waters depends upon the melting of the snow in the Armenian mountains. The mountain aqueducts and irrigation works, some of which are still in action, of the ancient inhabitants of Armenia would furnish excellent models. A great change, however, would have to take place in the condition of that unhappy land before engineering works on a large scale could possibly be begun there.

In any case, if Babylonian civilizaThe Nineteenth Century and After.

tion is to be revived in the land of its origin, the past, the present, and the future, must be taken into consideration together. I am giving expression to my earnest conviction, and not advocating any Utopia, when I say that it would be perfectly possible to carry out the excavations for the discovery of the old civilization and the plans for the inauguration of a new civilization hand in hand.

C. F. Lehmann.

French politics have for many years been a puzzle to Englishmen. More than thirty years ago we heard from M. Thiers that Frenchmen belonged in feeling to the Left Centre, that they disliked extreme policies, and only asked to be left alone to do their own business in their own way. All that was known of the facts seemed to point to the same conclusion, and during the period of M. Thiers supremacy it was borne out by the course events. But that period was a brief one, and with its close began a series of efforts to commit France to one or other of those very extremes which she was supposed to dislike. In the first instance, the blame must certainly be laid on the reactionaries.

of

They over

threw M. Thiers by a combination of daring Royalists and timid Conservatives, and, under the Government of Marshal Macmahon, sowed the seeds of the confusion which has existed in France ever since. They completely alienated the sober and inactive Conservatism on which Thiers had relied by making the overthrow of the Republic and the committal of the country to a fresh series of dynastic experiments the main objects of their policy.

The alarm thus excited overthrew the Monarchical reaction, and established the Republic as the permanent Government of France. It might have been thought, therefore, that the moderation of the French people would now have a free course, and that the Republic, at last placed beyond risk of attack, would be governed on the lines which Thiers had marked out for it. Had Thiers lived this would possibly have beeen the case, but Governments need a driving-wheel, and with Thiers gone, the Moderate majority were unable to supply one. Dislike of reaction and the wish to see the Republic secure, led the mass of Frenchmen to acquiesce in the supremacy of the Radical minority, who could at least furnish the Republic with active defenders. From that time onwards there has been a steady succession of more and more Radical Ministries, culminating in that of M. Combes. Those who know France best are of opinion that M. Combes' adventurous policy is not really popular in the country, but as French Moderates have ordinarily no other method of showing their dislike to a Government than by staying away from the polls, M. Combes can afford to disre

gard them so long as he can command the effective support of the Radicals.

It is once more, however, becoming uncertain how long this support will be given him. Radicals are not the whole Chamber, and so soon as a sufficient number of them begin to think that the Minister of their choice is put ting in peril the conquests already made, they can count upon the help of the Conservatives in defeating his measures, or, at least, depriving them of their worst features. It seems as if a temporary coalition of this kind were not far off. M. Combes has against him the strong personality of his predecessor. M. Waldeck-Rousseau is the author of the Associations Law, and, so far, of the special policy of the present Government. Whether he was really of opinion that the religious orders had obtained a dangerous amount of power in the country, or thought it necessary to make further concessions to the Radical and Socialist element in the Chamber, and chose this question as least likely to arouse dangerous opposition, is uncertain, but he kept his majority unbroken during the passage of the Bill through the Chamber, and handed it on to M. Combes. Why he resigned office, after the Bill had become law, and left the application of it to others, it is difficult to say. The reason assigned was ill-health and the necessity of rest, but a statesman's illhealth is sometimes as much political as physical, and it is not impossible that this was SO with M. WaldeckRousseau. The really unpopular part of the new law was the application of it. Frenchmen are accustomed to strong language in Acts of Parliament; it is not till they come to be put in force by the gens d'armes that they trouble themselves much about their meaning. It is not necessary, however, to credit M. Waldeck-Rousseau with a simple desire to avoid an unpleasant task. He might conceivably

have argued that the execution of the Associations Law was certain to make any Government disliked, and that if the head of this Government were himself, the only alternative would be a more or less reactionary Cabinet. Whatever his motive may have been, he abdicated at the height of his power, and left M. Combes to finish his work. M. Combes asked nothing better. He is an ex-priest, and he is never so happy as when he is legislating against the religion he has abandoned. He is quite unlike M. Waldeck-Rousseau, who is an Opportunist, whereas M. Combes has a passion for abstract political theory which would have done honor to the Jacobin Club. In his hands the Associations Law was strained to the uttermost. Meanings were read into it which its authors had rejected by anticipation, and, with occasional exceptions dictated by prudence, it was carried out with much breaking of bolts and affixing of seals. But M. Combes soon found that a law dissolving the congregations helped him very little where the teaching orders are concerned. Schools were no longer carried on by a Congregation, but they were only transferred to the secularized members of the congregation. In M. Combes' eyes this was no real improvement. The object of his desire is to make France, so far as education is concerned, cease to be a Catholic country, and how can this result be looked for so long as so many French parents prefer to entrust their children to priests and nuns? Accordingly the Loi Falloux was next assailed, and battle joined upon the question how far the interference with the right of opening schools secured by that statute should be pushed. There are large differences of opinion in the Ministerial majority, whether the prohibition should be limited to the members of unauthorized religious congregations, or should be extended to all congrega

tions, authorized and unauthorized, or, further, to all who have at any time been members of a religious congregation, or, further still, to the whole body of the clergy, secular as well as regular. Upon these points the Ministers are not agreed among themselves, for the Minister of Public Instruction has introduced in the Senate a Bill which falls very far short of M. Combes' wishes in the matter. This has not prevented M. Combes from supporting, in principle, an amendment of which M. Gerard has given notice. The object of this amendment is to give leave to open a secondary school only to those who can declare that they have never taken vows of obedience or celibacy, thus shutting out all the orders and all the clergy. M. Combes thinks that even this proposal does not go far enough. Instead of confining the prohibition to secondary schools, he will bring in a Bill during the present session extending it to all schools so far as members of religious orders are concerned, while, as regards the secular clergy, the Government will reserve their decision until the separation of Church and State has been decided on, which he hopes it will be in the course of 1904.

As M. Waldeck-Rousseau has already declared himself opposed to M. Girard's amendment, it is hardly possible that he can support the Government in either of these proposals. He will probably carry with him his own special group, the Republican Union, and he would then be able, in the event of M. Combes' defeat, to form a Cabinet resting in part on the Right and the

The Economist.

anti-Ministerial Republicans. What chances of permanence-as Ministers count permanence in France such a combination would have it would be rash to say, but one element of danger to which it would until now have been exposed may be regarded as out of the way. In the past, a Ministry of Moderate Radicals has never long commanded even the neutrality of the Right. The Reactionaries have always held that things must be worse before they are better, and they have, therefore, combined with the Extreme Left to defeat every Moderate Cabinet in turn. M. Combes' experiment ought to have shown them that things do not always become better by growing

worse.

When the Associations Law was drastically put in execution, the Right probably believed, and believed with some reason, that the result would be to make the Government so disliked as to ensure its expulsion from office. Nothing of the kind has happened, and if the Right have any power of learning left them, they must see that nothing is gained by putting Socialists and violent Radicals in power, in the belief that they will so use it as to secure their own overthrow at the hands of a nation wearied with their excesses. If it should turn out that the Right have mastered this elementary truth, a very real step will have been taken towards the establishment of more moderate counsels in France, and M. Waldeck-Rousseau is, in many ways, the man to make good use of the opportunity which such a change will put in his hands.

Etna is different from all other mountains. Many gentlemen who had been in Switzerland have talked to me as you do (t. e. lightly) before they ascended Etna, but when they came down they said: "Your mountain is terrible, it is far more difficult than anything in Switzerland."-A courier's opinion.

The proper way to ascend Etna is to start from Nicolosi on a mule at 10 A.M., to let the mule carry you to the Observatory, a thousand feet below the summit, by sunset or thereabouts, and to scramble up the last thousand feet in time for the sunrise next morning.

We knew this, and intended to do it, but owing to poor horses we only arrived at Nicolosi at noon. Two of us hurried off to the head guide to get the mules. We were a party of eightthree ladies and five men-and the guide pulled a long face. He could not let us have any mules that day. They were taking snow to Catania.

We looked at each other blankly. We had to go up that day or not at all. We turned again to the guide. "Surely there are other mules?"

"No, signori. Ah, if you had only sent word! To-morrow, to-morrow you shall have any number of mules. But to-day, no." And he shrugged his shoulders.

"But we have seen strings of mules about. Some have just passed."

"They will not do for the mountain. They are not the mules of the Club Alpinista."

"Couldn't we have three, for the ladies?"

"Signori, it is not possible to get three."

"Two, then?" "No, nor two."

"One?"

You are go

"I might get one." "Very well, get one." "I will do what I can. ing to eat at the inn? Very good. I will send it to you, with a guide."

So we went and told our news. The party accepted the situation, had a brave lunch, and waited some little while for the mule.

Then the head guide was approached again. He said: "They are looking for the mule."

So we sauntered up the village and watched the treading of the grape. Occasionally we looked round wistfully for the mule. Time passed, and we began to think that the head guide was like Pharaoh, and did not mean to let us go. So that at last we called up a little boy, started six of the party up the mountain under his guidance, and then went to inform the head guide of what we had done. "The mule is found," he said, as we came into his courtyard. "Good. Where is it?" "Feeding." "And the guide?" "He is in his house." "Can we see him?" "Yes."

So we were introduced to our guide (who turned out to be a quiet, honest man), and a little later, to our mule, and, at something after 3 P.M., we started after the advance guard, which had waited for us a mile or two outside Nicolosi.

Once off the main street of the village we plunged ankle-deep into a fine black ash, as tiring to walk on as the dry sand of a sea-shore. For two hours we ascended steadily (with one short drop) between vines and prickly pears, figs and olives. The last grapes were being gathered, the last olives were being beaten down. In the third hour we passed through apple and pear orchards, and reached the oaks and

1

chestnuts, always with the same slippery black ash underfoot, and always steadily rising. In the fourth hour darkness fell. We were now above the woods, and had come on a part of the mountain-side dotted with blocks of lava and great spiky cushions of a kind of broom (Astragalus siculus). We continually tripped on the lava-blocks, and put our hands on the spikes of the broom. In exceptional instances we tripped on the broom and put our hands on the lava. The guide had a lantern, which indicated direction but not detail.

Between seven and eight o'clock we reached the Cantoniera, a mountain hut. Those who could eat had dinner. Those who couldn't lay down. At nine o'clock, leaving two ladies behind us, we re-started, in a bitter wind, up the monotonous ash-slope, still amongst the lava-lumps and the prickles. Far below us, on the plain, the lights of Catania and the villages glowed like phosphorus. On either hand a great shoulder of the mountain stretched away up to the stars.

For an hour we plodded on, pretty silent, the lantern dazzling ahead, the mule bringing up the rear. Sometimes the mule-boy rode; sometimes the guide; but the one lady who was left to us, she never rode. At the end of the hour five minutes' rest was called. One man dropped right down, flat on his back, and fell asleep. He had risen at 4 o'clock that morning of necessity, at 4.30 the morning before of choice, and had spent the night before that in the train. He therefore had some sleep owing to him. Moreover, he had only been able to eat a few grapes for dinner. So despite the searching wind and the frost he slept.

Then we were off again up that gentle inexorable slope. We had lost the shoulder on our left, but we still had the endless right shoulder over against us, black and hopeless. The air was

sensibly colder, and the wind was piercing. The lady's hands and feet grew cold, despite the exertion. She had had no dinner, and had had an attack of sickness. We were able to put another pair of gloves over her hands, but we had no remedy for her feet.

At eleven o'clock we rested again, and had a little half-frozen coffee. Catania still glimmered by the sea, but the lights of the villages had almost faded out. The villagers had gone to We admired the simple country

bed. life.

The

"In one hour more we shall be there," we heard the guide say as we re-started. We glanced at the long horrible shoulder, with Orion's belt gleaming over the middle of it, and didn't believe him. We soon reached a great slope of cinders, free from lava-blocks and prickles. We were in the Regione Deserta-the Desert Region. The early riser was now drunken and stupid for want of sleep, and swayed a little in his walk. All of us were tired, even the lady, who nevertheless kept near the lantern, leading gallantly. early riser lagged until the mule touched him. Whereupon he laid his hand sleepily upon his pannier, shut his eyes, and walked along dozing. How many weeks ago was it since we started? Why did we start? How long were we to go on? How long could we go on? These questions flickered about in our heavy heads. Suddenly the cavalcade halted, and we all awoke. Except the early riser, the seeker of sunrises, who dropped on the cinders, happily asleep. The lantern had blown out. It took a long while in the lighting, as the Italian matches either would not strike or were blown out as soon as lighted. And by that time the sleeper was nearly frost-bitten, but quite comfortable. He said he understood now how pleasant it was to lie down and die in the Arc