pilots during the past year, thoroughly well justified the allusion to the progress of aerial locomotion made by the British Ambassador in Paris and the President of the French Republic on the occasion of the New Year's Day official reception of the Diplomatic Corps at the Elysée. Sir Francis Bertie said: "The year 1910 will be remarkable in history on account of the wonderful progress realised in the navigation of the air, and in that domain France will have marked her place in the first rank of the peoples of the world both by the discoveries of her scientists and by the exploits of her aviators.'

M. Fallière's reply was an equally flattering recognition of the progress effected. He

said: "I rejoice with you at the unexpected development of aerial navigation. It is one of the marvels of our time! Everywhere in the two continents we see intrepid men, daunted neither by passing non-success nor by the most terrible catastrophes, and who without hesitation place heroically their lives at the service of the great cause of progress, vieing with one another in sang-froid and courage. France, as you were kind enough to proclaim aloud, and I thank you for doing so, exerts herself to the utmost in order not to be below her destinies, and she brings her stone to the monument which is being raised with the assistance of all to the glory of human genius."

RHODESIA is not, strictly speaking, in "South Africa "; but the two are so closely connected that a visit to South Africa, however short, would not be complete without a view of the southern part at least of the country which Rhodes saved for the Empire.

It is pleasant to pass from the bare plains of the Transvaal and the long backs of the treeless downs, beautiful &8 they are in their own way, to the forest country — the "Bosch Veldt"-through which the train runs for hundreds of miles on the way to Buluwayo. The timber is not fine, not like English timber, — nor is the forest thick; but the grassy glades, with their clumps of yellow mimosa and other trees, are very restful to the eye, and there are many wild-flowers. The solitude of it all, and the feeling that even in the modern railway carriage one is surrounded by real nature, bring peace to one's soul.

Here and there, at long distances apart, one comes upon little wayside stations, a shanty or two of the eternal corrugated iron, with perhaps a

VOL. CLXXXIX.—NO. MCXLIV.

few native huts of branches and thatch. The rest is unbroken forest, which looks, and is, ideal game country, though the larger game has mostly disappeared before the inroads of hunters.

Nearly forty-eight hours of travel from the noise and rush of the Rand gold-mines brings one to Buluwayo, the former capital of the ill-fated chief Lo Bengula, now a flourishing English town of four or five thousand inhabitants.

Although it was midsummer when I arrived, the weather was cool, almost cold, with much rain at times, and a high wind; and the country round looked rather desolate. As far as the eye could see, on all sides stretched the undulating forest; there were no salient features in the landscape, and the impression was one of sameness and monotony.

This impression wears off after a time-particularly if the sun comes out and touches the little fluffy balls of the yellow mimosa. Then the near forest turns into a sheet of gold, as bright as a stretch of Cornish gorse; and farther

M

away the gold merges into green, and the green fades away into the blue depths of the distant atmosphere.

Only seventeen years ago Lo Bengula was at the height of his power; and Buluwayo, the "Place of Slaughter," was the centre of his dominion. It is not easy to say how far his rule extended; but in a country about as large as Great Britain there was no one who dared oppose him. His Matabele warriors - kinsmen of the Zulus who fought us so fiercely at Isandula and Rorke's Drift-were regarded by the neighbouring tribes and by themselves as invincible. Many thousands of them were gathered about his "kraal" at Buluwayo. One is shown still the low umbrella - shaped tree under which the king sate dispensing his wild wild justice while the great forest - birds wheeled overhead. It stands now in the grounds of our English "Government House," and Lo Bengula lies in some hidden forest grave which his tribesmen will not make known to his conquerors; but he was strong in those days, only seventeen years ago.

Then, in an unhappy hour for him, he let loose his warriors upon the tribes which had come under the influence of the white man; and the white man rose in sudden wrath and decided that his power must be broken. It is a pitiful story altogether, like so many of the stories of the savage and the white man; and one cannot help sympa

thising to some extent with the savage. It is generally an evil day for the uncivilised nations, or at least for their rulers, when the white pioneer first comes into their country; and one cannot wonder that some of them should oling to the only safe policythat of absolute exclusion.

Still Lo Bengula was & savage; and though one may feel sorry for the fall of a ruler who had his good points, it is undeniable that the establishment of white influence in such a country puts an end to many horrors-to oppression and torment of every kind inflicted upon great numbers of men; perhaps to frequent and widespread massacres depopulating whole districts. The native rule is picturesque; and the character of the savage has many fine qualities, which seem to disappear when he comes into contact with civilisation. It is much to be doubted whether the black man who is to be met to-day riding across the veldt on a bicycle, with an old pot hat on his head, to work in the mines, is the equal of the black man who used to fling himself, assegai in hand, upon the lines of our breechloaders. One thinks with regret of the tall regiments of Cetewayo and Lo Bengula wiped off the face of the earth, and their proud traditions gone for ever. But certainly they were kept up at an awful cost of blood and suffering. No doubt one should put sentiment aside, and be

glad that the sons of those magnificent fighting men will read good school - books, and talk bad English, and spend their lives peacefully grubbing out gold and diamonds, "the two great enemies of mankind," or tilling the fields of the white

man.

You will see them in the white man's hotel at Buluwayo now, doing the rough work, while the tables in the modern dining-room are served by Indian waiters from Natal, who look upon them with scern as an inferior race.

The Indians have some reason to think highly of themselves, for the white employer in Buluwayo evidently thinks highly of them. It would astonish the Madrassi "boy" in his own country to be told that his kinsmen here were drawing pay at the rate of six or seven pounds a-month, with board and lodging found, or a great deal more if they cook the curries which they have made a standing dish all over South Africa. These are not good, by the way. It passes the wit of man to make a good curry out of India.

There are some fine buildings upon the wide roads of Buluwayo, the signs of a time when it was believed that a second Rand was to be found among the forests of Rhodesia. There are some good, and expensive, shops; and a public library; and one of the largest drill halls in the world for the Volunteers.

club, looking out through the blossoms of the Bougainvillea at the statue of Cecil Rhodes, who stands at the cross-ways in his sack coat with his hands joined behind him, while the southerly breeze makes the Union Jack on the hotel fly out against the clear blue sky, it is difficult to persuade oneself that only seventeen years ago Jameson and Forbes marched into the place with their little colonial army.

It is a wonderful story, the story of that short campaign. Few finer things have been done by Englishmen. Think of it-seven hundred men marching straight on the capital of a famous chief, master of many thousands of well-trained and hitherto unbeaten warriors; sustaining and repelling two fierce attacks; finally driving him away into the forest, with the relics of his shattered regiments about him, shattered but still outnumbering them by ten to one. And then the "Wilson Patrol," thirty-five in all, many of them English public school boys, young still but hardened by some years of colonial life, led by the Scotchman Alan Wilson, riding into the midst of the enemy, with the night coming on, to take the king in his own camp. They failed, and one of the best of South African writers has told us, in the words of the Matabele, how they fought their last fight-how, "when only five or six of the thirty-five were left, they took off their hats, and under fire from all sides sang something as the English do,