the unfaith which follows on broken idols, which makes a great many foolish women join in the howl against men. They begin by being blind worshippers, and end either as rebels or slaves. Only a very few have courage to take the medium course, and, while refusing either to adore or condemn, content themselves with simply loving; a wise, open-eyed love, which sees faults even in the best-beloved, and, loving still, steadily tries to amend them.

For many of the sins of mankind women have themselves to blame. First, for their viciousness and coarseness, women being either too ignorant or too cowardly to exact from men the same standard of virtue which men expect from them. Secondly, for their tyranny, because the laws and customs of many generations have placed women far too much in the power of men; and even were it not so, their own warm affec⚫tions make them too easy slaves. Thirdly, for the selfishness which-doubtless with righteous reason-is so deeply implanted in the masculine breast, that a thoroughly unselfish man is almost a lusus naturæ. And no wonder, since from his cradle his womenkind have adored him. Mothers, nurses, sisters, all join in the sweet flattery, the perpetual acquiescence, which make him, as boy and man, think far too much of himself. Then, perhaps, comes a period of innocent tyranny from his sweetheart, which he soon repays by tyrannizing over his wife. Thus, except that brief season when Love has

Struck the chord of self, which, trembling, passed in music out of sight,

there is, for the ordinary man-I do not say the ideal man, or even the specially good man-no time in his life when he is not bolstered up in his only too natural egotism by the foolish subservience or adoring love-servitude of the women about him.

Loving and serving is a woman's destiny, but it should be done in a right way. To yield to a man when you know he is in the wrong, to teach others that he must be yielded to whether right or wrong, is to place him on a pedestal where not one man in twenty thousand could stand steady. The unspoken creed of many a household, especially

in the last generation, that the girls must always give in to the boys, that endless money should be spent on the boys' education and career in the world, while the girls must shift for themselves

this it is, I believe, which has brought about that painful reaction, in which women are gradually unsexing themselves, trying to do a multitude of things which Nature never meant them to do, and losing sight of that which she did mean, viz., that they should be, first the wives and mothers, and, failing that, the friends, consolers, and helpers of men.

This they can be in a hundred ways, without attempting the impossible, and without controverting the supposed Christian doctrine that the man is the head of the woman; as he ought to be if he deserves it, but which when truly deserving he will seldom obnoxiously claim to be. It is a curious fact, which I have noticed throughout my life, that the strongest, noblest, wisest men are those who are the least afraid of granting to women all the "rights" they could possibly desire, and the most generous in allowing them all the qualities, so often dormant through neglected education, which they possess in common with men.

One of these, strange as it may appear, is the "business faculty," usually attributed to men only-except in France, where, especially among the bourgeoisie, "Madame" does the business of the family, which prospers accordingly. Despite her revolutions. there is no richer, more economical, nor more thriving country than France, and none where women do more work or are more highly regarded.

"I would never let my daughter marry an Englishman,' said to me once a French lady, a better "business woman" and doing daily more practical work than most men ; vos maris Anglais sont toujours tyrans." I hope not! but I think English husbands and fathers would be wiser if, instead of saying contemptuously that "women never understand business," they taught their womenkind to understand it. This would lighten their own hands amazingly, take from them half the worries which convert them into supposed "tyrants," besides being an incalculable advantage to the women themselves.

Men, from their large ego, have a tendency to take interest chiefly in their own affairs, to see things solely from their own point of view, and to judge things, not as they are, but as the world will look at them with reference to their individual selves. But their power and inclination to take trouble are rarely equal to a woman's. Her very narrow ness makes her more conscientious and reliable in matters of minute detail. A man's horizon is wider, his vision larger, his physical and intellectual strength generally greater than a woman's; but he is, as a rule, less prudent, less careful, less able to throw himself out of himself, and into the interests of other people. Granted a capable woman, and one who has had even a tithe of the practical education that all men have or are supposed to have, she will do a matter of business, say an executorship, secretaryship, etc., as well as any man, or even better than most men, because she will take more pains.

Did girls get from childhood the same business training as boys, and were it clearly understood in all families that it is no credit but rather a discredit for women to hang helpless on the men instead of doing their own work, and if necessary earning their own living, I believe society would be not the worse but the better for the change. Men would find out that the more they elevate women the greater use they get out of them. If instead of a man working himself to death for his unmarried daughters, and then leaving them ignominiously dependent upon male relations, he educated them to independence, made them able both to maintain and to protect themselves, it would save him and them a world of unhappiness. They would cease to be either the rivals -a very hopeless rivalry--or the playthings first and afterward the slaves of men; and become, as was originally intended, their co-mates, equal and yet different, each sex supplying the other's deficiencies, and therefore fitted to work together, not apart, for the good of the world.

What this work should be, individual capacity alone must decide. There are so many things which women cannot do, that I think men would be wise as well as just, in letting them do whatever

they can do. As clerks, book-keepers, secretaries, poor law guardians, superintendents of hospitals and similar institutions, they would, if properly trained, be quite as capable as men. The oft-repeated cry that thereby they lower the rate of wages and take the bread out of men's mouths is only that of feeble fear. Women must either be maintained or maintain themselves; it is no injury but a relief to men when those to whom Providence has not given the blessed duties of wives and mothers do maintain themselves, in any lawful and possible way.

So many ways are to them absolutely impossible. They cannot be soldiers, sailors, or enter on any profession which entails violent physical exertion or endurance. Mentally, too, their powers are limited. Exceptional female brains there are, equal to male, but I believe the average young woman would never go through the curriculum of our public schools and colleges without serious harm, especially to that nervous organization which is far more delicate than that of the average young man, and to the general health which is so important not only to herself but to the next generation. "Send me," wrote a colonial bishop in want of missionary help, "send me a cargo of capable old maids.' But any career which young maidens are put to, which is likely to unfit them for their natural destiny, as mothers of the men and women to be, must be injurious to the future of the world.

Therefore, in one profession where men have exceedingly resented our entrance, great caution is required that it should be entered solely by exceptional women, gifted not only with masculine aspirations but masculine strength, mental and physical-I mean the medical profession. Nevertheless, to exclude them altogether would be a great mistake. Whether women could ever make as good doctors as men, i.e., general practitioners, consulting physicians, surgeons or scientists, is very doubtful; but there is one branch of the profession which in modern times men have taken to themselves, and which women would do well to take back again into their own hands. Obstetric practice once did belong, and still ought to belong exclusively to capable, carefully trained,

and experienced medical women. No medical man, with his many daily cases of ordinary illness-often infectious illness-and his very limited time, ought to have anything to do with that crisis which requires patience, caution, prudence, and, above all, no hurry or worry. I believe the number of women, especially poor women, who have been actually murdered through having male attendance in their hour of need, would, if known, be enough argument for our sex to hold its own, and, on this point at least, stand by one another, and educate a phalanx of capable accoucheuses who should effectually absorb this branch of the medical profession, leaving to men all the rest.

Few, at best, will be the number of women who have brains, will, and physical stamina enough to compete with men in the arena of the world, fewer still those who have any wish to do it. Half of us would rather stay at home and do our work, domestic work; the other and inferior half prefer to let the man work, while they run about and enjoy themselves. But such exceptional women as have masculine aspirations and masculine capacities may safely be allowed to use the one and gratify the other. There will always be enough of us left who are content to be mere daughters, sisters, wives and mothers, willing to merge ourselves in the men we love, to spend and be spent for them, often with small thanks and no reward, except the comfort of knowing that they could not well do without us, and that after all it does not much matter which does the work of life, so that it is done.

That as a whole men do it better than we, is, I think, a mistake. Their labors are seen, ours unseen. Their aims are larger, perhaps nobler, but they are less. persistent than we are; more prone to get

weary of well doing." In physical courage they excel us, but in moral courage I think very few men are equal to women. (The reader must pardon this continual repetition of "I think" and "I believe,' necessary in some way to neutralize the sweeping dogmatism which is at once so odious and so difficult to avoid.) Arrant cowards as many of us are in the matter of our affections, ready to do anything rather than con

tradict a bad-tempered husband or vex a disagreeable brother, when it comes to any great moral heroism, or that endurance which is often greater than heroism, there are few men so strong and brave as a woman. It is well known in the statistics of lunatic asylums that the largest proportion of male patients have been driven mad by worldly misfortunes. Not so with us. We can endure almost any amount of external suffering, stand on our feet and support others. The thing which breaks our hearts and turns our brains is, as statistics also prove, inward anguish. We can endure life and face death, but our one vulnerable point is our affections.

It seems as if this paper "concerning men'' were drifting into an essay upon women, yet both are so inevitably mixed up together that it is difficult to divide them. But there is one point of difference between men and women which I ought not quite to pass over, and yet shall not dilate upon, for I believe no woman is capable of fairly judging it. Mercifully for the world, very few women can in the least understand that side of men's nature, in which the senses predominate over or are perpetually fighting with the soul, so that an originally noble human being can sink down to the level of Calypso's swine. I question if even an ordinary womanbeing a good woman-can realize the state of mind which results in a man's making some wretched mésalliance, or sinking under the unlawful thraldom of a Cleopatra, an Aspasia, or a Phryne. Such things are, but most of us women can hardly comprehend them. We may, under some extraordinary self-delusion, fall in love with a bad man and cling to him from duty or tenderness long after love has departed, but we seldom plunge as a man does, open-eyed, into the nets spread by a bad woman, whom he knows to be a bad woman, and yet cannot help himself. The story of Samson and Delilah, repeated age after age among men, is not often told of us

women.

Nor is this common in lesser forms of folly or guilt. If we sin, it is generally through self-deception, but men do it with their eyes open. I remember once at a dinner-party hearing my host piteously lamenting over his gout, because

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of which his doctor had prohibited wine. Immediately afterward I saw him toss off a bumper of champagne. "Why do you do that?" I asked. Oh, because," he hesitated, because I can't help it." He is dead now, but before his death his splendid fortune had all melted away, and his wife and children were earning their daily bread. And why? Because of that miserable contemptible" can't help it." Now, if there is one thing in which the average woman is superior to the average man, it is because she generally can help it.'

But, I repeat, some, nay, many, men are found, nobler than the very noblest of women. One perhaps toils all his life at a trade he hates, yet which happens to be the only calling in which he can earn the family bread; another resigns silently all the lawful pleasures of existence, intellectual and social, to that same cruel necessity of providing for his dear ones; a third, year after year, endures with sublime patience the fretfulness of an invalid wife or the sin and misery of a drunken one. A fourth, less wretched than these, yet still most unfortunate, having married from gratitude or impulse, still year after year honorably and faithfully puts up with the companionship of a woman who is no companion at all, with whom he has not the slightest sympathy, whom he either never loved rightly or has long ceased to love, yet for a whole lifetime he hides this fact and its consequences in his own bosom, without ever letting the world find out, or guess that he himself has found out, what he now knows to have been a terrible mistake. Such instances, not rare, are enough to prove even to the most virulent of his feminine detractors, that man, "made in the image of God," has something godlike about him still, something that we women are justified in admiring and adoring; devoting, nay, sacrificing, our selves to him, as I am afraid we shall do to the end of the chapter.

But the sacrifice ought to be a just and right one, else it is worse than useless-sinful. Any self-devotion which makes its object selfish and conceited, as a man can scarcely fail to be with a circle of women blindly worshipping him; any foolish tenderness which, instead of strengthening, weakens him;

any slavish fear which rouses all his dormant love of power into positive tyranny, these things are in us women not virtues but vices. A certain novel lately published, entitled "This Man's Wife," in which a "pattern" woman believes blindly for about twenty years in a villain of a husband, sacrificing to him her father and mother, her child, two faithful friends, once lovers, and herself, is a picture that outrages all one's notions of common-sense and justice, and when the woman dies at last one is inclined to say, not What a martyr" but "What a fool !"

The relation between men and women ought to be as equal and as righteous as their love; also as clear-sighted, that by means of it each may educate and elevate the other; both looking beyond each other to that absolute right and perfect love, without which all human love must surely soon or late melt away in disenchantment, distaste, or even actual dislike. For love can die-there is no truth more certain and more terrible; and each human being that lives carries within himself or herself the possibility of being its murderer.

It will be seen that in all my judgments I have held a medium course, because, to me at least, this appears the only one possible. Neither sex can benefit by over-exalting or lowering the other. They are meant to work together, side by side, for mutual help and comfort, each tacitly supplying the other's deficiencies, without recriminations, or discussions as to what qualities are or are not possessed by either. The instant they begin to fight about their separate rights they are almost sure to forget their mutual duties, which are much more important to the conservation of society.

For let them argue as they will-neither can do without the other; and though, as I remember once hearing or reading, it is most true that only at one special time of life are they absolutely essential each to each, that after the heyday of youth has gone by, most men prefer the society of men and women of women-except of the one, if ever found, who is its other half, its "spirit's mate, compassionate and wise"-still, in most lives, and above all in married lives, a man is to a woman and a woman

to a man, even when all passion has died out, a stronghold, a completeness, such as no two women or two men ever can be to one another. The Maker of all things made it so, and we cannot alter it.

To sum up, I fear that, argue as we may, we shall never arrive at any clearer elucidation of this great mystery, than the eminently practical one conveyed in most perfect poetry by one of the wisest of our century, whose serene old age will only confirm the belief of his ardent

youth. It is Alfred Tennyson who tells us that women and men are

Not like to like, but like in difference,
Yet in the long years liker they must grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man-
He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the
world;

She mental breadth, nor fail in child-ward care,
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind.
Till at the last she set herself to man,
Like perfect music unto noble words.
-Cornhill Magazine.

II.

ZEBEHR Spoke of the country to which he had now come as a green and flowery land full of running water. It was chiefly the abundance of water which caused him to fix upon it as his place of residence. He described the climate as very healthy, less hot than some parts of Darfour and Kordofan, and the soil as fertile almost beyond description. European trees grew and flourished side by side with trees of the tropics. "All that I have seen here in Gibraltar grew also there, but in much greater perfection." Bananas grew wild in great variety, some of them reaching to three or four times the size known to us, and in such profusion that they were commonly used as fodder for animals. Potatoes also grew wild. These the Pasha described as of three kinds : some big as a man's head, but longer in shape; others a great deal longer and narrower, and attached to roots which sometimes spread as far as twenty feet, close under the surface of the ground-when ripe they cracked the soil above them, and lay exposed to the air; the third kind was our ordinary European potato, as big as a man's fist, and very mealy when boiled. Tobacco was native to the soil, and a tree called komba or kumbu, of which the seed-pods are an excellent substitute for coffee. It was described to me as a forest tree, producing a large crop of seeds. I can speak from ex

perience of the beverage made from them. We habitually drank it during my afternoon visits to the Pasha, and the seed and the manner of its preparation were shown to me. It is an aromatic brown pod, containing four or five small bright crimson seeds. When fresh I was told that one pod is sufficient to fill a room with its scent. That which we drank had been gathered for eighteen years, and was still extremely fragrant. The coffee made from it was rather more pungent than ordinary coffee, and I fancy more stimulating in its which cayenne pepper pods or ginger effect; tasting not unlike coffee in had been soaked. Grapes, in many varieties of black and white, grow wild in Mandugba ;* the sugar-cane, the india-rubber plant, the tamarind and the date, all kinds of European corn, many fruits of which the Pasha could not give the names, flowers in profusion -"so that at one time the earth is scarlet, and then again it is white or blue;" and the variety of birds and animals is great. There is a kind of date-palm from which the natives make butter. The fruit of it grows in bunches, so large that two bunches will load a camel. The date itself is small and

* Schweinfurth gives to this place the name of Dehm-Nduggoo. In calling it Mandugba I only reproduce, as closely as I can, the name by which Zebehr spoke of it to me. It was also called by the natives, he told me, Bahia and Craish.