Graham calling his proposals "Jack Cade legislation," and Lord Melbourne presenting him to the Queen as "the greatest Jacobin in your Majesty's dominions ;" and what Shaftesbury himself seems to the last unable to understand or forgive, even the clergy and the so-called "religious world" maintained a complacent and timid indifference. "The factory question, and every question for what is called humanity, receive as much support from men of the world' as from the men who say they will have nothing to do with it." And again in later life he says, "I had more aid from the medical than the divine profession." But if the clergy bore none of the burden and heat of the day, he ought to have owned that they came heartily, when they at length did come, at the eleventh hour, and that the strong muster of bishops helped powerfully to carry the factory legislation through the otherwise lukewarm atmosphere of the Lords. What embittered this agitation more than usual was that it seemed to cross swords with the contemporaneous agitation of the Anti-Corn Law League. It was taken to be the landlords' retaliation for the manufacturers' war against protection. Class prejudice clashed against class prejudice, and men like Cobden and Shaftesbury, the two purest and most noble of our public men, doubted one another's sincerity. To Cobden it seemed hard to believe that a man like Shaftesbury could be animated by an honest zeal for the welfare of the poor, when he pled their cause against the manufacturers, but remained content to allow his own class to tax their very daily bread. Shaftesbury returned the compliment by thinking Cob

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den's object in seeking to cheapen bread was merely to be able to lower wages; though, as we know, whatever some other free-trade agitators may have believed, Cobden always repudiated the error which was unfortunately encouraged by Ricardo, and has been the source of much mischievous delusion ever since, that wages depended on nothing but the cost of living and were bound to fall when that fell. There was certainly in either case more than pretence for the mistrust, but both men came eventually to see they were mistaken and to own completely one another's public honesty. The world has ratified that judgment, but with I think this reservation-which it is not without use to note-that while in their own positive apostleship animated by a righteous public zeal, without taint of class advantage, they were each led to oppose the work of the other through what, if we penetrated beneath all the refinements that masked the origin of their opinions even from their own minds, would be found to be at bottom nothing else than class fears. One other thing is worth remembering. In both cases alike the class fears have turned out fallacious. The landed interest was never better off than for the quarter of a century after free trade, and the manufacturers' talk about the last half-hour being the only source of their profit is now laughed at as mere old wives' babble. Difficulties brought out, as they seem always to bring out, the mettle of English enterprise, and we may be sure that there cannot be the least danger to the country in such minor restraints at least as are successively dictated by the progress of humanitarian reforms.

mines of gold, silver, and copper, and forests of valuable timber.

The island was discovered by Columbus in 1492, and its history is atrocious with the unparalleled and incredible barbarities practised by the black and white races on each other in constant struggles for power. Haîti, where I landed to pay excellent Bishop Holly and his church a visit of brotherly respect, in area contains only one-third of the island, with a population of 800,000, of which the filthy capital, Port-au-Prince, constantly devasted by fire and earthquakes, numbers 22,000. Haîti produces coffee, cocoa, cotton

tapioca, and tortoiseshell, and is governed by a President and National Assembly with two Chambers.

In the opinion of Sir Spencer St. John, now British Minister at Mexico, and for fourteen years consul here (no man can be more competent to give one), Haîti is fast receding in a steady and hopeless decadence into the condition of a primitive African tribe. The natives have discouraged the residence of whites among them, without whom the negro inevitably retrogrades, and as they cannot of themselves originate a civilisation, so they cannot by themselves maintain it. The Vaudoux worship, incontestably accompanied with human sacrifices and a detestable cannibalism, not only is not put down, but is, it is to be feared, on the increase. It is usually practised at, night and in secret places, but its influence is spreading, and though it has a thin veneer of Roman ceremony and ritual, the foreign element is only skin deep.

The heat was intense off Haiti, but our course to Havaña was to the windward of Cuba; and as we passed over the Bahama Banks, which are difficult of navigation but well provided with lights, we had a fresh breeze from the Atlantic with squalls of rain, a waterspout, and a much cooler temperature. Cuba is 700 miles long, the mountainous part being in the south-east of the island, with 2,000,000 acres of virgin forest, chiefly mahogany, cedar, and ebony. The chief

agricultural products of the island are sugar, coffee, and tobacco. The latter article is said to be greatly adulterated; and the sugar interest is as much depressed here as elsewhere. At Bellomer, near Matanzas, to which a railway runs from Havaña, there are some remarkable caves three miles long and partially lighted with gas. The inner chamber is said to surpass the Kentucky cave in richness and sparkle, but not to equal it in grandeur or size.

Havaña was discovered by Columbus in 1492, and save for the space of a few months in 1762-3, when it fell into the hands of the English, it has always been Spanish soil. In the cathedral the great navigator is said to be buried, and an interesting monument attests the fact. The people of St. Domingo, however, insist that it was the body of his brother which was sent here for sepulture by an artfully contrived mistake, and that they possess the real man. As I have not been to St. Domingo, and have been to Havaña, I am on the side of Havaña.

The harbour is fine from the sea, finest perhaps as you approach it from Vera Cruz. The Fort and the Moro, both at the entrance of the harbour, are imposing and picturesque both in colour and outline, and interesting from having been taken by the English. There is a good deal of shipping to be seen, and there is constant communication with Vera Cruz, New Orleans, Colon, Florida.

and New York. There are some fine buildings in the city, an opera house, a Plaza which is especially brilliant in the evening, an interesting palace where the Captain General is lodged (he is a very great person indeed, both in authority and emolument), and streets, which if not so brilliant as those of Rio, nor so picturesque as those of Valentia, occasionally reminded me of both. The place seemed to me to be under a cloud. Certainly its once brilliant prosperity is gone, and Anthony Trollope, who visited it more

than thirty years ago, would now hardly recognise the languid and decaying town, which, to borrow the somewhat unpleasant expression of an American I came across at the Puebla Junction, seems to be "infected with the Spanish rot."

The public markets are interesting for the great variety of fruits and vegetables. The streets rival those of Moscow for bad paving, which is saying a good deal. In the environs we visited the country house of the Captain General. The rooms were closed, but

we walked in the gardens, which were singularly untidy. The chief feature in them was a fine group of cocoa palms.

Of hotels, among the best are the Inghilterra and the Telegrafo. The latter, which has a pretty patio, I am inclined, after visiting them both, to pronounce the better. They are both dear, as everything in Havaña is dear, except fruit and sponges. What, moreover, makes everything gratuitously dearer is the difference between the value of paper money and silver money. Some payments are charged in one, some in the other, and the process of converting one into the other always results in the discomfiture of the stranger. The cathedral has rather a striking façade, and the colour of the stone has a golden hue like that of our incomparable Lincoln Minster. The interior is painted

and papered, and not particularly striking, but the four pulpits, said to be constantly used both for preaching and catechetical instruction, made me ask myself why in our larger churches at home we are tied and bound to only one pulpit. The vestments here are perfectly magnificent, and were made in Barcelona. Their weight in hot weather, such as usually occurs on Corpus Christi Day, must be really distressing.

From Havaña to Vera Cruz it is four days' steaming, first over the Bank of Campeachy and then across the Gulf of Mexico. Capital straw hats are made at Campeachy, half as expensive and quite as useful as those

of Panama, and I picked some up very cheap at Vera Cruz from an itinerant trader. About thirty miles from Merida, connected by railway with Progreso on the Yucatan coast, which is easily reached by steamer from Havaña, some of the most interesting Aztec ruins in existence are to be found. The climate is salubrious, and there is no risk to health. Stephens (quoted by Mr. Beecher in his very readable "Trip to Mexico") speaks of having discovered the remains of fortyfour ancient cities there, most of them but a short distance apart, with but few exceptions all lost, buried, and unknown, some of them perhaps never looked upon by the eyes of a white man. Their origin is buried in profound mystery, but one curious fact came under my notice which may throw a ray of light on an interesting question. A beetle is found at Merida, a specimen of which Captain Buckley showed us, used by ladies in Yucatan as an ornament on their dress, where it walks about, adorned with a gold pair of stays, and literally living on air. Singularly enough, the only other place where the beetle is found is Egypt. Did the Aztecs come originally from the land of the Pharaohs I confess that when I saw the Mexican peasant women walking in the pretty garden in front of the cathedral, and observed the way in which they concealed their faces, carried their loose blue robes, and daintily moved themselves over the ground, I was instantly reminded of the Arab women I used to see on the Nile nearly forty years ago. A vase of native pottery, purchased at Otumba, and given to me by a kind fellowtraveller, has a face on it of a distinctly Egyptian type. Just south of Yucatan there is the settlement of British Honduras, which, occupied by us long before the Monroe doctrine was heard of, and too long immured in obscurity, is now claiming recognition as a promising locality for the British colonist. It has much to say for itself. This Crown colony is twice the size of Jamaica, its gay little capital is Belize, with 10,000 people, and it ought to have a great future before it, not only for the mahogany trade, which makes a sale of not more than £50,000 a year, but for minor industries, such as fruit, cocoa, tobacco, vanilla, spices. There is plenty of big shooting in the shape of jaguars, pumas, alligators, tiger-cats, and peccaries. The population is 27,000, of which 2 per cent. are whites, with a mountain range of 3,500 feet, and a seaboard of 160 miles. An elaborate report (from which I am now quoting) has been written on the colony by

Mr. D. Morris, director of the public gardens in Jamaica, and just appointed second in command at the Kew Gardens. He considers it, from its vicinity both to New Orleans and New York, as being more favourably placed than any of the West India islands for the development of the fruit trade. It is his opinion that in this way a more permanent prosperity might eventually be built up than ever existed in the palmy days of slavery. Minerals are not yet found. The wild turkey, toucan, partridge, whistling duck, pigeon, parrot, eagle, vulture, osprey, and hawk are found there. There is excellent fish and turtle. The greatest nuisance is the leaf-cutting ant, which can easily be destroyed with boiling water and carbolic acid. The vegetation on the banks of the old river is described as being wonderfully beautiful. Silk, cotton, and other trees abound, covered with orchids. There is a profusion of palms, ferns, and pine-apples. The india-rubber tree is also found, called toonee. The temperature is very equable, the atmosphere dry; in the winter there are cold northerly winds. The rainfall is from 70 to 80 inches annually. At present Belize can be reached only from New Orleans. This makes it inaccessible.

The Bank of Campeachy passed, we enter the Gulf of Mexico, to which Great Britain and the entire north of Europe owe such an unspeakable debt, for here it is that the Gulf Stream is formed, presently to emerge into the North Atlantic, and with its beneficent heat to warm our shores, which otherwise would have the climate of Labrador. Its waters are strewed with the beautiful sargasso. But now we had to face the possibility of not being able to land at Vera Cruz in time to see the city of Mexico, notwithstanding our more than six thousand miles of salt water traversed for this very thing. At this season of the year what is called a "norther" is apt to blow on the coast, and with such violence and steadiness that for five days together communication may be impracticable between shipping and the shore. For us, however, things turned out singularly fortunate. A strong norther had been blowing up to the night previous to our arrival

we had a taste of it on entering the gulfbegan to blow again two days after we left, and continued blowing until the evening before our re-embarkation. I thus had my six days clear for the land. Quite easily, however, it might have happened otherwise, and it is a contingency to be taken into account by all who choose this route for

Mexico with little time to spare. When the northers cease to blow, the heat and rains stir up the fever, and make the place a chamber of death.

merable orchids, which, alas !—for it is midwinter-are not now in bloom. All about here there lurks a deadly miasma, breeding a fever even more deadly than that of Panama, and the "vomito" asserts its sway to within a very few miles of Orizaba. Cordova is a lovely spot, also very unhealthy, famous for fruit and vegetables, and all tropical products-a sort of garden of the Lord. At the railway station the native women were selling beautiful pine-apples at 3d. apiece, large baskets of oranges, wonderful for colour, size, and flavour, for a shilling, besides many other fruits. As we drove along we saw the coffee-tree, with its pretty red berries carefully shaded by other trees, acting as umbrellas. This coffee, which is among the finest in the world, never comes into the market, being kept for private consumption. Here we are between 3,000 and 4,000 feet high, the mountains are exquisitely soft in hue, with a fine, jagged outline, and clothed with timber. Besides coffee, india-rubber, tobacco, oranges (two crops in the year), pines and bananas are freely cultivated. From Metlac station we run along the edge of the great barranca or ravine of Metlac, quite the finest thing on this side of Orizaba, with the river in a deep gorge hundreds of feet below, in front a spider-like viaduct spanning the chasm, apparently at rightangles to the track over which we are running, but which we have to cross, and presently do cross, with, I suppose, the sharpest and awkwardest twist engineers have ever planned. Up above us, on the opposite mountain, we see the road we have to climb, now crossing a bridge, now losing itself in a cutting, now absorbed in a tunnel, but presently emerging on the lofty elbow of the mountain, where it turns quite away and disappears. It was very fine. At the same time I think it has been just a little overrated; and travellers who have crossed by the St. Gothard from Lucerne to Milan, though they have not rushed through the tropical vegetation of the Mexican railway, may console themselves with the conviction that nothing in all the world beats the Swiss and Italian Alps, and nothing compensates for the want of snow. It was darkening as we entered Orizaba, but huge bars of orange colour lit up the sky, and had almost the effect of an Aurora Borealis. Orizaba we found a delightful place for a Sunday's repose. The little town has a very Spanish look about it; the vegetation is rich, and the snowy peak of Orizaba, as clear as possible, looked straight into our rooms. Next day

At six on the Friday morning the captain's cheery voice was heard, "Orizaba is in sight." There it was, on the starboard side of the ship, rising like a little white cloud out of the rim of the yellowing horizon, ninety miles away. In three hours more we were off Vera Cruz,* a singularly picturesque city, with its long, glittering line of warehouses, churches, and public buildings, Orizaba, now in full majesty, lifting up its dome of snow above a distant chain of inferior mountains. We had heard that the railway folk sometimes attach a passenger carriage to a goods train, leaving at 10.30, and running as far as Orizaba. Was not it a delightful moment (which only old travellers can quite appreciate) when the tardy health boat came alongside, and Captain Powell, the courteous manager of the line at Vera Cruz, came up to us, and explained that he had made arrangements for our going up to Orizaba at once, and that the train was waiting our arrival? Our luggage was ready; we went straight to the railway pier without entering the town at all, and in less than half an hour we were travelling through the terra caliente, which extends for some miles from the sea to the foot of the mountains, once more on the North American continent, and on the very track of Cortes. The line at first passes through somewhat close thickets, worthless for cultivation, and used as ambush ground, to the cost of the railway traffic, during the late revolution. Presently it begins to ascend, and there is a station at Soledad, where the English, Spanish, and French troops in 1862 held a conference with the Mexicans, in the end the English and Spanish withdrawing, and the French, under Bazaine, their cleverest general, remaining, with what final results my readers do not need to be told. At Paso del Macho the fine scenery begins. On one side is a lofty wall of sloping mountain, richly wooded at the foot, and an immense plain, stretching away as far as the eye can reach, verdant and glittering in A Fairlie engine is now drawing the train, and it is a steady climb. At Atoyac there is a great chasm in the mountains, with a lovely waterfall; a rich parasitical vegetation covers - I might say strangles-the trees, and there are innu

the sun.