carries a mainsail and a jib. There is a deck of adjustable planks over the stern and an awning above this, but the awning must come down with the change of wind. Mattresses are laid out on the platform and the passengers laid out on the mattresses. So sweet, my dears, to lie with the boat-side on a level with you and with your nose all but cutting the water when you hang over.

We had four of a crew and four black passengers mixed up with the rigging and our boxes. There was a great laughing and the characteristic bubbling of Benga talk - the crew are Benga men because this tribe are expert seamen. If you could only see our captain, Iveki, son of the great Ibia, born when I was, but, oh, my dears, of such a different kind of poetry. He is quite the perfection of his type, a type that you will never see — and that is a pity. I hunt the word that will present him to you. His beauty is all slim and eager in action, and in repose is fairly massive. He sits idly, his hands at ease, but his action is immediate and exact. He smiles for secret reasons suddenly and slyly, and again he smiles suddenly and frankly. His teeth are amazing, so perfect and small. His chin is slight above his strong neck; his nostrils are delicate; he has the beard of adolescence and the eyes of a woman. Sex plays with him a double gameand I have seen other Africans who show the same expenditure of charma feminine grace all velvet over the rock of heathen man.

The wind served us ill; we had long hours of rolling calm and of the most outrageous sunlight. One day we rowed for hours close in, to the sound of a tremendous surf; we were trying to land, and at last we came to the sacred rock of which it is not well to speak the name, and to which tobacco is offered and rum is poured into the sea for libation. We were too poor to

perform these rites or too impious. Back of this rock is a little place of calm, a haven; we went ashore here and made a real meal in a town near by.

The nights were broken and memorable. We slept lying on our mattresses, and the gray water slipped by. There were clouds and stars in the sky, and to the east the dark line of shore. We heard the surf all night. When the sheet struck the water there was a line of phosphorescent fire, and new constellations whenever the men bailed the boat. One night it stormed, and I lay under the boom and the reefed sail as deliciously snug as the unfledged. "There is no comfort,' think I, all cozy in my shelter, 'like the comfort of vagabonds!' And sleep again to find the wind fallen, the sky washed and tumultous with stars, old Masongo trampling on his passengers and busy with the sail. When the shadow of the sail was plain on the water, that was morning; then the gray of the world paled, and the stars in the sky and the little fitful stars by the boat-side died.

We were three days coming up, and I had forgotten to expect to get anywhere, when I woke to find Mr. C. sitting up beside me in the stern of the boat, shouting out to 'mind the rocks!' 'You'll be on the rocks!' shouts Jimmie. It is customary to shout when you make a landing, and I always quake because I forget that it is customary. Lights were on the water's edge. As a matter of fact we made a good landing, riding in on the curling of surf to the light of the lanterns ashore. The black boys rush out to meet us, get a rope from the bow, hold her steady by this. I sit on the gunwale with my legs over the side, waiting to be picked off; in my eyes the lanterns and the incessant white surf are a dazzle. Presently along comes Masongo, tall and lean and kind. He presses through the surf. His head is about on a level with my

knees. When we next ease down a bit I let myself go into his arms and am carried ashore. And so, to bed. Old Masongo - how kind to me he was! Mr. C. teased the men about 'calling up the wind,' and they laughed. But once when Mr. C. and I were asleep, I saw Masongo looking for the land breeze and calling softly the old incantation: 'Viaka, epupu, viaka!' And of course the wind rose.

Eké! my dears, how far you live from these adventures!

June 6.

Yesterday some Ngoé women, who are much more naïve than the Ngumba, came to the house of Ze to dress, four or five of them just in from the garden, their bright cloths in their hands. 'Where is your mirror?' they ask Ze. 'My mirror? Where is everything I own? My girl Ntolo has taken it to school, with my handkerchief and my piece of soap.' But she produces a mirror, and there follows one of the most feminine performances you ever saw. There are as many ways of binding your head with a handkerchief as there are hats in a shop. In their bits of loin-cloths the women bound their bandanas, holding the little mirror between their knees as they stood. Such prinking, such laughing! Eyinga the middle-aged, lovesick to the point of death for Se Menge, but since recovered, was found to be adjusting the third handkerchief over the other two. 'Eyinga, you will kill yourself!' says Menge. But they all took a hand in the arrangement of this, a woolen one with fringe. It is fine to have a fringe of fringe! This done, it seemed that all was lost her head was too big for

stands, smothered, her arms raised while they tug at her dress. She emerges, red woolen fringe and anxious face. Her coquetry is of a very serious type.

BATANGA, Sunday, May 4.

I have received Father's letter, with his judgment as to my next winter. I am turning things over in my mind. The idea of leave of absence does not appeal to me, as I don't see the logic of it. If I am well, I don't see when I am likely to return, if I am needed at home; and if I am not needed at home I would stay on here.

To-night, my dears, at sunset, Kamerun mountain and Fernando Po rise out of the sea as blue as plums and as clear as Fujiyama in a print.

May 31.

I sent off my cable yesterday, and am perfectly satisfied that I have done the right thing. You need not worry about my being contented at home.

I am very much comforted by the attitude of the older missionaries. They think that my place is at home if I think so. And you must say very simply to every one, that I have come, since the changes of the last four years, to feel that my place is at home. If you just say those words, neither more nor less, you will speak my truth, and you will find how receptive of a natural truth people in general are. I have no question in my own mind that I am on the right track, and I have no question of my happiness at home.

I mean to take an inland journey during the dry season-nothing extreme, as I have not the strength to undertake an extended one. But a pleasant journey. I shall sail for home in the middle of October, or thereabouts.

[Black Sheep' will be concluded by a postscript in the February issue of the magazine.]

I

ALCOHOL is a world-old and wellnigh universal article of consumption. For unnumbered centuries peoples in far-apart countries have habitually used a variety of alcoholic beverages made from grain, fruit, or milk (koumyss, kefir). When the art of distillation had been mastered and finally made a commercial venture, spirits of all kinds became generally available, and, through the improved channels of transportation, reached the uttermost confines of the globe. At the present time, according to Dr. Hartwich, the only 'alcohol-free' races are certain aboriginal remnants in Ceylon, Malacca, and among the Indians of South America. The consciousness of dangers (chiefly individual) from the intemperate use of alcohol is also of great antiquity; but it remained for modern times to discover in the abuse of alcohol a social-hygienic problem of the first magnitude. Great wisdom beyond this we have not yet attained.

Our temperance preaching has not wholly emerged from the vituperative stage. It is still the all-absorbing occupation of the reformer to denounce the wickedness and nefarious schemes of the 'trade.' But it is not helpful, for vituperation is a form, not of communicating truth, but of self-indulgence.

1 Earlier papers by Mr. Koren have appeared in the last two issues of the Atlantic.

It is a dull weapon of attack, and bars the way to an objective and passionless consideration, without which progress halts. To a great extent, even the so-called 'alcohology' of the latter decades savors of invective and extravagant rhetoric. But, more important, it astounds the critical investigator by the crudity of its methods of investigation, the triviality of much subject-matter, the glaring methodological defects, and the consequent questionableness of its general conclusions. But if evident untruths underlie some of the fundamental conceptions of the present-day systems of temperance doctrine, the protagonists of the status quo in liquor legislation are equally unscientific and guilty of untruths when they prate about the usefulness of alcohol in all its forms, shutting their eyes almost willfully to its menaces.

Like the common run of alcohol literature, the practical temperance policies insisted upon are not based on real knowledge won through methodical observation and intensive study of the social aspects of the drink question. Indeed, our fact basis is amazingly weak. We do not know definitely the extent to which alcohol is abused within any state or any of its civil subdivisions, such as city, village, or rural district. We have no clear conception of the characteristics of the different types of alcoholic persons; we have not penetrated their lives; the kind and amount

of injury they do themselves and others are known only in the most general way and have not been ascertained in casu. The development of alcoholism in the individual, and the circumstances of an individual or social character that give rise to and perpetuate it, have not been studied. We declaim about the use of alcohol as a social disease, yet are curiously ignorant of its deeper-lying causes, its manifestations and progression. There is no competent social organ delegated to observe the ravages of this disease and lay bare the many-sided conditions that determine it. In fact, we lack the expertness needed in devising new measures of protection, as well as in tracing the effect against the drink evil of those we have adopted.

Yet the temperance question touches various phases of community life which can be made the object of exact investigation. In this field as elsewhere, legislation must be preceded by accurate information, not only concerning social phenomena—the bad conditions of life—which instigate the reform work, but also about the circumstances that produce the phenomena. Unless such information is gained, all proposals for reform are likely to become one-sided and involve the danger that, in endeavoring to suppress an evident evil, we may originate others less easily discovered and perhaps more threatening.

Of course, the present directors of the temperance movement in our country will not accept this plea; for theirs is the enviable belief of not needing to learn. Are not the children of our forty-eight states taught the precise physiological effects of alcohol in small and larger doses, although the scientist may still grope for the truth? Are not our towns and highways adorned with 'posters' stating in exact percentages the human miseries that flow from intemperance? And are there not

traveling exhibits that have 'scientifically' charted every social relation into which alcohol enters, so that one may take in at a diagrammatic-statistical glance any fact - from the effect of one glass of beer upon a person's industrial efficiency to the hereditary influence of parental alcoholism upon the offspring? The finality of the case against alcohol seems indubitable since we are assured, under congressional frank, that the registered mortality due in some way to alcoholism equals the total registered mortality of all but infants for the whole country! Although the temperance question is fundamentally a problem in adjusting social conditions, physiology, medicine, and statistics are called upon, not merely as witnesses, but as judges who have rendered the unalterable verdict against alcohol.

In Europe, far-seeing temperance advocates realize the instability of the 'scientific' foundation upon which it has been sought to rear the dogma of universal prohibition. But the leaders in this country continue to misplace emphasis upon statements selected from the teachings of physiologists, medical practitioners, and investigators, as well as upon inferences from social statistics. This appeal to authority carries unreasonable weight with the general public; for as a people we are singularly prone to accept generalizations dressed up in a quasi-scientific garb, when they are given repeated currency by that portion of the press whose chief function it is to spread inaccuracies. Probably Dr. Karl Pearson goes too far in saying, 'We found that the whole "scientific" basis of the movement [temperance] was worthless.' Physiology and medicine are invaluable allies in the fight against alcoholism, but not as final arbiters of legislative policies. Nor does the state of our knowledge about the relations of social

ailments to drink enable us to prescribe a specific. But reformers assume generally that further pursuit of knowledge is superfluous; and it is therefore necessary to outline the more important 'findings' about alcohol resulting from recent authoritative investigations.

II

From the social point of view, the contentions between certain schools of physiology in regard to the precise effect upon the human organism of alcohol in large and smaller quantities is relatively unimportant. Their conclusions of general significance merely reinforce what observation and experience have taught: namely, that alcohol in large quantities operates as a dangerous poison, while in smaller quantities, particularly in certain diluted forms, it may not injure the adult body. The elaborate inquiries made in order to fix the safe minimal dose of alcohol have yielded quite varying results, some placing it at 25 grammes per day, others as high as 100 grammes.

No exact limit can be fixed, for the reaction of the individual to alcohol differs greatly, not only according to age and sex, but according to constitutional peculiarities and acquired qualities connected with the drink habits of the individual. There is no method by which we can measure the degree of individual tolerance to alcohol, and therefore it is impossible to generalize about the safe minimal quality. Then, too, much depends upon the purity of the beverage used, the concentration of alcohol, whether it is consumed at once or at intervals, with meals or before them, during a day's work or after its close, as well as upon habits of life generally. Again ordinary experience comes to our aid, teaching, among other things, that some adults are peculiarly susceptible to the toxic action of al

cohol and should shun it, while others are not injuriously affected when using it in moderation; and that alcohol has no more place in the diet of the young than coffee, tea, and spices.

Also, from the social point of view, the dispute as to whether alcohol is a nutritious substance has only an academic interest and does not cover a real issue. One must accept as incontestable that, as alcohol is burned up in the body, it saves carbohydrates, fat, and albumen, and is therefore to be reckoned among the nutritive substances. Dr. A. Forel, the eminent Swiss temperance leader, admits this, but suggests that alcohol be designated as a 'poisonous nutriment,' whatever that may mean. The fact that alcohol in large quantities has a toxic effect does not detract from its position as a nutriment in the physiological view. Yet to advocate alcohol as an article of consumption for the sake of its food-value is clearly inadmissible. In its most wholesome form, in pure beers, it is a poor substitute for other food. Alcohol does not sound its own warning against use in unduly large quantities by producing that sense of repletion which is characteristic of ordinary foods. Simply the question of cost determines the unwisdom of regarding alcohol in any form as a food, unless it be in very special cases under medical direction.

In the layman it may seem almost presumptuous to dwell on the extensive scientific inquiries made in regard to the effect of smaller quantities of alcohol upon the different functions of the human body. The scientists themselves, however, do not assume to have reached final conclusions on many essential points. Moreover, their conclusions do not harmonize. Thus Dr. Kraeplin, who is perhaps most frequently appealed to as an authority on account of his great contributions to the study of the action of alcohol on the