(meaning thereby the two groups of the Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides lying between Fiji and New Guinea) was merely a question of time. It is no mere land-hunger that urges the Australians to desire the addition of these islands to their already very wide and undeveloped empire, but merely self-defence. To point to their yet unoccupied downs and yet unworked mines and to ask if there is not sufficient there to occupy their energies and ambitions without their taking these islands, is the same as to speak to an Englishman of the grass farms of Buckinghamshire and their capabilities, or of the yet unexhausted coal-mines of South Wales or Derbyshire, and to ask him why, having these, he should not be content to let the Hebrides or the Shetland Islands be quietly occupied by some foreign power, not for bona fide purposes of colonisation, but as refuges for their criminal classes. Three reasons are alleged amongst others for desiring such annexation : (1) the fear of an extended New Caledonia; (2) the defence and carrying on under proper supervision of the immense pearl fisheries in which every year more and more British capital is being invested; (3) to protect the natives. The last are not wholly savage by any means; they have a system of agriculture, and some kind of manufactures, and a division of labour. They are in fact prepared for a further advance in civilisation, provided they are properly dealt with. To protect them against the action of irresponsible adventurers is the duty of the chief representatives of European power in these seas; to shirk such responsibility and duty is simply to sanction the perpetration of manifold evils that might so easily be averted. The German Government has made repeated offers to come to "an understanding for the common or identic control of the labour traffic "-for the trade and capital of German merchants is also largely concerned in the matter— but up to the present without avail. When the colonists ask the mother country to sanction that which appears to them so righteous and so natural, they are fully prepared to pay any expenses that may necessarily be incurred; they do not ask the English taxpayer to pay anything whatever, but rather, on the contrary, the absorption of these at present lawless no-man's-lands, and their bringing them under the orderly rule of the British, would tend to lessen the outlay on the Australian squadron, whose chief employment at present is the endeavour to put down various abominations and nuisances that inevitably arise when the offscouring of pretty nearly every European and South American race take to irre

sponsible slave-trading up and down amidst these wide-spreading archipelagoes. Every now and then people at home are startled for a moment by some such tragedy as the murder of Bishop Patteson, and then relapse into contented nonchalance. There are no less than three distinct and separate so-called "slave trades" which are carried on now amongst these islands. The first and least objectionable, and scarcely deserving of the name at all, although it is given to it by some in England, is that carried on in "imported labour." Of the natives who are imported under legal guarantees, great numbers voluntarily return to work in Australia (just like the coolies in the West Indies) after the completion of their term of labour, and bring their friends back with them. But there are abuses connected with this necessary immigration. Every schooner employed in collecting hands from the islands (most of them are of about ninety tons, and carry eighty-five natives besides a crew of some half-a-dozen hands) is bound to carry an interpreter, who is to explain to the native what is meant when they touch ink to paper under the form of signing indentures as prentices for so many years. But so various are the languages of the islanders that it is almost impossible that one interpreter can understand those of half the islands touched at; and the consequence is that in many cases the hands are carried off in complete ignorance of the why and wherefore or the whither. They are, however, for the most part on arrival well treated, but dare not return when rich at the expiration of their term of labour to their homes and native islands for fear of being plundered by their own chiefs. They originate a second slave trade of their own. Having found the secret of getting money and becoming their own masters, many of them in their turn take part-shares in other schooners cruising for labour-" slavers" as the Australians call them-who make no pretence of observing the provisions of the "Kidnapping Act," but go sailing under the English flag up and down from New Guinea eastwards, forcibly abducting the natives from May to October; and hence new complications, murders, and reprisals, which will continue until the islands are brought under British sway and regular stations established, when the result will probably be as satisfactory and striking as that we have seen in Fiji. The third and most infamous species of slave trade is that which consists in kidnapping the women from one island and taking them away and disposing of them as barter amongst other islands and chiefs.]

At 8 A.M. went out into the flower-garden and saw some rams butt

at one another till one was stunned: they rush with an immense shock forehead to forehead.

The Mosquito then got under way for Singapore; the rest of our officers that did not take passage in her returned afterwards in the Maharajah's yacht, Pantie, with Lady Weld, round the western end of the island. The Vesatri at the same time left for Penang en route for Kedah and the Siamese possessions on the west side of the Malay peninsula, which there come down and just cut off British Burmah from the protected native Malay states. The question of the succession to the Sultanate of Kedah is still undecided by the King of Siam, with whom the recognition of the appointment rests, as Kedah is tributary to him, and so also are its neighbouring states of Patani, Kelantan, and Tringano on the eastern coast of the peninsula. The sailing part of the regatta took place this morning, and as there was a nice little breeze the schooners looked very pretty as we watched them reaching up and down the Straits. Breakfast-lunch was at 11 A.M., to which more than fifty of us sat down. At 1 P.M. we left Johore and were rowed across the Straits to Kranjee by the scarlet-coated crew, and drove back across the island to Singapore. The Maharajah drove his own four-in-hand, with George on the box and Lord Charles Scott, the others of the party were driven by the Governor in his drag. We stopped half an hour at Bukit Timah and had a good drink at the cocoa-nuts, and arrived at Government House about 3 P.M. Afterwards we went down to the racecourse, where the new grand stand was used for the first time to-day. While we were there the Maharajah won four out of the five races, his best horse being an Australian called "Lord Harry."

There were many Chinamen on the racecourse in loose white garments. This is a dress in which, as regards the wealthier classes, their sense of self-respect would not permit them to appear in public if in China. They are never allowed for their own sake to appear on any official occasions at Government House except in proper Chinese robes or else in European attire. As long as a firm hand is kept over them they give no trouble, but at once presume upon the absence of dignified manners, which are everything to Confucians.

At 6 P.M. we said good-bye to the Governor at Johnstone's pier, and went off in the harbour-master's steam-launch to the Bacchante, where we find Mr. Smythe has just received his promotion by mail from England. We get our own letters, and answer as many as we can before turning in. The illuminations on shore, where

two or three of the large buildings facing the sea were lit up with gas jets from end to end, looked very well. But the wind and rain made havoc with the festoons of Chinese lanterns that were hung about on the quays and bridges, and spoilt the display of fireworks. Our blue jackets have played a return match at cricket against the ship's company of the Comus and beat them a second time this afternoon.

Sunday, Jan. 15th.-At 8.10 A.M. the Russian ironclad Kniaz Pojarski-four and a half inch armour, ten guns, eight of them eight-inch and two six-inch, 2,835 horse-power, 4,505 tons-arrived from Manilla, and anchored on her way home to Cronstadt from China and Japan. She is to be succeeded by the Vladimir Monomakh-seven-inch armour at water-line, sixteen guns, four eight-inch and twelve-inch, 7,000 horse-power and 5,796 tons. At 9.30, mustered by divisions and had service below on the main deck, where it was intensely hot; there was not a breath of air stirring when we weighed under steam at 11.30 A.M. in company with the Cleopatra. As we passed under the stern of the Comus their band played "Good-bye" and gunroom semaphored to gunroom "Chin-chin." At 5.20 P.M. set fore and aft sails and pointed yards to the wind.

Jan. 16th.-There was a nice little breeze from the N.E., so at 9.30 A.M. made plain sail; then shortened and furled sails; then made plain sail less mainsail : the wind dying away at 11.30 A.M. shortened and furled sails: it was very warm in the sun. It is the dry season on this, the eastern, side of the Malay peninsula. We altered course and went in close off Malacca to observe the quaint old town of red-roofed houses and the fort and flagstaff on the rising green hill in the centre, on which stand the remains of the old ruined monastery of Santa Maria della Monte, built by Albuquerque, and the scene of the labours of S. Francis Xavier. Here he came from India, and after much successful missionary work went on for further labour in China and Japan: he died on a small island off the Chinese coast near Hong-Kong, and his body was brought to Malacca, and here buried in 1552; but it now rests in its gold and silver coffin at Goa, the Portuguese settlement on the west coast of Hindostan. Mount Ophir, 3,840 feet high, and twenty miles inland, was cloud-covered. Apparently there

are large woods of palm and cocoa-nut trees, as well as stretches of level rice land vividly green on the low ground by the water's edge, and pretty wooded islands lying off the shores. The front of the town facing the sea appears one long quay. Its harbour, which once sheltered the commerce of the East, is now much silted up. All the way up the coast there are high mountains in the interior. The "settlement" of Malacca is forty-two miles long, and from eight to twenty-five broad: it is one of the oldest European settlements in the East, having been taken possession of by the Portuguese in 1511, held by them for 130 years, when