, as they passed down the river. His name was James Morrill, and he was born near Maldon, in Essex, England, and had been a seaman of the wrecked vessel the Peruvian. He was supplied with clothes by his new friends, and after a short interval taken to Port Denison, where a subscription was made on his behalf, and where both himself and his narrative were the subject of very general interest. The captain of the Peruvian had warned the watch against broken water," that dangerous symptom of this coral reef coast. Australian Discoveries. 501 The vessel was wrecked during the night, after the watch had, indeed, detected the fatal symptom ahead, but too late to be of any avail. There was a considerable gale blowing; the two boats were lost, and with them the first and second officers. The construction of a raft was the next resource. It was promptly made, launched, and loaded with its living freight, but it broke away from the wreck before any adequate supplies of either provisions or water had been secured. There had been fourteen of a crew and seven passengers, and for forty-two days these miserable creatures were drifted to and fro, until at length the raft, with a small remnant of survivors, was cast ashore on the north side of Cape Cleveland. They had prolonged their lives mainly by catching three sharks, part of a legion that followed the raft for the sake of the dead bodies that were at intervals committed to the waters. Ashore at last, they were for a time undisturbed, and subsisted on shell-fish; but after a fortnight they were discovered by the aborigines. They were by this time reduced to four-the captain and his wife, Morrill, and a boy. The natives, after gratifying an intense curiosity by examining all of them, from head to foot, behaved kindly after their rough fashion, and took them to the great tribal camp in the neighbourhood, where they again underwent a thorough inspection, their white skins causing a general astonishment, and inspiring some with such terror that they at first ran away. For some time the neighbouring blacks were arriving in streams to gratify the common curiosity, but there was no violence used, nor was insult ever offered to the female. Meanwhile the poor outcasts were at first supplied with food, and afterwards were shown how and where they could find roots and other edibles for themselves. Exposure and privation caused much suffering, especially when their clothing, gradually falling to pieces, had disappeared, and left them entirely naked. The poor wife, the only female of the party, contrived to retain to the last a few scraps of covering. Severe rheumatism attacked them all, and in a little more than two years Morrill found himself sole survivor. The captain had died before his wife, and she, thus desolate and forsaken, survived him but four days. Morrill had a strong frame and a good constitution, and survived the trying ordeal of his new mode of life. His narrative of his life among the natives is interesting in its account of native manners and habits. He forms a very low estimate of their qualities, as they are cruel and treacherous, even to each other of the same tribe. "There is," he says, "a sort of partisanship of private friends and private foes in each tribe. Some individuals are occasionally the victims of these enmities, but many more preserved by the watchfulness of friends." He himself had both friends and enemies, and would have fallen on many an occasion by the hands of the latter, but for the vigilance of the former, who threatened the direst vengeance in case any injury happened to him. As already mentioned in our Introduction, he confirms the now perfectly authenticated cannibalism of the Australian natives. He brightens the dark picture a little by stating that they will not kill their fellow-men merely for the sake of eating them. In eating their friends or chiefs, after death, there seems some vague notion of appropriating yet something of the virtues of the deceased; all at least that the grasping appropriator death has left them. It is remarkable that he scarcely ever heard reports of his countrymen, many of whom must have traversed the country at no very great distance from the scene of his protracted wanderings, not a few having from time to time been murdered, or killed in hostile attacks. This circumstance is to be accounted for, perhaps, partly from the desire of the natives to withhold information of his countrymen from him, as they seem really to have valued his presence amongst them; and partly from the mutual hostility, or at least the alien feeling generally prevalent between the various tribes, which greatly restricted any intercourse, and prevented the spread of news, however wonderful. At length, however, reports meet his ear which he cannot misunderstand. The new settlement of Bowen, about two years before his deliverance, had attracted the natives' attention, and Morrill was certain his countrymen must be somewhere near him, and that the continually advancing wave of colonization had at last rolled up to his neighbourhood. There was a twofold difficulty in reaching the settlers, however; for not only were the tribes he lived with unwilling that he should leave, but he could hardly venture any distance away without falling among natives unfriendly to the tribe he was identified with, and thus endangering his life. After some time he transferred his residence to a friendly tribe, living between Cape Bowling-green and the Burdekin. He seems to have been on the outlook nearly a year with this tribe, when he hears of cattle being seen feeding and drinking at the Burdekin, and a white man with a whip attending them. Soon afterwards two females describe some sheep as among the long grass, a short distance to the south. One of them he induces to accompany him; but at the sight of the sheep she will go no further, fearing to be murdered by the whites, and earnestly advising Morrill too, by all means, to avoid the wicked intruders. She returns, therefore, and Morrill goes on, presenting himself to the shepherds, as already related.' Poems. By JAEN INGELOW. London: Longman.-Jaen Ingelow is indeed a true poet. She can tell her tale with a quiet power which brings the unbidden tear to the eyes, and with a ring of lyric force which might well make the coward brave. She does not give us the obscure, and expect us to accept it as the profound. She looks on nature with eyes which can see, and all its visibilities seem to wait to assist in illustrating or expressing the heart's joy or sadness. What is here written helps to make one feel that surely the world is a great poem to those who know how to read it. Take |