and eighty-seven thousand yards of our
cottons; two years later, as much as six
millions and a half yards. In eighteen
hundred and forty-nine, that state took only five
thousand yards of our linens; in the year
following, nearly three hundred thousand
yards; and three years later, it fell back to
nearly the original quantity. From this
instance of fickleness in trade, it is edifying
to turn to the commercial equanimity
and immovability of the Hudson's Bay
territory,—a country equal in extent to the
whole of Europe, excepting Russia. Many
mercantile failures or panics are not to
be looked for in that snug continent
of private property. In eighteen
hundred and forty-nine, the shipments of
hardware to Hudson's Bay amounted to two
hundred and thirty-two hundredweights; in
eighteen hundred and fifty-three, they had
reached exactly one hundred weight more.
Woollens were shipped to the extent of one
thousand nine hundred and fifty pieces in
eighteen hundred and forty-nine; four years
later, they amounted to two thousand two
hundred pieces; whilst linens have declined
to the extent of six thousand yards. The
Hudson's Bay Company are evidently cautious
traders.

The requirements of some countries amount
almost to eccentricities. Thus Aden (the
coaling station for Indian steamers), for
several years, took nothing but a vast
quantity of coal and some hundred barrels of
beer; when suddenly it required one
hundred and thirty thousand yards of cotton
goods,—nothing else. Persia, in the year
eighteen hundred and forty-nine, took from
our merchants six guns; after a respite of
years, employed probably in testing the
quality of the weapons, the descendants of
Cyrus imported from us nearly seven thousand
guns and twenty-five hundredweights of
hardware and cutlery. The Falkland Islands
are not less peculiar in their requirements.
In one year their inhabitants were content
with linen goods to the amount of eight
pounds, and cottons of the value of twenty
pounds; whilst they consumed nearly two
hundred pounds' worth of pickles, seven
hundred and sixty-nine gallons of rum, and
two thousand nine hundred and twenty-three
pounds of tobacco. English clothing would
appear to wear and wash well in that remote
part of the word, since the eight pounds'
worth of linens sufficed for three years, at the
end of which period a farther small quantity
was imported.

On the west coast of Africa there is a
British settlement called Fernando Po,
remarkable for negroes, palm-oil, ivory, and
fever. One would not look in that unpromising
spot for any rapid development of British
commerce, or the increasing wants of civilised
society. Yet in eighteen hundred and forty-nine
there were shipped thither two hundred guns
and four thousand gallons of spirits. In
eighteen hundred and fifty-three, we had so
far civilised the dusky tribes of that country,
that they took from us one hundred and
twenty-five thousand gallons of spirits and ten
thousand five hundred muskets. During the
same period the imports of gunpowder had
increased from seven thousand to two
hundred and twenty-two thousand eight
hundred pounds. All this ammunition could
scarcely have been required for elephant
shooting, since the tusks of ivory shipped
thence in those five years amounted to but
little more than three hundred.

Turning to Egypt, we feel sorely puzzled
at the amounts opposite items which, to our
minds, could scarcely have been found there
at all. We might conceive the modern
Egyptians growing tired of using the same primitive
papyrus for their correspondence, as was
employed by Rameses and Cheops; accordingly
eight thousand two hundred pounds for
stationery does not altogether perplex us. But
what are we to say to printed books to the
value of thirty-three thousand pounds?
Are they fitting up another Alexandrian
library? Have the dwellers among the
pyramids taken to Bulwer's novels, Scott's
lays, and Macaulay's histories? Have they
circulating libraries in Thebes and book-
societies at Memphis? What can the
descendants of the Pharaohs want with
haberdashery to the value of fifty-four thousand
eight hundred pounds? or watches.
and jewellery to the amount of eighty-
-six thousand pounds ? There must be
indeed corn in Egypt to pay for all this?
The secret oozes out, after a careful
scrutiny of the Trade Returns. The
immense quantities of millinery, novels,
notepaper, and gold repeaters, entered
outwards for Egypt, are shipped to Alexandria
by steamer, but only en route by overland
for India, China, and Australia, which
countries should, amongst them, receive credit for
this traffic of valuable, perishable, or fashionable
articles. It seems but a year or two
ago, when the indefatigible Waghorn crossed
Egypt with his first batch of letters to India.
Now, every young lady in the Presidencies
must need have her wedding-dress and her
novels sent out by the overland route.

Queen Elizabeth found some difficulty
in collecting and manning a few hundred
ships to repel the Spanish armada. In the
year eighteen hundred and fifty-three Great
Britain owned upwards of twenty-five
thousand sailing-vessels and thirteen hundred
steam-ships, independently of the royal
navy. But a better indication of the extra-
ordinary rate at which commerce—in the
most extended sense of that word—has
advanced, exists in the increase of correspondence
by post. From the recently-published
report of the Postmaster-general it appears
that, a century ago, the annual revenue of the
Post Office was only one hundred and forty
thousand pounds. It now amounts to two