cial importance, but England has a
stronghold on its shores. And wherever the continents tending southward
come to points, around which the commerce of nations must sweep, there
is a British settlement; and the cross of St. George salutes you as you
are wafted by. There is hardly a little desolate, rocky island or
peninsula, formed apparently by Nature for a fortress, and nothing else,
but the British flag floats securely over it.

These are literal facts. Take, for example, the great Overland Route
from Europe to Asia. Despite its name, its real highway is on the waters
of the Mediterranean and Red Seas. It has three gates--three only.
England holds the key to every one of these gates. Count
them--Gibraltar, Malta, Aden. But she commands the entrance to the Red
Sea, not by one, but by several strongholds. Midway in the narrow strait
is the black, bare rock of Perim, sterile, precipitous, a perfect
counterpart of Gibraltar; and on either side, between it and the
mainland, are the ship-channels which connect the Red Sea with the great
Indian Ocean. This rock England holds.

A little farther out is the peninsula of Aden, another Gibraltar, as
rocky, as sterile, and as precipitous, connected with the mainland by a
narrow strait, and having a harbour safe in all winds, and a central
coal depot. This England bought in 1839. And to complete her security,
she has purchased from some petty sultan the neighbouring islands of
Socotra and Kouri, giving, as it were, a retaining fee, so that, though
she does not need them herself, no rival power may ever possess them.

As we sail a little farther on, we come to the China Sea. What a beaten
track of commerce is this! What wealth of comfort and luxury is wafted
over it by every breeze!--the teas of China; the silks of farther India;
the spices of the East. The ships of every clime and nation swarm on its
waters--the stately barques of England, France, and Holland; the swift
ships of America; and mingled with them, in picturesque confusion, the
clumsy junk of the Chinaman, and the slender, darting canoe of the
Malaysian islanders.

At the lower end of the China Sea, where it narrows into Malacca Strait,
England holds the little island of Singapore--a spot of no use to her
whatever, except as a commercial depot, but of inestimable value for
that; a spot which, under her fostering care, is growing up to take its
place among the great emporiums of the world. Half-way up the sea she
ho