Yet now and again he rises to the level of some heroic event, and parts of his chapter on the "Campaign of Hastings" and of his record of the wars of Syracuse and Athens, his reflections on the visit of Basil the Second to the church of the Virgin on the Acropolis, and some other passages in his books, are fine pieces of eloquent writing.
Nominally the sultan of Tidore is still the suzerain of western New Guinea, but his authority is scarcely recognized, except on some few shores and adjacent islands, and practically Dutch New Guinea used to be administered partly from Ternate and partly from Timor, upon more peaceful lines than was the case when the rule of the Dutch in New Guinea largely consisted of the sending of a warship now and again to some distant island or bay to burn a kampong, to punish rebellious villagers, and thus assert or reassert Dutch authority, or that of the sultan, who is their vassal.
Ant-mimicking spiders have been seen now and again to devour their models.
It is worth noting, however, that Herder in his provokingly tentative way of thinking comes now and again very near ideas made familiar to us by Spencer and Darwin.
The watercourses to-day are, as a rule, longitudinal, following the strike of the weaker strata in paths that they appear to have gained by spontaneous adjustment during the long Mesozoic cycle; but now and again they cross from one longitudinal valley to another by a transverse course, and there they have cut down sharp notches or water-gaps in the hard strata that elsewhere stand up in the long even-crested ridges.
