The

State assistance could afford. home-countries then, naturally enough, would look for some return from their investments, and may even have regarded the colonial lands as a species of security.

Nor must the colonies be regarded according to the analogy of grown-up sons and daughters becoming emancipated and setting up separate establishments. It is not always safe to apply human analogies to political and social phenomena; and this analogy is one which, while natural enough if not pressed, is yet only applicable according to Greek principle and model, and is wholly inapplicable to the character of colonial empire and development of the present era. Greek colonization was, no doubt, an extension of the nationality; but there was no corresponding extension of the State. For the Greek State was the City, and any extension beyond that was a breaking away and the formation of a new community. The Greek world was, perhaps, a moral, but it certainly was not a political unity.

The modern colonial conception has been the exact opposite of the Greek. It has conceived the State to be the nation, and so far is logically justified; but it has, at the same time, assumed a control in the original State over the extensions only justifiable on the grounds of conquest and possession. It is this conception and this assumption that dominated the policy of all the past empires, restricting their energies, and sowing far and wide the seeds of enmity, discord, and disintegration, which in time ripened and wrought their baneful and fatal effects.

Colonies, in our new view of empire, must be regarded as integral parts of the one State, which, while possessing local and individual interests, have yet their main interests common to those of the whole, and entitled as such to have their rights and liberties safeguarded with the same jealous care as are those of each and every county, or city, or burgh, or village in the homecountry. The oceans should be regarded as connecting links, not as lines of severance, between the mother-country

and the colonies. There should be no restrictions placed in the way of trade and commerce calculated in any way to counteract the sense of national unity and sympathy, but every endeavor should be made to make each and every part feel the impulse of their common life.

The theory that prosperous colonies tend to acquire a strength of their own which leads them to demand equal rights with the home-country has been demonstrated; and it has also been shown by bitter experience—as witness the War of Independence that, if these are refused, they incline to seek, and at times obtain, independence.

While the former statement remains philosophically true, the latter results. need never follow if the conception of colonies and empire is altered to that for which we are here contending, namely, an extension at once of the Nation and of the State concurrent and co-extensive.

There can be little doubt that this aspect of empire and colonization has been receiving, of late years in Britain, ever-widening acceptance, and the results so far promise to work out satisfactorily. It remains to be seen how far these other nations now entering into imperial competition with Britain are able to profit by the lessons of the past. They have certainly in the British Empire a striking present exemplification of the growing results of the altered modern conception, and they can see an Empire covering nearly a fourth part of the earth's surface practically a single nation, possessing unity of race, religion, language, literature, and history; dominated in its social life, in its politics, and in its commerce by principles the most liberal, and attaining in that way an influence and extent far surpassing anything previously known; assimilating all secondary or alien elements in its own special composite type-one which embodies the best national characteristics; and extending its language, its influence, its ideas, and its trade beyond its own boundaries to such an extent as to bid fair to become the real World-Empire.

The phenomenal prosperity of the

British Empire is the best proof of the soundness of the principles upon which it is based, and the best excuse for the feelings of envy and rivalry it has roused in other nations. At the same time these considerations should form the highest incentives to British statesmen and administrators to spare no

efforts that will tend to render the moral and natural unity a real political fact, that it may undeviatingly continue to pursue and further the great humanitarian ends it proudly professes as its guiding principles.-Westminster Review.

IF knowledge is power, it is ugliness as well very often; and frequently the old ways of ignorance are those of beauty. Take, for example, the great Lisbon aqueduct, a striking monument to ignorance of the ways of water. Look at the careful construction, the miles of stone canal, the solid masonry of the bridges, the many arches, and the careful levelling, with the little towers and breathing-holes all along to give air to the precious element. And all this careful work because this petted child, the clear stream from the Serra, cannot run up-hill! Not one inch of ascent can that stream perform, at whatever height is its birthplace in the mountains; and therefore its road must be levelled accordingly. And that was apparently the state of scientific knowledge in the Portuguese mind in the eighteenth century.

It would be an impertinence to say, at the present day, that ignorance of the power of water is the parent of the Portuguese water-system in Madeira. It is something else surely which causes the seeming attitude of deferential courtesy to that necessary element in the lovely little island. The consequences are so quaint and beautiful that the artist at least would have no need to quarrel with them.

Madeira lies like a cut emerald upon the brilliance of the sea. There is no setting of golden sands. Sheer down from the crater peaks, in the centre, rolled the lava in the old days when Atlantis was submerged, and only the topmost heights were left to become the golden islands of the west. And now

66

these peaks are clothed in living, waving green. Down by the sea lies Funchal, the little capital, and on the land sides rise the green walls of the hills. Here, more than in any place that I know, one is reminded of Ruskin's description of the hills as a woven garment gathered up in God's hands, and shaken into deep falling folds, as the robes droop from a king's shoulder. The rivers, leaping into cataracts along the hollows of its fall, and all its forests rearing themselves aslant against its slopes.' It is a wide garment, and the folds of the Serra lie deep, and involved; breaking here and there into rocks and clefts, and leading into narrow valleys and glens, which in their turn broaden and brighten into vineyards, and plots of maize, among the tiny cottages above the sea. But the streams and cataracts of winter dry in the summer's sun. The wells are comparatively few, and river-other than these mountain streams-there is none. Great need there is, therefore, to utilize the countless springs which rush and play in ceaseless motion in the heart of the mountains; and the Portuguese. Government, awaking to the necessity of the irrigation of crops in the dry scason and the occasional propriety of ablution even in. the winter months, determined to bring the water from the mountains to the lower lands.

Now, had the island consisted of a sugar-loaf with a well at the top, it might have been considered a comparatively simple task to cut channels down. the sides and let the water run. But Madeira is by no means of that shape.

Hills lie within hills, valleys run round and are blocked, and streams arise behind high walls of rock and verdure while parched lands lie on the other side. Clearly the water had need of administration, and administered it accordingly was. The springs were traced to their sources away in the folds of the mountain. They were allowed to flow, some according to their own sweet will, others getting an assisted passage some hundreds of feet down; and then long cuttings along the scarps of the hills were made, and careful channels constructed for the tiny rivers (all levelled to a foot), that the water might flow in safe and even passage for miles and miles of wood and hill, through tunnels in the rock where the landscape was obstinate in not getting out of the way, but the stream always uncovered, and never up-hill.

To understand the system, however, its queer beauties and its cumbrous elaboration, you should come as we did to the head-centre of its operations for one side of the island, and see for yourself. We start from Funchal in a small coasting-steamer on a bright morning in July. Leaving the little town, with its grass-grown streets, red roofs, and white walls gleaming in the hot morning sun, we steam past the rocky heights where the cliffs of Girao look sheer down from their two thousand feet upon the sea. We stop here and there at tiny clusters of houses, where the ship disgorges its load of peasant passengers, and in rather less than three hours are in Calheta. The sea, which looks like a heaving mass of liquid blue dye, blue in shadow as in sunshine, rolls in heavy waves upon a beach composed of stones twice as big as your head for sands. As our boat draws near, a dozen half-clad young fellows rush forward into the sea with wooden poles or rollers, which they fling beneath the approaching boat; and when the waves drive us up over the rollers, these men clutch the boat and draw it up upon the stones. Out we jump, and look round upon the most sun-baked shelterless stretch of shore imaginable. Bare rocks at your feet, bare rocks, with here and there prickly

pears or aloes as sole vegetation, above you, and your only prospect out of it a walk, or a passage in a hammock, of half a mile to a village which you see lying on the sides of a mountain stream which runs down to the shore at that distance, Calheta. Half-a-dozen eager brown faces close round you. They scent employment for the thews and muscles visible under their scanty raiment. They know that no stranger lands at Calheta for pure love of that delectable spot, and guess rightly that you are en route for the hills above, and the springs of many waters at Rabaçal. Yes," say you, we want to go up to the house of shelter (Casa de Abrigo), and we want hammocks to carry us, and men to take our luggage." For away up at Rabaçal, there is no village, no inn,-nothing but the juncture of many waterways, and a house of shelter where you may claim admittance if you have license from the Senhor Administrador. So your blankets are taken with you, and your food; you will get a roof to cover you, a deal table to take your food upon, and a bare bed to lie upon, also plates to eat from, and cups to drink from; but nothing in the shape of luxury, unless a few square inches of looking-glass fixed to a wall may do duty in that light. If you have untiring limbs and a brainpan as stout as that of a Hottentot, you may walk up the 3700 feet which are before you.

If not, do as we did: get into a hammock of blue webbing tied to a stout bamboo pole, let three men hoist it to their shoulders, and lie back and roast.

Up we go, by dusty roads whose peculiar atrocity we failed to understand until we saw the country carts usel upon them. The wheels of these vehicles are struck round with projecting bosses of iron, " in order to take a good grip of the road." Of course each one takes away a good grip of the earth. and dust and loose rocks of which the road is composed, and scatters the king's highway around generally, with consequences that are not soothing to the feelings of the pedestrian. However, up we go,-dusty, hot, perspiring, but hopeful, as Calheta, the unspeak

able, recedes, and the pine-woods are reached. Hot places, though, are pinewoods, as we find, and when somebody says, "Here is the Levada at length, and we can walk," we joyfully unpack ourselves and turn out upon our feet. Around stretches a wide amphitheatre of mountains clothed with fern and heather; and cut around the sides is a perfectly level walk beside the watercourse or Levada, which runs close to the mountain-side in its stone bed. A mile's walk, and then we come to the narrow black tunnel into which the water runs. A bundle of bamboos or of cedar sticks is lighted for a torch, and we plunge into the darkness and the cold. The water drips from the rock above our heads, making pools upon the uneven footway. The Levada flows black and gleaming in the torchlight beside us, and the tramp of the guides, the click of their long staves upon the rocks, and the sound of their voices, echo around. us for three-quarters of a mile. Then we emerge upon the dazzling sunlight. We have come out of the gates of darkness into a new and glorious world. It is like passing from the cold gloom of death to the warm splendor of another life. On all sides tower the mountains, peak upon peak. Here a sudden crag of red or gray rock, there the long, gentle swell of woods. Below us fall the valleys, and we hear the rush of waters in the ravines; and everywhere the leaping, living mass of foliage sways in the sweet air. Far away to the north, behind the velvet folds of the hills, we see below us the sea, and only enough of it to give that feeling of freedom, that hint of possibility and light in the distance, which means so much to frail mortality.

Our sturdy bearers laugh and jest now that their task is nearly over, for between two and three hundred feet above us, perched on a rock in that vast eternal amphitheatre, stands the place of our destination, the Casa de Abrigo -no other dwelling visible on all these lines of hills. The Casa is covered by many roofs, at all angles, perched up and down the sides of the rock. The walls are thick, as they would need to

be, for winter storms can rage here, and snow may fall at this height, which is unheard of down at Calheta and Funchal. The ancient servitor comes out to greet us-the keeper of the house, who has lived in this solitude for forty years; and we show our credentials and are put into possession of a bed, a wash-stand, a deal table, and a form. We rejoice over the washstand, which was more than we had hoped for, and proceed to invigorate the inner as well as the outer man. There is an old kitchen with stone fireplaces in a row, and there is fuel and water everywhere, so we settle down and are happy.

Next morning, when the sun wakes up the mountain crests before our window to their green and golden glory, we sally forth to such enjoyment that we can scarcely forbear exclaiming, "Oh, blessed ignorance, if that is what has made this paradise!" By winding rocky paths we descend to the first Levada, more than 3500 feet above the sea. We enter a level grassy glade beneath laurel and heather trees, and find the water "cool, silent, clear," flowing in its open bed, hugging the breast of the hill for miles and miles among the woods. The stony bed of the Levada is perhaps three feet deep, and the sides are so carefully kept, so pure of all defilement, that a golden leaf fallen to the bottom gleams like a jewel, and every waving fern or blade of grass is reflected in its mirror. Through arches of waving green, over mossy paths, we wander on, noting the brown depths of the stream, where an ancient til or laurel throws its dark shadow; the blue and silver sparkle under the bare sky, and the answering reflection of golden St. John's wort and purple cineraria. This pure, sweet, silent companion-never hurrying, never lagging-doubles the beauty of the path; for the dignity of the element requires that a path, broad enough for its servants, be kept beside it. And day by day, month by month, the levadeiros, or water-servants, walk for miles along its sides, clearing away leaves or weeds which drop into it, lifting a broken rock or a sod of earth, pruning the mosses, hacking the overhanging trees and

bushes, and carefully renewing the stone and mortar where they are broken or fretted away.

But the mountains are not all soft earth, and laurel, and heather trees. Jagged and stern stand out the great precipices of rock on its sides, sometimes of red, sometimes of gray or blue stone, and the Levada must have its bed cut for it, and the pathway beside it tunnelled through arching rocks. All along the line tiny cascades and runlets of water fall into the stream from above; but each Levada must have its source, and the one which we are following the "Riscos" or Scars-is so called because it starts from tunnelled cliffs rising some seven or eight hundred feet above us, all scarred and notched by the countless streams which steal over their sides. Within that Within that rugged stony bosom there is a perennial mighty flow, which starts beneath crevices, from overhanging crags, from fern-covered niches, and, sometimes falling in clouds of silver spray, sometimes in threads of never-ceasing rain like tears, sometimes in rushing currents which have worn channels and scars in the rough stone, reaches its rocky bed in the Levada, to start its quieter journey around the hills. Farther down-perhaps some five hundred feet below us-flows the younger sister stream, the Levada of the Twenty-Five Fountains, which also gets its name from its source, where, in a rocky glen, the five-and-twenty streams issue from the cliffs and are guided on their course. The whispering flow and rush of the many streams seem somehow to make that vast silence deeper and more lonely. Above us towers a wall of dripping rock, and over the boulders and pools at our feet hovers an opal mist. On one side of the precipice sleeps the gloom, where the rocks rise black and chill in the shadow, though a gleam of sun may show them red at heart. On the other hand lies the sunshine, making great golden stars of flowers high out of our reach, glittering on the shining laurel leaves, and lighting up the feathery green of the heather trees. The rocks on that side are clothed with

greenest oak, and draped with verdure as far as eye can reach.

If my words could paint, what a picture I would give of these glistening dark-red rocks, all plumed with green ferns and delicate silver mosses. The broken crags of stone and great boulders lying between the cliff-sides hold deep silent pools, green and dark, and reflect, here and there, the gray splintered branches of some giant til-tree or broken laurel. On this watercourse, however, we come to a rather startling revelation. Till now the Levada has been queen paramount: assisted, guided, waited upon, and most dutifully served and followed, but never coerced. Here, oh, horror! she is actually shut up-nay, even three or four of her are traitorously brought from different lovely kingdoms, and are first united in a small stone building and then put into pipes to cross a bridge in the dark, and there is a descent on one side of the bridge and an ascent on the other! And she bears this meekly enough, we have wondered why (in the name of all science and economy) she does not continue her course simply in a pipe along the hillside, as in more commonplace regions she would have to do. should great bastions be built up the cliff-sides to support a roadway for a stone watercourse and its servants, when a pipe might be run along so easiily, and no service be required to keep it in its place? From this lowest level -which, however, still maintains a trifling altitude of three thousand feet above the sea-we look up at the towering mountain walls, where the little Casa de Abrigo clings, gleaming white, to the rocks above, and where, behind and above it, still rise the green waves of another thousand feet of verdure. There is another Levada up there, on the very top of the island-a wild, strong, rollicking, uncivilized child of nature; and we will climb up toward the summit, to the great Paül, where the Madre d'Agua (Mother of waters) springs. The zigzag among the trees over a narrow rocky path once surmounted, we stand on the mountain wall, which runs up in shadowless

Why