e;2 



The Review of Reviews. 



soul in order to understand the glory of conflict. He holds that 

 in the battle against disease and ignorance, the battle to win 

 the truths of science and to subjugate nature, man, the man of 

 the future, will find, in a nobler fashion of fighting, a " moral 

 equivalent for war." 



OTHER EXPRESSIONS OF OPINION. 



Mr. Norman Angell follows with an exposition on 

 the bearing of international e\ents on " The Great 

 Illusion." Mr. Angell protests that he never said 

 that war is now impossible. What he maintains is 

 that the futility of war will not stop war until general 

 opinion has recognised the futility. 



Professor Simon N. Patten, in an article on the 

 " World's Peace in the Making," maintains that 

 economic interests are going to dominate the war 

 emotions. Emotion is local and tense ; calculation 

 is much more widespread in its iiifluence. The 

 forces of war are held in check by the interests and 

 sentiments of modern industry. 



These papers are followed by brief letters from 

 eminent men, some of whom are well-knovvi5 in this 

 country. Sir Edward Fry shakes his head lugu- 

 briously, saying that the dawn of a better day is 

 rather a matter of faith than of sight, but he 

 grudgingly admits that it may be that the dawning 

 of the day of universal peace is nearer than we think. 

 Lord Northcliffe is cynical and sceptical. He says 

 he would be a hypocrite if he pretended that he saw 

 any actual promise of the dawn of the day of 

 universal peace. The war in Tripoli, he says, shows 

 that all the peace talking and peace writing of the 

 last few years has not even been able to secure a 

 little time for consideration before the beginning of 

 that war. 



AMAZONIA. 



Under this title is given a very striking description 

 of Brazil in the Bulletin of the Pan-American Unio/i 

 by Major Joseph Orton Kerbey. There are twenty- 

 one States in the United States of Brazil. They 

 comprise an area 200,000 square miles greater than 

 the forty-eight States of the North American Union.* 

 There are 3,000 miles of Brazilian coast. Amazonia 

 comprises the two large and most northerly States of 

 Brazil, Para and Aniazonas, which are covered by 

 the forest primeval for hundreds of miles on each side 

 of the river. 'I'he navigable waters of the Amazon 

 and tributaries for all sorts of craft are estimated to 

 exceed 45,000 miles. The average depth is from 

 40 to 150 feet, and the average width from 6 to 40 



™' ^^' AN OCEAN-RIVER. 



Ocean-going steamers sail every fortnight from New 

 York and Liverpool over 3,000 miles of Atlantic 

 Ocean, and then up the Amazon, 2,300 miles farther, 

 to Iquitos, in Peru without breaking cargo or transfer 

 of passengers. The trip is about thirteen days to the 

 Amazon from New York, and from Para up the river 

 about the same. Amazonia is peculiarly rich in 

 rubber, which, next to gold, makes the most valuable 

 cargo afloat. The climate is healthy, if one avoids 



midday sun and wet nights, and lives well. Tht, 

 natives say that " only dogs and Englishmen go about) 

 in the sun." The days are all June days. The sun ' 

 rises at precisely the same moment every morning .^ 

 and disappears at the same hour behind the Andes, 

 when immediately descends the dark tropical night: 



AN ENGLISH COMPANY TO 'THE FORE. 



The two lines that reach the Amazon direct are the 

 Lloyd Brazileiro and the English Booth Company. 

 Of the Booth Company the Right Hon. Charles 

 Booth IS the most distinguished member : — 



The Booth Company is an English corporation that realised 

 the importance of the Amazon trade and devoted their energies 

 exclusively to its development, earning enormous profits from 

 the monopoly of handling rubber, etc. It is no more than 

 justice to add that they did good service, and probably all the 

 trade Americans enjoy there to-day is due to the satisfactory 

 service. They have been in this trade over fifty years, their 

 fleet of cargo steamers operating a triangular service fortnightly 

 between New York, Para, and Manaos, and Liverpool. 



The Booth is a wealthy corporation, in the enjoyment of 

 special facilities in the way of docks at Manaos and pririlegcs 

 at the new docks at Para. 



Their principal service extends to Liverpool, vid Lisbon and 

 Havre, to which points they run a fine class of steamers, the 

 passenger traffic to Europe being heavier than to New York. 



Though Manaos, a thousand miles up the Amazon, is con- 

 sidered the end of the voyage, they run a steamer monthly 

 another thousand miles up the river to Iquitos, in Peru. 

 THE SEAT OF COMING WORLD EMPIRE. 



The writer concludes : — 



Imagination — and not very exuberant imagination at that — . 

 can see a world power in Brazil, in the distant Aiden. 



Just as the Amazon is the greatest river in the world, its 

 valleys will some day be the seat of one of the greatest empires 

 of the world. 



The Ganges and the Nile are of the historic past ; the Danube, 

 the Volga, and the Mississippi are of the present ; the Amazon, 

 the Orinoco, and the Kongo belong to the future. 



In all the world there is no valley so riotous in fertility as 

 that which the -Amazon waters, and suitable population, aided 

 by modern machinery and appliances, will in time blaze the 

 pathway for civilisation in the forest of that portion of Soutli 

 America known as Amazonia. 



A PEN-PORTRAIT OF MRS. ANNIE BESANT. 



In the December number of the Mitigate Monthh 

 Mr. Gerald Cumberland has a short biographical' 

 article on Mrs. Annie Besant. He concludes his 

 sketch with this pen-picture of his subject : — 



Ilsr deep eyes are warm and sympathetic. She talks wel ■•' 

 and quickly, with the matter of-fact air of a woman of afTaira •■ 

 .She has no aftlctations. One sees in a moment that she ij's 

 trustworthy. Her demeanour is always calm. Years .ago sht' 

 h.ad a violent temper, but she h.is killed it now. Her hands 

 are small and soft ; their touch is like velvet. There is a 

 strange serenity about her, though one knows thatthis peace- 

 fulness exists side by side with extraordinary energy. i 



Everything she says is precise, and not to be mistaken. It is 

 evident she thinks clearly and quickly. She never hesitates for 

 a word. Great vitality seems to animate her. She is easy and 

 natural. Moreover, she is very human and likeable. She docs 

 not hold herself aloof from anyone ; she is, above all, a 

 comrade. Her wisdom is given forth spontaneously, without 

 tlie oracular manner of the self-important and without the over- 

 emphasis of the vain. In a word, she is wise and good and 

 strong. She is one of the few heroic figures of our day. 



