"It must be remembered that the primary object of the steamers will be to convey a body of troops with the utmost rapidity to any given point and to render the land force extremely mobile. Owing to the narrowness of both lakes the capture of dhows would be very difficult, and with a favouring wind and the system of signals by beacon fires they would be able to make the run across of some thirty miles and defy capture, especially at night. The duties of the levies would be to follow caravans after landing and ascertain from whence they came, to go to places which were being devastated, and, having found out who were the slavers, to follow them up, punish them, and so stop the trade in its very origin.

"The further question now arises of the military force necessary to co-operate with the steamers and also to hold the road between the lakes, this being perhaps the most important point at which to check the slavetrade. Lord Salisbury speaks of expeditions and of millions of money. Was he aware that at Karonga on Lake Nyassa, a mere hasty entrenchment was held by six British against a very powerful Arab attack, and that the subsequent British attack upon an almost impregnable Arab stockade was carried out (though unsuccessfully) by a score of British, aided by raw, undisciplined native allies with ten days' training only? Often have I longed for a handful of our brave little Ghoorkhas, a few score of Pathans or Sikhs, such as I have known personally in India-disciplined, brave, and loyal to the death, whose faces, characters, and names I recall with the memories of Afghanistan, Burmah, and the Soudan.* .. Were terms of service offered such as tempted so many thousands into the military police levies raised for Upper Burmah, and were an officer whom they knew and trusted commissioned to raise such a corps as a nucleus, I have no fear of getting recruits in plenty. . . . As a nucleus it would be required for a very limited time, in order to show practically to the African the results of discipline, and so to aid in his military development. tribes of Africa do not want for courage and soldierly qualities. . . The headquarters should be situated on the high table-land midway between the lakes, where there is a healthy climate-detachments close to either lake would be available to send parties to co-operate with the steamers or small flying columns in any direction. A connecting outpost between these and headquarters-all strongly stockaded-would entirely dominate the caravan (slave) routes, while a concentration of all the available force (after allowing for the garrison of stockades) would be sufficient to coerce even the most powerful of slavers. Attached to the force should be some three mountain battery' guns and three machine guns, the latter for the defence of the stockades, the former in view of any necessary offensive action against a stockaded position. To estimate the approximate cost of such a levy is diffi cult. A complement of eight British officers at first would, I think, be necessary, in order to organize, restrain, and discipline a levy of raw savages; to supervise the equipment, to teach them the rudiments of good shooting, to handle them in the field, to build the stockades and fortifications, and to be available to accompany any force required by the steamers or for an inland expedition.

....

"Supposing the superior officers to be seconded' British officers, and allowing two of the junior posts to be given to men peculiarly qualified either by local knowledge or long experience in the recent South African wars, the

* Great weight will attach to his plans and calculations when Captain Lugard's services and experience are brought into account. In 1879-80 he took part in the relief of Cabul: he was present at the battle of Saidabad (medal). He served in the Soudan campaign of 1885 with the Indian contingent (medal with clasp and Khedive's star), and again in Burmah, holding the "Distinguished Service Order" for his services

there.

approximate staff pay of the former (in addition to pay of their army rank) and the total cost of the latter would amount to £2000 per annum (or, including army pay of rank, a total cost of about £3600 to the State). Assuming a maximum of 1000 rank and file raised locally, and estimating the pay, clothing, and food of the various ranks, we arrive at a total cost of some £6300 per annum. I have endeavoured to show that at a total initial cost of under £7000 two steamers could be placed on the two lakes. The first would operate on the great commercial waterway connection with the Shiré and Zambesi, and the second (to the north on Lake Tanganyika) would be in touch with the newly acquired territories of the German and English East African Associations. In the second place, and at a yearly cost of about £9000, a force fully adequate could be maintained to guard the plateau between them and supply flying columns in any direction to be landed at any point by the steamers. The yearly maintenance of these I have estimated at £820 each."

Captain Lugard goes on to show that this would be a maximum expenditure, and that the development would be gradual-one steamer at a time and so forth. Moreover, it seems right to imagine that the African Lakes Company (whose business would increase in inverse ratio to the decline of the slave trade) should subscribe very largely, both in the sinews of war and conveyance of material at very moderate rates. Personally I see no reason why the scheme should not be cut in halves, particularly as this obviously proper treatment of the slave trade is being advocated in other quarters. Why should not Captain Cameron undertake Lake Tanganyika, with which his name is so honourably connected, and Captain Lugard be induced to remain on Nyassa, with which he is so intimately acquainted?

It only remains to speak of the natives themselves on whom this deadly incubus of the slave trade sits, and for whom, as an affliction, it is heated up seven-fold by these Zanzibar coast Arabs. Here is what Captain Lugard has to say for them on the spot, after training and leading them, and testing their capabilities as no officer has ever done yet:

"The tribes around Nyassa and inland towards Tanganyika are all, without exception, friendly to the British. Karonga station, when at the last straits (besieged by the Arabs), was voluntarily relieved by 5000 natives, purely from their friendship to the British (as they were careful to point out). . . . The slave-traders alone have been the aggressors, and it was no slight matter for these tribes to incur their resentment and vengeance by thus saving the lives of the British. These were the Wa N'Kondé. When the subsequent expedition started, Atonga natives came forward from the West side eager to go where the trusted white man would lead them, leaving their homes and embarking in the steamer. Mambwi men from the Northern Highlands came and were equally ready; even the Wahenga, who, tempted originally by promises of the Wa N'Kondé country by the Arabs, had become their allies-these sent messages offering to come over to the British. Again the terrible Mangoni-the dreaded Zulus who dominate the whole country about lat. 10 E. to lat. 15 8 S. and westward of the lake, offered to come and fight for the British."

In short, Captain Lugard's schemes are but the more matured ideas

of Livingstone and a host of others. The expenditure proposed at this " right end of the stick" is a mere fraction of that which is uselessly squandered at the "wrong" one by our fleet of cruisers. Gordon knew, as well as Captain Lugard, that these wretched tribes of oppressed ones only require a backbone to be put into them to stiffen them against their oppressors, and the case was never more clearly put than in Cardinal Manning's words at the meeting held to listen to Cardinal Lavigerie's imploring appeal to our nation: "When the weak are trampled upon by the strong, it is the duty of the strong to deliver them." We content ourselves at present by catching, at enormous cost, one slave in fifteen or twenty afloat; we pay £5 per head prize-money to his captors, and an additional £5 to the missionaries who subsequently take him off our hands when we do not know what to do with him, and we reflect that ten of his kinsmen inland died in the operation which put him on board! Surely, if there is another end to such a stick as this, the sooner we go to Captain Lugard and try to handle it the better.

HORACE WAller.

66

CHRISTIANITY AND THE GEOCENTRIC"

SYSTEM.

THE

HE questions which arise out of the alleged contradictions between revealed religion and modern science almost of necessity take two shapes both of which stand apart alike from the literary and critical side of the controversy and from its purely moral side. Yet these two shapes severally answer to the purely moral and to the literary and critical side, and they severally employ much the same methods as are followed by those two sides. Of the two shapes here

spoken of, one deals directly with the doctrines of religion, the other only indirectly, through the documents in which those doctrines are believed to have been handed down. It is one thing to say that the language of the Old and New Testament contradicts the discoveries of modern science. It is another thing to say that the Christian system of theology is itself set aside by those discoveries. Both these pro

positions stand quite apart from critical objections to any of the books of the Old or New Testament, such objections, for instance, as that they are not of the date which has been commonly assigned to them and which in some cases they seem to claim for themselves. Both objections again stand no less apart from objections to the Christian system on such grounds, for instance, as that that system attributes to the Divine Being a course of action which goes against our natural notions of human justice. But the two forms of scientific objection exactly answer, the one to the critical, the other to the moral objection. To say that the Gospel attributed to Saint John cannot be the work of a contemporary of our Lord, and to say that the opening narrative of Genesis contradicts the results of geological research, are objections which, among many points of difference, have one point in common. What they directly attack is the record only. So the moral and the scientific objection have this in common, that they deal directly

with the doctrine itself and not merely with the record. Now objections to the record may in the end tell against the doctrine; but, as long as they deal directly with the record only, their form is that of ordinary criticism, literary, historical, or scientific. The immediate question is something like this, Did such a writer write such a book at such a time? Do such and such words of such a book contradict such and such an ascertained truth of geology or some other branch of natural science? These are important questions in themselves, and they may be more important in their results; but they are in themselves very humble questions compared with the deep searchings of heart which are stirred by the two other lines of argument. Is the Christian scheme itself, apart from its records, consistent, in the one case with moral, in the other with scientific truth?

Now it may be merely the way in which the mind is influenced by its own pursuits; but it certainly seems to me that the difficulties suggested by the critical and the moral objections are much greater, and far better deserve the most thorough answer that Christian apologists can give, than the difficulties which are suggested by the purely scientific objections. It may be that I am every day employed on critical questions and have some experience of moral questions, while I may fail to give its full force to an argument founded on the facts of natural science. I do not know how this may be; with another objector or another apologist the temptations may be the other way. But it does seem to me that some of the difficulties which arise out of critical objections are very serious indeed. If it can be proved that the Gospel which we call that of Saint John was not written by a contemporary and familiar acquaintance of Christ, it can hardly be an honest record. The book itself distinctly implies that it is the work of an eyewitness. And, if that Gospel is not an honest record -allowing for the notions of that day with regard to the composition of speeches-really serious difficulties do arise. A good deal of received Christian theology certainly comes from that Gospel. But the scientific accuracy of the book of Genesis or of any other part of the Old or New Testament is surely a much less serious matter. Such questions need not trouble any except those who believe in the absolute infallibility of every jot and tittle of those books as they have come down to us. Even these last have ceased to be disturbed at the mere use of popular language. The astronomer himself, when he is not directly talking astronomy, perhaps even sometimes when he is, does not scruple to talk about the sun rising and setting. But, if we are only set free from the abject worship of books, even contradictions in the shape of direct statement need not trouble It is surely possible to believe that God chose the ancient Hebrews to be in a special way the instrument of divine purposes, that therefore their literature and history has a special value above

us.