the fierce excitement that ran through every vein whilst it lasted. It was during '97, and I was in one of the Samana forts, a few days after they had been relieved by General Yeatman Biggs. One night I was on duty, and had to visit the sentries. I was about half-way round the horn work when I heard a slight noise, as though some one had slipped on a loose stone outside. With visions of a strong hostile party of Afridis at the very least, I drew my revolver, and very cautiously peeped over the wall, only to find that a donkey had somehow got inside the wire entanglement which surrounded the fort, and had stumbled whilst reaching up to pull at a tuft of grass. That, however, as Kipling puts it, is another story. I should have liked to stay up in the machan, as the tiger might have come back, for there can be no doubt he was very hungry, since he had been baulked of all his meals for over forty-eight hours; and I have known a case of a tiger returning no less than three times in one night to his kill, though two barrels were fired at him on each occasion. Still it was unlikely he would do so soon, as on the sound of my shot an elephant and lights had been sent out from camp. Time was just what I could not spare, as we were at some distance from the little railway, the thread that connected us with civilisation, whilst the only train left at six in the morning, so very reluctantly I left the machan.

Discussing the evening's in

cidents around the camp-fire a little later, I learned I might have sat up with safety when I first saw the tiger, and had I done so it is possible I could have had a less chancy shot, as whilst he was stalking up the slope I could see the line formed by the white fur of the under part of the body where it meets the tawny upper portion, whilst the light had not then gone quite so completely. It is also probable that had I withheld my fire a little longer he would have come to the bullock, in which case he would have been almost directly below me, and there would have been less room to miss. Still, when all's said and done, he gave me a very easy shot as it was, and I ought to have got him. It was over-excitement probably, and perhaps just a trifle of over-certainty, for when he came I had no thought of missing, and already looked upon his skin as adorning my walls.

Shortly after dinner my wife and I bade good-bye to our hospitable friends and started for the station on an elephant, hoping for a decent night's rest in the train, having sent off all our belongings hours before. Reminiscences of the week's doings and conversation with the mahout kept us amused for about an hour, but after that our sentences began to get a bit disjointed, and I can vouch that I, at all events, was longing for the station lights. We arrived and dismissed the mahout and his elephant, and, though rather surprised at seeing nothing of our servant, concluded he must

meant, so perhaps it would be better to draw a veil.

I myself went on into the village, where I discovered the elephant that had brought us from camp, and was enabled to communicate with our friends and inform them of our plight, so that search might be made if the things did not turn up before the train left, for it was impossible for us to delay our return. About three in the morning I was awakened by one of our friend's chuprassies, who informed me that we should find everything at the next station, as the carts had gone there by mistake. Sure enough, as the train pulled up some twenty minutes after starting, before a red-brick shanty in the heart

of the jungle, I saw my servant at the side of the line, for platform there was none. tween us we bundled everything into the carriage, as the place did not boast of coolies, and the train sauntered on.

So concluded almost the most pleasant ten days I have ever spent. Given fine weather and congenial company, there is a charm in the jungle and camp during an Indian cold season that puts all the attractions of civilisation and social gaieties into the shade. Out in the open-air all day, one feels fitter than the proverbial fiddle, and there is not a single waking hour which is not replete with interest and excitement.

E. F. KNOX.

THE Palace of Peace, which has lately been opened at The Hague, might more properly be called the Palace of Cant. In other words, it is acclaimed chiefly by those generous and foolish souls who cannot distinguish between "is" and ought to be," who pretend to themselves, in true hypocrisy, that we live in a world wherein all passions, save commercial greed, are extinct, and that there is nothing more left for mortal man to desire than to make as much money and as quickly as he can. If we may trust the descriptions afforded by the public prints, the Palace resembles nothing so much as a very costly and rather vulgar hotel. It is surrounded by a "well-timbered "park, in which obscure diplomatists may spend a happy day. It boasts a restaurant, whose cooking is said to be "unexceptionable." And if these material advantages do not bring peace to the world, then will man remain a fighting animal unto the end of time.

The Palace is the gift of that eminent philanthropist, Mr Andrew Carnegie, and this fact is enough of itself to place it under a well-merited suspicion. The old superstition that money does not smell should long ago have been renounced. Money never loses its scent, and upon every sovereign of

Mr Carnegie's giving there is the taint of hatred and hostility. His chief claim to notoriety was won by the production of an insolent book, 'Triumphant Democracy.' This masterpiece of impertinence is dedicated "to the beloved republic, under whose equal laws I am made the peer of any man, although denied political equality by my native land." Thus he strikes the note of enmity, and while he does not tell us for what transgression he was deprived of political equality by his native land, it is plain that he boasts when he proclaims himself the peer of any man. He is the peer only of millionaires precisely as successful as himself. The one kind of warfare which he tolerates is the bitter, grinding warfare of commerce, in which more gold than blood is shed, and in which not a minute is lost, for those who are resolved to grow rich by the labour of others. Mr Carnegie, as far as we know, has never done anything, or invented anything by his own endeavours. He has understood the task of making a trust, and therefore he is in an excellent position to teach the rest of the world manners and morals. The words "throne" and "king"-ridiculous words he calls them throw this wealthy democrat into a fury