olutions, and the establishment of the terrestrial
_regime_, I cannot for the life of me see whatever induced beings
endowed with human reason, to transplant themselves hither and here take
root, while such vast spaces lie waste and useless in more genial
climes. A man may be pardoned for remaining where the providences of
birth and education have thrown him, but I cannot excuse the first
colonists for inflicting such a home upon centuries of descendants.
Compare even their physical life--the pure animal satisfaction in
existence, for that is not a trifling matter after all--with that of the
Nubians, or the Malays, or the Polynesians! It is the difference between
a poor hare, hunted and worried year after year by hounds and visions of
hounds and the familiar, confiding wren, happiest of creatures, because
secure of protection everywhere. Oh that the circle of the ecliptic
would coincide with that of the equator! That the sun would shine from
pole to pole for evermore, and all lands be habitable and hospitable,
and the Saharan sands (according to Fourier) be converted into bowers of
the Hesperides, and the bitter salt of the ocean brine (_vide_ the same
author) become delicious champagne punch, wherein it would be pleasure
to drown! But I am afraid that mankind is not yet fit for such a
millennium.

Meanwhile it is truly comforting to find that even here, where men live
under such discouraging circumstances that one would charitably forgive
them the possession of many vices, they are, according to their light,
fully as true, and honest, and pure, as the inhabitants of the most
favoured countries in the world. Love for each other, trust in each
other, faith in God, are all vital among them; and their shortcomings
are so few and so easily accounted for, that one must respect them and
feel that his faith in man is not lessened in knowing them. You who
spend your lives at home can never know how much good there is in the
world. In rude unrefined races, evil naturally rises to the surface, and
one can discern the character of the stream beneath its scum. It is only
in the highest civilisation where the outside is goodly to the eye, too
often concealing an interior foul to the core.

But I have no time to moralise on these matters. My duty is that of a
chronicler; and if I perform that conscientiously, the lessons which my
observations suggest will need no pointing out. I cannot close this
chapter, however, without confessing