have had no inconsiderable share.  But this is an interest of honour rather than of political necessity to England; and he must possess a sanguine mind who, in the present temper of Englishmen, would count greatly on such motives as likely to determine the action of their Government.  If, however, it should be otherwise, it is evident that the success of such a protectorate would depend principally upon the Mohammedan element in Syria, which so greatly preponderates over any other.

A fourth interest, also a moral one, but connected with an accepted fact of English policy, is the attempted abolition of the African slave trade.  Now, though it is unquestionable that Mohammedanism permits, and has hitherto encouraged, slavery as a natural condition of human society, it is no less true that without the co-operation of the various Mussulman princes of the African and Arabian coasts its abolition cannot be effected.  Short of the occupation by European garrisons of all the villages of the Red Sea, and from Gardafui southwards to Mozambique, or, on the other hand, of the subjection of all independent Moslem communities in Arabia and elsewhere, a real end, or even a real check, cannot be put on the traffic except through the co-operation of Mussulmans themselves.  The necessity has, indeed, been completely recognized in the numerous treaties and arrangements made with the Sultans of Turkey, Zanzibar, and Oman, and with the Viceroy of Egypt; and, though I am far from stating that these arrangements are wholly voluntary on the part of any of the princes, yet their good-will alone can make the prevention efficient.  An excellent proof of this is to be found in the case of the Turkish Government, which, since its quarrel with the English, has given full license to the traffic in the Red Sea, which no means at the disposal of the latter can in any measure check.

At no modern period has a larger number of slaves been imported into Hejaz and Yemen than during the last eighteen months, and until friendly relations with the Porte, or whatever Mussulman authority succeeds the Porte in those provinces, are restored, slave-trading will continue.  I do not myself entirely sympathize with anti-slave-trade ideas as applied to Mohammedan lands, knowing as I do how tolerable and even advantageous the social condition of the negroes is in them.  But still I wish to see slavery discontinued, and I believe that a firm but friendly attitude towards Mussulmans will have completely extinguished it in another two generations.  A rupture with them can only prolong and aggravate its existence.

Lastly, we may perhaps find a prospective interest for England in the probability of a Caffre conversion to Mohammedanism at no very remote period, and the extension of Islam to her borders in South Africa.  It is of course premature to be alarmed at this, as it is a contingency which can hardly happen in the lifetime of any now living; but Mohammedanism is not a creed which a hundred or two hundred years will see extinguished in Africa or Asia, and already it has passed considerably south of the Equator.  Cape Colony at this day numbers some fifteen thousand Mussulmans.