part of the proceedings that every gentleman
present is required to drink something nasty.
These Mataboos are a privileged order, so
important is their avocation, and they make the
most of their high functions. A long way out
of the Tonga Islands, indeed, rather near the
British Islands, was there no calling in of the
Mataboos the other day to settle an earth-
convulsing question of precedence; and was there
no weighty opinion delivered on the part of the
Mataboos which, being interpreted to that
unlucky tribe of blacks with the sense of the
ridiculous, would infallibly set the whole population
screaming with laughter?

My sense of justice demands the admission,
however, that this is not quite a one-sided
question. If we submit ourselves meekly to the
Medicine Man and the Conjuror, and are not
exalted by it, the savages may retort upon us
that we act more unwisely than they, in other
matters wherein we fail to imitate them. It is
a widely diffused custom among savage tribes,
when they meet to discuss any affair of public
importance, to sit up all night making a horrible
noise, dancing, blowing shells, and (in cases
where they are familiar with fire-arms), flying out
into open places and letting off guns. It is
questionable whether our legislative assemblies
might not take a hint from this. A shell is not
a melodious wind-instrument, and it is
monotonous; but it is as musical as, and not more
monotonous than, my Honourable friend's own
trumpet, or the trumpet that he blows so hard
for the Minister. The uselessness of arguing
with any supporter of a Government or of an
Opposition, is well known. Try dancing. It is
a better exercise, and has the unspeakable
recommendation that it couldn't be reported. The
honourable and savage member who has a
loaded gun, and has grown impatient of
debate, plunges out of doors, fires in the air,
and returns calm and silent to the Palaver.
Let the honourable and civilised member
similarly charged with a speech, dart into
the cloisters of Westminster Abbey in the
silence of night, let his speech off, and come
back harmless. It is not at first sight a very
rational custom to paint a broad blue stripe
across one's nose and both cheeks, and a broad
red stripe from the forehead to the chin, to
attach a few pounds of wood to one's under lip,
to stick fish-bones in one's ears and a brass
curtain-ring in one's nose, and to rub one's body
all over with rancid oil, as a preliminary to entering
on business. But this is a question of taste
and ceremony, and so is the Windsor Uniform.
The manner of entering on the business itself
is another question. A council of six hundred
savage gentlemen entirely independent of tailors,
sitting on their hams in a ring, smoking, and
occasionally grunting, seem to me, according to
the experience I have gathered in my voyages
and travels, somehow to do what they come
together for; whereas that is not at all the
general experience of a council of six hundred
civilised gentlemen very dependent on tailors
and sitting on mechanical contrivances. It is
better that an Assembly should do its utmost to
envelop itself in smoke, than that it should
direct its endeavours to enveloping the public
in smoke; and I would rather it buried half a
hundred hatchets than buried one subject
demanding attention.

THE RECENT EARTHQUAKE AT
MANILLA.

To be present at an earthquake is one of
those events in a man's life which he can never
forget. Wholly apart from the physical sensations,
which are of a very peculiar and distressing
kind, resembling in an intense form those
experienced in crossing from Dover to Calais in
a steamer in rough weather and under certain
tidal conditions, there is a shock to the nervous
system, which for a time bewilders and paralyses
the strongest mind. The recent earthquake at
Manilla is one of the most awful and destructive,
both as regards life and property, that has
occurred in recent times.

Early on Wednesday morning I left the city
to go to a merchant's private house, between
two and three miles in the interior, hoping that
I should be able to return before the air
had become so heated as it had been about
noon for some days past. I was detained to
breakfast, and it was past ten o'clock before
I mounted my mule to return to the city.
The heat was unusual, and the air so dense
that it was almost unfit to breathe, causing a
feeling of suffocation which made me gasp for
breath on the least exertion; once I thought
I had received a sunstroke, for having to
dismount to remove a stone which had got
fast in the mule's shoe, when I attempted to
raise myself upright I fell as if struck by
lightning. The flowers and herbage looked
shrivelled, and as though all the moisture had
evaporated from them, and a bright quivering
mist appeared rising from the ground on all
sides. Very few people were in the streets, and
those seemed scarcely able to crawl along.
Subject though we are to shocks of earthquake in
Manilla, nobody breathed the word to me, so I
presume the idea that an earthquake was
imminent, no more occurred to others than
to myself. About four o'clock in the afternoon,
having no appetite for food, I went down to the
sea to bathe; but the water seemed to have lost
its refreshing power and a portion of its fluidity;
it gave me the sensation of swimming hi a sea of
oil. After dressing, I walked slowly homeward,
and, having to pass near the cathedral, I went in.
Being the eve of the Fete Dieu I found it
crowded with worshippers. Men and women of
every hue of colour were mingled with children
whose fairer skins contrasted strongly with that
of the elders, especially those whose parents
were Europeans. There is at all times a striking
devoutness displayed in the churches, but
this struck me especially on this evening, no
doubt because of the solemnity of the occasion.
How many were in the building I cannot say, but