OLIPHANT, LAURENCE, an English traveller and diplomatist, born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1829; died at Twickenham, England, December 23, 1888. His father was for many years ChiefJustice of Ceylon, and the son, while quite young, made a tour in India, visiting, in company with Sir Jung Bahadoor, the native Court of Nepaul, an account of which he published in his Journey to Katmandhu. He afterward studied at the University of Edinburgh, and was admitted to the Scottish and the English bar. In 1852 he travelled in Southern Russia, visiting the Crimea. He succeeded in entering the fortified port of Sebastopol, of which he gave the earliest full account in his Russian Shores of the Black Sea (1855). In 1855 he became private secretary to Lord Elgin, Governor-General of Canada, travelled in British America and the Northwestern parts of the United States, and published Minnesota and the Far West (1856). In 1857 he accompanied Lord Elgin, who had been appointed British Envoy to China and Japan, and wrote a valuable Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan (1860). In 1861, while acting as Chargé d'Affaires in Japan he was severely wounded by an assassin, and retired from the diplomatic service. From 1865 to 1868 he was a member of Parliament for the Scottish burgh of Stirling. He subsequently took part in

efforts to establish Christian Socialistic Communities in the United States; and was afterward made Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Canada. During the latter years of his life he resided in Palestine. Among his miscellaneous writings are Transcaucasian Campaign of Omar Pasha (1856); Piccadilly, a Fragment of Contemporaneous Biography (1870); The Land of Gilead (1882); Travesties, Social and Political (1882); Altiora Peto, a Novel (1883); Episodes in a Life of Adventure (1887); Haifa, or Life in Modern Palestine (1887), and Scientific Religion (1888).

REVOLUTIONS AND THE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA.

Any person who has attentively observed the working of the anomalous and altogether unique system under which the vast empire of China is governed will perceive that, although ruling under altogether different conditions, supported not by physical force, but by a moral prestige, unrivalled in power and extent, the Emperor of China can say, with no less truth than Napoleon, "L'Empire, c'est moi." Backed by no standing army worth the name, depending for the stability of his authority neither upon his military genius nor administrative capacity, he exercises a rule more absolute than any European despot, and is able to thrill with his touch the remotest provinces of the Empire; deriving his ability to do so from that instinct of cohesion and love of order by which his subjects are super-eminently characterized.

But while it happens that the wonderful endurance of a Chinaman will enable him to bear an amount of injustice from his Government which would revolutionize a Western state, it is no less true that the limits may be passed; when a popular movement ensues, assuming at times an almost Constitutional character. When any émeute of this description takes place, as directed against a local official, the Imperial Government invariably espouses the popular cause, and the individual, whose

guilt is inferred from the existence of disturbance, is at once degraded. Thus a certain sympathy or tacit understanding seems to exist between the Emperor and his subjects as to how far each may push their prerogatives; and, so long as neither exceeds these limits, to use their own expression, "the wheels of the chariot of Imperial Government revolve smoothly on their axles." So it happens that disturbances of greater or less import are constantly occurring in various parts of the country. Sometimes they assume the most formidable dimensions, and spread like a running fire over the Empire; but if they are not founded on a real grievance, they are not supported by popular sympathy, and gradually die out, the smouldering embers kept alive, perhaps, for some time by the exertions of the more lawless part of the community, but the last spark ultimately expiring, and its blackened trace being in a few years utterly effaced.-Narrative of the Mission of the Earl of Elgin.

A VISIT ON MOUNT CARMEL.

My host, who came out to meet me, led me to an elevated platform in front of the village mosque, an unusually imposing edifice. Here, under the shade of a spreading mulberry-tree, were collected seven brothers, who represented the family, and about fifty other members of it. They were in the act of prayer when I arrived -indeed, they are renowned for their piety. Along the front of the terrace was a row of water-bottles for ablutions, behind them mats on which the praying was going forward, and behind the worshippers a confused mass of slippers. When they had done praying, they all got into their slippers. It was a marvel to me how each knew his own.

They led me to what I supposed was a place of honor, where soft coverlets had been spread near the door of the mosque. We formed the usual squatting circle, and were sipping coffee, when suddenly everyone started to his feet; a dark, active little man seemed to dart into the midst of us. Everybody struggled frantically to kiss his hand, and he passed through us like a flash to the other end of the platform, followed by a tall negro,

whose hand everybody, including my aristocratic host, seemed also anxious to kiss. I had not recovered from my astonishment at this proceeding, when I received a message from the new-comer to take a place by his side. I now found that he was on the seat of honor, and it became a question, until I knew who he was, whether I should admit his right to invite me to it, thus acknowledging his superiority in rank-etiquette in these matters being a point which has to be attended to in the East, however absurd it may seem among ourselves. I therefore for the moment ignored his invitation, and asked my host, in an off-hand way, who he was. He informed me that he was a mollah, held in the highest consideration for his learning and piety all through the country, upon which he, in fact, levied a sort of religious tax; that he was here on a visit, and that in his own home he was in the habit of entertaining two hundred guests a night, no one being refused hospitality. His father was a dervish, celebrated for his miraculous powers, and the mantle thereof had fallen upon the negro, who had been his servant, and who also was much venerated, because it was his habit to go to sleep in the mosque, and be spirited away, no one knew whither, in the night; in fact, he could become invisible almost at will.

Under these circumstances, and seeing that I should seriously embarrass my host if I stood any longer on my dignity, I determined to waive it, and joined the saint. He received me with supercilious condescension, and we exchanged compliments till dinner was announced, when my host asked whether I wished to dine alone or with the world at large. As the saint had been too patronizing to be strictly polite, I thought I would assert my right to be exclusive, and said I would dine alone, on which he, with a polite sneer, remarked that it would be better so, as he had an objection to eating with anyone who drank wine, to which I retorted that I had an equal objection to dining with those who ate with their fingers. From this it will appear that my relations with the holy man were getting somewhat strained.

I was, therefore, supplied with a pyramid of rice and

six or seven elaborately cooked dishes all to myself, and squatted on one mat, while a few yards off the saint, my host, and all his brothers squatted on another. When they had finished their repast their places were occupied by others, and I counted altogether more than fifty persons feeding on the mosque terrace at my host's expense. Dinner over, they all trooped in to pray, and I listened to the monotonous chanting of the Koran till it was time to go to bed. My host offered me a mat in the mosque, where I should have a chance of seeing the miraculous disappearance of the negro; but as I had no faith in this, and a great deal in the snoring, by which I should be disturbed, I slept in a room apart as exclusively as I had dined.

I was surprised next morning to observe a total change in the saint's demeanor. All the supercilious pride of the previous evening had vanished, and we soon became most amiable to each other. That he was a fanatic hater of the Giaour I felt no doubt, but for some reason he had deemed it politic to adopt an entirely altered demeanor. It was another illustration of the somewhat painful lesson which one has to learn in one's intercourse with Orientals. They must never be allowed to outswagger you.-Haifa.