CHAPTER V.

Progress of India and the Colonies

(Since 1815).

(1) COLONIAL SELF-GOVERNMENT

(Canada).

1. The French Canadians, after the conquest of their country by the

British, were turned into loyal citizens of the empire by being left

in the enjoyment of their own language, laws, and religion. Even

when our American colonies rose in rebellion, they remained true to

the British Crown. The same feeling of loyalty led many of the

American colonists themselves to throw in their lot with the old

country. They banded themselves together as the _United Empire

Loyalists_, and fought on the side of Britain rather than help their

fellow-colonists to rend the empire.

2. On the conclusion of the war that gave the American colonies

their independence (1783), thousands of the "Loyalists" came

streaming across the Canadian frontier, leaving behind them the bulk

of their property, and forced to starve and struggle for years before

they could carve comfortable homes out of the Canadian forests. Many

of them migrated to Nova Scotia, others found rest in the beautiful

valley of the St. John river, and founded the province of New

Brunswick, whilst others toiled up the St. Lawrence to create the

fertile and busy province of Ontario, thus building up a British

colony in Upper Canada by the side of the old French colony in Lower

Canada.

3. The inrush of loyalist refugees from the lost colonies was

followed by a large immigration from the mother-country, and

especially from Scotland. Of the Scotch peasants who emigrated many

came from the same district, and held together in the new country.

On the downfall of Napoleon the tide of emigration flowed more

strongly than ever. We hear of four hundred discharged Irish

soldiers coming over in a body with their old regimental officers at

their head, and forming a regular military camp in the backwoods,

till their united efforts had cut out the roads and fields, and built

the houses required for the settlement. We find, in fact, that a

large proportion of the early settlers were old soldiers, and they

handled the pruning-hook none the worse for having once handled the

sword. While the silence of the desert spread over the barren moors

and hillsides of Scotland and Ireland, the Canadian woods were

ringing with the settler's axe.

4. Emigration to Canada has gone on ever since, though at a slower

rate than in those early years when 160,000 emigrants landed on

Canadian soil in the space of four years. One of the most

interesting experiments in Canadian emigration has been made in our

own day. During the last ten or a dozen years about ten thousand

picked boys and girls, from the homes of the "National Waifs'

Association," have been settled by Dr. Barnardo on a large estate in

Manitoba, or placed out as labourers and servants on Canadian farms,

with the happiest results.

5. Canada has not seen much war since the days of Wolfe, though she

has not been left wholly at peace. During the great French war a

dispute arose between Britain and the United States, which foolishly

led to a half-hearted war between the two nations, and to the

invasion of Canada by American troops. After three campaigns, in

which the British and French Canadians fought side by side, the war

ended without the loss of an inch of their territory. The only

result was, to create a feeling of mutual sympathy and respect

between the two races that shared Canada between them.

6. However, as time went on, and new emigrants came pouring in, the

Canadian form of government, which had well served its purpose for

some years, began to encumber the young limbs of a nation so rapidly

growing. The fact is, time always works changes, and nations pass

through stages--childhood, youth, and manhood--as well as

individuals. Thus constant changes are required in the machinery of

government to keep pace with the changing circumstances and varying

wants of a people. In the year that Queen Victoria came to the

throne (1837), all Canada was discontented, and the lower province on

the eve of rebellion, which actually broke out a little later. The

rebels, however, were easily put down, and the leaders were soon

either in prison or exile.

7. The Home Government in this crisis acted wisely and promptly.

They sent over Lord Durham with the olive branch of peace, and

directed him to ascertain the cause of the rebellion, and to find out

remedies. He reported that the root of the whole mischief was to be

found in the Constitution under which the people were governed. The

Canadians elected men to form an "Assembly," like our House of

Commons, and though these men were free to express the wishes of the

people, they had no power to make the ministers and officials of the

Government give effect to them. They were expected to vote funds for

the public service, but they could not call the ministers to account

if they misspent the money.

8. At Lord Durham's suggestion all this was changed. The

governor-general was henceforth to employ as his ministers such men

as had the confidence of the "Assembly," and the ministers were to be

responsible to that House for the advice they gave the

governor-general, and for the way in which the public revenue was

spent. The first Canadian Parliament, under the new regulations, met

in 1841, and from this year we date the self-government of the

British colonies.

9. What was done now for Canada became in due time the rule for the

other colonies in which men of our race have chiefly settled. All in

turn, as they became capable of self-government, were entrusted with

the power to mark out their own course, and to manage their own

affairs in their own way. By this system of government full play is

given to local opinions and feelings, the laws are framed by the

colonists themselves, through their representatives, and the public

affairs of the whole colony are managed by ministers who have

obtained the confidence and esteem of its inhabitants. Moreover, the

same system of self-government in respect to local affairs is usually

extended to every town and district in the colony. Thus the

principle of self-government is brought home to the door of each

colonist, whenever circumstances admit. This is the secret of

England's success in keeping her world-wide empire peaceful and

contented, under the protection of one flag, and in allegiance to one

sovereign.

(2) BIRTH OF A NATION

(Canada).

1. The new era that smiled on Canada with the grant of

self-government, in 1841, was marked by a rapid growth of the

population. So great was the number of emigrants who came flocking

into the country that in the next quarter-century the population

nearly trebled itself. Canada at that time, it must be remembered,

was but a shred of the vast expanse that reddens the map of North

America to-day. The settled part included the two provinces now

called Quebec and Ontario, the three provinces of Nova Scotia, New

Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, and the island of Newfoundland.

The whole of the remainder--known as the great "North-West"--was,

until 1870, the happy hunting-ground of the "Hudson Bay Company."

2. It is true that the Company did not, as did that great hunter,

William the Conqueror, turn a peopled country into an uninhabited

wilderness, but they took good care that the vast wilderness in their

possession should not become a country inhabited by white men. Their

whole territory was nothing but a vast game preserve from which all

settlers were warned off. The red man was looked upon with favour,

for he was as the game-keeper who trapped the fur-bearing animals and

brought their skins to exchange for their masters' goods. Dotted

over the Company's wide domains stood the log or stone forts where

the furs were collected, and where lived one of the Company's

factors--usually a Scotsman--to trade with the Indians. Around the

fort no village was allowed to spring up. Some idea may be formed of

the solitary life led by the factor, when we are told that the

postman only visited him once a year.

3. The Company made enormous profits, for the goods they supplied to

the Indians cost a mere trifle compared with the value of the furs

they received in exchange. For a long time the nation, at home, was

kept in the dark, not only as to the profits of the fur trade, but as

to the real nature of the country from which the fur was obtained.

The people, in fact, supposed that the fur country was an

irreclaimable wilderness in which no white settlers could possibly

make a living. At length it became known that in the great

"North-West" there were immense prairies (over which roamed herds of

buffalo) that would yield, if cultivated, rich crops of the finest

wheat. When this discovery was made the country was thrown open to

settlers (1870), and the province of Manitoba soon became the granary

of Canada.

4. Another discovery had already led to the colonizing of British

Columbia, the country beyond the Rocky Mountains. This was the

discovery of gold (1858). The Indians, canoeing down the river

Fraser, brought with them quantities of the precious metal which they

had found along the river-bed. The men who had ransacked California

for gold now rushed to the new gold country. The hardships they had

to encounter were appalling.

5. At the season when the miners flocked into Columbia the water in

the rivers was at its highest, and the sand-bars in which they hoped

to find gold were hidden deep beneath its surface. The rivers

themselves flowed through gloomy gorges, along which not even a mule

could make its way. All provisions had to be carried on men's backs,

and before a mule-track could be cut the miners were reduced to a

diet of wild berries. Hundreds of miles had to be traversed before

the rich Cariboo district was reached, where nuggets could be picked

up in an old river-bed. News of this "find" brought men into the

country so much faster than flour that all were reduced to the verge

of starvation. The same thing has occurred in our own day, still

further north, in the district of Klondyke.

6. Gold is a powerful magnet. It is one of the best colonizing

agents known. What hardships will not men face to fill their pockets

with gold! Wherever gold is to be picked up, there thousands of

adventurers soon gather, and if the country is suitable for a colony

thousands of settlers remain. Thus British Columbia owes its

position as a colony, in the first place, to the gold-nuggets sown in

the sands of its river-beds.

7. Attached to British Columbia is the island of Vancouver, and here

also a discovery was made, which has much enhanced its value and

attracted colonists. A settlement had already been made at Victoria

on its southern shores, when, one day, came some Indians from the

northern part of the island, and entering a smithy were surprised to

find a fire of coals. When told that the fuel had been brought

thousands of miles across the sea, they were much amused, as there

was any quantity, they said, of the same sort of "black stone" on

that very island. And so it proved. At the present time, indeed,

the output amounts to one million tons a year.

8. Canada now extended over a region nearly the size of Europe,

embracing besides the old provinces in the east, British Columbia in

the far west, Manitoba in the centre, and the unsettled lands of the

great "North-West." The next thing was to knit together the various

provinces and out of them to make one great nation. This was made

possible by the Confederation Act of 1867. By this Act the _Dominion

of Canada_ came into being, with a constitution, settling the terms

on which the different provinces could unite. In less than seven

years all the Canadian provinces, except Newfoundland, consented to

join. Thus a new nation was born on the great American continent.

9. By the new constitution each province continues to manage its own

local affairs, whilst all matters of national concern are brought

before the Dominion Parliament. This parliament consists of an Upper

House styled the Senate, and a Lower House called the House of

Commons. The former is composed of life-members nominated by the

Crown, the latter of members elected by the people, and having full

control of the public purse. The Sovereign is represented by the

governor-general, appointed by the Crown, and no laws are valid

without his consent.

10. To avoid all jealousy between the province of Ontario and that

of Quebec, neither of their capitals was selected as the seat of the

national or federal government. That honour was given to the little

town of Ottawa, situated on their common border. Ottawa has now

grown into an important city, and in its Houses of Parliament

possesses two of the finest edifices on the continent of America.

(3) PROMISE OF NATIONAL GREATNESS

(Canada).

1. With the union of the Canadian provinces into the _Dominion of

Canada_, a new nation sprang into existence (1867). As no nation

deserves to be free unless it can defend itself when attacked, Canada

at once took steps for guarding her existence. A law was passed

requiring every able-bodied man between sixteen and sixty to enrol

himself for the defence of the Dominion, and to prepare for that duty

by spending a certain number of days each year in drill and

rifle-shooting.

2. Though Canada is a distinct nation, with her destiny in her own

hands, either to make or mar, she is, at the same time, a member of

the great British Empire. This connection obliges her to make no

treaty with a foreign power without the consent of the British

Government; but as a set-off, it entitles her in time of danger to

the powerful assistance of the British army and navy. And, as we

have seen in the great Boer war, Canada is willing, on her part, to

come to the aid of the mother-country in the time of stress and

strain. No more gallant men than her sons have fought in that war

and it is a great satisfaction to England to know that the support

she has received from Canada has been freely rendered by Canadians of

French origin as well as by those of British descent. Thus the

defeated foe of Wolfe's day has, by just treatment, been turned into

the loyal friend of to-day.

3. After providing for her defence Canada's next care was to bring

the different provinces into touch with each other. By means of a

wonderful network of waterways, a person can go through the length

and breadth of the land almost entirely by water. But this mode of

travelling is slow and difficult. Steps were, therefore, taken by

the Dominion Parliament to bind the different provinces together by

means of a line of rails. What a gigantic task lay before them! The

distance to be crossed between the two oceans was no less than 3000

miles, a distance so great that it would take an ordinary train,

going day and night, almost a week to accomplish the journey.

4. The task, however, was completed in five years. The Canadian

Pacific Railway, as it is called, was begun in 1880 and finished in

1885. Thus the Dominion of Canada, which now stretches from the

Atlantic to the Pacific, is linked together by the iron road, and its

most distant parts brought into easy communication with each other by

rail and wire. To British Columbia and Manitoba, in particular, such

a line meant everything. It afforded settlers easy access to the

interior and gave an outlet to the markets for the produce of their

farms. And to the mother-country also this railway is of great value

as an important link in the chain that binds together the various

parts of the British Empire. Mails from England to the Far East are

now carried by way of Canada more quickly than by any other route.

Troops may be transported from Liverpool to Hong Kong in less than

thirty days.

5. Canada has everything required to make a nation great and

prosperous. Her various provinces have each their own special

character and productions. _Nova Scotia_, for instance, is the great

coal-cellar of the eastern provinces, and it stands first in the

whole Dominion for its fisheries; whilst the supply of wood-pulp for

making paper is almost unlimited.

6. The province of _Quebec_ was formerly a vast forest, and the

lumber trade is still its most important industry. Its inhabitants

are chiefly of French origin, and they still cling to the language

and customs of their ancestors. The French Canadian does not seem to

move with the stream of time. He is content to smoke his home-grown

tobacco and to get his sugar from the sap of the maple. He wears a

strong "home-spun" cloth, spun and woven at his own fire-side; in

fact, he is content to go on as his fathers before him. The people

of _Ontario_ are strikingly different. They are mostly of British

origin and are always pushing on, trying to make what is good still

better. Their fruit orchards, vineyards, and dairy-farms are a

growing source of wealth, and a great surprise to those who have

thought of Canada as the land of ice and snow. Canadian butter and

cheese are now largely exported; in 1900, for example, about twenty

million pounds of butter and 200 million pounds of cheese were sent

abroad.

7. On entering _Manitoba_, the central province, the traveller finds

himself in a new world. Here are vast plains presenting in summer

the appearance of a sea of waving corn. The farms are immense, all

so different from our English farms with their small fields and

hedge-rows. Think of a farm where the furrows are four miles long

and as straight as an arrow! Continuing westward we come to the

slope of the Rocky Mountains which are specially adapted to the

raising of cattle. This is the "ranch" country of Canada, where the

horses and cattle range wild, and as a rule manage to provide for

themselves both in winter and summer.

8. Of _British Columbia_, on the western side of the Rockies, we

have already spoken as rich in gold and coal. This province is also

valuable for its timber and salmon. If you buy a tin of preserved

salmon, you will be almost sure to find that it has come from this

colony. So plentiful are the salmon in this part of Canada that at

times they swarm up the rivers like a shoal of herrings on the coast

of Cornwall.

9. Canada, then, it will be seen is bountifully supplied by nature

with all she needs to make her the land of plenty. She has been

styled "Our Lady of the Snows," and it must be admitted that the

Canadian climate is very cold in winter, and that the snow lies on

the ground for some months over most of the country. The snow,

however, is really one of the boons of nature: protecting the ground

from extreme frosts, bridging the streams, converting rough tracts

into the smoothest of roads, and turning with the warm breath of

spring into water to moisten the ground for the upspringing crops.

10. Canada's great want is men of the right stamp to turn the gifts

of nature to account, and these will come in time. She has now five

millions of people, but could well support ten times as many. She

possesses every element essential to national greatness, both in the

character of her people and the wealth of her resources. The

fisheries of her maritime provinces, the timber of her ancient

forests, the granaries of the prairie region, the ranches of the

Rockies, and the treasures of her mines, together with her intricate

network of water-ways--all combine to give Canada the promise of an

honoured place among the great nations of the world, and to make us

proud to remember that she is a staunch and loyal friend to the

British name and nation.

(4) "THE GOOD OF THE GOVERNED"

(India).

1. We have already seen how Clive laid the foundations of British

rule in India, how Warren Hastings tightened our hold on the country,

and how the Marquess Wellesley reduced the native princes to a state

of dependence, and made the British the real masters of India. To

establish a firm and just rule, and to save India from anarchy and

its people from oppression, were all that the early rulers of India

could attempt. But with the appointment of Lord Bentinck as

governor-general, in 1828, our rule began to have a higher aim, and

that was to build British greatness upon Indian happiness.

2. Of his many services to India, two stand out conspicuously: one

was the rooting out of the _Thugs_, who made the robbing and

murdering of travellers a pious duty, thinking that such acts would

win them the favour of the dread goddess Kali. An old French

traveller speaks of them as "the cunningest robbers in the world, who

use a certain slip, with a running noose, which they can cast so

deftly about a man's neck, that they strangle him in a trice." No

person whom they attacked ever escaped to tell the tale. They went

in bands disguised as travellers or rich merchants, and always

carried tools for digging the graves of their victims. After each

successful attack, offerings were made in the temples of the goddess.

Within six years nearly all the members of this strange profession

were hanged or placed in safe custody for life.

3. A still greater service, perhaps, was the putting an end to the

custom of _suttee_. When any Hindu died, his widow was expected, in

some parts of India, to accompany him to the next world by throwing

herself into his funeral pile, and perishing in the flames. So

common was the practice that in a single year, in Bengal alone, seven

hundred widows were burnt alive. To this day the country is, in

certain districts, thickly dotted with little white pillars, each in

memory of a _suttee_. Lord Bentinck made a proclamation declaring

that henceforth all who took part in a _suttee_ would be held guilty

of murder.

4. When Bentinck's seven years of office were over, a statue was

erected to his memory with this inscription:

To

William Cavendish Bentinck,

WHO INFUSED INTO ORIENTAL DESPOTISM THE SPIRIT

OF BRITISH FREEDOM;

WHO NEVER FORGOT THAT THE END OF GOVERNMENT IS

THE HAPPINESS OF THE GOVERNED.

5. We pass on to the next great landmark in the story of British

rule in India. This was the governor-generalship of the Earl of

Dalhousie, who ruled India between 1848 and 1856. Though he added to

the empire more territory than any other British ruler in India,

before or since, he did it all for the good of India as well as for

the greatness of Britain. Believing that rulers exist only for the

good of the governed, he made it his great aim to do away with

abuses, to redress wrongs, to deal even-handed justice all round, and

to promote the happiness of the people under his care.

6. It may seem strange that Dalhousie, whose great maxim was "the

good of the governed" should have done so much to extend the British

Empire in India. This was partly due to the fact that wars were

forced on him, and partly to the fact that he believed that people

were better off under British rule than any other. This

consideration led him to take advantage of every opportunity to

substitute British rule for that of a native prince. When, for

instance, a native ruler died without offspring, instead of allowing

his adopted son, as was the custom in India, to succeed him,

Dalhousie annexed the territory thus left kingless.

7. Our governor-general also dethroned unworthy rulers, including

the King of Oudh, whose realm was naturally the fairest province of

all India. It may be remembered that in all the dependent states a

British official resided at court to give his advice, and to watch

over British interests. The British resident at Lucknow, the capital

of Oudh, reported to Dalhousie that under its native ruler, Oudh knew

neither law nor justice, that "great crimes stain almost every acre

of land in his dominions." The strong, he said, everywhere preyed

upon the weak, and what might be the garden of India was fast

becoming a wilderness, whilst the king amused himself in the company

of fiddlers, singers, buffoons, and dancing girls. After a solemn

warning, and a reprieve of five years, the corrupt monarch was

deposed and his kingdom added to our Indian Empire.

8. During Dalhousie's rule much was done to bring the different

parts of this great empire into closer touch with each other. A

cheap uniform postage was introduced, by which a letter could be sent

from one end of India to the other for half an anna, about three

farthings. A short railway was laid down as an experiment, and it

proved highly successful. The new mode of travelling rose at once

into favour with the natives of India. They soon saw the advantage

of cheap travelling at the rate of twenty or thirty miles an hour in

carriages drawn by the "English fire-horse."

9. Lord Dalhousie then drew up a scheme for laying down 4000 miles

of rails between the great centres of population and the seats of

government. And he succeeded in getting the necessary capital for

this vast undertaking by offering it to public companies with the

guarantee, on the part of the Indian Government, of a fair profit on

their outlay. So great was the success of this scheme that in the

course of the next quarter-century £100,000,000 were spent on Indian

railways.

10. It would not be easy to overrate the importance of railways in

this vast country, in the interests both of Britain and India. They

form so many iron bands to unite the scattered provinces under

British rule, and to enable our military forces to be sent speedily

to any threatened quarter. They also serve to bring supplies to

districts suffering from famine, whereas in former times it often

happened that people in one part of India were dying for want of the

food that was stored up in rich abundance in some distant part. The

advantages that the railways offer to trade are still more important.

"Great tracts," wrote Dalhousie, "are teeming with produce they

cannot dispose of. Others are scantily bearing what they would carry

in abundance, if only it could be conveyed whither it is needed....

Ships from every part of the world crowd our ports in search of

produce which we have, or could obtain in the interior, but which at

present we cannot profitably fetch to them." So great an impulse was

given to trade in the course of the seven years of Lord Dalhousie's

rule, that the export of raw cotton was doubled and that of grain

increased threefold, whilst the total annual exports rose from

thirteen millions to twenty-three.

11. The great viceroy also, meanwhile, set in action a scheme for

binding all India together by a network of telegraph wires. In the

last two years of his rule, no less than 4000 miles of electric

telegraph were put in working order. The difficulties to be overcome

were very great. The wires had to be carried on bamboo poles, or on

pillars of stone and iron, over broad swamps and rocky wastes,

through dense and deadly jungles, up wild mountain steeps, across

deep gorges, and seventy large rivers. And all this had to be done

in spite of the depredations of white ants, wild beasts, and

half-civilised men. A famous writer thus describes the difficulties

the engineers had to contend with:

12. "His posts had to pass through jungles, where wild beasts used

them for scratching-stations, and savages stole them for firewood and

rafters for huts. Inquisitive monkeys spoiled the work by dragging

the wires into festoons, or dangling an ill-conducting tail from wire

to wire. Crows, kites, and fishing-eagles made roosting-places of

the wires in numbers so great as to bring them to the ground; though

once or twice a flash of lightning, striking a wet wire, would strew

the ground with the carcases of the feathered trespassers by dozens.

The white ant nibbled galleries in the posts, and the porcupine

burrowed under them."

13. It is owing to the telegraph that all India is held under the

control of the governor-general. The wires are as the nerves that

pass through the whole body of India and terminate, as it were, in

his hands. By their means the latest news reaches him from every

part of India, and by the same means he flashes back his commands.

In the great mutiny that broke out, at the close of Dalhousie's term

of office, it was the telegraph that saved us from many a disaster.

"It is that accursed string that strangles us," exclaimed a mutineer

pointing to the telegraph wire as he was led out to execution.

(5) SPOILS OF VICTORY

(India).

1. The story of India cannot be told without frequent reference to

war. Though the Marquis of Dalhousie was so much occupied, as we

have seen, with the arts of peace, he was obliged to wage more than

one great war. On landing at Calcutta (1848) he was told by the last

governor-general that so far as human foresight could predict, "it

would not be necessary to fire a gun in India for seven years to

come." Yet, within a twelvemonth, the whole scene was changed.

2. The Punjab, or Land of the Five Rivers, was inhabited by the

Sikhs, a brave and warlike people. They had already fought

desperately for the mastery of India and had been defeated. A

British army had marched into Lahore, their capital, and dictated

terms of peace, by which the Sikhs were left under the rule of a

native prince, but required to receive a British officer at the royal

court and to be guided by his advice. Dalhousie had scarcely been in

office six months when the Punjab was all aflame again, and he found

himself compelled to renew the war. "I have wished for peace," he

said, "I have striven for it. But untaught by experience, the Sikh

nation has called for war, and on my word, sirs, they shall have it

with a vengeance."

3. The work that lay before the British army was a terribly

difficult one. After a trying campaign in which we came near defeat,

the two armies met for a decisive encounter at Gujerat. It ended in

the rout of the Sikhs, who fled in dismay, leaving behind them most

of their guns and standards, their ammunition, stores, and tents.

The defeated troops were never allowed to rally, and within three

weeks the last gun had been abandoned and the last soldier had laid

down his arms. The Sikhs cheerfully owned themselves beaten, and

heard with delight that their Afghan allies "had ridden down through

their hills like lions and ran back into them like dogs."

4. The conquest of the Punjab was followed by its annexation. The

Sikhs were informed that they must henceforth regard themselves as

British subjects, and the Land of the Five Rivers as a part of

British India. Two famous brothers, Henry and John Lawrence, were

appointed to set things in order in this great province and to

establish a firm and just government. The Sikh soldiers readily took

service under our flag. They were proud to be enlisted in the

regiments that had so well beaten them. Forts were built to defend

the new frontier, the taxes were lightened and made more even, canals

were cut, roads laid out, criminals punished, and honest labour

protected; in fact, in a few short years the latest British conquest

became the best managed, the most contented, and the most loyal of

all the British provinces in India.

5. Three years after the annexation of the Punjab, war broke out at

the opposite end of the Indian Empire, in what was then called

Further India. It is known as the _Second Burmese War_ (1852).

Burma was at that time under the rule of an upstart king, whore

throne was at Ava. He seems to have been as ignorant and arrogant as

the King of Ava in the First Burmese War (1824), who on being

requested by the governor-general of India to withdraw his troops

from Assam, which they had invaded, ordered his commander-in-chief to

proceed to Calcutta, arrest the governor-general, and bring him to

Ava, bound in golden fetters, for execution. As a result of that

First Burmese War Assam had been added to the empire. It now forms

the great tea-plantation of India.

6. The spoils of the Second Burmese War were still more valuable.

The most brilliant feat of arms in that war was the storming of

Rangoon. The Burmese troops held the city and pagoda of Rangoon with

18,000 men; the British could only bring one-third that number to the

attack. Among the Burmese were the picked guards known as "The

Immortals of the Golden Country," whose military oath compelled them

to conquer or die at their posts. The courage of the ordinary troops

was also insured, as their women and children were fastened up at the

back of the fort to incite the valour of their husbands, sons, and

brothers. But all to no purpose. The headlong rush of our troops,

and the fierce cheer with which they came on, seemed to take the

heart out of the defenders, and when the storming party entered at

one gate the garrison fled by the opposite one, the brave Immortals

in their gilt lacquer accoutrements leading the way.

7. Before the end of the year the whole of Lower Burma was at our

disposal. As the people of that province everywhere greeted us as

friends, and besought us to deliver them from the tyranny of their

king, there was good reason to believe that it could be held by a

small number of troops. It was, accordingly, annexed to our Indian

Empire. Rangoon has become one of the great ports of the empire. In

thirty years its population increased fifteen-fold, and its trade

grew in the same proportion. The rest of Burma was annexed as the

result of another war some years later.

8. The British India which Lord Dalhousie left to his successor was

more than one-third larger than the India of which he had received

charge seven years before. The great changes which he had made

produced a spirit of unrest among the inhabitants. The native

princes naturally felt their thrones insecure; the introduction of

railways and telegraphs was to the old-fashioned native a sign that a

new era had begun, and that old customs were giving place to new;

whilst many began to fear that even their religion was in danger of

being supplanted.

9. Lord Canning, the next governor-general, seems to have seen signs

of the coming upheaval; for on taking office, he said at the send-off

banquet in London, "We must not forget that in the sky of India,

serene as it is, a small cloud may arise, at first no bigger than a

man's hand, but which growing bigger and bigger may at last threaten

to overwhelm us with ruin." He knew that the same instrument that we

had used to help us to conquer India might be turned against

ourselves. And what made our position the more serious was the fact

that the Sepoys in our army--who constituted that instrument--were

five times as numerous as our own troops, and that the native gunners

outnumbered ours by two to one.

10. On reaching India, Lord Canning heard the first muttering of the

storm which threatened to drive the British out of India. There had

long been a prophecy among the natives that British rule would come

to an end at the close of a hundred years from its commencement. The

fateful year (1857) had now come, and with it came the great mutiny

of our Sepoy regiments. England, in her hour of danger, has never

lacked brave and patriotic sons to defend and maintain her cause, and

never has this been more conspicuously the case than in the _Sepoy

Mutiny_.

(6) DEEDS OF HEROISM

(India).

1. The Sepoy Mutiny had its centre at Delhi, where lived the old

emperor in great state and luxury, but without a vestige of power or

authority. The mutineers placed this shadow of an emperor at their

head, making him their centre of union, and his sovereignty a cause

to fight for. The great powder-magazine within the city was luckily

in British hands. Of the garrison in charge of it were two British

officers, who, at the sacrifice of their own lives, applied a torch

to the powder, and in a moment the building, with hundreds of Sepoy

mutineers, was sent flying into the air.

2. There were two circumstances which in the most providential

manner enabled our countrymen to hold their own until succour reached

them from England. These were the loyalty of the Sikhs, who had

recently been conquered, and the passage across the seas of British

troops on their way to China. These troops were intercepted at Cape

Town and Singapore, and diverted to India. The Sikhs threw in their

lot with their conquerors, and fought like lions for them throughout

the Mutiny. A few weeks after the first outbreak, a combined British

and Sikh force arrived at Delhi. Our men posted themselves on a

commanding ridge outside the city, and held it against all comers,

whilst waiting for reinforcements.

3. Sir John Lawrence was straining every nerve to collect forces in

the Punjab, and to push them on, with all speed, to Delhi; whilst his

brother, Sir Henry Lawrence, was rendering a service, scarcely less

valuable, at Lucknow. Forewarned by telegraph, he made every

preparation for defence within his power before the rebels in the

city heard of the outbreak. He brought all the Europeans within the

"Residency," as the government buildings were called, and stocked it

well with provisions and ammunition. Lawrence himself was mortally

wounded, near the beginning of the siege, by the bursting of a shell

that crashed into his room, where he was writing at table. When

dying he desired that on his tomb should be engraven:

HERE LIES

Henry Lawrence

WHO TRIED TO DO HIS DUTY.

4. The siege of Lucknow is one of the most memorable in our history.

We may well be proud of the splendid stand which a small band of our

countrymen made here, in the presence of their wives and children,

against myriads of the enemy, who were kept in check for nearly three

terrible months, until relief came.

5. All this time the eyes of India and Great Britain were earnestly

fixed on Delhi. It was there all felt the question was being fought

out, who should be masters of India. For three weary months our men

had to cling to their position on the ridge, outside the city, before

obtaining guns sufficiently heavy to begin the siege. Great was the

joy in the British camp when the guns arrived, and with them General

Nicholson, known alike to friend and foe for his daring valour. All

were eager to follow where he led.

6. After a bombardment of three days, two great breaches in the

walls opened the way for the assault, and an entrance at each breach

was made at the point of the bayonet, but whilst leading on his men

the gallant Nicholson was slain. Of the many daring deeds performed

that day the most memorable was the perilous exploit of blowing up

the Cashmere gate, to make a third entrance for our troops. A small

band of heroic men volunteered to place bags of powder under the

gate, and to take the risk of being shot or blown up in the attempt.

7. "I placed my bag," said Sergeant Smith, "and then at a great risk

reached Carmichael's bag (for he was killed), and having placed it in

position with my own, arranged the fuse for the explosion, and

reported all ready to Lieutenant Salkeld, who held a quick-match. In

stooping down to light the quick-match, he was shot, but in falling

had the presence of mind to hold it to me. Burgess was next him and

took it. I told him to keep cool and fire the charge. He turned

round and said, 'It won't go off, sir; it has gone out, sir.' I gave

him a box of lucifers, and, as he took them, he let them fall into my

hand, he being shot through the body at that moment. I was then left

alone, and was proceeding to strike a light, when the fuse went off

in my face, the light not having gone out as we thought. I took up

my gun and jumped into the ditch but before I had reached the ground

the charge went off, and filled the ditch with smoke." Before the

smoke cleared away our troops were through the gateway.

8. But though the entrance to the city was gained the work had only

begun. Every street and public building had been fortified, and had

to be won by steady and continuous fighting. It was not until the

sixth day that our men had fought their way to the palace in the

heart of the city. When the British flag waved over the palace, all

felt that the neck of the rebellion was broken, and that our Indian

Empire was saved. The old emperor was sent as a state prisoner to

Rangoon, where he died in 1862, being buried in the night-time near

his bungalow, so that no native might know the resting-place of the

last of the emperors.

9. Three days after the fall of Delhi, General Havelock reached the

Residency at Lucknow, after fighting half a dozen battles on the road

and forcing his way through streets lined with armed rebels. We can

imagine the kind of welcome the troops received on their arrival.

"In a moment," writes a lady, one of the survivors of the garrison,

"big, rough-bearded soldiers were seizing the little children out of

our arms, kissing them with tears rolling down their cheeks, and

thanking God that they had come in time." They had come in time to

save the women and children from falling into the enemy's hands, but

not in sufficient numbers to remove them.

10. For final deliverance they had to wait nearly two months longer,

until the arrival of the Commander-in-chief, Sir Colin Campbell, at

the head of a small army of 5,000 men. It is interesting to know

that Lieutenant Roberts, now Field-Marshal Lord Roberts, was an

officer in the relieving force, and gave proof of his daring spirit,

as the troops fought their way through the city, by hoisting the

British flag, amid a shower of bullets, on the tower of a fort they

had captured. Sir Colin now turned his arms against every city in

revolt, and before the end of the following year (1858), the embers

of the rebellion were finally stamped out.

(7) BRITISH RULE ON A NEW FOOTING

(India).

1. As soon as peace was restored to India, after the Mutiny, a

proclamation, at Calcutta, declared that the governing power of the

East India Company was abolished, and that henceforth the sovereign

of England would be the immediate ruler of India. In this

proclamation, which may be regarded as the Magna Charta of the people

of India, it was announced, in the name of the queen, that we desire

no further extension of territory in India, but that what we had got

we intended to hold; that we would respect the rights, dignity, and

honour of the native princes; that we would in every way endeavour to

further the interests of the people, and in no way interfere with

their religious convictions.

[Illustration: BLOWING UP THE CASHMERE GATE.]

2. The title of _Empress of India_ was not assumed until some years

later. But the assumption of that title, and the change in the form

of government, as stated in the proclamation, gave great satisfaction

to the princes and people of India. Our Indian government acquired

new dignity in their eyes, and our rule became more acceptable, since

they could now regard themselves as fellow-subjects with ourselves of

the same personal sovereign. They had now distinct promises on which

they could rely, for they knew by experience that their English

masters would feel themselves bound by their own words. Nothing is

more gratifying to our national pride than the reliance thus placed

on the pledged word of our Government. "It is certain," says a great

Polish writer, in reference to the Boer war, "that if King Edward

VII. guaranteed to the Boers, with his royal word, the enjoyment of

their liberty and laws, not an Englishman would be found throughout

the gigantic British Empire, who would not burn with shame if the

royal promise were broken."

3. The improved state of feeling among the people of India, in

consequence of the changes which had been made, and the distinct

promises they had received, showed itself very clearly, when, a few

years later, the Prince of Wales--now King Edward VII.--paid a visit

to India as the representative of Queen Victoria. His progress

through the land called forth a succession of brilliant

demonstrations--cities, temples, and palaces, being illuminated in

his honour. All the princes and rajahs of India vied with each other

in the magnificence of their trappings and the splendour of their

welcome. And when at last the Prince set sail for England, the ship

was laden with numerous memorials and presents of great variety,

value, and interest. The proclamation in the following year of the

queen's new title, as Empress of India, tended to draw still closer

the ties of love and loyalty between Her Majesty and her Indian

subjects.

4. Sweeping changes were made in our Indian army at the close of the

Mutiny. That army now contains only two natives to one European, and

the artillery is kept almost entirely in the hands of British

soldiers. Many wars have occurred in India since it came under the

British crown, but they have all been wars on her borders, keeping

strife and danger far removed from every home in India. They have

been wars to preserve internal peace, and to strengthen our

frontiers, especially on the borders of Afghanistan, the only quarter

from which an invading army could approach India except by sea.

5. But the chief enemy we have had to fight in India since the days

of the Mutiny is famine, which has been known to carry off in a

single year five millions of people. This calamity has arisen not

from want of food in India, but from the difficulty of transporting

it to the distressed districts. As famine in India is caused by an

insufficient rainfall, great works have been executed to store water

in vast tanks or lakes--for instance, by damming up the outlet of

some mountain valley--and to cut canals for carrying water to the

crops suffering from drought. Great engineering works have been

taken in hand to keep the great rivers in bounds, and to prevent

their waters in time of flood from rushing with ruin and havoc over

the land.

6. If the British were to abandon India to-morrow they would leave

behind them a grand memorial of their works for the good of the

country, in their schools and colleges, their telegraphs, railways,

roads, bridges, canals, reservoirs, and river embankments. People

who have only seen such things in our own island-home, have no

conception of the great scale on which such works have been carried

out in a large country like India--a country as large as all Europe,

leaving out Russia--where the rivers are immense, and subject to

terrible floods from the down-pouring tropical rains which fall most

copiously on the southern slopes of the Himalayas.

7. It is true that we do not give India the same kind of government

we give Canada and Australia. We are obliged to govern India, not

according to the notions of the natives, but according to our own.

We take care, however, to keep order and see justice done, not only

in the provinces under direct British rule, but also in the dependent

states, which occupy about two-fifths of the country, and contain

one-fourth of the population. There are no less than seven hundred

of these states, great and small; none of them may make alliance with

any other state except Britain; each of them must admit a British

resident, who keeps an eye on its government. If any prince, after

repeated warnings, fails to reform, he is replaced by another native,

for Britain annexes no longer. On the other hand, a prince who does

his duty and governs wisely, receives from the Emperor some mark of

distinction or titular honour, nowhere in the world more valued than

in India.

8. It will be seen then that our government of India is despotic,

like that of a schoolmaster, who makes his own laws and administers

them for the good of his scholars. There is, however, this

difference. In India, the natives themselves are admitted to a large

share in the administration of the laws and in the service of the

state, an arrangement tending to keep the educated natives contented

and to train them for the work of self-government.

9. On the whole, it may be said with truth that there is nothing

more wonderful in the history of the world than that, under the flag

of these two little islands, there should have grown up the greatest

and most beneficent despotism that the world has sees. The very face

of the country has changed; pestiferous swamps have been drained, and

are now fertile lands with healthy cities. Wide tracts of jungle,

the secure refuge of evil beasts, have been reclaimed. The great

rivers are now brought under control; canals receive their surplus

waters, and instead of causing desolation, bring fertilizing streams

to a thirsty land. Railroads transport corn and rice through tunnels

cut in the mountains, and across mighty rivers, to distant

famine-stricken districts. In short, the story of India's progress

under British rule is one of which we may well be proud.

10. The advantage, however, has not been all on one side. The

connection with India has brought, and still brings, much grist to

our own mill. It provides high salaries for about eight hundred of

our most competent countrymen, acting as governors, magistrates, and

high state officials; it offers employment for our engineers and land

surveyors; it serves as an excellent training-ground for our officers

and soldiers; and, above all, it opens up a splendid trade to our

merchants and manufacturers. Were India to fall into the hands of a

foreign power, like Russia, our merchants would probably find

themselves, if not shut out entirely from the markets of India, much

hampered in doing a profitable business. But with the government in

our own hands we can make such regulations as tend to the mutual

advantage of the two countries. So flourishing is the trade between

them now that its annual value amounts to more than £50,000,000.

11. Such being the mutual advantages to India and Britain of our

rule in that great country, it would be an indelible stain on our

name and nation, if through indifference, or negligence, or

faint-heartedness, we were to lose an empire built up by so much

genius and heroism under the controlling hand of an unseen Power.

"We sailed wherever ship could sail,

We founded many a mighty state;

Pray God our greatness may not fail

Thro' craven fears of being great."

(8) BARS TO PROGRESS

(Australia).

1. To measure the progress that has been made by our kinsmen in

Australia, we must know something of the country in its natural

condition, and of the special difficulties they have had to contend

with. One of these difficulties was of our own making, and that was

the landing there of shiploads of our worst criminals, many of whom

fled to the "bush," and preyed upon the lonely settlers, or committed

outrages upon the natives, who naturally tried to take revenge upon

any white men that came in their way.

2. The plants found in Australia by the early explorers had, with

few exceptions, never been seen in any other parts of the world.

Strange to say, no wheat or any other cereal grew there, and but few

fruits or vegetables fit for human food, although both soil and

climate are in many parts so favourable to their growth that, since

their introduction, they have thriven as well as in most countries.

3. The animals peculiar to Australia are even more strange than its

plants. Of all the useful animals belonging to other countries, not

a single representative was found here. All our domestic animals,

however, have been introduced, and thrive remarkably well. One,

indeed, the rabbit, has thriven so well as to form a serious pest.

So rapidly do these animals multiply here that the colonists are

obliged to incur much expense in the effort to keep down their

numbers. Of the quadrupeds found elsewhere Australia only possessed,

when first discovered, some species of rats and mice and a sort of

wild dog, or dingo. Most of the native animals are pouched, like the

kangaroo.

4. Dingoes cannot be trained for the service of man. They are

always ready to prey upon his flocks. So great a pest are these

animals, in certain parts, that each man on a sheep-station is

expected to carry strychnine, in order to poison the carcase of any

dead animal he may chance to find in his wanderings, with the view of

destroying the dingoes that may happen to feed upon it. These

animals destroy far more than they devour. On entering a sheepfold

they bite and kill without stint or stay. There is, however, one

drawback to their wholesale destruction, as they are the natural

enemies of the kangaroo. Since the dingoes have become scarce, the

kangaroo has multiplied greatly. In some districts droves of these

animals are still seen, eating up every blade of grass and starving

the sheep off the land.

5. As the native productions of Australia are of little service to

man, it is not surprising to find the natives a low order of savages.

There is no bond of union between them. They consist of many tribes,

always ready to go to war with each other. It is supposed that about

50,000 survive, but through intemperance, wars and diseases, their

numbers are gradually dwindling. They have already almost

disappeared from the more settled parts, but as such a large

proportion of Australia is uninhabitable by white men, they will

probably long linger in the more remote quarters of the continent.

6. Like all wandering savages, their senses are remarkably acute,

and their skill and cunning in hunting and snaring beasts and birds

can hardly be surpassed. Advantage is taken of this fact by the

Australians, who employ them to track out fugitives, when offenders

against the law have to be pursued, or when cattle have strayed.

7. The natives were at first a source of great trouble to the

settlers. They stole their sheep and ran off with their horses,

caused their cattle to stampede, and killed their shepherds and

herdsmen. But as the colonist never moved out of doors without his

firearms, they soon gained a wholesome dread of his power. One tribe

of "blacks" also was always ready to help the white man to pursue and

punish the men of another tribe. In Queensland, indeed, a body of

native police, officered by Europeans, was formed to cope with the

disorders and depredations of the savages, who are bolder and more

numerous in that part of Australia. But the experiment was attended

by dreadful results, for a member of one tribe displays savage

enjoyment in the slaughter of members of any other tribe. Among the

settlers also were men who had been dangerous criminals, and who had

no compunction in murdering "blacks," as if they were devoid of human

souls.

8. One of the great bars to progress in Australia is the irregular

supply of rain. Whilst droughts are not infrequent, there is

occasionally an excessive downpour, causing disastrous floods. The

amount of rain that falls from first to last would probably be

sufficient to make Australia a well-watered country. But owing to

the extreme irregularity of the rainfall the plains are liable to be

alternately deluged and burnt up. Explorers have often been in

danger of perishing with thirst from this cause; for instead of

finding a large lake, where they had seen one on a former occasion,

they find nothing but a stretch of baked mud.

9. In times of drought the rivers, too, dwindle into mere threads of

water, or become too shallow for navigation. Even the Murray, the

largest of Australian rivers, is at times but an indifferent

waterway. Still worse, its mouth consists of shallow channels of

shifting sand, so that no steamer can enter it from the sea. Large

sums have been expended in trying to remove the bar at its mouth and

form a harbour; but the attempt has been abandoned, for as fast as

the sand is dredged away, fresh deposits of silt take its place.

10. These are some of the difficulties and drawbacks which the

Australian colonists have had to fight against. But in spite of them

an extraordinary advance has been made, thanks to their own energy

and enterprise, to the mineral wealth of their country, and to their

freedom from war. Contrary to the experience of nations, in other

continents, the Australians have never had to fight a regular battle

in their own land. This immunity from war they owe, in large

measure, to the protecting arm of the mother-country, and to the

wisdom she has shown in granting self-government to her Australian

colonies as soon as they became fit to manage their own affairs.

(9) EFFECT OF THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD

(Australia).

1. Next to wool as a source of Australian wealth comes gold. The

discovery of gold, in 1851, had a wonderful effect on the progress of

Australia. The discovery was made, near Bathurst, in New South

Wales, by Hargraves, one of the numerous adventurers that left the

colony in 1848 to dig for gold in California. The first thing which

impressed him on his arrival in the gold country was the resemblance

between it and the district around his own home in Australia. The

more he saw of the gold-diggings in California, the more he was

struck with the likeness. At length he resolved to return, and on

searching a creek near his old home, he found it rich in gold.

2. At the news of this discovery, thousands hastened to the diggings

from all parts of the colony. The news of this "rush" for gold had

hardly reached the people of Victoria, when it became known that

there was a still richer gold-field at Ballarat in their own country.

The gold fever seized upon the Victorians, and in a few weeks most of

the men in the colony were grubbing for gold. Workshops were left

without workmen, ships without crews, and houses without tenants.

The squatters were left to look after their own sheep, and farmers

saw their crops spoiling for want of labourers to harvest them.

Ordinary business came to a standstill, and even schools were closed

for want of teachers.

3. To the streams of men from every part of Australia was soon added

a flood of adventurers from all quarters of the world, including

numbers of escaped convicts from Tasmania. Of those who came in the

hope of rapidly making a fortune at the diggings, the majority were

doomed to disappointment. But a few picked up gold nuggets of

considerable size, and one miner at Ballarat hit upon the largest

mass of gold ever found. It was called the "welcome stranger," and

was worth upwards of £8000. The scene at the gold-fields is thus

described in the "Story of the Nations:"--

4. "The banks of the Yarrowee presented a strange appearance, with

the eager line of men standing shoulder to shoulder, washing in the

muddy water the dirt brought them from time to time by a companion.

A little further back the earth was cut into innumerable holes,

flanked by great mounds of red soil, in and around which men busily

ran or dug with feverish energy. At night the scene was even more

weirdly curious, for the glaring lights of the theatres and grog

shanties, with the flaring torches and fires of the miners, joined in

throwing into strong relief the shadows of the tents and their wild

surroundings. Above all rose the hum of a city, broken now and again

by bursts of noisy revelry. Wealth easily won was as readily

squandered, and the lucky digger showered gold with a free hand.

Prices were exorbitant, for the miner, drunk with fortune, seldom

asked for change, and the style of living generally was recklessly

extravagant."

5. The value to Australia of the discovery of gold within her

territory has been far greater than the worth of the gold itself,

though that, in forty years from its first discovery in 1851,

amounted to the extraordinary sum of £300,000,000. It has been the

means of bringing to her shores hundreds of thousands of enterprising

men, who on leaving the gold-fields have settled down in the country

to gain a livelihood, if not a fortune, by steady industry in some

useful employment. Thus, just before the discovery of gold, the

population of Victoria was less than 80,000; now, half a century

later, the population is nearly one-and-a-quarter millions.

6. Gold-mining is now one of the regular industries of Australia.

But gold is no longer to be picked up on the surface. It is now only

obtained by sinking shafts, and much expensive machinery is required

in working the mines. The yield of gold in Victoria and New South

Wales is, of course, much less than it was, but the annual value is

still considerable.

7. Gold-mining has also been long carried on in Queensland. Indeed,

the Mount Morgan mine in that colony has proved itself one of the

richest mines in the world. Its story is a curious one. A young

squatter had bought a farm near Rockhampton, but it was on a rocky

hill, and he found that for grazing or cultivation it was useless.

He was, accordingly, glad to sell it to three brothers, named Morgan,

at £1 an acre. The dirty grey rocks of which the hilly farm was

composed turned out to be so rich in gold, that the hill, which had

cost the Morgans £640, was sold for £8,000,000. And now West

Australia, which has long lagged behind the sister colonies, can also

boast of its gold mines, and has fairly started on its onward march.

8. Australia has lately followed the example of Canada, and formed

her six colonies into one great dominion, under the name of the

_Commonwealth of Australia_, which started on its new career on the

first day of the twentieth century. Each colony, or state, retains

control over its own local affairs, but the Parliament of the

Commonwealth is empowered to decide all questions relating to

defence, railways and telegraphs, customs duties and postal rates,

and all other matters common to the whole country.

(10) EXPLORATION AND ITS MARTYRS

(Australia).

1. The story of Australian exploration tells of hardships and

hazards innumerable. It is a story that is highly creditable to the

dauntless courage and persevering energy of our brothers in

Australia. As landlords of a vast estate, they have endeavoured to

ascertain its nature, and to learn how best to turn it to profitable

account. This knowledge could only be gained at the expense of many

lives, and at the cost of great self-sacrifice. The explorers who

have lost their lives in the fulfilment of their self-imposed task,

if not entitled to a place on the roll of martyrs, have certainly

earned a place among the makers of our empire. Of such men we can

only give one or two examples in this brief account.

2. The vast interior is worse to cross than the Sahara, for while it

is often quite as hot and quite as dry, it is covered in many parts

with a dense "scrub," consisting of prickly shrubs and the dreaded

porcupine grass. The constant pricking of this grass causes raw and

bleeding swellings round the horses' legs; and to escape from it,

they will prefer to force their way through the densest scrubs. Here

they rush along, frequently forcing sticks between their backs and

their loads; then comes a frantic crashing through the scrub, packs

are forced off, and the horses are lost sight of for hours or even

days.

3. Mr. Kennedy, who explored in Queensland, describes the difficulty

of travelling in the tropical jungles of that colony. He speaks, in

particular, of the terrible lawyer vine and the equally-dreaded

tree-nettle. The former is a species of rattan, armed with hooks and

spurs, which once fast never let go. The other is a forest-tree

belonging to the nettle family, and its broad leaves sting so

severely as to cause serious inflammation; horses, indeed, which have

plunged about and got stung all over, sometimes die from the effects.

4. For exploring the interior, Adelaide, in South Australia, has

been a favourite starting-point; in 1840 Mr. Eyre made his perilous

journey along the shores of the Australian Bight to King George's

Sound, a distance of 1,200 miles. The greatest difficulty was to

find water. He had with him ten horses and six sheep. Before moving

the animals from their halting-place it was necessary to secure water

for them, and Eyre himself explored in advance, sometimes five or six

days at a time, without finding a drop, being reduced to collecting

dew with a sponge and rags. When 600 miles from his destination Eyre

was left with one native servant, two horses, 40 lbs. of flour, and

four gallons of water. It was 150 miles further before they obtained

a fresh supply of water. Thus they struggled on for a month, living

on horse-flesh, with a little flower-paste or damper. They had then

the good luck to attract the notice of a whaling ship near the shore,

and were kindly received on board for a fortnight. Being

sufficiently recruited, they continued their journey, and after

undergoing further hardships for twenty-three days, succeeded in

reaching King George's Sound.

5. In 1860 an expedition set out from Melbourne to cross the

continent from south to north. Burke and Wills were first and second

in command. These two men accomplished the last part of the journey

alone, and on foot, for all the camels had sunk with fatigue. Having

reached the shores of Carpentaria, they retraced their steps in the

expectation of coming across the men and stores they had left at a

certain place on the route. Four months and a half after leaving the

depot they reached it again, only to find a notice stating that their

friends had left that same morning. The word "dig" was cut on a

neighbouring tree, and buried beneath it they discovered a small

supply of provisions.

6. On their way back to the depot they had been rejoined by one of

the party. The three deserted wanderers rested for a couple of days,

and then started for Adelaide. They were rapidly dying of hunger

when they met some natives, who treated them in a friendly manner.

After resting with them for four days they resumed their journey.

But first Wills, and then Burke, completely broke down and died. The

only survivor wandered on until he met with a tribe who permitted him

to stay with them. He was afterwards found by a rescue party from

Victoria, but so weak that he could scarcely speak. The blacks were

rewarded for their kindness with gifts of looking-glasses, gay pieces

of ribbon, and other articles of finery.

7. While the explorers just mentioned were crossing the continent

from Melbourne, another expedition, under Stuart, was attempting to

cross from Adelaide. About the centre of the continent Stuart

reached a mountain, which has been named Central Mount Stuart. He

had penetrated within 200 miles of the Gulf of Carpentaria, when he

was forced to turn back through the hostility of a numerous tribe of

natives. Nothing daunted, Stuart set out again from Adelaide on New

Year's Day, 1861, and got about 100 miles beyond the point already

reached, when his further progress was barred by an impenetrable

scrub. He made strenuous efforts to pass the obstacle, but without

success. Reluctantly compelled to turn back for want of provisions,

he arrived safely in the settled districts, north of Adelaide, and

for the third time attempted to reach the goal; and this time with

well-earned success. Neither on this, nor on any of his previous

journeys, did Mr. Stuart lose a single man of his party.

8. This journey had important results. It showed that through the

centre of the continent was a chain of fertile spots and grassy

plains, through which a track might be found for a telegraph line,

stretching from Adelaide in the south to Port Darwin in the north.

But the difficulties to be overcome in carrying this line across the

continent were considerable. For one thing, the two ends of the wire

were 1,600 miles apart, and for no small part of the way it had to

pass through a desolate region void of water and pasture. The

northern section of the work proved the most difficult to accomplish;

for there were no trees for posts, and the tropical heat was too

great for European labour. Indian coolies and Chinese labourers were

hired, wells were dug along the route, iron posts were imported, and

by great exertions the task was, in 1872, completed.

9. It is by this telegraph line that Australia is in constant

communication with the rest of the world. Thanks to this magical

wire, Australians are able to read at their breakfast tables events

which had occurred on the opposite side of the globe a few hours

previously. Thanks to the same wire, if an important cricket match

is being played in Australia, we at home can almost stand round the

field and watch it in progress. Whilst the telegraph has brought us

within easy speaking distance of Australia, the steam-ship has also

wrought its wonders. It is worth remembering that at the time when

Australia received its first ship-load of settlers, the Orkneys and

other remote parts of Scotland were as far distant from London, in

respect to the time taken in travelling, as are the Australian

colonies to-day, whilst the difficulties and risks of the journey

were considerably greater.

(11) MUTUAL ADVANTAGE OF MOTHERLAND AND COLONY

(New Zealand).

1. Of all the colonies, with the exception of Tasmania perhaps, New

Zealand most resembles the mother-country both in climate and

scenery. At the same time it is wholly unlike Australia. If a

long-sleeping Briton could be set down among the Otago hills, and, on

awaking, be told that he was travelling in Galway or the west of

Scotland, he might be easily deceived, though he knew those countries

well; but he would feel at once that he was being hoaxed, if he were

told in any part of Australia that he was travelling among Irish or

British scenery.

2. Everything English seems to flourish here. The only quadrupeds

seen are those imported from Europe. The complaint is that many of

our English animals and plants thrive only too well. Hosts of pigs

run wild; rabbits also spread over the country in battalions, and do

great damage to the crops. Gorse and sweet-briar, brought by the

early settlers from "home" are with difficulty kept in check. Even

the English grasses are displacing those of native origin. Our

house-sparrow is now the most common bird in New Zealand, and our

house-fly seems likely to be as often seen there as here.

[Illustration: HER MAJESTY QUEEN ALEXANDRA.]

3. In colonising Australia little account had to be taken of the

natives, who were both few and feeble. It was otherwise with the

natives of New Zealand. The _Maoris_, as they called themselves,

were a fierce, warlike race, strong and brave, who were not content

with killing their enemies, but fed upon their flesh afterwards.

They were not, however, mere naked savages. They wove mats and

clothing from flax, and cloaks of great value from the dressed skins

of dogs. In the narrative of the wars between the Maoris and the

colonists, one is constantly reminded of the war between the ancient

Britons and the Romans; in both cases the natives were brave and

skilled in war, and owed their final defeat to their own divisions

and to the superior arms of their enemies.

4. The first settlement was made here in 1840 after a friendly

treaty had been made with the Maoris. By this treaty they took Queen

Victoria for their sovereign, but on the express understanding that

their lands should remain at their own disposal. "The shadow of our

lands," said an old chief, "will go to the queen, but the substance

will remain in our own hands." Emigrants began to pour in and to

purchase lands at a low price. At the end of twenty years the Maoris

began to awake to the fact that the settlers were increasing very

rapidly, and now outnumbered themselves, whilst their lands were

continually passing out of their hands. A movement, accordingly,

soon took place among themselves for the purpose of stopping the sale

of land to the stranger.

5. The war that ensued lasted, off and on, for ten years. Aided by

British troops, the colonists at last convinced the Maoris that their

cause was hopeless. They consented to live at peace on the terms

offered, and have ever since been as good as their word. All, except

a few of the older people, call themselves Christians. They have

become to a certain extent educated and civilised; many of them have

farms and ships. But with the change in their habits has come a

change in their spirit. They seem to feel themselves a doomed race.

"As the white man's rat," they say, "has extirpated our rat, as the

European fly is driving out our fly, as the foreign clover is killing

our ferns, so the Maori himself will disappear before the white man."

6. Since 1870, when the war ended, the whole of New Zealand has made

steady progress. In the course of the next ten years, such a stream

of emigrants came flowing in that the population almost doubled

itself. All skilled labourers who came found ready employment and

good pay. It was a time when much money was spent on public works.

The New Zealand Government had raised a loan of ten millions from men

of capital in England. The money thus borrowed was devoted to three

purposes: (1) to improve the means of communication by constructing

roads, railroads, bridges, telegraphs, and coasting-vessels; (2) to

purchase lands from the natives whenever they were willing to sell;

and (3) to aid men of the right stamp to emigrate from Britain.

7. New Zealand is, as I have intimated, an eminently _British_

Colony. The colonists are almost entirely of British descent. Their

trade is nearly confined to the British Empire, seven-tenths of it

being with the mother-country, and nearly all the rest with

Australia, India, and Fiji. The discovery of the method of keeping

meat frozen in cold air chambers during the passage of a vessel

through the tropics has been a great boon to New Zealand, and a great

advantage to our own land, enabling British workmen to purchase

excellent meat at a moderate price.

8. A moment's reflection on these facts will serve to bring home to

our minds the mutual advantages accruing to the mother-country and

her colonies, when in friendly relations with each other. We observe

that New Zealand has received the aid of British troops in her war

with the natives; she has been able to raise a large loan for public

works at a moderate rate of interest from men of property at home;

and she enjoys here a ready market for her produce.

9. The mother-country, on her part, has been able to provide new

homes for her surplus population in a country like their own; she has

secured seven-tenths of the trade of New Zealand, increasing thereby

the amount of profitable employment for her workpeople; she has drawn

from the colony supplies of cheap food to help fill the hungry mouths

of her millions, and quite recently she has received the substantial

aid of 6,000 New Zealand troops in her war in South Africa.

(12) A DIFFICULT BRITISH STATE TO BUILD

(South Africa).

1. The story of South Africa, since the British gained a footing

there, is marked by many a dark spot of misfortune and disaster that

we would gladly forget. When Britain, in 1806, took possession of

the Cape, the country was occupied by Boers, Hottentots, and Kaffirs.

The building up of a British state, with such conflicting elements,

has been a work of extreme difficulty, which has put the best

qualities of the British race to a severe test, and much of the work

still remains to be done.

2. The Home Government, for many years, only valued the Cape as a

military post and naval station, occupying a commanding position on

the waterway to India. They shrank, accordingly, from extending

British rule in South Africa beyond the narrowest limits, and for

many years made no attempt to colonize the country. It was not until

1820 that a body of picked emigrants, numbering 5,000, were landed at

Algoa Bay, and, having been taken 100 miles inland, were put in

possession of farms of 100 acres each.

3. The first three years were years of blight which killed the

growing grain, and then came a flood which washed away their cottages

and gardens. Many of the emigrants were good artisans but bad

farmers. They had been set out like so many plants, in well-ordered

rows, and told to grow where they were placed. But the experiment

was bound to fail. Before long many of the men deserted their farms

and found work as artisans, whilst those who were fitted for

farm-work added the derelict farms to their own, and thus in time

each one found himself in the sphere for which he was best adapted.

4. The coming of the British settlers had a marked effect on the

government of the colony. The governor was no longer able to rule

simply as he thought best. The new-comers were not disposed to be

treated as children. They wanted law and government, but insisted on

their right to question the acts of the governor, and to see that he

governed according to law, and not merely according to his own will

and pleasure. It is interesting to find from an official report made

to the House of Commons that,--"The introduction of the English

settlers, and the right of discussion which they claimed and

exercised, have had the effect of exciting in the Dutch and native

population a spirit of vigilance and attention, that never existed

before, to the acts of the government, and which may render all

future exertion of authority objectionable _that is not founded upon

the law_."

5. The history of South Africa, for more than thirty years after the

first British settlement, is marked by two special features, both

arising from the fact that three races--British, Boer, and

Kaffir--were contending for the mastery. One feature was the

repeated migrations of the Boers to get away from British rule and

taxation, and from British justice, which was dealt out even-handed

to black men and white men alike. The Boers succeeded in forming two

republics--the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. They also

attempted to settle in Natal, but that colony was annexed by the

British government (1843).

6. The other feature of those early days was the frequent necessity

of going to war with the Kaffirs. Several serious wars had to be

fought with the natives, who were very numerous, before they were

convinced that the white man had come to stay, and that his arm was

stronger than theirs. Each war with the Kaffirs ended in an

extension of British territory, and by the middle of the century

nearly the whole country south of the Orange river was taken under

British rule.

7. The governor that did most for the peace of the colony was Sir

George Grey, who had already done a good work for the empire in South

Australia and New Zealand. He secured the good offices of the Kaffir

chiefs by taking them into his pay, and he opened schools where their

young men might be trained in some useful occupation, as farming,

gardening, and carpentry. But he met with only moderate success.

Like the negroes of the West Indies, most Kaffirs hate work and have

no desire to better their condition. Given a noisy musical

instrument, a bright sun, and a gaudy dress, and their mirth and

gaiety seem boundless.

8. Sir George Grey also tried to cure the natives of their belief in

witchcraft, but in this he miserably failed. He did much, however,

to put down the practice of "smelling out" witches. The Kaffirs

believe that diseases and disasters of all kinds are caused by

wizards and witches, and in every tribe there was a professional

witch-finder whose duty it was to go through certain forms, calling

"smelling-out," and then point out the individual, who was supposed

to have caused the mischief. This practice did not commend itself to

the governor's sense of justice, and he did all he possibly could to

put it down.

9. The superstitious belief of the Kaffirs was the cause of a

terrible tragedy during Grey's term of office. Thousands of their

cattle had been carried off by a pestilence, when a Kaffir prophet

consoled the poor natives by assuring them that the Kaffir chiefs,

long dead and gone, were about to return to earth with a new breed of

cattle, which disease could not touch, and that their coming would

result in the triumph of the black men over the white. But all this,

he said, would only happen if all the present cattle and corn were

destroyed. Thousands took the madman at his word and made away with

their corn and cattle. The great day of deliverance was fixed for

February 18th, 1857, and to their amazement the sun rose and set as

usual, leaving the poor dupes face to face with starvation. The

Kaffirs suffered so dreadfully from the scourge of famine, and their

numbers were in consequence so much reduced, that we hear of no more

wars during the next twenty years.

10. During this peaceful time Cape Colony made steady but slow

progress, but, in 1870, an event occurred which awoke the colony to

new life. This was the discovery of a rich diamond-field around

Kimberley. Men and capital began to flow into the country and the

wheels of industry began to turn more rapidly. Farmers obtained a

good market, trade became brisk, railways were speedily laid down.

The diamonds are found in a kind of "blue ground," which is nothing

but a stream of volcanic mud cast up in ages past. So rich is it in

diamonds that the mines have yielded, since 1870, a yearly revenue of

between two and three million pounds.

11. The blacks in 1878 made one more hopeless attempt to oust the

white men. The struggle ended in the British government taking

possession of all the Kaffir lands, except Basutoland, and adding

them to Cape Colony. Basutoland is a native state under the direct

rule of the British Crown. This arrangement was made in response to

the prayer of a Basuto chief: "Let me and my people rest and live

under the large folds of the flag of England."

(13) A GREAT EXTENSION OF BRITISH TERRITORY

(South Africa).

1. No sooner had we put down the Kaffirs and annexed their territory

to Cape Colony than we had to advance into Zululand and finally add

that country to the Empire. The Zulus were then under the rule of

their king Cetewayo, who kept a large army, well drilled and armed

with musket and assegai. This force was a standing peril to Natal,

and to save this colony from the horrors it feared, a British force

crossed the Tugela--which separates Natal from Zululand--to destroy,

if possible, the Zulu king's "man-slaying machine."

2. The invading army crossed the river at a ford called _Rorke's

Drift_ (1879), and a division of the troops suffered a great

disaster, not far from there, at Isandlana. Happily, a small

detachment had been left to guard the passage at the ford. The

command of this post was in the hands of Lieutenants Chard and

Bromhead, whose names deserve an honoured place in our memory. With

a force of 104 men they made an heroic defence against a savage host

of 3000 warriors, who had reddened their assegais in the blood of our

countrymen, taken by surprise, at Isandlana.

3. During the fight a building used as a hospital was set on fire by

the Zulus. The brave defenders gallantly repulsed every attack

whilst the sick were removed. A sort of redoubt was then constructed

of bags of mealies in the centre of the camp, and when hard pressed

to this they retired. The vigour of the siege continued from four in

the afternoon until midnight. With the first light of morning the

Zulus retired, on hearing of the approach of the British main-body,

leaving three hundred black corpses on the ground. Of the gallant

defenders seventeen were killed and ten wounded.

4. When the British General first came in sight of Rorke's Drift and

saw smoke rising from the burning hospital, he felt certain that the

depot had been captured, and that Natal, at that moment, lay at the

mercy of a horde of savages. But he was quickly relieved at the

sight of a British flag and the sound of a British cheer, and then he

learned the story of the defence of that isolated post by the

undaunted resolution of a little band of heroes, by whose conduct

Natal was saved from invasion and massacre.

5. After a large force had landed from England, the invasion of

Zululand was renewed, and a pitched battle, fought at Ulundi, brought

the war to a close. To prevent the country from falling into the

hands of the Boers, Zululand was annexed to Natal, and now forms part

of the British Empire. The Zulus have ever since lived in peace and

contentment.

6. It also became necessary to take under our wing the country of

the Bechuanas on the west of the Transvaal; for there also many of

the Boers were settling and making themselves at home on their

neighbour's territory. Khama, a king of the Bechuanas sent to ask

for British protection. "There are three things," he wrote, "which

distress me very much--war, selling people, and drink. All these I

shall find in the Boers, and it is these things which destroy people

to make an end of them in the country." A part of Bechuanaland was,

accordingly, brought under British rule, and the remaining part under

British protection.

7. The next addition to the empire in South Africa was a vast

country now known as _Rhodesia_, a country that owes its name to

Cecil Rhodes, to whose marvellous enterprise its possession is mainly

due. From its fertility, climate, and mineral wealth, it now bids

fair to become a flourishing British Colony.

8. It was, however, difficult at first to make a settlement here,

because it was partly occupied by the warlike Matabele, a tribe akin

to the dreaded Zulus. Their king, Lobengula, kept an army of 10,000

warriors, who lived only for the joy of fighting. Permission,

however, was purchased from Lobengula to search for, and work, the

minerals within his territory. And a pioneer force was sent to turn

this permission to account (1890). Before two years had passed it

became quite clear that the Matabele warriors must be crushed before

any progress could be made. Thanks to our machine-guns and modern

rifles, this was soon effected.

9. A decisive engagement was fought near Bulawayo, the Matabele

capital. The enemy foolishly hurled themselves against our small

force when some were laagered, the rest entrenched. After an hour's

carnage, they began to retreat with the loss of 1000 killed and

wounded. A day or two later a loud report rent the air, and huge

columns of smoke were observed to rise from Bulawayo. The king had

fled after ordering his magazine to be blown up. Lobengula died

shortly afterwards of fever, and his kingdom was placed under British

rule.

10 The patriot that secured Rhodesia for the empire, has, unhappily,

had his work cut short by an early death. Much as he had done for

his country he hoped to do still more. His keen disappointment finds

utterance in his last words: "So little done, so much to do."