Celebrating a Local Option Victory in Melbourne -Farewell Address Lecture at Hamilton-Visit Ararat-Lecture at Stawell-Christmas in Adelaide with the Thermometer at 95° in the shade-Address a Christmas Sabbath-school gath- THIRD LETTER.. Arrival in Ceylon-Preaching in the "Oldest Wesleyan Chapel FOURTH LETTER. Progress of Christianity in Ceylon-Importance of Ceylon to PAGE 204 214 FIFTH LETTER .. 221 Burying a Babe at Sea-Socotra Island- Arabian Traders- SIXTH LETTER 228 Dangers to Navigation in the Red Sea-Suez-Sinai Peninsula SEVENTH LETTER 246 Alexandria-The Adriatic-Brindisi-Naples-Vesuvius - Pom- EIGHTH LETTER. 260 Rome - The Catacombs-The Sistine Chapel-Michael Angelo NINTH LETTER 269 The Arch of Titus-Roman Coliseum-Lines on the Coliseum, TENTH LETTER.... 278 The World my Parish - Armadia-Great Florentines-Art in ELEVENTH LETTER 284 Switzerland-Winter in the Alps-Paris-From Calais to Dover. TWELFTH LETTER-LONDON 292 The Tower of London Epping Forest-"Hunting Lodge" of Australia and the Australians. THE AUSTRALIAN NATIVES. THEIR ORIGIN. R. CURR shows by quotations from Dr. Livingstone, Rev. Duff Macdonald and others, the wonderful resemblance between the Australian natives and the negroes of Africa, in manners and customs, and argues from this that they are of one common origin. Their systems of witchcraft, the admittance of adult males to the rights of manhood through the medium of mysterious and very cruel ceremonies; the facts relating to marriage, the customs respecting burials; the singular practice of mutual avoidance between son-in-law and mother-in-law, the dread of hair falling into the hands of an enemy, the mode of tossing water into the mouth, and several other similar customs, from which it would appear that both peoples, far apart as Africa and Australia are, have originally learned all these things from the same source. Besides the above, many words used by the Australians are apparently, at least, of the same root as words used by the Africans to express the same ideas. Such words as woman, breasts, milk, mother, water, rain, mouth, tongue, eat, drink are all traceable to the same root-words whence words meaning the same thing in Africa seem to have come. There are, however, notwithstanding these resemblances, differences in other respects, which almost render it impossible for the reader to assign to the two peoples a common origin. The African is a sooty black; the Australian has, while black, a coppery tint. The hair of the negro is scant in quantity and woolly in texture, while that of the Australian is most abundant, and straight or wavy-never woolly. As a rule, the negro is almost entirely devoid of beard and whiskers, while the native of the islandcontinent is abundantly supplied with both; so that it may be said that the negro is one of the least and the Australian one of the most hairy of men, as our picIture of one of them, on the opposite page, will show. There is a strong probability in favor of the hypothesis that the differences between the two have resulted from a cross of blood. For the reasons given above," there seems to be no room to doubt," says Mr. |