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.