ut they move to
some new locality, and then, like those fruit-trees which, in order to
be prolific, must be transplanted, the noiseless and unnoticed tenor of
their original way is exchanged for an influential and prominent
position. They take up a large place in the world's history. Sometimes
this arises from an absolute change of character with the change of
circumstances; but oftener it is due to a more intelligible cause. They
move from a country beyond the reach of historical and geographical
knowledge to one within it; and having done this they find writers who
observe and describe them, simply because they have come within the
field of observation and description.

It is no great stretch of imagination to picture some of the stronger
tribes of the now unknown parts of Central Africa finding their way as
far southward as the Cape, when they would come within the sphere of
European observation. On such a ground, they may play a conspicuous part
in history; conspicuous enough to be noticed by historians,
missionaries, and journalists. They may even form the matter of a blue
book. For all this, however, they shall only be known in the latter-days
of their history. What they were in their original domain may remain a
mystery; and that, even when the parts wherein it lay shall have become
explored. For it is just possible that between the appearance of such a
population in a locality beyond the pale of their own unexplored home,
and the subsequent discovery of that previously obscure area, the part
which was left behind--the parent portion--may have lost its
nationality, its language, its locality, its independence, its name--any
one or any number of its characteristics. Perhaps, the name alone, with
a vague notice of its locality, may remain; a name famous from the
glory of its new country, but obscure, and even equivocal in its
fatherland.

How truly are the Majiars of Hungary known only from what they have been
in Hungary. Yet they are no natives of that country. It was from the
parts beyond the Uralian mountains that they came, and when we visit
those parts and ask for their original home, we find no such name, no
such language, no such nationality as that of the Majiars. We find
Bashkirs, or something equally different instead. But north of the old
country of the Majiars--now no longer Majiar--we find Majiar
characteristics; in other words, we are amongst the first cousins of the
Hungarians, the descendants not