however, is not fixed at eighty millions, and if we
go on manufacturing and exporting coal and
iron at an increased rate, it is obvious that the
annual extraction must increase also.

What, then, is our security that we shall not
really be drained of our coal within a comparatively
brief period? A few centuries form but
a small part of the history of a nation, and
Englishmen will hardly be satisfied to feel that the
days of their country's glory are numbered, and
that if they look forward only just so many
years as have elapsed since Elizabeth reigned
and Shakespeare wrote, their great patrimony
will be spent and their source of power at an
end. To satisfy ourselves on this point, we
must compare the resources of other countries
in this respect, with those of our own.

Belgium, France, Prussia (both on the Rhine
and in her eastern provinces), Russia, Spain, and
even Portugal and Turkey, all possess coal-fields
as well as England. Belgium and Prussia are
producing countries in this respect, and though
they do not compete with England in the open
market, they are enabled, by their coal, to
undersell us in some branches of manufacture.
France is opening out her coal-fields; but France,
like all the other countries of Europe, whether
provided by nature or not, is chiefly a consumer
of her neighbours' stock. Belgium and Rhenish
Prussia are the only countries out of England
that really work coal-mines on a large scale.

But not only is there coal thus reserved in
various parts of Europe; Asia contains it, Africa
has its share, Australia and the islands of the
Eastern Archipelago possess large stores, and
North America has resources so large and so
conveniently situated, that time only can be
needed to bring her openly into competition with
England on very favourable terms. For every
square mile of coal-field England contains, North
America contains at least twelve; and for the
most part the North American coal is thicker,
more easily worked, and a larger proportion of
the whole would be obtained.

So far, then, as the world is concerned, there
is no fear that coal will perish out of the
lands. Parodying the words of our great laureate,
we may say,

             Men may come and men may go,
             But coal burns on for ever.

Practically, there is no fear of exhausting the
patrimony which nature has been storing up for
man during countless centuries; and we may
even greatly increase the general consumption
without danger, so far as the interests of mankind
are concerned.

But, still the question recurs, How is
England affected? To this question, the reply is
brief and satisfactory. So long as England
can raise and sell coal, and make iron cheaper
than other nations, so long will her coal-fields
be the chief sources of supply; and there is no
good reason why they should not be. The day,
however, will come, and cannot be far distant,
when a continued demand will enforce a more
costly mode of extraction, and the price of
coal—and, as a necessary consequence, that of
iron, of all means of transport, and of
manufactures—will rise also. Up to a certain point,
the different people who purchase our coal, iron,
and manufactures, will pay the increased price;
but, as the gradual exhaustion of our resources
renders the remainder more expensive to obtain,
the time must arrive when our present customers
will use their own coal, make their own iron,
and, to a certain extent, manufacture for
themselves, or buy in a cheaper market. The
exhaustion of our coal-fields will thus be
indefinitely delayed, as there will be amply sufficient
for our own purposes at prices which, though
higher than at present, will not do other
stimulate our ingenuity, and induce future
discoverers to find some substitute for coal, in
regard to many purposes for which coal is now
largely used. Even should we find it economical
to import coal for certain purposes, there is
no need to fear that we cannot employ pur people
with advantage, and retain that position among
the nations which we have succeeded in gaining.
In North America, in India, and in Australia,
we have children who, while they profit by their
own wealth, will, with advantage, interchange
productions with us, and, so long as the old
English feeling prevails, there will be no difficulty
in finding the right direction for English
industry.

THE VALLEY OF THE SWEET WATERS.

I SHOULD, perhaps, rather say valleys, for
Constantinople has two parks of this name, the
one the valley of the Sweet Waters of Asia, the
other that of the Sweet Waters of Europe—the
one the resort of pleasure-seeking Turks, the
other chiefly of pleasure-loving Greeks.

The first is far up the windings of the
Bosphorus, and just opposite the ivy-wreathed
Castle of Europe; the other is far up the Golden
Horn, in Roumania, and is on the Scutari side.
To both, you must go by boat, which, in
Constantinople, where the caïques number, not by
hundreds, but by thousands, is as ordinary and
fashionable a mode of transport as it was in
London in Elizabeth's time, when you could not
see the bear-baiting in the Borough, or
Shakespeare's As You Like It acted, or the Queen
passing from Whitehall to Greenwich, without
taking boat.

I had heard much from those "gushing"
and imaginative travellers—who are always
stopping away from dinner (after a heavy
lunch) listening to the "bull-bull's"
lamentation for the picking of the rose of the
ravishing loveliness of the Turkish ladies; of the
Sultan's seven hundred houris, of their slippers
of seed pearl, of their black hair flowing in
dark cascades down their backs, of their
complexion soft and clear as rose-leaves, of the
diamond flowers upon their turbans, of their
grace and of their spangled trousers. I do not
believe in polygamy or in slavery, and I cannot
think beauty of the mind can spring from either,
though the skin be white, and the nails a
red-orange colour. So I put the subject on a high