ing of homesteads; the undermining of railway-bridges; the infliction of torture and murder for supposed opinions; the suspension of law and rights,—these scandals and miseries are of a nature and extent never required or imagined in international wars. To escape from the disgrace of them it is a poor device to pick quarrels with foreign nations; but foreign nations should understand it too well to be tempted to return railing for railing. Bad temper and uncivil manners must be far more blameable in us than in the struggling and suffering nation who are of our kin.
The woe brings with it a blessed consolation in the heroic patriotism which is conspicuous in both sections; and eminently in the North. There is no sacrifice which has not been made by men of all classes, and by women, and even children. Our hearts warm most towards the virtue which is manifested on behalf of the good cause, rather than the indefensible one: but we gladly, I hope, recognise patriotic self-sacrifice wherever it exists.
A new prospect is opening which demands a word of notice. The planters are called upon by the whole South to cease growing their staple products, in order to grow grain, and keep up the market value of cotton, tobacco, and sugar. Slavery does not answer for growing cereals and root-crops; and this conversion of tillage, if it takes place, will be the doom of slavery. Slavery is doomed, on any supposition; and the Confederate authorities are already saying publicly that the power of emancipation is one which rests in their hands; and that they will use it in the last resort. This is a disclosure full of interest, and full of hope.
England has now received the broadest hint that she must provide herself with cotton where she can. Not only is the war likely to be a long one, but, when it is over, it is probable that this year’s crop of cotton will prove to be the last under the slave system. England must provide for the interval till the growth of American cotton by free labour shall open a new period in the intercourse of the two nations.
THE CITY OF THE FLYING-FOX.
PART I.
Far up in the dense jungle of Ceylon, some five-and-twenty miles from Colombo, a road was required to connect two main arteries of communication; and I, a happy, healthy, and needy lieutenant in her Majesty’s land forces, was sent to cut the tracing and make the necessary estimate. I had a gang of Malabar pioneers who were enrolled for road-work in military fashion, with sub-officers, Serjeants, and corporals, very complete. There was also a native assistant-surgeon, and a clerk to keep the accounts. At the head of my little black army I marched across the district, and finding—without difficulty—the spot of intended operations, halted and selected at once a suitable camping-ground. We were allowed seven days in which to make ourselves comfortable—not too much to clear the ground and throw up mud-huts for two hundred souls—but an abundance of material, such as clay, wood and water, facilitated matters wonderfully. Before the end of the week smoke was seen rising from quite a little township forming three sides of a large open square, the fourth being occupied by my bungalow, which had been built with considerable ingenuity opposite on a rising knoll. The tall straight stems of the areca-palm, which abounded in the neighbourhood, furnished the posts of the house, between which was spread the broad thick leaves of the talipot-palm, much resembling yellow morocco leather in colour and consistency. The roof was thatched with cocoanut leaves from a third palm-tree, and windows cut in the talipot walls, lifting up or down at pleasure large slices of the leaf bound round with sticks, afforded ingress to the breezes, here so necessary to existence. There was a mud kitchen outside, and a fowl-house fenced round to keep out the snakes. It was all finished within a week, and gardens with cucumber and pumpkin seeds planted in the bargain. So then we set to work to clear the jungle, along which our new road was to run.
So long as the novelty lasted all was well; but, I confess, at the end of three months, I was heartily sick of the place. Not a soul could talk English except the Malabar doctor, and the clerk a little; there was not an European within miles; snakes, rats, centipedes, scorpions, ants, and all sorts of parasitical insects flourished in numbers and quantities, defying all calculation or belief on the part of readers; alas! I nourished daily many scores of the brutes, while the grub which nourished me was execrable and monotonous to the last degree. I ate lean poultry in every shape and form of cooking, until I absolutely loathed the sight of a feather; meat and bread I never saw; my servant kneaded up daily rice-flour and water into a composition to which I dare not give a name; there were the native fruits, and the everlasting—yet good—curry and rice, without which and its various flavours, I think I should have starved; as to game, there were pigeons—very fine but very shy—with turtle-doves and monkeys, which I had no heart either to shoot or eat. Woe is me! I began to weary for the flesh-pots of Egypt, and the society of my fellow-man, and, I will add, fellow-woman as well. I made up my mind that I must fall ill or resign, when, one morning, a letter turned up from the regiment, the writer proposing to come up with another sub and look me up, provided I could manage to shake them down somehow or other. You may be sure what my answer was. I was a new man forthwith, and set to work with a will in the preparations for their reception.
The commissariat was the main difficulty and the beds, but the native carpenter managed the latter tolerably well, with a sort of platform in each corner, upon which we laid fresh bundles of dried lemon-grass, smelling deliciously fragrant, and, when covered with a sheet, I feared nothing but mosquitoes and reptiles for the repose of my guests. But the grub bothered me entirely; if even I sent a messenger for meat to Colombo, it would be putrid long before he could convey it up. I felt that poultry could not be served up more than two days, both for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so I formed a great resolution and fell