When we want the soil which such aborigines are loosely tenanting, we must, we presume, displace them. There is no help for it. But, in all other cases, we could wish the white man would leave these dark children of the earth alone. If there exists another Tahiti, such as it was when Cook discovered it, such as we read of it under the old name of Otaheite, we hope that some eternal mist, drawn in a wide circle round the island, will shroud it from all future navigators. Were we some great mariner, and had discovered such an island, and had eaten of the bread-fruit of the hospitable native, and reclined under their peaceful trees, and seen their youths and maidens crowned with green boughs, sporting like fishes in their beautiful clear seas, no mermaid happier--we should know but of one way to prove our gratitude--to close our lips for ever on the discovery we had made. If there exist in some untraversed region of the ocean another such spot, and if there are still any genii, or jins, or whatever sea-fairies may be called, left behind in the world, we beseech of them to protect it from all prying circumnavigators. Let them raise bewildering mists, or scare the helmsman with imaginary breakers, or sit cross-legged upon the binnacle, and bewitch the compass--anyhow let them protect their charge. We could almost believe, from this moment, in the existence of such spirits or genii, having found so great a task for them. We have no space to go back to other graver topics connected with colonisation which we have passed on our road. On one topic we had not, certainly, intended to be altogether silent. But it is perhaps better as it is; for the subject of transportation is so extensive, and so complicate, and so inevitably introduces the whole review of what we call secondary punishments--of our penal code, in short--that it were preferable to treat it apart. It would be very unsatisfactory merely to state a string of conclusions, without being able to throw up any defences against those objections which, in a subject so full of controversy, they would be sure to provoke. In fine, we trust to no ideals, no theory or art of colonisation. Neither do we make any extraordinary or novel demands on Government. A great work is going on, but it will be best performed by simple means. We ask from the Government that it should survey and apportion the land, and secure its possession to the honest emigrant, and that it should delegate to the new settlement such powers of self-government as are necessary to its internal improvement. These, however, are important duties, and embrace much. The rest, with the exception of such liberality as may be thought advisable, in addition to the fund raised by the sale of waste land, for the despatch and outfit of the poor labourer or artisan--the rest must be left to the free spirit of Englishmen, whether going single or in groups and societies. FOOTNOTE: