in a swift gyration like the doubling of a hare, and anon, with powerful bound, seeming to rise high out of the agitated depths. The cause was one that was only too evident.

"A ravenous monster of the deep," as the shark is called, probably desperate from hunger, and allured by apparent security, had come upon a man while he was bathing, and as a matter of course, had attacked him after the manner of his kind. It was on the question of comparative agility that the issue of the event depended, and so the fate of the bather appeared to be but a question of time. My heart throbbed, and my eyes dimmed the glasses, so as to render objects scarcely perceptible. There could be no doubt, even had one suggested itself, about the right of interruption here, as a mutual succour offensive and defensive of those of like kind is a law of instinct common to most animals in their natural state, and of tenfold stronger obligation upon the members of the human brotherhood. But alas! a sense of my utter powerlessness to be of any use in the present emergency was most painfully forced on me, for had I run my very swiftest, it would have been impossible for me to have reached the rocks in less than a quarter of an hour, and this unequal struggle could not be of many minutes' duration. But even the highest probabilities are not independent of some one or more of those contingencies which are summed up by Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher, in the "Time and Chance" (as it were), and so in a moment, whilst I gazed, awe-stricken, a dark form cleft the thicket, scattering far and near the flowers and foliage; I saw the blade of a knife gleam, and a sheet of dazzling spray encircle him, as he plunged from the rocks into the scene of action, and putting up my glass I set off towards the place at the top of my speed. But the ghastly drama had already terminated; a few flecks of crimsoned foam remained alone to indicate the nature of what had taken place. Hard by, upon the wet sand, prostrate and powerless, lay the form of a young man, in whom I at once recognised an intimate acquaintance. He I perceived it was, who had been thus snatched out of the very jaws of death by this dark-skinned stranger, an alien in race and creed, and who, as I was further in

F

expectations of reward.

formed, was in no wise bound to him by tie or service, or affected by And what had been the end of the man's intrepid act? In vain we looked on one another for reply. Had he by use of his weapon turned the whole force of the attack upon himself, or had his foe by one fell momentary act, avenged its failure and appeased its cravings after food? Who could say? The depths

no discolour

again reflected the lights above in emerald tintings, and ing stain remained upon the liquid field of slaughter. It may have been that, perhaps, the great fish had ploughed forth into watery space, bearing a mortal gash as the cost of its dearly-purchased meal, but about the fate of the aggressor there could no longer be any mistake. The man was gone, to be no more seen till the sea shall give up its dead. And so, after speaking friendly words to the survivor, and seeing him sufficiently restored to be able to start upon his walk home, I turned me towards the scenes of early morning reveries, from which I had been so unexpectedly and hastily transferred, and as I paced the golden sands, I felt this last event of the morning haunting me, and "a feeling of sadness came o'er me, that my soul could not resist." "What is man?" Here had been a few minutes before in warm strong life a man, "a man benighted," a poor, unclothed, uncivilised child of nature, who obeyed unhesitatingly the highest and noblest intuition which the moral consciousness of men is capable of receiving; to deliver a fellow-creature out of the great pain and peril of death, he had fearlessly accepted all risks, prepared, if needs were, to lay down his life, and it had been taken, and his place was to know him no more. It may be that a dusky face will be turned ever and anon from daily toil towards the all silent jungle path, which his feet shall no more tread, and the loving eye be raised, and the ear strained the oftener, as the shadows grow longer and the breezes cooler, but they will close in darkness and chill upon that tear-stained, lonely face directed at times haply towards some little symbol or device, in seeking the "Unseen, yet ever near," and in the unuttered prayer of weakness craving aid and succour. The gladsome dawn will return with "all things bright and beautiful" in its train, and will find her still en

folded in the "sable skirts" of night, a night on which the sun's rays have no power, the dark, dark night of young widowhood.

It was of this same Island that a good, well-meaning Bishop once wrote in the stanza of a familiar hymn, that—

"Every prospect pleases,

And only man is vile."

This recurred to me at that moment, and as I thought on it, I felt that I could not but take entire exception to the doctrine therein implied.

In the first place, all "prospects," that is, the aspect of every natural event as it passes across the field of individual vision, does not invariably tend to fill the heart with joy and gladness. There is "good in everything," as Shakspeare says, but there is also evil, at any rate much that it is repulsive to contemplate. A snake biting a child, in the instinctive notion of self-protection; a wasp stinging indiscriminately when disturbed; lions and sharks, insatiable in bloodshed, and the hand of man lifted up against them all, on the ground of their being" noxious,"-these are prospects which, to say the least of it, we do not usually associate with what is pleasing. But whatever be the occult laws and influences in which these phases of animate life have their spring, the morality is more than questionable which, from all the "lower works" that speak "of goodness beyond thought, and power divine," would depreciate and vilify the human race alone. Man is not vile, in the comprehensive sense which is so jauntily jingled in our ears by the Bishop. He is subject to certain physical conditions, common to all that existence that groans and travails together, which might be possibly called humiliating. He may not be exempt from vicious tendencies antagonistic to a better law written within him, and by indulging them he might work wider, deeper mischief than lower animals are able to effect, in proportion as his capacities and powers for invention and execution transcend theirs; but this is a widely different thing from his deserving to have applied to him the term "vile," expressing as it does, in the English language, all that should be most held in abhorrence by God and man. No! men, my brothers!

men the workers! you are, many, many of you, represented in a greater or less degree by that poor, dark Islander, and we know you are not vile, but far from it.

I thought as I mounted my pony to proceed to the scene of my daily avocations, such self-abasement and "voluntary humility" is a delusion and a snare, under the specious guise of morality and religion, and is a gross insult, not alone to the Race, which, albeit all its failings, was made upright, but to the Source and Centre of all things, in whom it lives, and moves, and has its being.

Bosnia in 1875.

THE rearguard of Mahommedanism in Europe maintains its last stronghold in the Turkish Viyalet of Bosnia. Here, as the religion of the ruling caste, Islam has had a trial of nearly four centuries. What fruits has it borne ?

From this point of view alone, Bosnia affords an interesting study. And at the actual moment, when the desperate rising of the Christians has roused the attention of Europe to this almost unknown country, the following sketch of the past history and present circumstances of its people may not be unwelcome. During the last few years I have resided much at Serajevo, the capital, in pursuance of a scheme for training native school-mistresses. I can therefore speak from personal knowledge.

In geographical position the nearest to European civilization, but in social condition the most barbarous of the provinces of Turkey-in-Europe, Bosnia, including Turkish Croatia and the Herzegovina, extends to a point west of the longitude of Vienna, and interposes a savage and oriental aspect between the Dalmatian shores of the Adriatic, and the advancing culture of Serbia, Hungary, and Croatia. Cross the frontier from these lands, and you may fancy yourself in the wilds of Asia.

The soil of Bosnia teems with various and valuable minerals, her hills abound in splendid forests, her well-watered plains are fertile and productive, her race, under culture, proves exceptionally gifted. Yet her commerce is contemptible; "plums," to quote the report of Mr. Consul Holmes for 1873, being "the most valuable article of trade in the province;" her population is uneducated, not one man in a hundred