September 1, 1886.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



323 



seems unlikely that he should hope to arrive at assured 

 convictions respecting the future fortunes of communities 

 like the English-speaking colonies under conditions utterly 

 unlike any of which history has yet left us the record. AVe 

 reject Mr. Froude's docti-ine that a science of history is 

 impossible, but we may believe with him that at present no 

 such science exists ; and we may feel absolutely assured that 

 this opinion is sound so far as it is based on internal 

 evidence. Therefore we cannot attach any great importance 

 to Mr. Froude's views on the future of England and her 

 colonies. The subject would tax the fullest powers of a 

 science which by his own account will never exist. Even if 

 he is in this mistaken, and the science already exists, it 

 certainly is but in its infancy ; and Mr. Fronde's own assur- 

 ance should satisfy us that he himself has no inkling of its 

 teachings. 



We propose to consider ■•Oceana" as a contribution to 

 that department of literature which Mr. Fronde says is pro- 

 vided -'for those who want to be entertained without feeling 

 that they are losing their time." As a book of travels 

 " Oceana " is chief!}" remarkable for the wideness of its 

 range and the confident interpretation of the bird's-eye view 

 which such a survey can alone afford. 3Ir. Froude pro- 

 nounces an opinion on the climate of the middle and eastern 

 States of America, after passing from the Rocky Mountains 

 to Chicago in the last week of April. '• It must be with 

 the eastern and middle States as they say of Castile, nueve 

 meses del Jnvierno >/ tres dd Infierno (nine months of winter 

 and three of hell). Winter is long and harsh : summer is 

 brief and burning." Now, as a matter of fact, climate 

 varies as widely in the eastern and middle States of America 

 as it does in the eastern and middle countries of Europe, 

 and in any section of any one of the easteni or middle States 

 the weather diffei-s as much from year to year as it does 

 with us at home. But in those parts of the States where 

 the contrast between the cold of winter and the heat of 

 summer is most trying the average weather is by no means 

 such that the inhabitants consider our English weather can 

 possibly be better or even nearly as good. They know, in- 

 deed, as a rule, as much about our English weather as Mr. 

 Froude knows about weather in America, having formed 

 their ideas on just such evidence as he has had (and is now 

 giving to the English public) in regard to American waither. 

 But, in the main, they hold their weather to be much better 

 than ours. The winter does not last nine months : often it 

 does not begin before December, sometimes not till -January, 

 and it is often over by the middle of March. Summer, 

 again, has usually two months of delightful weather, much 

 like the best summer weather of England. Spring, indeed, 

 is apt to last but a short time ; but, on the other hand, 

 autumn lasts much longer than with us ; and the autumn 

 weather of the middle and eastern States is usually charm- 

 ing, fully equal to our loveliest spring weather. The bitter- 

 nes.s of the winter cold for occasional short spells is indeed 

 trying, especially to those not accustomed to it. And there 

 are sometimes summer days which might almost deserve to 

 be called days del Infierno. But there are as many days of 

 " London particular " in our metropolis ; and, in its own 

 way, a London fog is quite as suggestive of the infernal 

 regions as a sweltering summer's day in Missouri. (For it 

 should be remembered that, according to the opinion of the 

 best authorities, the place of torment, though a scene of 

 quenchless fire, is also, somehow, a place also of utter dark- 

 ness : the heat of hell, in fact, would seem, from the account 

 of those acquainted with its qualities, to belong to the ultra- 

 red portion of the spectrum.) 



Naturally, then, we reject Mr. Froude's very crude inter- 

 pretation of American working energy. Americans " work 

 as they do," he says, " because work alone can make life 



I tolerable on such a soil, and in such a climate." Work is 

 doubtless the true answer to the unmanly whine, '•' Is life 

 I worth living ? " — but certainly there is nothing either in the 

 soil or climate of the I'nited States which should make life 

 less enjoyable, when duly sweetened by manly toil, than it is 

 in the old country. 



Akin to ilr. Froude's absurdly hasty judgment on these 

 wide general questions is his decision on matters of detail. 

 On his way from Denver to Chicago he crossed the Missouri 

 and the Mississippi, probably at Omaha and Hock Island, 

 I raspectively — though, for anything " Oceana " says, it may 

 I have been at Kansas City and Quincy that he ci-ossed the 

 [ '■ big rivers." Yet he considers himself justified from this 

 comparatively slight acquaintance with these grand rivere, 

 and a few minutes' experience even of their aspect at one 

 place along each, to tell his readers all about them. He has 

 already pronounced a verdict against American scenery, 

 having seen only a narrow strip selected for its flatness ; he 

 has decided that the forest trees are small and insignificant, 

 having seen them only in places where the largest had long 

 since been cut down ; and then he goes on to deal with the 

 great rivers. " The rivers ! " he says. " Yes, the Missouri 

 and the Mississippi are grand rivers, if bigness makes 

 grandeur. The mighty volume of their water rolls on, carry- 

 ing with it the rainfall of an enormous continent ; but their 

 turbid and yellow streams, fringed w^th unwholesome pine 

 swamps, suggest only to the imagination that they are 

 gigantic drains." It was an English physicist who spoke of 

 the Thames as a great sewer, and he was hardly thought to 

 have done fuU justice to the river whose gi-aceful stretches 

 past Richmond and Twickenham, and by Henley, Maiden- 

 head, and Kingston, our poets have sung and our oarsmen 

 love : yet Faraday at least knew thoroughly how far the 

 Thames fulfils the office he assigned to it. Every river, 

 inasmuch as its drains a country or a continent, is a more or 

 less gigantic drain ; and most rivers which flow through 

 great cities are partly also sewers : but passing once across 

 the Missouri and once across the Mississippi no more justifies 

 a traveller in speaking of these gi'eat rivere as exceptionally 

 drain-like in character, than reading a page of Mr. Froude's 

 " Oceana " would justify us in saying that the book contains 

 nothing but hasty judgments and unsatisfactory opinions. 



There is, indeed, much in '• Oceana " to interest those " who 

 want to be entertained without feeling that they are losing 

 their time." The account of the inland travelling in the 

 northern island of New Zealand is interesting and in 

 parts amusing, though scientific knowledge is not greatly 

 increased by anything said or suggested respecting the 

 marvellous white and pink terraces. The description of Mr. 

 Froude's \-isits to Victoria and New South Wales is wanting 

 in fulness, but some of the det^iils are worth reading. The 

 following extract from this portion of "Oceana" may be 

 taken as a fair sample of Mr. Froude's manner ; it relates 

 also to an important Australian success : — 



" While we were resting at Mount ilacedon, Mr. Gillies 

 had arranged another expedition for us to see a vineyard at 

 a place called St. Hubert's, where the only entirelj' success- 

 ful attempt to grow fine Australian wine had been cai'ried 

 out, after many difficulties, by Mr. Castella, a Swiss Catholic 

 gentleman from Neufchatel. The visit was to be partly on 

 our account that we might see what Victorian energy could 

 do besides raising gold. It was also official, for Sir Henry 

 Loch was to go with us as a i-ecognition of Mr. Castella's 

 merits to the colony. Australian wines had faDed hitherto, 

 as they had failed at the Cape, either from excess of sugar 

 in the grapes, or from an earthy flavour contracted from the 

 soil. 'The hock which we had tasted at Adelaide had been 

 palatable but commonplace. Only experiments protracted 

 through generations can determine in what situations wine 



