of the Great

Eastern.

No certain

highest strain as the ship drifted was 56 cwt.; and it never increased in the picking-up beyond 70 cwt., from which it fell in eight hours to 25 cwt. till the grapnel was hauled in. On the last attempt the strain was at 65 cwt. when picking-up began, and ran up to 90 cwt. in two hours and a half, and in half an hour more was at 100 cwt., when the last rope broke.

The course on which the ship was kept was The course an arc of the great circle, passing through Valentia and Heart's Content, which is only some 16 miles shorter than the line on Mercator's projection. It possesses the advantage, however, of running over known soundings, along the course of what is called the Atlantic plateau, which presents a surface of ooze beneath a depth of water varying from 1,700 fathoms to 2,400 fathoms. The deepest part, therefore, is about two and a half nautical knowledge miles (2,000 yards each) deep. No one knows anything very positively about the ocean at these great depths. It is urged that there must be utter darkness there, but then starfish with traces of color have been taken up by sounding apparatus; and if they come up from the bottom, it is inferred there must be some rays of light penetrating there, or the colors would not exist. The pressure of the water itself is very much exaggerated, but it may be fairly assumed that it is very obscure down there, and that if anything can exist at all it must

of the ocean's greatest depths.

be very dull living.

dull living. When the substance called ooze came up on the grapnel line of the Great Eastern, from a depth of nearly two miles, it was simply a light-colored mud, like that which a heavy shower makes in the streets of London.

States buys

[In 1867, there is an abortive Fenian rising in Great Britain. The North German Federation is established. Parliamentary government with two houses is established in Austria. The Dominion of Canada is formed, a Governor-General appointed, and a Federal Parliament meets at Ottawa. The United States The United buys Alaska from Russia. In 1868, Queen Alaska. Isabella of Spain flees to France. Congress passes the Force Laws against the Ku Klux and other secret societies. An expedition sent to Abyssinia successfully rescues English prisoners. Bokhara and Samarcand become dependent on Russia.]

THE EXPULSION OF QUEEN ISABELLA

Retirement of the Liberals.

A

(A.D. 1868)

MARTIN A. S. HUME

NEW Cortes was to be elected at the end of 1863, and in its manifesto the government signified its intention of allowing a fair proportion of both parties to be elected and to return to the system of party government which the Union Liberal had destroyed. But at the same time they forbade any but electors to attend political meetings. There was nothing very new in this, for it had been done before, but the advanced Liberals made it their excuse for retiring altogether from the contest, and abandoning open political action. This meant, sooner or later, a Liberal revolution, and so it proved. The advanced Liberals threw upon the Queen the odium of their retirement. She had, they said, refused to dissolve Parliament for a moderate Liberal Government, in order to discredit the party, and had dissolved Cortes without difficulty at the bidding of a ministry whose tendency was Conservative. It was clear then, they asserted, that while Isabel reigned no Lib

eral ministry would be allowed to govern, whatever professions of attachment she might make to them for her own objects.

of Monsand

The retirement of the Liberals deprived the Programme elections of all interest, and the Government Canovas, party of cohesion and authority; the result being the accession of a more strongly Conservative ministry under Arrazola, which, however, fell after a few days on their demand for another dissolution; when they were succeeded by a semi-Liberal combination headed by Mons and Canovas, whose programme was purity of election, loyalty to the Constitution (of 1845), and greater freedom of the press. But it was clear to all observers by this time that parliamentary government had broken down. The unblushing manipulation of elections, and the Queen's erratic exercise of her prerogative of dissolution, with the retirement of the Liberals, had turned the whole business into a discredited farce, of which all honest men were tired.

Meddling

Consort

The impatience of the country was still further aroused by the meddling of the King-of the King Consort, who had gone to Paris to return the visit of the Empress Eugénie, and on some inducement never understood had entered into an undertaking with Louis Napoleon for the recognition of Victor Emmanuel as King of Italy, and the return to Spain of the detested Cristina. This neither Isabel nor the Government could stand, and the latter retired; the

Narvaez

forms a ministry.

Liberals

Queen at her wits' end, then consulting O'Donnell, who recommended the nomination of a purely Conservative ministry, to which he promised his support in order to hold democracy in check. This, of course, meant Narvaez, who formed a ministry with Gonzales Brabo at the Home Office, but refused O'Donnell's proffered co-operation.

The Liberals, now under the leadership of Land aloof. Prim, for old Espartero had finally retired, still stood aloof; and the cloud of-coming revolution loomed blacker than ever. The sale of the mortmain properties, which had supplied O'Donnell with abundant funds for several years, had now nearly come to an end, and money was scarce again; the Queen surrendered three-quarters of the royal patrimony to meet national expenditure, but it was all in vain, for the Government grew more unpopular every day. Again Narvaez's favorite remedies, the gag and the stick, were used ruthlessly; Castelar was dismissed from his professorship and the Rector of Madrid University is alarmed. deprived of his post, peaceful citizens were trampled on and killed by soldiers,* elected town councils were arbitrarily dismissed and replaced by nominated bodies, and in the

The Queen

*The terrible scenes of slaughter and outrage upon inoffensive people for the simple purpose of infusing terror, on the night of Saint Daniel, April 10, 1865, in Madrid, must be laid at the door of Gonzales Brabo alone. Narvaez was ill and failing, and was not at this juncture in favor of the iron tyranny of his colleague.