A NEW TOWN. T^ 



palm was chosen for a central land-mark, an ornament to 

 the town sqnare such as no capital in Europe can boast. 

 Traces were cut, streets laid out, lots of crown-lands 

 put up for sale, and settlers invited in the name of the 

 Government. 



Scarcely eighteen months had passed since then, and 

 already there ^litchell Street, Violin Street, Duhoulav Street, 

 Farfan Street, had each its new houses built of cedar and 

 thatched with palm. Two Chinese shops had celestials 

 with pig-tails and thick-soled shoes grinning behind cedar 

 counters, among stores of Bryant's safety matches, Huntley 

 and Palmer's biscuits, and Allsop's pale ale. A church had 

 been built, the shell at least, and partly floored, with a very 

 simple, but not tasteless, altar ; the Abbe had a good house, 

 with a gallery, jalousies, and white china handles to the doors. 

 Tlie mighty palm in the centre of Gordon Square had a neat 

 railing^ round it, as befitted the Palladium of the villao^e. 

 Behind the houses, among the stumps of huge trees, maize 

 and cassava, pigeon-peas and sweet potatoes, fattened in the 

 sun, on ground which till then had been shrouded by vege- 

 tation a hundred feet thick ; and as we sat at the head man's 

 house, with French and English prints upon the walls, and 

 drank beer from a Chinese shop, and looked out upon the 

 loyal, thri^^ng little settlement, I envied the two young men 

 who could say, " At least, we have not lived in vain ; for 



