February 19, 1886-1 



SCIENCE. 



157 



given proof of their organizing power. They 

 brought together a national congress composed of 

 delegates from every political society of any im- 

 portance throughout the country. Seventy-one 

 members met together; twenty-nine great districts 

 sent spokesmen. The whole of India was repre- 

 sented, from Madras to Lahore, from Bombay to 

 Calcutta. 



For the first time, perhaps, since the world be- 

 gan, India as a nation met together. Its congeries 

 of races, its diversity of castes, all seemed to find 

 common ground in their political aspirations. 

 Only one great race was conspicuous by its ab- 

 sence ; the Mohammedans of India were not 

 there. They remained steadfast in their habitual 

 separation. They certainly do not yield to either 

 Hindoo or Parse e in their capacity for develop- 

 ment, but they persistently refuse to act in com- 

 mon with the rest of the Indian subjects. Not 

 only in their religion, but in their schools, and 

 almost all their colleges, and all their daily life, 

 they maintain an almost haughty reserve. The 

 reason is not hard to find. They cannot forget 

 that less than two centuries ago they were the 

 dominant race, while their present rivals in pro- 

 gress only counted as so many millions of tax- 

 paying units who contributed each his mite to 

 swell the glory of Islam. 



But in spite of the absence of the followers of 

 the prophet, this was a great representative meet- 

 ing. The delegates were mostly lawyers, school- 

 masters, and newspaper editors, but there were 

 rme notable exceptions, Even supposing these 

 three professions alone provided the delegates, the 

 meeting would fairly represent the education and 

 intellectual power of India. Not a word was said 

 of social reform ; all they discussed, and all they 

 demanded, was political power and political 

 changes ; a tone of most absolute loyalty pervaded 

 all the proceedings. Education and material 

 prosperity, order,, security, and good government, 

 were all incidentally mentioned as causes of 

 gratitude towards the present rulers. But such 

 allusions were only by the way. Every desire 

 was concentrated on political advancement and an 

 immense increase of the share at present given to 

 the natives of India in the government of their 

 own country. The question of their ability to 

 govern themselves was never even touched upon by 

 the wisest of the speakers. Though there was much 

 crude talk, much of that haste which only makes 

 delay, and that ignorance which demands prema- 

 ture concessions, and too implicit reliance upon 

 legislative powers, there was also much of most 

 noble aspiration, and a sense of patriotism and 

 national unity, which is a new departure in the 

 races of the east. 



PR EJE VALSK Y 'S EXPLORATIONS IN 3ION- 

 GOLIA. 



The renowned traveller and explorer, Colonel 

 Prejevalsky, to whom a reference is made in our 

 St. Petersburg letter, arrived there on his re- 

 turn journey from Mongolia, the earlier part of 

 the present month. A correspondent of the 

 London Times says that this expedition of Colonel 

 Prejevalsky, lasting two years, and costing over 

 43,000 roubles of government money, has been 

 the most remarkable one ever undertaken in the 

 wilds of Mongolia and Tibet. The intrepid ex- 

 plorer, as his published letters have already shown, 

 literally fought his way into these inhospitable 

 regions, at the head of a well-armed party of thir- 

 teen Cossacks, four grenadiers, and a host of other 

 attendants ; and, as he stated at Moscow, more 

 than one hundred natives, who at different times 

 waylaid the explorers, w 7 ere made to feel the 

 deadly effects of the Berdan rifle-fire. The exact 

 numbers of the killed and wounded were stated in 

 the extremely interesting letters addressed to the 

 Grand Duke, at various stages of the journey. 

 This is scientific exploration with a vengeance, and 

 goes beyond any thing that Mr. Stanley did with 

 his ' six-shooter ' among the negroes of Africa. 



In the last of the above-mentioned series of 

 letters, the colonel also expressed the ardent wish 

 of the Mongolian natives to be taken under 

 Russian protection, and shielded from Chinese op- 

 pression. The same idea he has again impressed 

 upon his friends, in answer to their many in- 

 quiries, as they greeted the tall, sun-burnt 

 traveller. The Viedomosti, referring to this, says, 

 ''Among the natives visited by Colonel Preje- 

 valsky there exists a deep conviction that sooner 

 or later the 'great white czar' will enter their 

 country and take them under his domination. At 

 one place the explorer showed a portrait of the 

 emperor to one of the natives, who went into 

 raptures over it, and soon large crowds of in- 

 habitants, with women and children from the 

 neighboring districts, gathered round the colonel 

 and implored him to show them the likeness of 

 the ' white czar.'" 



The regions visited by Colonel Prejevalsky are 

 generally supposed to be, nominally at least, 

 within the dominions of the emperor of China. 

 No wonder, therefore, that rumors of a protest 

 have come from Peking. The grenadiers who 

 accompanied the expedition have been promoted, 

 and, besides receiving pecuniary gratifications, 

 have had then- portraits distributed throughout 

 the regiment. Colonel Prejevalsky has given a 

 number of Russian names to newly-discovered 

 places, such as the ' Moscow-Chain,' the ' Kremlin 



