one of the frowning gateways which had defied assault. This condition of things was a source of sincere delight to my reformer Futtehdeen (Victory of Faith) who revelled in similes. It was typical of the irrational, illogical position of the inhabitants in regard to a thousand religious and social questions; and just as one brave man could break through these flimsy fortifications, so one resolute example would suffice to capture the citadel of preju

He used to sit in my drawing-room | meekly into a sort of mud hedge, in talking to me by the hour of the order to gain the next stately fragment, Prophet and his blessed Fatma (for he or, maybe, to effect an alliance with was a Mahommedan), and bewailing the sad degeneracy of these present days when caste had crept into and defiled the faith. I shall never forget the face of martyred enthusiasm with which he received my first invitation to dinner. He accepted it, as he would have accepted the stake, with fervor, and indeed to his ignorance the ordeal was supreme. However, he appeared punctual to the moment on the appointed day, and greatly relieved my mind by eating twice of plum-pudding, dice, and plant the banner of abstract which he declared to be a surpassingly truth on its topmost pinnacle. cool and most digestible form of nourishment calculated to soothe both body and mind. Though this is hardly the character usually assigned to it, I did not contradict him, for not even his eager self-sacrifice had sufficed for the soup, the fish, or the joint, and he might otherwise have left the table in a starving condition. As it was, he firmly set aside my invitation to drink water after the meal was over, with the modest remark that he had not eaten enough to warrant the indulgence.

In the matter of dining out, indeed, it seemed as if he was right. For within a week of his desperate plunge I received an invitation to break bread with the Municipal Committee in the upper story of the vice-president's house. The request, which was emblazoned in gold, engrossed on silk paper in red and black, and enclosed in a brocade envelope, was signed by the eleven members and the Reformer, - who, by the way, edited a ridiculous little magazine to which the committee subscribed a few rupees a month, solely for the purpose of being able to send copies to their friends at court, and show that they were in the van of Progress. For a man must surely be that who is patron of a Society for the General Good of all Men in all Countries."

The event caused quite a stir in that far-away little town set out among the ruins of a great city on the high bank of one of the Punjab rivers; for the scene of this sketch lay out of the beaten track, beyond the reach of baboos and barristers, patent-leather shoes and progress. Beyond the pale The entertainment, given on the roof of civilization altogether it lay, among amid star-shine aud catherine-wheels, a quaint little colony of stalwart Pa- was magnificently successful, its great thans who still pointed with pride at an feature being an enormous plum-pudold gate or two which had withstood ding which I was gravely told had been siege after siege in those fighting days prepared by my own cook; at what when the river had flowed beneath the cost, I shudder to think, but the raswalls of the city. Since then the water cal's grinning face as he placed it on had ebbed seven miles to the south the table convinced me that he had east, taking with it the prestige of the seized the opportunity for some almost stronghold, which only remained a pic- inconceivable extortion. Still there turesque survival; a cluster of four- was no regret in those twelve grave storied purple brick houses surrounded bearded faces as one by one they by an intermittent purple brick wall, tasted and approved. All this hapbastioned and loopholed. A formida-pened long before a miserable, exotic ble defence it might have been while it imitation of an English vestry had relasted; but it had a trick of dissolving placed the old patrician committees,

and these men were representatives of committees and sub-committees for the bluest blood in the neighborhood, every philanthropical object under the many of them descendants of those sun; and many an afternoon have I who in past times had held high office spent with my work under the trees of state and had transmitted courtly watching one deputation after another manners to their children. So the epi- retire behind the oleander hedge in thets bestowed on the plum-pudding order to permutate itself by deft rewere many-syllabled; but the consen- arrangement of members, secretaries, sus of opinion was indubitably toward and vice-presidents, into some fresh its coolness, its digestibility, and its body bent on the regeneration of manevident property of soothing the body kind. For life was leisurely, lingering and the mind. Again I did not deny and lagging along in the little town it; how could I, out on the roof under where there was neither doctor nor the eternal stars, with those twelve parson, policeman nor canal-officer ; foreign faces showing, for once, a com- nor, in fact, any white face save my mon bond of union with the Feringhee? own and my husband's. Still we went I should have felt like Judas Iscariot far and fast in a cheerful, unreal sort if I had struck the thirteenth chord of of way. We founded schools and dedenial. bating societies, public libraries, and The Reformer made a speech after-technical art classes. Finally we met wards, I remember, in which, being enthusiastically over an extra-sized wonderfully well read, he alluded to plum-pudding, and solemnly pledged love-feasts and sacraments and the ourselves to reduce the marriage excoming millennium, when all nations penditure of our daughters. of the world should meet at one table and - well! not exactly eat plumpudding together, but something very like it. Then we all shook hands, and a native musician played a tune on the seringhi which they informed me was "God save the Queen." It may have been; I only know that the Reformer's thin face beamed with almost pitiful delight as he told me triumphantly that this was only the beginning.

The Reformer grew more radiant than ever, and began (in the drawingroom, where it appeared to me he hatched all his most daring schemes) to talk proudly about infant marriage, enforced widowhood, and the seclusion of women. The latter I considered to be the key to the whole position, and therefore I felt surprised at the evident reluctance with which he met my suggestion that he should begin the struggle by bringing his wife to visit me. He had but one, although she was childless. This was partly, no doubt, in deference to his advanced theories, but also, at least so I judged from his conversation, because of his unbounded admiration for one who by his description was a pearl among women. In fact this unseeu partner had from the first been held up to me as a refutation of all my strictures on the degradation of seclusion. So, to tell truth, I was quite auxious to see this paragon, and vexed at the constant ailments and absences which prevented our becoming acquainted. The more so because this shadow of hidden virtue fettered me in argument, for Futteldeen was an eager patriot full of enformed himself and his eleven into thusiasms for India and the Indians.

He was right. From that time forth the plum-pudding feast became a recognized function. Not a week passed without one, generally (for my gorge rose at the idea of my cook's extortion) in the summer-house in my garden, where I could have an excuse for providing the delicacy at my own expense. And I am bound to say that this increased intimacy bore other fruit than that contained in the pudding. For the matter of that it has continued to bear fruit, since I can truthfully date the beginning of my friendship for the people of India from the days when we ate plum-pudding together under the

stars.

The Reformer was radiant.

He

Once the flimsy fortifications were | vice-president apologized for the genscaled, he assured me that Hindoostan, eral tone, with a side slash at exciting and above all its women, would come to the front and put the universe to shame. Yet despite his successes he looked haggard and anxious; at the time I thought it was too much progress and plum-pudding combined, but afterwards I came to the conclusion that his conscience was ill at ease even theu.

causes in the jelly and sponge-cake, whereat the other ten wagged their heads sagely, remarking that it was marvellous, stupendous, to feel the blood running riot in their veins after those few mouthfuls. Verily such food partook of magic. Only the Reformer dissented, and ate a whole sponge-cake defiantly. Even so the final resolution ran thus : "That this committee views with alarm any attempt to force the natural growth of female freedom, which it holds to be strictly a matter for the individual wishes of the man." Indeed it was with difficulty that I, as secretary, avoided the disgrace of having to record the spiteful rider, "and that if any member wanted to unveil the ladies, he could begin on his own wife."

So the heat grew apace. The fly catchers came to dart among the sirus flowers and skim round the massive dome of the old tomb in which we lived. The melons began to ripen, first by one and two, then in thousands, gold and green and russet. The corners of the streets were piled with them, and every man, woman, and child carried a crescent moon of melon at which they munched contentedly all day long. Now, even with the future I was young then in knowledge of good of humanity in view, I could not Eastern ways, and consequently indigbelieve in the safety of a mixed diet nant. The Reformer, on the other of melon and plum-pudding, especially hand, was strangely humble, and tried when cholera was in the air. There- afterwards to evade the major point by fore on the next committee-day I had eating another sponge-cake and making a light and wholesome refection of a facetious remark about experiments sponge-cakes and jelly prepared for the and vile bodies; for he was a mine of philanthropists. They tasted it courte- quotations, especially from the Bible, ously, but sparingly. It was, they said, which he used to wield to my great super-excellent, but of too heating and discomfiture. But on the point at issue stimulating a nature to be consumed in I knew he could scarcely go against quantities. In vain I assured them his own convictions, so I pressed home that it could be digested by the most his duty of taking the initiative. He delicate stomach, that it was, in short, agreed gently; by and by, perhaps, a recognized food for convalescents. when his wife was more fit for the This only confirmed them in their view, ordeal. And it was natural, even the for, according to the Yunâni system, mem-sahiba must allow, for accustomed an invalid diet must be heating, modesty to shrink. She was to the full strengthening, stimulating. Somehow as devoted as he to the good cause, but in the middle of their arguments I at the same time caught myself looking pitifully at the Reformer, and wondering at his temerity in tilting at the great mysterious mass of Eastern wisdom.

Finally the mem-sahiba must remember that women were women all over the world, even though occasionally one was to be found like the mem-sahiba capable of And that day, in deference to my acting as secretary to innumerable comWestern zeal, he was to tilt wildly at mittees without a blush. There was the zenana system. His address fell something so wistful in his eager blendflat, and for the first time I noticed a ing of flattery and excuse, that I decidedly personal flavor in the discus- yielded for the time, though detersion. Hitherto we had resolved and mined in the end to carry my point. recorded gaily as if we ourselves were And finally I succeeded in getting half disinterested spectators. However, the the members to consent to sending

F. A. STEEL.

their wives to meet in my drawing-room | many years older than my poor Reafter dark, provided always that Meer former, marked with the small-pox Futtehdeen, the Reformer, would set and blind of one eye. Then I undera good example. He looked troubled stood. when I told him, and pointed out that the responsibility for success or failure now lay virtually with him. Yet he did not deny it.

From The Spectator.

AERIAL RAILWAYS.

THE Pall Mall Budget of October 27th gives a full-page sketch of the passenger-car of the new aerial railway between the two peaks of the "Devil's Dyke" at Brighton. The distance traversed is not great,- eleven hun

I took elaborate precautions to insure the most modest seclusion on the appointed evening, even to sending my husband up a ladder to the gallery at the very top of the dome to smoke his cigar. But I waited in vain, -in my best gown, by the way. No one came, though my ayah assured me that sev-dred feet from hill to hill, at a maxieral jealously guarded dhoolies had arrived at the garden gate, and gone away again when it was known that Mrs. Futtehdeen had not come.

mum height of two hundred and thirty feet above the valley. But the Brighton "Telpher" line will do much to draw attention to a new and important I was virtuously indignant with the form of transport, which is far better offender, and the next time he came to known in Spain, Italy, and the colosee me sent out a message that I was nies, than in England. Properly speakotherwise engaged. I felt a little re-ing, these aerial lines are not railways morseful at having done so, however, at all. They are not even rope-railwhen committee-day coming round the ways, such as those which had been Reformer was reported to be on the long in use in quarries, before the sick-list. And there he remained until steam-engine had developed into a loafter the first rain had fallen, bringing comotive, and was employed to haul with it the real Indian spring, the trucks along lines of rails by winding spring full of roses and jasmine of a rope. The new "Telpher" system which the poets and the bulbuls sing. inverts the principle of the railroad, as, By this time the novelty had worn off instead of resting upon rails, the cars philanthropy and plum-pudding, so that are slung to an overhead rope, along often we had a difficulty in getting a which they travel, suspended from quorum together to resolve anything; grooved wheels, revolving between and I personally had begun to weary for fixed supports. The invention is a the dazzled eyes and the eager voice good example of the consequences so full of sanguine hope. Therefore it which follow on the discovery of a new gave me a pang to learn from the vice-material for old uses. The single ropepresident, who being a government bridges of the Himalayas and the Thiofficial was a model of punctuality, that betan frontier, are probably one of the in all probability I should never hear oldest and simplest engineering devices or see either one or the other again, known. A rough rope, sometimes since Futtehdeen was dying of the made only of twisted birch-twigs, is rapid decline which comes so often to fastened across the chasm of a mounthe Indian student. tain torrent, and round this is hung a hoop. In this the passenger sits, and hauls himself across by hitching the hoop. forwards as he holds the rope above with his hands. The only development of this primitive system was the addition of a second rope, an endless cord, by which the passenger in the hoop was drawn across from either

A recurrence of vague remorse made me put my pride in my pocket, and go unasked to the Reformer's house; but my decision came too late. He had died the morning of my visit, and I think I was glad of it. For the paragon of beauty and virtue, of education and refinement, was a very ordinary woman,

side, with no more risk than was in- ten hundred and ninety feet. The volved in the task of keeping himself Chinese population of Hong-kong were from falling out of the hoop in which much disturbed by the invasion of the he sat. Some such rough form of mountain by this railway. They attransport, with buckets and wheels tributed the epidemic of the plague to substituted for the hoop, was used for the anger of the mountain demons, many years in the lead mines of the who were prevented by the wires from Peak of Derbyshire; but if hemp had making their nightly flights round the remained the strongest material for circuit of the hill. The difficulties in rope-making, the aerial railway would the construction of the Table Mountain never have taken the place which it wire-line were far greater than in that has, or attracted the attention which it at Hong-kong. A precipice and incline now claims, among the practical means of eight hundred feet in height interof cheap transport. The invention of rupted the ascent midway. The sumthe twisted steel rope has made the mit of this precipice was used as a development of the aerial railway prac- support, and the suspending wire leapt tically safe and commercially possible, in a single span of fourteen hundred and more than two thousand miles of and seventy feet to the edge of the line are now in working order in Spain, cliff, and from thence in another span Italy, South America, India, the Cape, of fourteen hundred feet to the flat top China, and Japan. To " over-seas En- of the mountain. The loads carried glishmen," the cable-way at Hong- across these gulfs average half a ton kong is as well known as the "Devil's each, and the line is used both for pasDyke "' line will soon be to London vis-senger and goods traffic. The Rock of itors to Brighton. It shares with the Gibraltar has also its wire line, though latter the distinction of being the only of slighter build, and far more striking aerial line used solely for passenger steepness. The height to the signal traffic, though it was built for useful station is barely a quarter less than the and commercial reasons. It was found total length of the line, and the wire necessary to transport all European runs straight to the summit on a series workmen in the port up the mountain of lofty trestles, after a first leap of every night, in order to sleep in purer eleven hundred feet, in an ascent of air, and the cheapest and quickest one foot in every foot and a half. means was found to be the construc- Viewed against the sky, looking paraltion of a "Telpher" line. The saving lel to the mountain-side, it looks like a in time alone is said to have already repaid the cost of its construction. Nothing could be simpler than this Hong-kong line. It is carried straight up the mountain-side, the endless line stretching from ravine to ravine, on high steel trestles, through which the little back-to-back cars run on the rope like a section of the "knife-board" of an old-fashioned omnibus. Three passengers sit on each side; and though the height at which they travel must be trying to the nerves, they are not shut in by aprons of steel wire, as in the case of the Brighton cars. An awning, for protection from the sun, is the sole addition to the minimum of accommodation provided on this airy journey. The length of the line is two miles, and the exact height ascended

telegraph-wire stretched tight from the tops of a series of little Eiffel towers; yet the soldiers ascend and descend in the little wooden boxes which travel on it, with equal safety and comfort. The Hong-kong, Gibraltar, and Table Mountain lines are worked on a double cable, along which one car ascends as the other descends, the two being connected by a hauling rope.

Near

But these are toys, compared with the complicated and ever-increasing system of aerial trains now working in the great iron mines of Spain. Bilbao, the greater part of a mountainside is quarried away at different levels to obtain the fine iron ore, which is carried to the railway by nine lines, running from the station at the foot of the mountain to the mines along the