The

Provisions have run short. nearest towns, where fresh supplies can be got, are far away; and besides they have not the means to purchase provisions. But these people have all their lives been accustomed to hardships; and have faced difficulties and dangers 'only to overcome them. On this occasion, therefore, their expedient is to go into the forest where they burn wood sufficient to make a load of potash for a team of oxen, which they dispatch to Concord a distance of one hundred and seventy miles. But four weary and anxious weeks must elapse ere the teamster can return with provisions and during that time the people only keep themselves alive by eating green chocolate roots and such other plants, to be found in the forest around, as will yield them any nourishment. Such is a picture we have of Bethlehem a hundred years ago. The town of Littleton, which is now the principal business centre in northern New Hampshire, within the memory of some still living, consisted of three small houses built of logs.

There have been, happily, few tragedies connected with the history of the White Mountains, and these have already been often told. The best known is probably that connected with Nancy's brook. Nancy, a servant-girl, was engaged to a man in the employ of Colonel Whipple, and it was arranged that they should accompany the Colonel to Portsmouth to be married. Having entrusted all her savings to her lover, Nancy went to Lancaster to make some purchases

necessary for the journey, and on her return found that Colonel Whipple and her lover had already departed. Though it was late at night and midwinter at the time, Nancy started out in the hope of overtaking them, and her body was found by the brook which now bears her name, cold and frozen, with her head leaning on her staff. A few years afterwards her recreant lover died a raving maniac.

All who are acquainted with the White Mountains are familiar with the story of the terrible disaster which caused the destruction of the Willey family in the night of the great slide in 1826. Houses of entertainment were at that, time not very plentiful in the mountains, and the one kept by Samuel Willey at the White Mountain Notch was much frequented by farmers as a stop-over place on their way to and from market. A long spell of drouth was followed by a terrific storm which in one single night is said to have dislodged a greater quantity of trees, rocks, and soil than the slides of the previous hundred years had done. A tremendous slide took place on the mountain behind the Willey house. The house itself escaped as if by a miracle, a great rock behind the house dividing the slide in two, and deflecting it to the right and left of the house. But the whole family, consisting of nine persons, perished. In seeking to escape they had been. overtaken by the terrible avalanche. Six of the bodies were afterwards taken from beneath the débris, some. of them terribly mutilated, but three bodies still lie buried beneath the awful mass of rocks and earth that overwhelmed them on that night of terrors. The writer has been told,

by one who can recollect of that awful storm, that the appalling noise made by the slides that night could be distinctly heard in Bethlehem fifteen or twenty miles distant.

It

It has often been deplored that the White Mountains are almost destitute of interesting traditions and associations, and it has been said that if they were only in Europe instead of America that there would be a story or a legend connected with every rock and crag, and that every mountain and glen would be wrapped in an air of mystery and romance. must be remembered, however, that the White Mountains were practically unknown a hundred years ago, and compared with those of European countries that is but as yesterday. It must necessarily follow, therefore, that the romance of the White Mountains must always be essentially different from that which the legends and traditions of remote ages have associated with the mountainous countries of Europe. But it does

not, therefore, follow that there is nothing of poetry or romance to be found in the New England mountains. We think there is much of both to be found in the life of the pioneers and early settlers, in their struggles and sacrifices, their patient toiling, their bravery and heroism, and their great hardihood and perseverance. The romance of the White Mountains has still to be written. Surely such grand scenes are worthy of the pen of a Scott or a Byron; and it may be that there will one day arise another "Wizard of the North" whose pen shall weave around the old mountain dwellings, where, far away in the shades of the almost trackless forest the travelers of a century ago were wont to find rest and shelter, stories of romance; who shall make a Trossachs of this beautiful region, or make classic the Saco or the Ammonoosuc; and who shall throw around the White Mountains of New England a bright halo of romance that time shall not dim.

HE Dutch do not fail to demand of the traveler returning from Java what most impressed him in their magnificent colony. There is a temptation to answer: seeing them there and seeing them remaining there. This little people, whose country is a mere point on the chart of Europe, has ruled with admirable tenacity this vast colonial empire of the Indian ocean, which contains 35,000,000 of inhabitants, embracing islands as large as France, islands in whose interior England would be only an islet, lost in a sea of forests. Java, Sumatra, three quarters of Borneo, the Moluc cas, the Celebes, Bali, Sembok, Sumbawa, Flores, Timor, these are what Holland still possesses of their immense oriental empire, which formerly reached from Bengal to the Cape of Good Hope. Java, the queen of the archipelago, was torn from them in 1811; but the English, after an ephemeral rule, restored it to them in 1816, without knowing its value. They did not know that they were abandoning the most beautiful colony of the world. Did not Adam Smith say that this island, by the fertility of its soil, by the great extent of its coasts, by the number of its navigable rivers, is the best situated country for the seat of a great foreign commerce and

for the establishment of a great diversity of manufactures? The illustrious economist doubtless knew that the commerce has existed in the Indian archipelago from the most remote antiquity; that the Tyrians visited it; that it was from these that the ancients imported into Egypt the cloves mentioned by Strabo. As the English have never returned single colony, it is doubtful if they would have returned Java if they had not still been in the intoxication of triumph, after the Battle of Waterloo, and full of recognition of the aid which Holland had contributed to their suc

cess.

Since then how have the Dutch maintained themselves in the archipelago? How do thirty thousand Dutchmen peaceably govern twentyfive million Javanese, who are satisfied with their lot? This is the most marvelous thing in Java, and is what interests us to examine.

Holland has not, like England, self-ruling colonies, with their government responsible to their parliament, like the Cape colonies, where even the natives have a right to vote, and whose institutions are faithfully copied from those of Great Britain. The Dutch colonies, properly speaking, have no existence; they are subject to the control of the mother country, and the representative of

the crown exercises an almost omnipotent power there; they are like what the English call crown colonies in distinction from those which have self-government.

Before the Dutch constitution of 1848 the king had the exclusive administration of the foreign possessions; at the present time the crown fixes the taxes of the colony and the most important matters. The adminThe admin istration of the foreign possessions is conducted by the minister for the colonies in the name of the king and a detailed report of colonial affairs is annually presented to the Dutch parliament. The government of the Dutch Indian Indian possessions is 110 longer, as in the time of the famous India company, exercised by a corporation, but rests in the hands of a single man, the agent of the king, and responsible to him for the discharge of his duty; a responsibility which is made effective by the power granted to the king and to the second chamber of the parliament to present him for impeachment.

This agent of the king has the title of governor-general. He is the chief of the land and sea forces of the Dutch Indies; he exercises supreme control over the different branches of general administration; he makes ordinances on all matters not regulated by law or by royal decree; he declares war, concludes peace, and makes treaties with the native princes; he appoints to civil and military offices; he exercises the power of pardon, and no sentence of capital punishment can be executed without his authority. Protection of the natives is one of his most important duties; he takes care that no grant of land does injury to their

rights, and subjects the government farms to the limitation of administrative regulations; he regulates the nature and the extent of the labor contributions, and looks after the execution of the ordinances relating thereto. He can banish foreigners who disturb the public peace. In a word, the representative of the king is invested. is invested with complete power; in the Indian empire he is almost a king, in the most absolute sense of the word.

By his side, or rather below him, there is indeed a council of the Indies, sitting with him as president, and composed of a vice-president and four members; but it is only a body for consultation, whose advice he takes, without being obliged to follow it; in certain cases specified by law he is bound, it is true, by the advice of a majority of the council, but as it is not the council which is responsible for the conduct of the government, he has the right to appeal to the king to protect his responsibility; he may even, against the advice of the council, take measures which he thinks expedient, when he believes that the general interest of the colony would suffer by the delay which an appeal to the king would entail. In reality then, the governor-general alone exercises the executive power and the legislative power.

There are no ministers at the head of the different departments of civil administration but officers, five in number who have the modest title of directors; these officers are placed under the orders and under the exalted supervision of the governor, who is actually the prime minister. They are the director of the interior, of