centuries, Europe has spared time from her internal combustions to discover and conquer the outer world, the four continents of Africa, Asia, America, and Australia. Henry the Navigator of Portugal began the work in the fifteenth century by exploring West Africa, and Henry Stanley completed it in our own day by discovering the Congo region close by.
These four continents had one feature only in common: political debility was universal. For they were all tenanted either by helpless savages, as in the cases of America, Australia, and a good part of Africa, or else, as in the case of Asia, by monarchies either discredited or of fortuitous strength. For though Asia could boast fine resources, teeming numbers, and glittering governments, in the East glory and havoc are sworn allies. Or, in the stately phrase of Gibbon, all Asiatic dynasties are "one unceasing round of valour, greatness, discord, degeneracy, and decay."
It was inevitable in these circumstances, that the European nations, with their insatiable appetites, should fall with zest upon such dazzling loot. Great was the animus furandi. Accordingly, for five centuries a scramble for the outer world ensued, begun by anointed culprits, and completed by unanointed democracy. For we have witnessed the wholesale deglutition of Africa, and the digestion of huge portions of Asia into the European maw. To-day some minor nations yet remain to be cut up into sirloins and briskets
