IN TROPICAL LANDS.

PERU.

THERE are three routes available from Europe to Peru-the most direct, after crossing the Atlantic, being up the Amazon; the most comfortable, by the Straits of Magellan; and the quickest, via the Isthmus of Panama. To save time, let us choose the last. One advantage of this route is, that it gives us a peep, in passing, at the islands of Barbadoes and Jamaica-the two oldest and most valuable of our West Indian possessions. Barbadoes is only 166 square miles in extent, but every acre is cultivated, chiefly in sugar-cane, and, altogether, the best cultivated little tropical colony I have come across. It is densely populated, chiefly by negroes, who look much happier and better off than the "poor whites." The English language only is spoken-spoken with a terrific fluency and an unmistakable Irish brogue. Readers of Carlyle's "Cromwell" will not be at a loss to account for this, remembering how Oliver sent so many of his refractory Irishmen there. "Terrible Protector!" exclaims the Sage, can take your estate, your head off if he likes. He dislikes shedding blood, but is very apt to Barbadoes an unruly man; has sent, and sends up in hundreds to Barbadoes, so that we have made an active verb of it-Barbadoes you."

Again, in one of the Protector's characteristic epistles, we read that 1,000 Irish girls were sent, "and as to the rogue and vagabond species in Scotland, we can help you at any time to a few hundreds of these." An Irish fellow-passenger, hearing his own language so well accented, enquired of a Barbadoes negro working at Jamaica, "How long have you been here?" "Noine years," was the reply. "Be jabbers," said my friend, "if you've got black like that in noine years, it's high time I were off home again."

Jamaica has a magnificent harbour, from which superb views of the grand old Blue mountains are to be seen. Kingston, the capital,

is spread out on the rich flat land lying between; sweltering under a blazing sun, from which even the laughing negro is glad to take shelter below the umbrageous trees. The climate and vegetation strikingly remind one of Ceylon, but alas! the abandoned hillsides testify to the greater labour difficulties of the poor planter here. A few days more and we heave in sight of the Isthmus of Panama. Generally speaking, the first land seen is Porto Bella in the Gulf of Darien, which reminds us of a chapter in Scottish history we would fain forget if we could. Here, about 200 years ago, some of the very cream of our countrymen were landed and sacrificed to the contemptible jealousies of our neighbours. Terrible was the loss to so poor a country, and heroic was the struggle, but it was of no avail against such fearful odds, and, now, the only really useful lesson we can learn from the disaster is, that even Scotchmen are not equal to manual labour in the tropics; and, whatever inducements selfish individuals or soulless companies may hold out, it may be accepted as a general rule that Europeans are unfitted for field labour in purely tropical temperatures. It may be all very well for overseers, who live in luxurious bungalows, and view their fields from under the shade of ample umbrellas, but it means death to the exposed pick-and-shovel man. No; Europeans, or men from temperate regions, do not readily acclimatise to the tropics, and for that matter, as far as my experience goes, the same rule holds good in the vegetable kingdom; for, although nearly all our most cherished plants come to us from near the equator, we cannot, as a rule, induce our native trees to take root there.

Colon, our first landing port, apart from its luxurious vegetation, is a very wretched spot. It is only in a Spanish Republic that the existence of such a pestiferous place is possible. It is not merely the disreputable appearance of its degenerate people, nor the frequent squabbles dignified by the name of revolutions we have to fear, but the ever present filth, which is much more dangerous to life. Fortunately, a fire has recently burned down and purified a large portion of the town of Colon, rendering it, for a time, less, dangerous to sojourners. A statue to Columbus stands at the entrance of that now abandoned project—the canal. Poor Lesseps! would that he had been content with his success at Suez! This gigantic failure a failure so tremendous that the very ruins may be said to be stupendous-must, for many years to come, form a melancholy subject of comment as passengers ride along the margin of the unsightly