respond to the kind invitation of "Tilly, Tilly, come and be killed." In fact, by far the hardest problem of all is to discover why Brazil has sunk so much money in these vast ironclads. They have proved, so far, anything but a blessing, since the Government were forced to yield to the demands of the mutineers in the first outbreak, despite the fact that the men were unable to work the big cannon; and in the second disturbance, when the marines revolted on Cobras Island, the ships, though loyal, were of little avail, as most of the breechblocks had been officially removed from the guns! It seems rather unworthy to suggest that the mere childish joy of possession prompted the purchase, but it is no easy matter to adduce any other motive. Despite the appalling frequency of revolutions in some of the South American Republics,2 Brazil has enjoyed a certain amount of continuity. True, that just of late she has gained a somewhat unenviable notoriety, but that was partly due to the presence of the President in Lisbon immediately before the deposition of King Manoel, while it must not be supposed that the two mutinies were of a political nature. Notwith

standing this, the general instability of the States affords another striking contrast to the northern half of the great continent. And the reason is not hard to seek. From the commencement the pioneers in the Virginias and elsewhere migrated thither with the intention of permanent settlement. Bigotry and intolerance had driven them from their old homes in search of a purer air, but the memories, the customs, and traditions of their race were graven indelibly in their minds. The model of the old laws was before them, and in founding a new Constitution they had only to reject what was putrid and corrupt, to retain all that was sound and good. So even when the immense wealth of the new country was developed, the structure withstood the strain and temptation of sudden success, for it was founded on a rock.

In the south the case was otherwise. For decades it had been the paradise of the adventurer. The Spaniards and Portuguese, who drained it of its gold and its life-blood, were no martyrs or victims of implacable persecution. They were for the most part needy, out-at-elbows gentlemen, discontented with the meagre

note.

years.

plunder, so that they might return as soon as possible, and ruffle it with the best in Lisbon or Madrid. Of late years that Of late years that has changed, it is true. Since the yoke of Spain and Portugal has been cast aside, since the coffee of Brazil, the rich pampas of the Argentine, the nitrates of Chili have pointed a royal road to wealth, it has become the refuge of the overcrowded Latin nations; but even now the leaders are but feebly groping for stability. The habits of centuries are not lightly thrown aside, and the old parasitism, the feeling of getting what one can out of the country, is hard to kill.

In their efforts to organise a better state of of affairs, the Brazilian statesmen are undoubtedly sincere; it is the method which one feels instinctively to be at fault. Old wine cannot be put in new bottles, and old ideas and institutions cannot be grafted on a brand-new country. They have been content to imitate, where creation should have been their aim. The Constitution has been modelled on that of other Republics: the Code is but a wholesale adoption: it seems as if they had delved in the cemetery of old-world ideas, and mistaken resurrection for a genesis.

There is a constant clamour for reform, but though the Government may change, the old abuses thrive and flourish. In the Chamber, oratory takes the place of business. Theory rather than action seems the

These are undoubtedly the faults of immaturity and inexperience, and the same excuse extends to other details, which are apt to jar upon the newcomer, accustomed maybe to the more tried and formal methods of the Old World. The truth is that Brazil is paying the penalty for too meteoric a development. She has come of age straight from her swaddling - clothes, as it were, and the process of "getting the edges rubbed off" has yet to be undergone. The Anglo-Saxon is apt to get ruffled at the "freshness of brand-new officialdom-more so, perhaps, owing to the inclusion of a large number of negroes; whilst it certainly grates at times to see a full-blooded black wearing the uniform of a captain. But it is no use tilting at windmills, and the too fastidious must either give Brazil a wide berth, or inoculate themselves by a trial visit to Hayti or Liberia.

"

Something of this, no doubt, is reflected in the criticism so often flung by the Brazilians against the representatives of the foreign powers,-their exclusiveness and lack of sympathy towards all things dealing with the country. Undoubtedly there is a certain amount of truth in this, but

at the same time extenuating circumstances can be urged. The true diplomat is a true Pharisee in his own eyes he is the salt of the earth, a member of a large cosmopolitan family, whose exclusiveness is not only notorious in Rio, but also in London, Berlin, Vienna, in fact wherever this august body is wont to assemble. So

that on that score the Brazilian need not be unduly

sensitive.

But in Brazil this exclusiveness is intensified by the further barrier of place. The prevalence of yellow fever some years ago in Rio, as well as the desire to substitute the cool air of the hills for the sultry steaminess of the coast, caused the representatives of the foreign nations to migrate to Petropolis, right up in the Organ Mountains, and it is in that strange little hanging garden, set, as it were, on the roof of the world, that the Corps Diplomatique consort. A cog A cog railway takes one up there, and the view, as it winds past the queer knoll that caps the Lion Mountain, is magnificent, if not unique. From here the gorgeous bay, Rio itself, showing soft and velvet at that distance, and the green fertile plains that slope upwards to the mountains, make a truly impressive spectacle. kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them are stretched before one.

The

It just needed this isolation to make the exclusiveness of the Corps Diplomatique complete. True that many of the rich Brazilians have their villas

there for the hot season, but even so they go down to business every day, so that any chances of intimacy are few and far between. Added to this, there is the absence of gaiety, theatres, opera, all the joys of life life to which the foreigners are accustomed in other capitals, so it is little wonder that, like men stationed in other lonely parts, they acquire the habit of "counting the moons" to their departure or transference to another sphere of work. Nor can one entirely neglect another factor, to which reference has been made elsewhere, and that is the colour question. The majority of Europeans have their particular views on this subject, and until the millennium dawns human nature will be the same. It is one of the few subjects where indulgence and intolerance fail to strike a happy mean, and is regrettably responsible for much of the unpleasantness to which we have alluded. It is a point that cannot be omitted, but now that it has been mentioned the less we dwell upon it the better.

On several occasions during this article it has been a difficult matter to avoid comparison between the two portions of the American continent. Just as the last century has marked the vast development of the United States, so this century, on which we are already embarked, will bring an era of marvellous prosperity to these southern Republics. The last few years have given an earnest of what this may mean, if we

study the huge fortunes already amassed in Brazil, the Argentine, and Chili. Many another State will share in the general prosperity, but the three mentioned cannot but forge ahead. The result of their efforts to establish things on a firmer basis, to "set their house in order," as it were, will be doubly instructive. Brazil is singularly blessed by nature, for apart from her amazing fertility, her mineral wealth must be wellnigh inexhaustible. Young as she is, she is confronted by some grave dangers, and what the final outcome will be, time and time alone can show. Yet, when we remember how she rose to the occasion so early in her financial success, and solved the peril of over-production of her main asset, there is little fear that she will not work out her own salvation. The problem of self-government is not to be solved in a day, and, whatever her shortcomings may be, one must judge her not by the settled standard of success, which has only been reached by centuries of toil and compromise, but by comparison with the mother-country. The verdict can be nothing but "well done," for in so brief a space Brazil has achieved wonders. The child has outstripped the parent, and the limits of

her future influence are only bounded by herself. The chance awaits her of leading the van of a continent, of summoning the blood and energy of the Latins, which the degenerate races in Europe spurn and thrust aside; and the Anglo-Saxons, with all their future centred in Canada and the States, cannot but observe with interest the progress of their near neighbours and rivals, who during the march of this century will challenge them in wealth, industry, and power. The very magnitude of the opportunity will force its own development.

Once more, as the Blue Peter flies from the masthead, Rio dons her fairest garb. Beneath the rays of the afternoon sun the Sugarloaf Hill stands out a blazing mass of indigo, while far away on the western sky the cloud-capped barrier of the Organ Mountains is tinged with pink. So the liner picks her way out, and before the rocks shut out the view we catch once more a glimpse of that fair city, set in her summer bay with its thousand jewelled islands. While far out to sea there comes as a last jocose reminder of all her incongruities, the strange church-shaped peak of the penal settlement of Fernando Noronha.

CYRIL CAMPBELL.

CALL the Cotswold country a ragged polygon lying askew on the map of Gloucestershire, and overlapping Oxfordshire and Worcestershire by ever so little. It may be traced from Burford almost due north to Chipping Norton and Chipping Campden; from Campden up to Evesham, and down to Cleeve Hill, just excluding Cheltenham; thence out fanwise to Stroud, Cirencester, Fairford; and back, in a line shaped like a scythe, through Lechlade and Bampton and Witney, to Burford again. As if there were question of a feared exclusion from Paradise, boroughs so far south as Malmesbury and even Bath, or so far north as Stratford-onAvon, have been claimed by the enthusiastic as true Cotswold. The boundaries may look illiberal. They are really a question of personality, and may be left to those who can best feel the spirit of place. By no other count could one have the heart to exclude, for instance, Tewkesbury. What is certain is that it spoils the game Nature means to play here, to drag in large towns. Oxford, Cheltenham, Gloucester, are on the very borders of the imagined pale; but Evesham and Cirencester are part of it, within it. The first three are outstanding porches of the Cotswolds, with their civilised pavements and electric lamps. The two smallest and last are little recessed rustic gates,

through which one steps straight into the grass.

The region in question, hardly more than thirty miles across at its widest, is traversed by a range of oolite hills, interesting in the extreme to geologists. It is in a railwaybraided land, but trains are found only upon the outskirts of it-with the exception of one short line, a funny absentminded little line, which has begun to tiptoe about within a few years. The heavenly valleys of the Churn, the Colne, the Lech, and the Windrush (once Winris) are as yet free from a rail or a cinder, and, what is more, are likely to be as they are for long. Of all the pellucid streams, only the Evenlode is so much as touched by the demon of utility, represented by the engines of the G.W.R. As for the roads, they are excellently kept, but being favourites of Heaven, they have received the grace of keeping fairly free, so far, from motor travel. Some of these are fifteen centuries old, and still the chief highways of the district. Small sections of Ermin Street and Akeman Street, and many oblique leagues of the sylvan Foss Way, carry you along with Alfred and with Rupert in the wake of the subjugating Roman who first laid them straight through the heart of the province. They were brave sights once, with the Gloucester-toLondon stage-coaches rattling