that the development of these will
ultimately lead the Africans to broad-cloth and
crinoline.

Many of the tribes, Mr. Campbell tells us,
manufacture thousands of heavy cloths, which
are sold in other countries, chiefly those that
the rivers flow through, down which the
palm oil is brought. Yoruba, lying south of
the Niger, and extending to the Bight of
Benin, not only produces enough cotton to
supply the wants of its inhabitants, estimated
at about a million and a half, and sends
cotton goods into the interior of Africa, but
actually exports manufactured articles. In
the year eighteen hundred and fifty-six, two
hundred thousand cotton cloths, weighing
five hundred thousand pounds, were exported
from different parts on the coast to the
Brazils. Raw cotton is also exported, and
Abbeokuta alone,—a town of one hundred
thousand inhabitants, in the vicinity of which
cotton is now extensively cultivated,—
exported two hundred and forty-nine bales,
or thirty-eight thousand six hundred and
ninety-five pounds, in eighteen hundred and
fifty-six.

This is a very insignificant supply, if we
consider that the whole exports of this part
of Africa in eighteen hundred and fifty-six,
that is, eleven hundred and thirty-five bales
of cotton, would, at our present rate of
consumption, serve us just one hour. But it is
encouraging, when we remember that in
seventeen hundred and ninety-one, only sixty-
four bales of cotton were brought to England
from the United States.

We have in Africa, not a country, but a
continent, where cotton grows spontaneously,
and has been cultivated from times anterior
to history; a supply of labour abundant
and cheap; and means of communication
by the rivers and paths through the bush,
sufficient for our present purpose. We
seem, therefore, to have within our grasp
the one element of continued prosperity
wanting to us, namely, an important and
accessible increase of the dominions of King
Cotton.

It is not necessary to begin by persuading
the natives of Africa to undertake a new
thing. All we have to do, is to supply them
with seed of the kinds of cotton most suitable
for our looms and markets; and with efficient
machines to separate the cotton seed from the
fibre which surrounds it. There are chiefs
and leading men at Abbeokuta, at this very
time, cultivating cotton to a large extent.
They are prepared to pay the value in cotton
on receipt of the cleaning machines, which
they are most anxious to obtain. Mr. Clegg,
a merchant of Manchester, who has made the
experiment of supplying seed and instructions
to the growers, and taking the cotton
at a fixed price, considers it an eminently
successful one,—is encouraged himself, and
encourages others.

But we must not conceal from ourselves
that there are great difficulties in our way.
A vast country has to be explored, natives to
be civilised and christianised, and raised to
the rank of free men. No doubt it would be
very much to our advantage, if we could
induce them to take all these steps at one
bound, but it is as impossible for them as it
was for the naked savages who traded with
the Phœnicians in the Cassiterides or Tin
Islands.

We cannot galvanise the natives of Africa
into any appearance of political or intellectual
activity; but because it is very much to our
interest to trade with them, and our duty in
and through this trade to teach them to do
justice and love mercy, and because for many
years we have tried at an immense cost of life
and money to suppress a hideous traffic,
which can only be suppressed by giving the
slave a value in his own country, let us
endeavour to do all these in a new way, and
one that will be as advantageous to us as to
them.

CHIP.

SIAMESE WOMEN AND CHILDREN.

UP to the age of ten years, Siamese children
of either sex are not troubled with any super-
abundance of clothing, and it is seldom that a
child is seen wearing the smallest shred of a
garment, except on days of festival. Jewels,
sometimes of very great value, are put on
young children. Among the higher classes,
girls and boys, up to the age of twelve,
wear a number of gold chains, sometimes
four, six, or seven at a time, all different, and
each having some amulet or ornament
attached. The hair is allowed to grow
long on the front part of the head, but the
rest is kept shaved, leaving this circular patch
to be twisted into a knot, which is kept
in its place by a long ornamental pin.
Often, a wreath of the white jessamine is
twined to fit closely about this knot, and the
effect is pretty. Both boys and girls are
dressed (if their scant measure of clothing
may be called dress), exactly alike, so that
it is not easy to distinguish them. At the
age of twelve the lock of hair is cut
off, leaving a patch which bears a strong
resemblance to a small black hair-brush.
This, in the man, is combed back, and
allowed to grow a degree longer than in
the woman: not so much so, however, as to
suggest any marked difference to a stranger.
The women keep their lock carefully oiled,
combed, and gummed, to stand upright, and
they take infinite pains to keep the top of
this brush as smooth as velvet. A Siamese
lady's hair is held to be in perfect order
when she can plunge into the river, and
duck her head many times under water without
disturbing the smoothness and uprightness
of her national hair-brush. The ceremony
of cutting off the lock of hair, is kept