asked her husband's forgiveness. He granted it and kissed her, and the forlorn woman expired. Such was the sad history of one whom

"Severe repentance could not save
From want, from shame, and an
Untimely grave."

R. I. P.

BURY him while the rain is falling-
Bury him, down by the river-side,

In the reeds where the snipe and the curlew hide;
Bury him, down where the stream will lave,

And the water-rat sit on his nameless grave.

Bury him while the rain is falling-
No other tears for his fate is shed;

For no mourners follow the lonely dead:
So bury him, down by the river side,

Where the snipe and the curlew love to hide.

Bury him while the rain is falling-
There where the river may wash away
From his troubled spirit the taint of clay :
So bury him, though no tears are shed,
And no mourners follow the lonely dead.

Bury him while the rain is falling-
How much he longed for the coming rest;
His thin hands cross ye upon his breast,
And bury him there where the river may
Wash from his spirit the taint of clay-
And so let him rest, in peace, for aye.

W. T. GREENE, M.A.

BRIEF AND VARIOUS.

MR. GRATTAN GEARY'S RECENT TRAVELS IN ASIATIC TURKEY.

DR. BIRDWOOD pertinently remarks, in his remarkable “Handbook to the British Indian Section of the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1878," "The importance of the Persian-Gulf Route in ancient times is very insignificantly shown by the fact that the Greeks and Romans should have continued, even after the voyage of Scylax, and down to the time of Ptolemy, Euergetes, and Claudius Cæsar, to believe that by sea India could be reached only by way of the Euphrates Valley and Persian Gulf." "Its importance is not understood so fully in Europe as in India. From Europe, India seems far off indeed, but Europe appears much closer from India, as, in fact, the next peninsula beyond Arabia; and the valley of Mesopotamia seems, through the Straits of Ormuz, to be at the very doors of India; and it is felt, that in a commercial, political, and aesthetical sense, the Tigris and Euphrates flow into Bombay Harbour, and the other ports of Western India."

"We shall never understand," Dr. Birdwood goes on to say, "the arts of India properly if we overlook these patent physical and historical facts, which have become obscured only through the Portuguese discovery of the Cape Route, and the neglect of the Tigris and Euphrates Valley route under Turkish rule. The Armenians, moreover, continued the local trade they had always carried on, from the earliest ages, between Persia and India; and at present there are not less than five thousand Armenians, in India, engaged in this trade."

In proof of this view of the subject-that from Europe India seems far off indeed, but Europe appears much closer from Arabia, -just as the capitals of countries appear to inhabitants of the country much closer than country places do to the inhabitants of the city, Mr. Grattan Geary, editor of the "Times of India," set out in March last from India with the resolution to see something for himself of the condition of countries in which, it may be, the destinies of the British Empire may be decided, and he has communicated the results of his exploratory journey to the "Times of England, for July 25, 1878.

Entering the Shat-al-Arab, as the estuary of the Euphrates and Tigris is called, in a steamer of the British Indian line, Mr.

Geary found one bank of the river occupied by Persia, the other by Turkey up to Muhamrah, and while above and below Bussora or Basra, the Turkish bank of the river presents a pleasant spectacle of well-rewarded industry, the desert being rapidly reclaimed, an immense extent of ground having been brought into cultivation. and plantations of young date-trees stretching league after leagu、 up the river; on the Persian bank the land is, owing to misgovernment, going out of cultivation, trade is declining, and there is a steady immigration of the peasantry from the border provinces of Persia into those of Turkey.

This is not as it should be. At the time of the first exploration and survey of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, Muhamrah and the left bank of the river belonged to Turkey. The Cha'ab Arabs, who occupy the whole of the eastern delta of the Shat-alArab and the Kuran, are Arabians, and not Persians, and the disputed tenure of the land ought to have been settled at the time of Outram and Havelock's campaiga, in 1856.

Trade is making its way on the Tigris, there being seven Turkish steamers now plying on its waters, but the local authorities have evaded the request of an English company, which runs two steamers between Basra and Bagdad, for permission to increase the number of its boats This, no doubt, from a wish to monopolise the trade, on the other hand, the trade on the Euphrates is quite undeveloped, although it appears that one steamer is sent up every year as far as Bir, no doubt at the time of flood, and it is always crowded with passengers. The Arabs are a turbulent set on the lower Tigris, and we have seen them carrying on a desultory kind of warfare among themselves from the opposite banks. They are said, however, to be friendly, or, at all events, they have been taught to respect the English boats; but, not content with robbing grain boats, one bumptious sheikh, taking advantage of the withdrawal of troops to the seat of war, threatened to take a Turkish steamer ! But in spite of this very intelligible revival of plundering, it appears that the Arabs are beginning to build villages and mud huts along the banks of the river, and "to abandon their nomadic habits, the first and indispensable step to civilisation." The Arabs on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris are madayn or pastoral, and not nomadic, albeit at times turbulent. The Shammar Bedwins of Mesopotamia, like the Anaizah Bedwins of Syria, move from north to south, and vicé versâ, according to the season, with their flocks and herds, but they do not dwell in villages on the banks of the rivers; on the contrary, they often plunder the villagers.

Mr. Geary describes Baghdad, "the garden of Dad," an idol (which he unfortunately spells as if it were a place where peopl

bagged their dads) as containing now a population of about 100,000; and it appears that a tramway has been constructed to the suburb of Kazmain, on the line of Persian pilgrimage, the extension of which he advocates to Hittah (Babylon), and to Kerbela and Nejef, the great shrines of the Shiáhs-a favourite project of the enlightened Midhat Pasha. In spite of neglect or mismanagement of the ancient canals of irrigation, Mr. Geary tells us large expanses of rich soil are being yearly brought into cultivation, and as to the Arabs, he says, their chief grievance is the Turkish conscription, but " once put into the ranks, the Arab makes one of the best soldiers in the Ottoman army." There is little doubt but if regular pay were tendered by a civilising administration, any number of Arabs and Kurds-at present the most predatory races in Turkey in Asia-would be induced to join a regular army, that would leave India to be defended by its own people.

Mr. Geary followed the postal or high road by Kirkuk and Arbil to Mosul (Nineveh), and he estimates the population of the former at 20,000, the present Pasha being described as an enlightened man, having only one wife-an English woman. The fountains of naphtha, which blazed by night some years ago, are now utilised to supply the steamers with oil. The population of Arbil is estimated at 12,000. Mosul was, at the time of Mr. Geary's visit, disturbed by schisms among the Romanist Chaldæaus, and the Nestorian Chaldæans, in respect to the selection of a Patriarch.

Mr. Geary describes the postal road, as following from Nineveh, for a couple of days, the line of retreat of the Ten Thousand, crossing the Tigris at Jezirah, and following a devious course among the Kurdish mountains in the north of Mesopotamia, to pass through the important towns of Mardin, Diyarbekir, and Urfah, and so on to Birijik. This must have been owing to some disturbances, probably a rising of the Sinjar Kurds from the withdrawal of troops; for the postal and high road has always gone by Nisibin to Mardin, the road by Jezirah being a devious and difficult one, and from Mardin it went on to Diyarbekir, a branch road leaving at the former place (not at Diyarbekir), which is on the high way to Constantinople, for Urfah and Birijik.

Mr, Geary estimates the population of Diyarbekir, the seat of a consul, at 60,000, of Urfah at 50,000, and of Birijik at 12,000; and, passing Aleppo, he does not fail to notice "the succession of rolling hills" between that city and the plain of Antioch, which it was the object of General Chesney and Sir John M'Neil's last journey to circumvent. Unfortunately, Mr. Geary did not go to Antioch and Suwaidiyah, but he took the road north of the lakes to the Baylan Pass, so he is unqualified to give an opinion as to the comparative accessibility of the two routes; but he concludes

from what he saw that:-" A railway from the Mediterranean to "A the valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris would pass through countries of great natural resources, and would tap provinces of wonderful fertility and boundless extent. It is a mistake to suppose that Asiatic Turkey is now "decaying." Nearly everywhere throughout a journey extending over 1500 miles I saw evidence of progress rather than of decay. The population is scanty, but it is robust and well fed, and with proper inducement would work well. When you can get men any day to carry three hundred weight a-piece for a few piastres, there can be no want of hard muscle. The lax and inefficient, rather than oppressive administration under which the country has hitherto languished, will now undergo a thorough reform under British supervision. The corruption of the small officials-and even of some of the great officials-may be expected to cease out of the land when salaries are regularly paid, and peculation or bribery is followed by inevitable dismissal. The Arab and the Kurd can easily be brought to order by the establishment of a few military posts. What, then, will stand in the way of the development of the resources of Asiatic Turkey? British enterprise and British capital will furnish the means, and all the world, we may hope, will profit not inconsiderably by the result.

"

GUARANTEE OF ANGLO-TURKISH RAILWAYS.

LORD BLANTYRE has made a fair estimate of what the position of this country would be, by the construction of railways in Turkey in Asia, and which are indispensable for developing the commerce and resources of the country, for protecting life and property, for defensive purposes, and as an admirable alternate route to India. Suppose these railways," writes his lordship, " earn £3 per cent., which is said to be the average earnings of all the Indian railways together, and that the guarantee is 4 per cent., then England would have to supply, say, 1 per cent., and India per cent.-e.g., if the sum guaranteed be £20,000,000-4 per cent. on £20,000,000, £900,000 per annum, which would be made up of earnings at, say 3 per cent., £600,000; English guarantors, 1 per cent., £200,000; Indian guarantor, per cent., £100,000 = 4 per. cent., £900,000.

The sum laid down here ought to suffice for a railway from Constantinople to the Persian Gulf, since the expenses of a direct Euphrates line from Seleucia Pieria were estimated at eight millions, or, if carried across Mesopotamia to Nisibin, probably ten millions or more. We doubt if, except in populous and favoured localities, the earnings of Anglo-Turkish railways would equal at