Round the World | Page 8

do in our time.
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FRIDAY, November 1
We saw flying-fishes to-day for the first time. The captain had been telling us as we approached the 3Oth degree of latitude that we should see these curiosities, and, sure enough, while standing on the bridge this morning, looking toward the bow, I saw three objects rise out of the water and fly from us. One seemed as large as a herring, the others were like humming-birds. They have much larger wings than I had supposed, and shine brightly in the sun as they fly. We have on board a gentleman connected with the Dutch Government, who visits their out-of-the-way possessions in the Malay Archipelago. He has been where a white man never was before--in the interior of New Guinea--and has seen strange things. He tells us that the birds of paradise take seven years to develop. The first year male and female are alike, but year after year the male acquires brighter feathers, until it becomes the superb bird we know. Some one remarked that it is just the reverse with the birds of paradise in man's creation. Here our Eve puts on gayer plumage year after year until finally she develops into a still more superb bird, while the male remains the same sober-suited fowl he was at first; but this was from a bachelor, I think.
We are in a new world, and the talk is all of people and islands and animals we never heard of. Do you know, for instance, that such a potentate as the Sultan of Terantor exists? and, ambitious ruler that he is, that he now claims tribute from the whole of New Guinea? Then, again, let me tell you that the Sultan of Burnei gets $6,000 per year tribute from Setwanak, and, like a grasping tyrant, demands more; hence the wars which rage in that quarter of the globe. The Setwanaks have appealed to the "God of Battles," and are no doubt shouting on all hands that "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God;" and "Millions for defence; not a cent for tribute." Look out for their forthcoming declaration of independence; and why shouldn't they have their "_Whereases_" as well as your even Christian? The only trouble is that when monarchs fight nothing is settled as a rule; what one loses to-day, he tries to win back to-morrow, and so the masses are kept in a state of perpetual war, or preparation for war, equally expensive. If Herbert Spencer had never formulated anything but the law underlying these sad contentions between man and man, he would have deserved to rank as one of our greatest benefactors. "When power is arbitrarily held by chief or king, the military spirit is developed, and wars of conquest and dynasties ensue; and just in proportion as power is obtained by the people, the industrial type is developed and peace ensues." Therefore the greatest thinker of the age is a republican. I quote from memory, but the substance is there, and it is because this law is true that there is hope for the future of the world, for everywhere the people are marching to political power. England is yet the world's greatest offender, because she is still ruled by the few, her boasted representative system being only a sham. When the masses do really govern, England will be pacific and make friends throughout the world instead of enemies, "and sing the songs of peace to all her neighbors."
The Dutch have 35,000,000 under their sway in Java and the other Malay Islands; as many as Great Britain has within her borders. The world gets most of its spices and its coffee from these people. So the Dutch are not to be credited only with having taken Holland, you see.
Another Chinaman is reported gone to-day: all have to be embalmed, of course, and the doctor gets as his fee $12.50 for each corpse. He complained to me the other day that these people would not take his medicines, and, Scotchman--like, didn't see the point I made--that they might naturally hesitate to swallow the potions of one whose highest reward arose from a fatal result. The Heathen Chinee is not a fool. The coffins of the dead on the wheel-house begin to make quite a show; they are covered with canvas, but one will sometimes see the pile. Not one of these men could ever have been induced to leave his home without satisfactory assurance that in case of death his remains would be carried back and carefully buried in the spot where he first drew breath. I remember reading in MacLeod's "Highland Parish" that so strongly implanted is this sentiment in the Highlanders that even a wife who marries out of her clan is brought home at her death