terior of this island the temperature is much cooler than in the low districts near the ocean. The west coast of Madagascar is indented with bays forming some of the most remarkable and secure harbours in the world, in which there is abundance of water for the largest class of vessels, and nearly all of them very easy of access. The silk-worm is found in many parts of the island, and the cocoons may be seen in hundreds hanging on the trees, there being no demand there for an article which we go to China for. The natives have always been accustomed to its use in their garments, some of which are very elegant. Mineral wealth is very abundant, and iron and coal are now found in close proximity. The discovery of coal in Madagascar must soon place that island in the position which it ought unquestionably to hold in the Indian Ocean. Great Britain alone sends every year 700,000 tons of coal round the Cape of Good Hope, and the Peninsular and Oriental Company expend £600,000 per annum on coal. Notes on Japan. By LAURENCE OLIPHANT, F.R.G.S. The three ports of the empire visited by the Mission, and which fell more immediately under our observation, were Nagasaki, situated in the Island of Kinsin; Sowinda, a port opened by Commodore Perry on the Promontory of Idsa; and Yedo, the capital city of the empire. Of these Nagasaki is the one with which we have been for the longest period familiar. In former times it was a fishing village situated in the Principality of Omura; it is now an imperial demesne, and the most flourishing port in the empire. It owes its origin to the establishment, at this advantageous point, of a Portuguese settlement in the year 1569, and its prosperity to the enlightened policy pursued by the Christian Prince of Omura, in whose territory it was situated; while its transference to the Crown was the result of political intrigues on the part of the Portuguese settlers, in consequence of which the celebrated Tageo Sama included it among the lands appertaining to the Crown. Situated almost at the westernmost extremity of the empire, at the head of a deep land-locked harbour, and in convenient proximity to some of the wealthiest and most productive principalities in the empire, Nagasaki possesses great local advantages, and will doubtless continue an important commercial emporium, even when the trade of the empire at large is more fully developed, and has found an outlet through other ports. The town is pleasantly situated on a belt of level ground which intervenes between the water and the swelling hills, forming an amphitheatre of great scenic beauty. Their slopes terraced with rice-fields; their valleys heavily timbered, and watered by gushing mountain streams; their projecting points crowned with temples or frowning with batteries; everywhere cottages buried in foliage reveal their existence by curling wreaths of blue smoke; in the creeks and inlets picturesque boats lie moored; sacred groves, approached by rock-cut steps, or pleasure-gardens tastefully laid out, enchant the eye. The whole aspect of Nature is such as cannot fail to produce a most favourable impression upon the mind of the stranger visiting Japan for the first time. The city itself contains a population of about 50,000, and consists of between eighty and ninety streets, running at right angles to each other-broad enough to admit of the passage of wheeled vehicles, were any to be seen in them-and kept scrupulously clean. A canal intersects the city, spanned by thirty-five bridges, of which fifteen are handsomely constructed of stone. The Dutch factory is placed upon a small fan-shaped island about 200 yards in length, and connected with the mainland by a bridge. Until recently, the members of the factory were confined exclusively to this limited area, and kept under a strict and rigid surveillance. The old régime is now, however, rapidly passing away; and the history of their imprisonment, of the indignities to which they were exposed, and the insults they suffered, has already become a matter of tradition. The port of Hiogo is situated in the Bay of Ohosaka, opposite to the celebrated city of that name, from which it is ten or twelve miles distant. The Japanese Government have expended vast sums in their engineering efforts to improve its once dangerous anchorage. A breakwater, which was erected at a prodigious expense, and which cost the lives of numbers of workmen, has proved sufficient for the object for which it was designed. There is a tradition, that a superstition existed in connexion with this dyke, to the effect that it would never be finished, unless an individual could be found suffi ciently patriotic to suffer himself to be buried in it. A Japanese Curtius was not long in forthcoming, to whom a debt of gratitude will be due in all time to come, from every British ship that rides securely at her anchor behind the breakwater. Hiogo has now become the port of Ohosaka and Miaco, and will, in all probability, be the principal port of European trade in the empire. The city is described as equal in size to Nagasaki. When Kampfer visited it, he found 300 junks at anchor in its bay. The Dutch describe Ohosaka as a more attractive resort even than Yedo. While this latter city may be regarded as the London of Japan, Ohosaka seems to be its Paris. Here are the most celebrated theatres, the most sumptuous tea-houses, the most extensive pleasure-gardens. It is the abode of luxury and wealth, the favourite resort of fashionable Japanese, who come here to spend their time in gaiety and pleasure. Ohosaka is one of the five Imperial cities, and contains a vast population. It is situated on the left bank of the Jedogawa, a stream which rises in the Lake of Oity, situated a day and a half's journey in the interior. It is navigable for boats of large tonnage as far as Miaco, and is spanned by numerous handsome bridges. The port of Hiogo and city of Osaca will not be opened to Europeans until the 1st of January, 1862. The foreign residents will then be allowed to explore the country in any direction, for a distance of twenty-five miles, except towards Miaco, or, as it is more properly called, Kioto. They will not be allowed to approach nearer than twenty-five miles to this far-famed city. Situated at the head of a bay, or rather gulf, so extensive that the opposite shores are not visible to each other, Yedo spreads itself on a continuous line of houses along its partially undulating, partially level margin, for a distance of about ten miles. Including suburbs, at its greatest width it is probably about seven miles across, but for a portion of the distance it narrows to a mere strip of houses. Any rough calculation of the population of so vast a city must necessarily be very vague and uncertain; but, after some experience of Chinese cities, two millions does not seem too high an estimate at which to place Yedo. In consequence of the great extent of the area occupied by the residences of the Princes, there are quarters of the town in which the inhabitants are very sparse. The citadel, or residence of the temporal Emperor, cannot be less than five or six miles in circumference, and yet it only contains about 40,000 souls. On the other hand, there are parts of the city in which the inhabitants seem almost as closely packed as they are in Chinese towns. The streets are broad and admirably drained, some of them are lined with peach and plum trees, and when these are in blossom must present a gay and lively appearance. Those which traverse the Prince's quarter are for the most part as quiet and deserted as aristocratic thoroughfares generally are. Those which pass through the commercial and manufacturing quarters are densely crowded with passengers on foot, in chairs, and on horseback, while occasionally, but not often, an ox-waggon rumbles and creaks along. The houses are only of two stories, sometimes built of freestone, sometimes of sunburnt brick, and sometimes of wood; the roofs are either tiles or shingles. The shops are completely open to the street; some of these are very extensive, the show-rooms for the more expensive fabrics being upstairs, as with us. The eastern part of the city is built upon a level plain, watered by the Toda Gawa, which flows through this section of the town, and supplies with water the large moats which surround the citadel. It is spanned by the Nipon; has a wooden bridge of enormous length, celebrated as the Hyde Park Corner of Japan, as from it all distances throughout the empire are measured. Towards the western quarter of the city the country becomes more broken; swelling hills rise above the housetops richly clothed with foliage, from out the waving masses of which appear the upturned gables of a temple, or the many roofs of a pagoda. It will be some satisfaction to foreigners to know that they are not to be excluded for ever from this most interesting city. By the Treaty concluded in it by Lord Elgin, on the 1st of January, 1863, British subjects shall be allowed to reside there, and it is not improbable that a great portion of the trade may ultimately be transferred to it from Ranagawa. There is plenty of water and a good anchorage at a distance of about a mile from the western suburb of Linagawa. The only other port which has been opened by the late Treaty in the Island of Nipon is the Port of Nee-e-gata, situated upon its western coast. As this port has never yet been visited by Europeans, it is stipulated that if it be found inconvenient as a harbour, another shall be substituted for it, to be opened on the 1st of January, 1860. On the Yang-tse-kiang, and its future Commerce. By Captain SHERARD OSBORNE, R.N., B.C., F.R.G.S. The stand-point Captain Osborne wished his audience to take was in the province of Hon-Peh, the central one of China, where a stream from the north-west of about the volume of the Thames joins "the Great River"-Yang-tse-Kiang. They had to deal with eight of the eighteen provinces. Rich in all the products for which China is remarkable, and for which western nations insist upon a trade with her, this zone, whence come all our silks, and nearly all our teas, was for 200 years only reached by an overland commerce from Canton. In 1843, the establishment of trade at Shanghai, on the eastern sea-board of this great central zone, without hardly affecting the overland trade to Canton, proved incontestably the surpassing richness in products of the provinces of Central China, and the great demand there was for European merchants there, if not as seliers, at any rate as buyers. The Great River, a sealed route until 1858, lies opposite the great city of Hankow. On the western bank is Han Yang, also a large city; whilst facing them both, on the south side of the Great River, extends another huge walled city-Woo-Chang-Foo. All three have lately been subjected to a visitation from the Tai-pings or rebels. The latter, the residence of the Viceroy of the two Hu's (Human and Hupeh), a region somewhat larger than France, though far more rich and populous, was all but in ruins when Lord Elgin's squadron visited it. Hankow, however, like all natural commercial emporiums, had evidently revived directly the fires of the Tai-ping incendiaries were quenched; houses, all new, covering, as far as they were able to judge, the entire site of the old town. All the three cities, which stand in one immense plain, with here and there a hill rising out of it, like islands out of the sea, were felicitously described with great minuteness. The river, it was stated, was in no place less than half a mile wide, and the waters still range at the low season from 60 to 42 feet in depth. From this point, 600 miles from the sea, the distance to the source of the river is 2500 miles. The difficulty of obtaining any information from the Chinese was extreme. A missionary reported that in the far west provinces, 1200 miles from the sea, he reached the Great River, and found it a mile and half broad, and Captain Osborne thinks there is every reason to believe that it is navigable by native vessels, between Wester Sochow and the great emporium of trade, at the point of which this missionary spoke-Tchoun-King, and that many other rivers running into it are navigable. There are rapids or falls, however, about 160 miles above Hankow, which, unless it is found that they can be surmounted by the aid of steam power, will be the furthest point which vessels can reach, and will divide the river into the upper and lower valley. With a flatter description of vessels, however, Captain Osborne is confident the river will be found to be navigable even beyond this barrier. The traders' junks, with which they come from all parts of this great empire to Hankow market, find a refuge in the mouth of the river Han. Iron is found in Hankow in great quantity, wrought and unwrought, the best quality, quite as good as Swedish, coming from the province of Hunan, and costing about £14, while the cheapest is sold at £5. It was also smelted with coals, which, from the southern provinces of Hunan, can be purchased out of vessels afloat, at £2 5s. to £2 15s. per ton. Tea, silk, wax, tobacco, and Chinese grass were to be bought to any extentthe teas from the western provinces. Captain Osborne showed some of the teas to merchants at Shanghai, who declared they were very valuable, but unknown to them even there in trade. The Chinese grass makes clothing, sails, or ropes, and is in great demand for all the purposes to which hemp and flax are applied in Europe. It sold in Hankow for 25s. a cwt., and at Ningpo for 55s., a pretty good profit for a distance of 600 miles of carriage by ship, plainly showing that, when once the English get steam set fairly a-going upon the Chinese rivers, they will be able to cheapen even their own articles to them. There were stores full of native manufactured cottons, as well as English ones, the different prices of which, and of silks, linens, and many other articles, Captain Osborne presented in a tabular form for the information of those specially interested in the subject, and from which it appeared that cotton has every likelihood of being the chief article which could be imported with advantage direct from Europe. Everywhere in Hankow there is a throb of commerce. It seems like what Shanghai was before European merchants resided there, and that it only requires their presence at Hankow to make its trade rival that of Shanghai, which in fifteen years has increased steadily to its present enormous amount of 28 millions sterling. Captain Osborne thinks, however, that English merchant ships can never go up farther than the confluence of the Poyang Lake, 120 miles below Hankow, the meeting of the Takeang and the Poyang Lake occasioning at this point a mass of shallows and banks as well as three or four channels, with more or less water in them. Kew-Keang, which stands at this point, Captain Osborne described as a city rendered important for trade by the great road from Pekin to Canton passing it. When captured in 1853, its trade was very great, and it was extremely rich and populous; when visited by Lord Elgin's squadron, it was a perfect picture of desolation. It must be at or near Kew-Keang, Captain Osborne says, that Europeans must first establish their great entrepôt for central China. To it their ships can safely reach, especially auxiliary screw clippers, without transhipping their freights. He had no doubt they would find safe anchorage there, and thence their goods would permeate throughout central China, and thus they would prevent a piece of chintz made in Manchester, which sells at Shanghai, 28 yards for 13s., from selling, as they saw it at Hankow, at about 13d. a yard. But it was very important for reaping the full advantage of the treaty of Tientsin that the Chinese be made to understand that the Yangtse-Keang, from its mouth at any rate, to Hankow, is ours as well as the Chinaman's highway. It only requires peace between the Imperialists and Tai-pings to make the country around Kew-Keang, embracing much wealth, high cultivation, numerous cities, and countless villages and hamlets, what Captain Osborne says he remembers Nankin to have been seventeen years ago—the garden of China; and it is easy to predict that the wants of this population, and the products of their industry, will yet form a very important item in British commerce with them. His own impressions Captain Osborne stated to be, that, with handy fast-sailing ships, or, better still, with auxiliary steam ships, there was nothing to prevent them reaching the entrance to the Poyang Lake, by ascending the river in June after the spring thaws, and returning in the rains; and pilots should be established at moderate fees, instead of the present extortionate rates levied by Europeans for the Lower Yang-tze, which Captain Osborne estimated at £30,000 per annum upon English imports and exports from Shanghai alone. Vessels of still smaller size would answer and pay well between Poyang and Hankow. When the entry of the British flag into the Poyang Lake became known to the native merchants of Canton, cotton fell in the market, the Chinese monopolists knowing that the days of large profits were numbered. The trading stations Captain Osborne recommended were Hankow, Kew-Keang, and Nanking or Ching-Keang. On some curious Discoveries concerning the Settlement of the Seed of Notes on the Lower Danube. By Major J. STOKES. On the Sculptured Stones of Scotland. By JOHN STUART, Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The author said the occurrence of pillars in almost all parts of the world, to mark events of various kinds, is quite remarkable. The Bible is full of instances of pillars being erected. Those pillars were of two kinds-for marking sepulchres and for marking other events. When Rachel died, Jacob set up a pillar over her grave; and long after that time Rachel's sepulchre is referred to as a well-known spot. This refers only to the class of single stones, however, but we have at least one instance of a group of stones being put up for a historical purpose. When Israel crossed the Jordan, twelve stones were set up corresponding with the twelve tribes. In Scotland we have instances of both classes of pillars-that is, of single pillars, and pillars collected in groups, of circular form; these latter having unfortunately been connected with the Druids without the slightest foundation on which to build such a theory. It was Stukely who first introduced this opinion, which has but tended to obscure the whole subject; and the sooner we get rid of it the better. Mr. Charles Dalrymple, who is well known in connexion with the Archæological Exhibition here, was kind enough to make some investigations in this county, and the following is his account of the results of one of his diggings at Crichie, about 16 miles from this town. The circle had originally consisted of six stones, of which only two are now standing. Sepulchral deposits were found near the site of all the stones. On digging about one of them standing on the north side, an urn was found inverted, having a small flat stone above it, and another below it, and filled with calcined bones. This urn was about a foot in height, narrowed at the top, and having diagonal lines on the narrow rim for ornament. Near the base of another stone on the same side of the circle was found, imbedded in clay, a circular cist about nine inches in diameter and a foot deep, filled with calcined bones. This cist was shaped like an urn, and was lined with small stones, evidently broken for the purpose. Close to this pit was found a stone celt perforated by a hole for the handle, and at a little distance from this, a deposit of calcined bones uninclosed, and somewhat further to the south an urn. On digging on the south side of the spot where a stone had formerly stood, a small stone cist, nearly square, was found, being about eleven inches by nine, and about sixteen inches deep, with small flat stones at bottom, and half-filled with remains of bones. Close to the former site of another stone, now removed, was found an urn of better workmanship than that formerly referred to, about three and a half inches in width at bottom, and widening towards the top, where it measured about seven and a half inches. At the neck, which was narrowed, there are some traces of ornament of angular pattern, consisting of diagonal lines crossing each other like a St. Andrew's Cross. It was filled with calcined bones, some of them those of animals. Close to the former site of a fifth stone was found a circular deposit of bones in a clay bed, without cist or urn. On digging about the spot where a sixth stone had stood, it appeared that a deposit had been buried near it also, about the usual distance of one foot and a half from it. This deposit, however, had been disturbed, probably by a tree which had been planted close to it. A stone had stood in the centre of the circle, and a digging at this site brought to light a large underground cairn of stones covering a cist. The cairn was about five and a half feet in depth, forty-five feet in circumference at the surface, and thirty feet at the top. The bottom was paved with large slabs of stone, of which those at the sides overlapped the edges of one large one in the centre, which formed the cover of a cist, three feet eleven inches long by two feet ten inches wide. The cist contained a skull at the west end. At the opposite end were the leg-bones lying across the cist. In the centre of the cist were some calcined bones. Above the centre of the cairn, just below the superincumbent earth, was found a deposit of calcined bones, without any urn or flat stone above or below. All the bones found in the circle appeared to be calcined. Those in the urn first referred to appeared to be partly human and partly those of small animals, if not of birds. A human jaw-bone in this urn was unmistakeable-small and delicate like that of a woman. Thus we find in almost every instance the discovery of sepulchral deposits in connexion with these pillars. These circles may have had other meanings, though this is the only one we can discover. The present paper, however, deals with sculptured pillars, and these consist of two distinct classes. First, there is the rude, unpolished, unhewn stone covered with figures which we call symbols. One of these pillars [a figure of this pillar was given among a series of fine diagrams prepared to illustrate the paper by Mr. Gibb, of Messrs. Keith and Gibb, of Aberdeen] is found at Logie, in this county. It contains various symbols, including the spectacle ornament,' and inclines in a position which Irish scholars say is peculiar to this stone. Mr. Stuart went on to allude to the symbols of a more elaborate character, including the elephant, fish, &c., on others of these pillars, remarking as to the distribution of the pillars, that by far the larger portion of the stones between the Dee and Spey are of the ruder class of stones covered with symbols. In the centre of the district, there is a stone with an inscription upon it which has hitherto baffled the efforts of scholars to state its character; until lately that Lord Aberdeen got it submitted to the late Dr. Mill of Cambridge, who prepared a disquisition on it before his death, which is now in course of being printed. In it, it will be found that Dr. Mill had satisfied himself that the inscription was a Phoenician one; at all events, there can be no doubt that it is Eastern. This stone, as already stated, is in the centre of the district between the Dee and the |