the legend on the eleventh tablet embodies the story of the Deluge.

The last tablet of the series probably contained a notice of Izdubar's life preparatory to his being re-born with the new year. The Babylonian name of the month refers to the harvest, not, however, Sir Henry presumes, as a season of the year, but with reference to the cutting of the corn as the close of vegetable life.

It would appear, however, that there was a local legend of a deluge-possibly Assyrian, Mesopotamian, Babylonian, and Chaldæan-or involving the valleys of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, and the adjacent countries as far as to the mountains in the east, and which was handed down as such to the Hebrews, independent of the particular month or sign of the Zodiac, to which that legend may have been adapted.

THE FORUM OF ROME.

It is with Rome as it is with Jerusalem. The crotchets of learned men and archæologists have done more at both places to retard the progress of knowledge than even the ruthless hand of time in mutilating or destroying monumental evidence. As no one could reasonably doubt that the great mosque of the Muhammadans arose upon the site of the temples of old at Jerusalem, except those whose ambition to earn distinction outweighed their discretion, so the tradition of the earlier centuries that the great centre of Roman life and business-the Forum-occupied a spot parallel to the Via Sacra, and not far from the Arch of Titus, was universally admitted, until, in 1638, Donati, or Donatus, struck at the root of existing traditions and beliefs, and propounded upon the strength of a stray passage contained in the Greek history of Dionysius, the theory that the Forum extended from the churches of Santa Martina and St. Adriano towards the Aventine.

Every crotchet if persistently upheld finds its followers, and so it has been to the present day with that of the Jesuit Donati, and it has remained to our own times for the workmen engaged in the subterranean excavations at Rome to disinter the pedestal, as proved by its inscription, of the colossal statue of Domitian, which stood in the centre of the Forum, and whose glories have been hymned in a famous passage of Statius.

Such a discovery will set at rest controversies to which Bunsen's labours ("Le Forum Romanum," &c.) first dealt a fatal blow, and will render it possible to construct a map of the city of the Caesars, such as has been outlined in the "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography," and such as it was when the huge masses of shattered stones the débris of centuries-which now strew the soil, were the pride of palaces and the glory of temples.

THE BASUTO, OR LESUTO LAND.

The territory so denominated from the name of the native Kaffir tribe occupying it, is situated at the head of the southern branch of the Orange River, on the track from Cape Colony to Natal, north of Kaffraria and south of Orange River Free State, and immediately westward of the water-parting between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic. The proposed annexion of this territory forced upon government by the encroachments of the Boor republics, as well as by its position-or its constitution, according to some, into a crown colony-a distinction utterly beyond its merits has excited the ire of the friends of the Boors, who declare the Kaffirs of Basuto Land to have been always the aggressors. But it has been as strongly insisted, on the other hand, that whilst a most mistaken policy induced us to acknowledge the independence of the Trans-vaal Republic in 1852, and of the Orange Free State in 1854, it was done in the hopes that the Boors would respect the rights of the neighbouring tribes, instead of which, and in violation of the express stipulations of treaties, they have sent marauders who perpetrated the most inhuman atrocities on the native tribes for the sake of carrying their children into slavery, the Free State being particularly distinguished by its unprincipled attacks on the Basutos.

Basuto Land is the seat of the southerly diamond diggings, although the Free State claims to have colonised that portion of the diamond fields known as the "dry diggings." But Basuto Land, strictly speaking, is the best-watered portion of the central meteorological district of the Orange River on account of its being intersected by the Malutis range. ("Water Supply in the Basin of the River Orange," J. F. Wilson, Journ. of the Roy. Geo. Soc., vol. xxxv. p. 106.)

Laying aside the duty imposed upon Lord Kimberley of protecting the feeble tribes which have suffered, and are now likely, from the new circumstances that have arisen, to suffer still more from the cruel aggressions of the stronger, the annexation of Basuto Land is rendered necessary by those new circumstances themselves, as also by the position of the territory in regard to Cape Colony, Natal, and the Free State, and it may, under Providence, be one step more towards the ultimate foundation of one great Federal dominion in Southern Africa.

NEW-YORK

SOCIETY LIBRARY

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

FAIRY FENELLA.

AN IRISH STORY.

V.

THE NEXT WEEK.

THE parish of Ballyshandra was stirred to its very centre. So many strange and wholly unlooked-for events had taken place in the course of one short week, as to employ every one's tongue and thoughts. First and most interesting of all the subjects of discussion was the dreadful death of poor Mr. Sinclair, and the sudden stop to Miss Fitzpatrick's wedding; but some of the gossips, especially the fairer portion, liked nearly as well to discuss their rector's engagement to Miss O'Hara. This wonderful news. was imparted to the Castle party the day after the picnic, and when a thing was once known in the Castle, it did not long remain a secret. Indeed, Mr. O'Hara himself, after drinking his sister's health in precious dry champagne from the coollest depths of his cellar, went forth to oversee his workmen, and thus addressed them in the jubilation of his heart:

"Work away, boys! Miss Mary's going to marry Mr. Oliver, and maybe I won't give you all a right spree on her weddingday!"

The men received his news with cheers of delight.

"Good luck to Miss Mary, an' good luck to his reverence too!" cried they.

Miss O'Hara was a great favourite. The people would not have rejoiced had she been leaving the parish, but she would be March-VOL. III. NO. XV.

M