it by every breeze! The teas of China! The silks of farther India!
The spices of the East! What ships of every clime and nation swarm on its
waters! The stately barks of England, France, and Holland! Our own swift
ships! And mingled with them, in picturesque confusion, the clumsy junk of
the Chinaman, the Malay prahu and the slender, darting bangkong of the Sea
Dyak! Has England neglected to secure on a permanent basis her mercantile
interests in the Chinese Sea? At the lower end of that sea, where it
narrows and bends into Malacca Strait, she holds Singapore, a little
island, mostly covered with jungles and infested by tigers, which to this
day destroy annually from two to three hundred lives,--a spot of no use to
her whatever, except as a commercial depot, but of inestimable value for
that, and which, under her fostering care, is growing up to take its place
among the great emporiums of the world. Half-way up this sea is the island
of Labuan, whose chief worth is this, that beneath its surface and that of
the neighboring mainland are hidden inexhaustible treasures of coal, which
are likely soon to be developed, and to yield wealth and power to the hand
that controls them. At the upper end of the sea is Hong Kong, a hot,
unhealthy, and disagreeable island, but which gives her what she wants, a
depot and a base from which to threaten and control the neighboring
waters. Clearly the Chinese Sea, the artery of Oriental commerce, belongs
far more to England than to the races which border it.

Even in the broad and as yet comparatively untracked Pacific she is making
silent advances toward dominion. The continent of Australia, which she has
monopolized, forms its southwestern boundary. And pushed out from this,
six hundred miles eastward, like a strong outpost, is New Zealand; itself
larger than Great Britain; its shores so scooped and torn by the waves
that it must be a very paradise of commodious bays and safe havens for the
mariner; and lifted up, as if to relieve it from island tameness, are
great mountains and dumb volcanoes, worthy of a continent, and which hide
in their bosoms deep, broad lakes. Yet the soil of the lowlands is of
extraordinary fertility, and the climate, though humid, deals kindly with
the Anglo-Saxon constitution. Nor is this all; for, advanced from it north
and south, like picket-stations, are Norfolk isle and the Auckland group,
which, if they have no other attractions, certainly have this great one,