282 Voyage of the Novara. 



Novara during lier numerous traverses and diagonal tracks 

 on her voyage round the world. As we had hitherto come 

 into contact for the most part with the Anglo-Saxon race and 

 its colonies, it was naturally doubly interesting to have an 

 opportunity of becoming likewise acquainted with the results 

 of civilization and colonization as exemplified by what are 

 called the Romaic or Latin branches of the great Caucasian 

 family, and by personal examination to satisfy ourselves in 

 what fashion the Castilians have succeeded in identifying 

 their own advantages with those of the natives of these 

 islands. True it is, that the history of the earlier Spanish 

 dependencies is by no means calculated to heighten our re- 

 gard for tlie wisdom and mildness of the colonial policy of 

 Sj^ain, or to give a particularly favourable impression of the 

 political and social condition of the Philippine Islands. A 

 state, whose power at the commencement of the present 

 century was still beapiing in all its lustre, who has lost the 

 fairest and most fertile lands on the face of the earth, which 

 it had possessed for above three hundred years, without the 

 slightest attempt to defend them, whose Government, through 

 its inflexible adherence to obsolete forms and ordinances, 

 after the dizzy pre-eminence of ruling the world has dwin- 

 dled into a power of the thu^d class, — leaves nothing to hope 

 that any part of its organization should have remained intact, 

 that the canker in its political and social proclivities, which 

 so suddenly and so disastrously brought about the downfal 



