Well, you know, or ought to know, what to do if you want nothing.'

'I would have been perfectly content if I had got that,' was the chilling reply; 'but misrepresentation and calumny, you cannot for the sake of others reply to, is what was generously added in my case. Now that I am independent of their help and don't need their friendship, they are kind enough to regard me from the standpoint of my bank account at 'Frisco ; while from that of my character, such as it has been, they have never troubled to look. They can go their ways and I'll go mine; the world is big enough for all of us.'

'You've found out what Dr. Johnson found out, and what every man has to discover in this world of ups and downs,' was my reply.

'I forget what the grand old doctor said.'

'Some years ago I committed a passage from that very bitter letter of his to memory.

Chesterfield:

It was to Lord

""Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it, till I am solitary and cannot impart it, till I am known and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself."'

'Very true, and my position down to the ground; but let us change the subject. We ask to be forgiven sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris, don't we?

'It's always been a dream of mine, and it's a pity it is a dream,' he broke off suddenly, 'but if you could put the old Crown of England in that union there'and he pointed to the spangled banner as he spoke' and had a real Confederation of the English-speaking races, with a federal government, we'd be getting very near to Tennyson's

"Parliament of man, the federation of the world."

As far as I can see, there are only two races which deserve much talking about, the Anglo-Saxon and the Chinese.'

'Why the latter?' was my query.

'Because you have got 360,000,000 of people in a huge tank which will burst some day, and some people will get drowned, that's all. The invasion of the

Goths will be child's play to it.'

'I cannot say I love Ah Foo and his friends,' I added; their ideas of luxurious enjoyment are, to put it very mildly, of a decidedly eccentric cast, and they are not apostles of high-class morality wherever they go; besides, they are desperate thieves. You know,' I continued, how the Red Indians describe the various races with whom they are brought into contact?'

'No,' Jackson said, 'I don't.'

"Well, they say "King George's man (Britisher) very good; American, good; nigger, not good; Chinaman, worse than dog." But that's not all the matter. China's a huge question, which is not a pleasant out

look to contemplate. By the way, I don't think our friends, the Germans and French, would appreciate your confining the important races of the world to the Anglo-Saxon and heathen Chinee,' I remarked.

'Oh! of course I intended to limit myself only to those peoples which never lose their nationality, so to speak. The German emigrates, it is true, but he soon becomes an American or Englishman, and adopts quickly English or American habits and ways of thought, while the Anglo-Saxon and the Chinaman preserve their idiosyncrasies wherever they may be. The former, being essentially aggressive, grafts more or less of his laws and customs sooner or later on every country wherever he may be found-and where is he not to be found? while the emigrant Chinaman never assimilates to our standard, but remains a Chinaman. It is quite possible that John Chinaman may be just as aggressive as the Anglo-Saxon one of these days, and in a very different fashion. France, of course, has never been a colonising power, and never will be ; the French, as a rule, are the most homesick people on the face of the earth, and their influence on the world is always neutralised by their political instability. What do you think of the politics of a people who change their form of Government about every ten years, and who, as the consequence of their own folly, have heard three times in less than sixty years the tramp of conquering invaders marching through the streets of their capital? and not only experienced that, but fought among themselves about that drivelling motto, "Liberty, equality, and fraternity," while the German armies were actually occupying their soil.'

e;

On the conclusion of our conversation we enjoyed a siesta, and afterwards returned to our old quarters on deck to resume our old occupations of chatting de omnibus rebus. The wind was still fair, and so it continued in fact till we reached Kandavu.

On the library shelves of the Belle Frances was a tin box, which contained a number of manuscript memoranda of my friend, on various matters of interest connected with Polynesia, and to these documents I had unlimited access during the voyages I made in his company. They dealt with every conceivable subject, from the dimensions of historical canoes, and the traditions of the Tahitians, to specifications of the most modern machinery for an estate which Jackson hoped some day to have the needful capital to work profitably. One of the most interesting was a copy of the native tradition of the deluge in Tahiti, which will, I think, bear repetition here. Poor Jackson told me he got his copy from a French missionary.

'Destroyed was Tahiti by the sea; no man, nor hog, nor fowl, nor dog remained. The groves of trees and the stones were carried away by the wind. They were destroyed, and the deep was over the land. But these two persons, the husband and the wife (when it came in), the wife took up her young chicken, the husband took up his young pig: the wife took up her young dog, and the kitten, the husband took up that. They were going forth, and looking at Orofena (the high mountain in Tahiti). The husband said, "Up, both of us, to yonder mountain high." The wife replied, "No, let us not go thither." The husband said, "It is a high, or long rock, and will not be

reached by the sea ;" but the wife replied, " Reached will it be by the sea yonder. We two on the mountain, round as a breast, O Pitohiti; it will not be reached by the sea." They two arrived there.

'Orofena was overwhelmed by the sea, that mountain Pitohiti' (Anglicè, ' alone') 'remained; that was

their abode.

'There they watched nights ten; the sea ebbed, and they saw the little heads of the mountains in their elevation. When the sea dried, or retired, the land remained without produce, without man, and the fish was putrid in the caves and holes of the rocks. They said, "Dig a hole for the fish in the sea." The wind. also, was becoming feeble, and when it was dead, or calm, the stones and the trees began to fall from the heavens, thither they had been carried by the wind. All trees of the land had been torn up and carried high by wind. They two looked about, and the woman said, "Safe are we two from the sea, but death, or hurt, comes now in these stones that are falling. Where shall we abide ?" Torn by the roots up had been all the trees, and carried above the pathway of the rain in the heavens.

"Dig a hole, for us two a dwelling place." The hole was dug, covered with grass the bottom of the hole, or cave; stones were spread on the top of the whole, and these covered over with earth. While these two were sitting within, they heard with terror the loud voice of the falling stones. Now they fell more thinly, then one little stone at a time fell, and afterwards ceased entirely.

'The woman said, "Arise you, and advance without,