ho roamed about its surface much as the black fellows
used to roam over the Australian continent. The various groups derived
their names from various animals and other natural objects, such as the
sun, the cabbage, serpents, sardines, crabs, leopards, bears, and hyaenas.
It is important for our purpose to remember that all the children took
their family name from the mother's side. If she were of the Hyaena
clan, the children were Hyaenas. If the mother were tattooed with the
badge of the Serpent, the children were Serpents, and so on. No two
persons of the same family name and crest might marry, on pain of death.
The man of the Bear family who dwelt by the Mediterranean might not ally
himself with a woman of the Bear clan whose home was on the shores of the
Baltic, and who was in no way related to him by consanguinity. These
details are dry, but absolutely necessary to the comprehension of the
First Radical's stormy and melancholy career. We must also remember
that, among the tribes, there was no fixed or monarchical government. The
little democratic groups were much influenced by the medicine-men or
wizards, who combined the functions of the modern clergy and of the
medical profession. The old men, too, had some power; the braves, or
warriors, constituted a turbulent oligarchy; the noisy outcries of the
old women corresponded to the utterances of an intelligent daily press.
But the real ruler was a body of strange and despotic customs, the nature
of which will become apparent as we follow the fortunes of the First
Radical.

THE YOUTH OF WHY-WHY.

Why-Why, as our hero was commonly called in the tribe, was born, long
before Romulus built his wall, in a cave which may still be observed in
the neighbourhood of Mentone. On the warm shores of the Mediterranean,
protected from winds by a wall of rock, the group of which Why-Why was
the offspring had attained conditions of comparative comfort. The
remains of their dinners, many feet deep, still constitute the flooring
of the cave, and the tourist, as he pokes the soil with the point of his
umbrella, turns up bits of bone, shreds of chipped flint, and other
interesting relics. In the big cave lived several little families, all
named by the names of their mothers. These ladies had been knocked on
the head and dragged home, according to the marriage customs of the
period, from places as distant as the modern Marseilles and Genoa. Why-
Why, with his little bro