CHAPTER V.
EVOLUTION AND PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT.
MY young friend Julian, who, as I have intimated, took a great fancy to me, and whose friendly feelings I reciprocated, besides being an adept at all the amusements and games which occupied so much of the time of the young folks, was very well informed, had read much, and was as familiar with the manners and customs of my dear native land as though he had lived there for years. And yet he had never quitted Colymbia, and did not go ashore once in a twelve-month. In fact, it is not considered "the thing" among the genteel classes to quit the water at all, and any one whose occupation takes him much out of the water rather loses caste among his fashionable friends, and is looked on as decidedly vulgar.
Julian had very advanced views in biology, was an enthusiast for the evolution of species, and thoroughly believed in the continuous advance towards perfection of the human race. He looked on the Colymbians as the most advanced of human beings, and as immeasurably superior to any of the terrestrial inhabitants of the globe.
I could not always agree with him on this point, as the prejudices of my education stood in the way of my regarding the aquatic life of my new friends as alto-
