THREE BOOKS OF TRAVELt BISHOP COWIE'S book is too much
of a catalogue of places and persons to be particularly entertaining to the general reader. Its chief merit is that it shows the real reason why so many of the Colonial Episcopate are to be found holiday- making in this country,—that the work is terribly hard.
• Nigel Fortescue ; or, the Hunted Man. By William Weston. London : Ward and Downey. 1882.
t a.) Our Last Year in New Zealand, By Bishop Cowie. London : ICegau Paul, Trench, and Co.—(2.) Orient and Occident. By General Ilittord. London: W. IL Allen.—(3.) Old and Nem Spain. By H. M. Field. London: Ward and Downey.
Bishop Cowie seems to revel in riding twenty-five miles to hold a confirmation, and then rowing another twenty to preach a sermon. He carries his episcopal robes, which he has wisely reduced to the thinnest of rochets over a like cassock, in a waterproof bag, which is tied to the saddle, and his son often acted as groom. In a country in which female domestic servants get 12s. a week, and an outdoor and non-resident man 35s., even a Bishop has to look after the shillings.
The Bishop gives some pleasant information about the Maoris. One Maori chief, who during the Maori War cut his way for himself and people out of a beleaguered pale against a superior English force, is now a cultured citizen and friend of the Bishop's. Visiting him once, he was much struck by the long hair of the Bishop's little girl, and when asked to look at the view from the window, sat still, saying,—" I can see a view any day, but not a head of hair like this." Maoris are employed as navvies on railway-making, and earn 9s. a day; others as clergy and native ministers ; and, on one occasion, the Bishop confirmed sixty-three well-dressed Maoris at once, so that here at least missionary effort is not wholly lost. This is perhaps the more surprising as one gathers generally from the book that New Zealand is of all our Colonies the most English, and if not in some respects quite so go-ahead as Victoria, it is not the least solidly progressive.
Orient and Occident, as General Mitford calls his record of a journey from Lahore to Liverpool, via Japan and the States and Canada, goes over oft-trodden ground ; but the steps are light and easy, and the book fully justifies its existence by the excellence of its illustrations, which are graphic and well selected. The descriptions are effective without being overdone or too highly aimed. Occasionally there is an out- break of exaggeration, as in the description of the Japanese narrow-gauge railway, on which "the officials are dressed as caricatures of our own, and even the porters wear green fustian jackets, with numbers in red on their sleeves; but the diminutive size of these mannikins, and the smile which perpetually lurks in the corners of their eyes and mouths, only requiring the in- centive of a word or look to break into a broad grin, gives one the idea that the whole thing is a farce, and that they are only boys playing at railways. I frequently found myself listening for the bell which was to summon these children back to school,"—and the author adds a note of exclamation which the reader is disposed to echo. Niagara, of course, is too much for a military author ; and he ends a purple patch on the subject with the absurd tag :—" Niagara must oppress the noblest of poets, bewilder the greatest of artists, and convert the most stubborn of atheists,"—though what an atheist has to do with the beauty of Niagara, or why he should be converted by it half so much as by the far more extraordinary phenomenon of life and motion as exhibited, say, in a black-beetle, does not appear.
In all these " globe-trotting " books, Japan is the country that always appears the quaintest, the loveliest, and also, for Dr. Johnson's reason that "the finest scenery in the world is improved by a good hotel in the foreground," the most attractive. The inland sea compares for beauty only with the Sounds of New Zealand ; the holy mountain of Fusiyama has no rival ; while the extraordinary beauty of the art pro- ductions, and the still more extraordinary mingling of the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century, Eastern customs and costumes and European civilisation, and the charming manners of the people, make Japan the paradise of the traveller. The only drawbacks to the country are that you have to travel in jinrikshas, two-wheeled carts drawn by men, over stony paths, and that the married women are rendered hideous by shaving their eyebrows and blackening their teeth, —a precaution against unfaithfulness in wives which must considerably promote that failing in husbands.
From Japan to Spain is a far step ; but the most backward nation of the West has the same curious mixture of ancient and modern as the most progressive nation of the East; and in Mr. Field, an American clergyman, Spain has found an intelligent and sympathetic observer. Mr. Field calls his book Old and New Spain : its most interesting parts are those in which New Spain, the Spain of to-day, is dealt with. He made the acquaintance of Sefior Castelar, and had the good luck of hearing the great debate in the Cortes on the policy of the Government after the last attempt at a military insur- rection, in which, while supporting the Monarchical Liberals against 'violent revolutionists, he openly proclaimed, in a way which would produce a storm even in England, his Republican opinions. But though he is a Republican, and to some extent a cosmopolitan, he is eminently a Spaniard, though there are, he says, "three things in Spain which he detests,—the wine, the bull-fights, and the pronunciamientos." He is a Revolu- tionist by reason and argument, not by the appeal to force, and is for slow and sure progress, not for hasty revolutions. And he appears to be specially wise in this in Spain, for, in spite of liberal institutions, the cause of reaction is still strong. Mr. Field, perhaps, places too much stress on the fact that, even so late as the centenary of Calderon, at a public and international banquet, an old Professor of Spanish Litera- ture at Madrid solemnly and seriously toasted the Holy Inquisition. One can imagine a high-and-dry Tory Pro- fessor at Oxford toasting Laud or Strafford, without any very serious admiration for the rack or desire to re- produce the treatment of Prynne's ears among his Dissenting neighbours. But the Constitution itself only lie if-recognisesreligious freedom, and the practice of the magistrates in county districts does not recognise it at all. The Constitution says,—" No one shall be molested for his religious opinions, 'nor for the exercise of his particular- religious worship Nevertheless, no other ceremonies nor manifestations in public will be permitted than those of the religion of the State." This, out of Madrid, is, it seems, interpreted to mean that those who are not Roman Catholics "may hold their opinions in private without the right or privilege of public worship." Even in Madrid it appears to be doubtful whether a Protestant church unconnected with an Embassy would be allowed at all, and almost certain that it would not be allowed to ring bells. And among other questions which have been solemnly argued, were "whether a man could put up a signboard to show that he sold Bibles," and whether " a pedlar in Valladolid could cry Bibles in the streets." In a country in which liberty has not proceeded further than this, a Republic would certainly appear to be premature, and certainly not worth establishing by a violent revolution. Meanwhile, at Cordova, Toledo, and Burgos, the Catholic religion may still be seen in all its glory in the most ancient and beautiful seats in Europe. Spain is worth a visit, if merely to see its cathedrals.
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