s among inefficient
and barbarous nations, who practise a much ruder style of architecture.
The Mexicans are the type of this retrogression. Dr. Quinby predicts for
them an increasing decline until Aztec civilization is restored. If the
Doctor's theories could be established, there are enthusiastic
ethnologists who would not hesitate to say that the Mexicans could not
be put to a better use than this. Shut them up and compel them to breed
themselves back into Aztecs! Dr. Quinby's speculations are, to a great
extent, based on studies of language, and of lingual affinities he is a
bold, not to say reckless, expounder. Some of his work reads as if Mark
Twain had turned philologist. For instance:

"Eighty miles from the mouth of the Indus was a place called
Hingliz. The people of this part celebrate the festival of Bhavani
on the first day of May, when their custom is to erect a pole in
the field and adorn it with pendants and garlands. They also
celebrate another festival on the last day of March, called Huli
(Phulee), when they amuse themselves by sending one another on
foolish errands. _All this has a very Hinglish look(!)._ This is
probably the place where the Hinglish people came from, for though
the Romans called themselves angles, they call themselves English."

* * * * *

To explore libraries, to sift out from masses of irrelevant matter what
alone is of value to the naval student, to subject the poetical
descriptions of great battles to the cold eye of professional criticism,
and to give the results in a condensed, well written, and interesting
form, is the task Commodore Parker has assumed, and so far as the volume
under consideration is concerned[11]--the first of a series--the task has
been well and faithfully performed. The amount of labor involved is
immense! The author passes rapidly over the navies of antiquity for the
reason, probably, that we are more familiar with that history than with
the naval history of a period nearer to us both in time and
relationship. What schoolboy has not read of Xerxes sitting in his
golden chair overlooking the Piraeus and the galleys of his immense fleet
strung along the coast of Attica as far as the eye could reach?

He counted them at break of day,
But when the sun set where were they?

[11] "_The Fleets of the World._" By Commodore FOXHALL A. PARKER,
United States Navy. Ne