lating the government which the Catholic priests have set up in other islands, they certainly deserve great credit for the work they did during these years. It is rarely that so great and beneficial a change has been so soon brought about in the habits of a barbarous people. The introduction of Sea-Island cotton by Dr. Brower, the American Consul, and the owner of the island of Wakaia, changed the whole aspect of affairs. It was soon found that this description of cotton was particularly well suited to the moist yet equable climate and the rich volcanic soils of the Fijis. Under careful management it seemed probable that the new staple would yield considerable profits. It so happened, also, that about the time when the Sea-Island cotton was first grown both Australian and New Zealand wool was at a very low price. Some of the more adventurous of the colonists, therefore, who had been nearly ruined by the depression, scraped together the remains of their fortune and determined to try their luck in Fiji. A few have done tolerably well, but none, we fear, have earned the profits which they anticipated when they set out. At first, however, everything looked well, and in 1869 and 1870 there began a sort of "rush" to Fiji. Every newcomer thence was eagerly questioned in Sydney and Melbourne as to the amount of capital which would be required to start a cotton plantation with fair hope of success. The infection even spread to this country, and made way among classes not well suited to such work. In Melbourne a large Polynesian company was formed, which secured upwards of 200,000 acres. In the end a population of upwards of 2,000 white men has gathered in the islands; and whatever may have been said or thought to the contrary, they are in truth a fair sample of hard-working English colonists. Many of the planters are really superior men, quite capable of holding their own anywhere. There are some black sheep amongst them, no doubt; and these, as so often happens in a new community where each honest man is chiefly intent on minding his own business, have come to the surface. Mr. Layard, who evidently went out with the idea that he would be called upon to meet the very scum of the earth when he should encounter the Fijian planters, was agreeably surprised to find that for the most part he had to deal with straightforward, plain men of business, who were no more inclined to countenance kidnapping, murder, and rape than he was himself; and he had the honesty to confess his surprise in one of his first speeches in Levuka. The influx of white settlers and the simultaneous commencement of so many cotton plantations led to the importation of labourers from the neighbouring groups. Much has been heard of late of the abuses to which this traffic has given rise, and the annexation of Fiji will no doubt put an end to most of them. Meanwhile, the settlers declare that they were no parties to the atrocities which have been committed, and that they are only anxious that the coolie trade should be conducted with the strictest justice. There is at any rate this evidence in their favour, that none of the vessels regularly employed by them have been charged with such horrors as those which have disgraced some which set from out the colonies 66 'on spec." Hardworking men who have invested their all in the islands, and who are living a rough life among a more or less hostile people, they not unnaturally hope that they be may be made secure of their holdings by the annexation of the group to the British empire, or that they may, on the other hand, be left to settle their differences with the natives after their own fashion. In short, Englishmen in Fiji are neither much better nor much worse than Englishmen in other parts of the world; and under the judicious rule of a responsible English governor, they will prove a very decent and law-abiding community. Even up to the present time brawls of a serious character have been very rare; and revolvers are much more common in many civilized American cities than among the white settlers in the Fijis. The ideas of a planter's life derived from the old days in the West Indies and the Southern States of America have by no means been realized as yet in Fiji. Most of the settlers think themselves fortunate if on the road to future luxury they can manage to reach the stage of ordinary comfort. At present the white men, as a whole, are badly off. The fall in the price of cotton a very serious matter in a country where freight, insurance, and agency charges are so highand the damage done by the tremendous hurricanes of last year have together reduced many to the bare necessaries of life. The stock-keepers of Levuka and Suva, most of whom own plantations themselves, have been compelled to re one-nin th. strict their credit; and even tea and according to Fiji custom, one-eighth or square-bottle gin are, it is said, becoming scarce along the coasts. A settler in As we have said, Sea-Island cotton has Fiji who cannot supply every chance hitherto been the staple product of Fiji. guest with gin at discretion must, indeed, Of late, however, sugar-cane, which the feel himself in a bad way. But this de-natives have long grown successfully, pression, of course, is merely temporary. has been systematically cultivated. PeoIn the face of it, and of the bad and un-ple have long been aware that both clicertain government which has now come mate and soil were favourable; but sugar, to an end, the imports into the group for unlike cotton, requires considerable capithe year 1873 considerably exceeded in tal to work to advantage, and capital does value £100,000. And in spite of the not lose its characteristic timidity even in hardships, difficulties, dangers, and dis- the South Seas. It is plain that the Fiji appointments which fall to his share, the sugar, if successfully grown and manu life of a settler, whether a planter or a factured, will at any rate have a good trader, is a pleasant one. The climate chance of commanding the New Zealand itself is delightful to all who can stand a market, Auckland being only 1,100 miles high temperature, and from April to De- from Levuka. Fiji tobacco also ought in cember a journey amongst the islands is these days of dearth in cigars to attract little more than an agreeable excursion. attention. The leaf grown from the best Formerly terrible risks were run in open Cuban seed is said to be equal in every boats, but the loss of many lives has respect to the finest in the Antilles. It taught caution in this respect. Nowa- might perhaps be worth the while of days during the cotton season it would some Cubans who are settling in Jamaica be difficult to see a prettier sight than to see whether even a better field is not Levuka harbour crowded with little yachts offered here. and steam-launches. Levuka itself has, As it is clear that the white men canas the Americans say, become quite a not be turned out of the group, it is cerplace. Apart, too, from the enjoyment tainly well that they should be placed which may be derived from visiting the under a form of government which_can other islands during the slack time, the really exercise control over them. Thamanagement of a plantation is itself in- kombau's late Ministers, with one or two teresting. The planter who possesses an exceptions, were thoroughly distrusted island of his own is, of course, particu- by every white man in the Fiji Islands. larly favored. He has no one to look Their dictatorial behaviour and wholesale after but his own labourers, and, provided extravagance only made people inquire he can keep them in proper order, he has the more closely into their previous hislittle to think of beyond the improvement tory. Messrs. Woods, Swanston, Burt, of his fields and the perfecting of his and "Sir "Charles St. Julian were, to say cotton-ginning establishment. On the the least, not capable of dealing with the larger islands, however, account has to present state of affairs; and Mr. Thursbe taken of the natives, who sometimes ton's want of tact and incapacity for coninterfere most unpleasantly where they trolling his colleagues quite neutralized think they have been wronged. Perhaps his ability. If strong ground is taken there is little reason to wonder that from the first and a proper system troubles have arisen, when it is remem- adopted alike for whites, natives, and imbered that the white men claim one-sixth ported labourers, there is every reason to of the whole arable land in the group. believe that the Fiji Islands will become They have probably purchased rightly, a valuable addition to the British Empire. ABSENCE OF ITALIAN CHEMISTS. At a congress of Italian savants, which held a recent sitting at Rome, a meeting of the Chemical Section, under the presidency of Professor Cannizzaro, undertook a discussion on the rarity of original chemical research in Italy, and on its causes. The Section was of opinion that to awaken activity in this department it is desirable that the profession of chemistry should offer to students a career analogous to that presented by engineering or by medicine. To this the "Chemical News" adds: "A similar complaint and a similar suggestion might be made in England, with the additional complaint that engineers and medical men are continually encroaching upon the sphere of the professional chemist." Fifth Series, } No. 1564.-May 30, 1874. From Beginning, CONTENTS. I. DR. SCHLIEMANN'S TROJAN ANTIQUITIES,. Edinburgh Review, III. SIR PETer Lely, • 515 Cornhill Magazine, AND HIS Pall Mall Gazette, Spectator, Pall Mall Gazette, PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor when we have to pay commission for forwarding the money; nor when we club the LIVING Age with another periodical. An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & GAY. From The Edinburgh Review. DR. SCHLIEMANN'S TROJAN ANTIQUI TIES.* MUCH curiosity was excited, towards the close of last summer, by the announcement, which appeared first in the German newspapers, but soon found its way into those of this country also that a German savant, who was known to have been engaged for a considerable time past in researches on the plain of Troy, had not only determined beyond a doubt the site of that far-famed city, but had brought to light the very palace of King Priam himself, and, what was more, had found upon the site a large portion of the treasures in gold and silver that had once belonged to the Trojan monarch, and which the Greek invaders, as it appeared, had omitted to carry off. Such a discovery was indeed calculated to arouse the attention, not only of archæologists and scholars, but of every cultivated person in the three kingdoms; but who is there that can pretend to that title, to whom the names of Priam and Hecuba, of Hector and Andromache, are not as familiar as household words? Great as was the interest attached to such marvellous discoveries as those at Nineveh, which may be said to have brought to light again the existence of a buried empire, they were deficient in that highest source of interest which is derived from the association and connection with persons well known in history, or in that poetical and legendary story, which is apt to impress itself more strongly on the mind than any true history. At the same time this very circumstance was one of the causes which led to this first announcement being received with some incredulity as well as astonishment. The old undoubting faith of former days, which had received the Trojan War as an event as historical and unquestionable as the Crusades, and had looked on Aga 1. Trojanische Alterthümer. Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in Troja. Von Dr. HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN. 8vo. Leipzig: 1874. 2. Atlas Trojanischer Alterthümer. Photographische Abbildungen zu dem Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in Troja. Von Dr. HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN. 4to. (218 Photographic Plates with Descriptive Text.) 1874 memnon and Achilles as no less historical personages than Godfrey of Bouillon or Edward the Black Prince, had almost entirely passed away; and while many scholars were still content to believe that there must remain a substratum of fact underlying this accumulated mass of legend and fiction, others insisted on resolving the whole into those hazy mists of mythology, in which the bewildered inquirer gropes in vain for any glimpse of truth or reality. To be told, therefore, that the results of actual excavations upon the spot had not only proved the real existence of Troy, but the substantial truth of the Trojan War, and revealed objects of great intrinsic value, which could be assigned without hesitation to the period of that event, and might be reasonably believed to have belonged to the aged Priam himself, and been worn or handled by his sons and daughters, was indeed an assertion calculated to arouse the scepticism of more critical scholars, while those who still clung to the ancient legend would be apt to feel that it was too good news to be true. For some time no definite information on the subject was received; and it was not till the publication of an article in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" of January last, by M. Emile Burnouf, the learned director of the French school at Athens; and of one by Mr. Max Müller in "The Academy," almost exactly at the same time, that scholars and archæologists in this country had any means of forming a judgment for themselves of the real value and nature of the discoveries in question. Since then Dr. Schliemann's own work has appeared, containing not only a minute and detailed account of the whole course and progress of his excavations, but illustrated with photographic representations of all the objects of interest discovered in the course of them, as well as with plans of the excavations and the ruins brought to light, which supply the fullest information concerning all the circumstances of this extraordinary trouvaille. Whatever opinion we may form as to the scientific and historical results of Dr. Schliemann's discoveries, and however we may feel disposed to dissent from |