82 SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Des 



pastoral inhabitants but instantly to vacate the country, and 

 retire with their herds to their nearest sands, where they will 

 not be molested. This they would do though they knew that 

 hostile bands of robbers were waylaying them. Such is the 

 terror of a fly. When the British army hunts the Zulus, the 

 Abyssinian s, the Afghans, the Egyptians, or other helpless 

 people, immense honour is always given to its deeds. They are 

 covered with a blaze of glory. To drive away a mass of human 

 creatures in terror is a performance which the lovers of mili- 

 taryism deem to be exceedingly grand. Let us then do honour 

 to the transcendent Zimb ! "Without the aid of even a drum, 

 he makes a noise before which men and animals retreat. He 

 can depopulate and annex a country by the fright which he can 

 inspire. With our chaplains, and generals, and all the parapher- 

 nalia of costly war contrivances, blessed by the bishops and 

 prayed over by civilised aggressors, we are still unable to do 

 the work of cruelty much better than the Zimb. BT. 



A Weak Point in Despotism. 



Though the lion possesses colossal strength, it is wanting in 

 / confidence in itself. Indeed its distrust is excessive. It 

 / frequently happens that, against its inclinations, it leaves a prey 

 I which it deems to have been too easily obtained, suspecting it 

 to be a bait. Frequently, owing to this, man and animal who 

 -t have been its defenceless prey on the ground have been aban- 

 doned by the brute, and have thus miraculously escaped what 

 I seemed certain death. Other despots resemble this one in that 

 \ they have the same weak point of character, suspiciousness. If 

 \ they never faltered in self-belief they would often be able to 

 \ crush out human liberties with the force of their violence. Eut 

 our sultans, czars, emperors, kings, and other tyrants, are apt 

 to tremble with suspicion at their own doings. From dis- 

 trustfulness springs vacillation of policy ; and during the 

 despot's doubtings Liberty saves herself from mutilation. M. 



A Destroyer without Sense of Shame. 



The horror of the desert does not lie only in its aridity, in 

 its vacuity this vacuity is not absolute ; in default of life, 



