provinces on another continent? Roger II was "felix opportunitate mortis," and, had he lived much longer, Northern Africa might very well have been the graveyard of his reputation, as it has been the graveyard of many another's from the days of Louis IX of France to the days of Charles V of Spain. Just now it seems the fate of Northern Africa to be annexed to some kingdom of modern Europe. It can hardly in the nature of things be reannexed to Asia. France has already secured Algeria and Tunisia; she covets Tripoli and Morocco; and her main desire for wishing England to evacuate Egypt is a feeling that, England once gone, there will be one obstacle the less for her to overcome when she thinks the time is ripe for taking Egypt. Whether the other nations of Europe should quietly watch the development of a policy that seems to aim at turning the Mediterranean into a French lake is quite another matter. It would doubtless be one way of solving the old problem as to whether, historically speaking, Northern Africa belongs to Europe or to Asia. But it would be a solution that would spell ruin for certain other Powers; and it may be permitted to an Englishman to hope that, when the final break up of the Turkish Empire is accomplished, Italy, though she has now lost Sfax and Mahdia, Tunis and Bona, and all the other African conquests of her great King Roger, may succeed in saving Tripoli from the jaws of France.

T. A. ARCHER.