the year and a white flag for a pure breed of chickens.

As an evidence of effective education throughout Macon County, the visitor was first impressed by the miles and miles of whitewashed fences and houses and outbuildings. Neat, productive gardens were everywhere in evidence. The schools and churches were decorated with vegetables, smoked meat, handiwork from home and school, and with other evidences of the thrift of the people. One community vied with another in the amount of property owned and in food-crops grown. Homelike schools with gardens and other equipment for teaching real life were pointed out with pride by the black parents whose voluntary contributions are making such institutions possible. There were school farms covered with young cotton which is to be ultimately sold for the extension of school terms.

Not the least evidence of the good character of the work is the hearty appreciation of the white planters. One of the most delicious feasts given to the party was that of barbecued meat, fruit, and other good things served by a Southern white planter and his son-in-law. These planters realize that their fields are better cultivated when the colored people on their farms are contented and happy.

The Hampton Negro Conference

The fifteenth session of the Hampton Negro Conference will be held on July 19 and 20. The first session, on Wednesday morning, will be devoted to women's work for community betterment, when reports on the various phases of women's club work will be heard and discussed. The importance of this kind of missionary endeavor among the colored people can hardly be over-estimated. Of still more importance, if possible, is the subject to be discussed on Wednesday evening"The Place of the Church in Rural Life." The country minister holds a strategic place in the development of rural life. Upon his point of view, his enthusiasms, his activities, depends in large measure the progress of his people. The Negro country church has always been a social center; it must now become a social center in a broader, more important sense. It must rise above demoninational feeling, it must interest itself in all the activities of the community, social, educational, cultural, agricultural. On Thursday morning the subject of the improvement of rural life will be continued, and certain facts brought out by the latest Census will be discussed. In the evening the subject will be "Co-operation in Virginia” with an account of the plans and purposes of the Negro Organization Society. The afternoons of both days will be given up to “Round Tables" for the women, the farmers, the physicians, and the Negro Organization Society.

THE FAROE ISLANDS

(Concluded)

BY GERTRUDE AUSTIN

THE third day after our arrival we started again in the Tjalder to make a tour of the Islands, of which seventeen only of the twenty-two are inhabited. We put in at a number of the larger ports, and saw the beautiful scenery and the simple life of the people, as we steamed in and out of the fjords and along the coast, wondering at the curious forms of these huge basalt blocks, which are in some places broken into a thousand fantastic shapes. It is easy to understand why their Saga so often speaks of the dangers and difficulties of navigating along these rugged shores. In certain places the passage between the islands is very narrow and it seemed almost as if we could touch the rocks as we passed. These imposing-looking walls rise to a great height, one of them to 2890 feet above the sea, and over them streams come flowing down right into the water. Occasionally they are rent from top to bottom, thus forming the most cruel-looking chasms. From time to time appears a green, grassy slope, with a few scattered farmsteads and the cattle peacefully grazing on the hillside, making a most pleasing contrast to the wild-looking, rocky scenery. These islands were at one time a solid mass, which volcanic action, the weather, and the water have broken up into their present condition.

The perpendicular cliffs facing south have been chosen for habitation by numberless sea-birds, which are another important source of income to the natives. These rocks in the distance at once attract attention by their almost marble-like whiteness, and the transition from black on the north side to white on the south of one of these walls is very striking and at first somewhat puzzling. It was only when the whistle of the steamer disturbed the reveries of the birds that we realized that this whiteness was due to the thousands of sea-fowl that make their home on these warmly exposed and safely precipitous rock faces. Lives are often lost in the bird-catching season, for the profession is a difficult one. These poor little creatures are caught with a net fastened to a long pole, the catcher lying over the edge of the cliff; or he may be let down over the precipice by a rope,

and once on

a safe ledge, either entraps them with his hand or uses his net. He thus deprives of life, alas! several hundred birds in a day. The flesh, in spite of its fishy taste, is much liked by the Faroese, and the bird-catcher's life, if a perilous one, is lucrative. The eider duck, of which there are many, is never molested and its down is exported to other countries in large quantities.

The whale hunt, which nothing could have induced us to take part in, is of great importance to these people, for it furnishes them not only with food, but enables them to prepare for sale the whale oil which is an important item in their budget. As soon as the whales are sighted, and they come from time to time in great shoals, a signal is hoisted which carries the news throughout the islands, and men from all sides flock to assist in the massacre. It is a gruesome sight, the poor creatures being driven ashore and slain without mercy; we had better draw a veil over the perhaps necessary but sickening slaughter of these poor animals.

Returning to Thorshavn to spend a few more days before continuing our journey to Iceland, we found that the "Thing" was sitting, and we were curious to see how the legislation and important business of the islands is carried on. Thorshavn was always the meeting place of the "Thing," even as far back as the Saga days, when the meetings were held in the open air, those attending them setting up the booths in which they lived around the "Thing Place" as long as the assembly lasted. The twentieth-century legislators have a comfortable building for their use, standing perhaps on or near the old site, and have nothing to fear from wind or weather. The present Governor is the first Faroese who has been allowed to hold this position since the Danish occupation in 1814, until which time the Faroes had always been held in fief to Norway; and the people are trying to assume more and more power concerning the matters which they consider of vital importance to their country. They do not wish to break loose from Denmark, but ask for "Home Rule" in all questions that affect the welfare of the people. Since 1856 all restrictions of trade have been removed, and the islands feel hopeful therefore about the future, for this monopoly of trade by the Danes prevented all chance of progress.

Education is now making rapid strides, and the advancement of the people in every way is receiving serious consideration. They have a high school, which is attended in the summer by the girl students and in the winter by the young men. Here they are prepared for the University of Copenhagen, where they go to finish their studies. There are two hospitals in Thorshavn, and quite recently a good deal

of money has been spent on a sanatorium not far from the town, for there is a good deal of tuberculosis; by this means they are hoping to stamp it out of the country. We expected to find the sanatorium perched on the top of one of their rocky hillsides, but had to conclude that the reasons which led them to build it on the edge of a peat bog and down in a hollow, were good ones, though not apparent to us.

Agriculture is a difficult problem, for it is impossible to use the plough, the rocks being too near the surface. There seems to be no happy medium between the peaty ground and the rocky soil. Some barley is grown, but often has to be reaped before it is ripe. There are few horses or cows, the latter giving very poor milk owing to the bad feeding; for while there is plenty of grass the quality is inferior. But the breeding of sheep is a very important item, there being as many as 80,000 in the islands. The beasts are never housed, and suffer considerably in the winter months when many succumb during the bad weather. When one realizes that the total area of the Islands is five hundred square miles, of which only one-sixteenth can be cultivated, one understands the difficulties of the agriculturalist. However, in spite of the many disadvantages they meet at every turn, the people now seem firmly determined to improve themselves and their land in every way possible, and are trying experiments and studying new methods.

We could not leave the Faroes without paying a visit to Kirkjubö, which lies on the west coast of Stromsö, over the hills from Thorshavn. We started out early. The weather was perfect, the sun shining brightly and giving us the best possible impression of the country. After a short walk we found ourselves outside the town and alone with nature; before us lay the rocky slope that leads to the pass from which we were to descend to the village in question on the other side. The sea is scarcely ever out of sight, and the expanse of shimmering blue that met our eyes whichever way we looked added an indescribable charm to the loneliness and barren beauty of the scene. From the top of the pass we looked down on a little village below, surrounded by lovely green fields, and we could see the rocks and cliffs of Sandö, Hestur, and Koltur in front of us, rising out of the sea in their solitary grandeur. Our destination was away to the left and not yet in sight, but the descent was easy and rapid, and we soon descried, standing not far from the water's edge, the ruins of what was to have been the Catholic cathedral of the Faroes.

We learn from the Saga that after his own conversion Sigmondr, the hero, was sent in 998 by King Olaf Tryggvason of Norway to preach Christianity to the islanders. He was made ruler over the

whole group before starting, and took with him priests who were to baptize the people and teach them the new religion. Arriving in Stromsö he called a "Thing" meeting at Thorshavn, and told the people that their king over the seas wished them to become at once Christians like himself. There was some dissent about the matter, and Thrand, one of the principal landowners, with all his followers, proved much opposed to the change and pleaded for time for reflection. But Sigmundr would hear nothing of this, and, soon after the breaking up of the "Thing," followed Thrand to his home, and setting a man over him with a heavy axe in his hand, gave him the choice of death or Christianity. Thrand chose the latter! It was not, however, till St. Olaf's time, some years later, that the new faith really took root in the Islands.

At Kirkjubö, sometime in the thirteenth century, when the Faroese had entirely given up their heathen beliefs, Bishop Erlend began to build this church, which was never finished, the village being already the seat of a Bishop and the centre of learning in the islands. But owing to the terrible outbreak of black plague which made fearful ravages in all the land, nothing was done for many long years in the way of buildings and improvements, and Bishop Erlend died without accomplishing his work. Then later still came the Reformation, when the Lutheran faith taught the people that simplicity of heart rather than fine buildings is necessary for the worship of God. And so the ruin stands to-day with its solid walls and Early Gothic windows, looking as if it might remain forever, in spite of its exposed position, a witness to the little power the Catholic Church has ever been able to wield over the Norsemen.

Near the ruin stands the house which was the Bishop's palace, and the Hall which served as library and schoolroom to the monks. The prison rooms underneath are still in existence, proving that the refractory monk was to be found here as elsewhere; provision for him. is always made in the old monasteries. The whole is built of large logs in the Norwegian style, and the timber must certainly have been brought from the mother country. There still remains some fine carving, and the old kitchen with its square hole in the roof for the smoke to escape remains just as it was in former days, and carried our thoughts back to the curious old rogstuen that we had seen in Norway. The present owner of the place, Herr Patursson, in whose family the house and lands have been for many generations, entertained us most hospitably and showed us everything of interest. He has been the people's representative to the Danish parliament, a fine man, intelligent and well read, and his library showed him to be