matter. He says that in allowing the ship to get under way before he attempted to arrest her, he was acting in accordance with the wishes of the Spanish Government agent in New York, who wished to have a clear case of filibustering against the ship. It is not against the law to carry arms, and if the Silver Heels had been stopped with only a cargo of ammunition on board, it might have been difficult to prove that she was not engaged in a lawful mercantile expedition. But, had she been seized with arms, ammunition, and a number of men on board, it would have been impossible to deny the nature of her business.

If the collector of the port can prove the truth of his statement, Spain can find no just cause of complaint against us, the revenue cutter did all that was required of her by lying in the course the Silver Heels was expected to take—that the vessel went another way was nobody's fault.

The Madrid papers think it a great pity that this affair should have occurred at a moment when Spain was trying to show her friendship for us, and declare that the officers on the revenue cutter appeared to be doing their best to avoid overtaking the ship. In Washington it is said that grave trouble may arise out of the matter.

Following right after these statements comes another from the agent of the Silver Heels.

This gentleman declares that the vessel never brought up alongside of the dock at which she is accused of having taken on her cargo. He says she was laden with coal, which she took on board at a pier on the New Jersey shore, either Hoboken or Weehawken, that she sailed down the bay and out at the Narrows under her own canvas, and never employed any tugboat. The agent states positively that the Silver Heels did not go up the Sound, and declares that if a mysterious vessel did take on a cargo and slip up the Sound, it was not the Silver Heels.

There the matter rests for the present.

We hear from the Soudan that General Hunter is steadily advancing up the Nile.

By his orders gunboats were sent ahead of the army as far as Metemneh, which is the present stronghold of the Mahdists, and lies between Khartoum and Berber. The object of sending on the gunboats was to find out whether the city was very strongly fortified, and what were the nature of its defences.

Under cover of a heavy fire from their guns, these boats were able to reach the city and take all the observations they needed, and then, having treated the city itself to a brisk cannonading, they retreated to report.

A sad story has been telegraphed of the cruel revenge taken by the Mahdists upon a tribe of natives who refused to join them in their war against the British and Egyptians.

This tribe lived on the banks of the Nile between Berber and Metemneh, and were a quiet and industrious people, who, not wishing to mix themselves up in warfare, declined to join in it. The Mahdists, infuriated at their refusal, descended on their villages, killed every male member of the tribe, burned the houses and destroyed the property of the offenders, and carried their women off into slavery.

The British were horrified when they heard of these dreadful deeds, and vow to take a summary vengeance on the cruel Mahdists when they catch them.

It seems, however, as if they were going to have a good deal of difficulty in catching them. As yet they have not been able to come up with the enemy.

Osman Digna, the Mahdist general, steadily retreats before the British and Egyptian troops. It is supposed that it is his intention to draw the army as far as possible from its base of supplies, and then to give battle, hoping to have it completely at his mercy.

If this is his hope, he will find himself very much mistaken.

We told you in a recent number about the railway that the troops were laying across the desert. With the aid of the iron horse—as the locomotive is often called—the dreaded desert can be crossed with ease, and the invading army can have all the supplies it needs following it wherever Osman Digna leads.

There is sad news from the Philippine Islands. A cyclone and tidal wave have visited the island of Leyte, which is one of the Philippine group, and have done a great deal of damage, sweeping over a vast tract of country and killing thousands of people.

A tidal wave, or, more properly speaking, an earthquake wave, is an extraordinarily high wave, supposed to be formed by the disturbance caused by an earthquake in the bed of the sea.

The action of the earthquake causes the waters to retreat from the shores, and gather themselves into a mighty mass, which suddenly turns and advances upon the shore in one huge wave of enormous height. This wave sweeps on over the land until it has spent its force, when the waters rush back to the sea once more.

The force of such a wave is so great that it destroys everything in its path, tearing up rocks and boulders, and carrying them along inland with it.

In 1746, when the coast of Peru was the scene of one of these catastrophes, a war-ship was lying at anchor in one of the bays. The wave came sweeping down upon it, lifted it up on its crest and bore it several miles inland, depositing it on the side of a hill.

The island of Leyte, which has just been visited by one of these terrible waves, is one of the smallest of the Philippine group. Its trade was carried on with Manila, on the island of Luzon, where the rebellion is raging. It was a thriving little island, and boasted of several busy towns, all of which have been completely ruined and in part swept away by the earthquake wave.

At the present time Africa seems to be the storm-centre for all the warring foreign powers.

It has long been the policy of the various European rulers to conquer and hold portions of the lesser known quarters of the globe, and plant colonies there to employ their surplus population, and to increase their trade and importance.

The West Indies, the East Indies, and Australasia have all been settled in this way. Africa was the last country to excite the ambition of Europe, but its turn has come, and it is now being forced to yield up its secrets to the explorer and its riches to the trader.

Sixty years ago the map of Africa was almost a blank. Egypt and Morocco were marked out at the north and east, Cape Colony at the extreme south, and here and there a little outline of territory on the gold coast. All the rest was vaguely marked as Sahara or the Great Desert and the Soudan.

To-day the English, the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Dutch, the Belgians, and the Spanish have all planted colonies on it, and the map of Africa looks as business-like as the map of Europe.

It is not to be supposed that these various nations have taken their slices of Africa without much contention and disagreement. We have told you about the troubles with the Boers in the Transvaal, and of Germany's determination to stop the British advance in that direction.

We have also mentioned the check given by Menelik of Abyssinia to the Italians, and of the fight of the Mahdists to keep the Soudan out of the hands of Egypt and England.

Fresh trouble is now arising between the English and the French.

You must not get the idea that the English are doing dreadful things in Africa, because they are concerned in most of the troubles that are disturbing the "Dark Continent."

The fact of the matter is simply that England and France are the largest landholders in Africa, and are therefore interested in most of the quarrels. The British colonies are also much more scattered than the possessions of any of the other powers, and consequently England has more neighbors to dispute with than the others, and from this fact appears to be more quarrelsome than she really is.

The present trouble between France and Great Britain concerns the