Islands are in cases 53-56; the war dresses, of feathers, &c., from Tahiti, in case 57; and the nets and baskets, clubs and tatooing instruments from the Friendly Islands will be found arranged in cases 65, 66.  On the second shelf of cases 66, 67, is deposited a tortoise-shell bonnet, made in imitation of an European bonnet from Navigator’s Island.  Cases 68, 69, are devoted to objects from New Zealand; and those marked 70, 71, were collected during an exploring expedition into Central Australia.  The last cases are devoted to miscellaneous objects from the Fiji Islands, Borneo, and other localities; and with these the visitor should close his second visit to the Museum; regaining the ante-room to the Southern Zoological gallery, by passing out of the Ethnographical room through its eastern opening.  He has now completed the examination of the galleries of the Museum with the exception of the print and medal rooms, which are not open to the public generally, but are reserved for the use of artists and antiquarians.  He has dipped into many sciences on his two journeys; made some acquaintance with the history of the animals that frequent the different parts of the world; dwelt amid the fossil fragments of long ages past; examined the elementary substances of which the earth’s crust is composed; been with the dust of men that lived before Jerusalem was made for ever memorable; surveyed the spoils of Etruscan tombs; and lingered amid the varieties of household things from the barbarous nations of the present hour; and not wholly profitless have the journeys been, even if the scientific mysticism be not mastered, so that there remains in the mind a general impression of the time that has gone by, the great laws that govern the universe, and the humility that becomes man, when he sees his individuality, in relation with the mighty past, and the great progresses of Nature.

End of the second visit.

VISIT THE THIRD.

The visitor, on entering the British Museum for the third time, will commence his examination of the massive Antiquities, which are scattered throughout the noble galleries that stretch along the western basement of the building.  His spirit must again wander to the remote past.  Again must he recur to the ancient civilisation of southern Europe, and the busy people that covered the valley of the Nile before Alexander breathed.  He has already examined the household utensils, the bodies, the ornaments, and the food of the ancient Egyptians, and has had more than a glimpse of the artistic excellence to which they attained long before our Christian era.  Of the sepulchral caves of Thebes, of the massive pyramids sacred to the ancient Pharaohs, of the strange images of beasts and men, of the sacred beetles, and the universal Ibis, he has already examined minute specimens arranged in the cases of the Egyptian Room; but he has yet to witness those evidences of power, and scorn of difficulties, exhibited in the colossal works of the Egyptian people.