We have just had a remarkable lesson in the eagerness
which seems to be felt by States which are almost impotent for the orderly management of their own most important domestic affairs, to exclude other States, however distant and peaceful, from the possession of a single square mile of barren and miserable rock, which might seem to be within the radius of their dominion. There is an island called Trinidad, in the South Atlantic, distant about seven hundred miles from the coast of Brazil, but which is so inhospitable and so destitute of any kind of intrinsic value, that Great Britain, Portugal, and Brazil, after examining it, all in turn abandoned it to its arid solitude, till at last our flag was planted on it, in the belief that it would help us in establishing better telegraphic communication with South America, than any which the South American States are at present willing to sanction. But no sooner had this been done than Brazilian agitators raised a howl against the British lion for placing its " paws " on this barren rock, which is "sacred to Brazil." From Mr. Knight's account of it,—he explored it some fifteen years ago,—we thought it was sacred to a most voracious land- crab which inspired him and his fellow-adventurers with a horror of which a very ghastly account was formerly contained in these columns. But even the land-crab has been starved out, if we may trust the latest accounts. A more humble ambi- tion than the ambition to possess this barren and harbourlesa spot of ground, can hardly be imagined; and we are not likely to grudge it to Brazil, if Brazil can establish any claim to it Perhaps Ascension Island might suit us for a telegraph. station almost as well, and is already our own. But it is curious to see how voracious is the modern appetite for the nominal rule even over spots of earth to which no human. being would willingly submit to be banished.
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