the scene of some of the grandest phenomena on the globe. The teeming populations of India and China will then also enter into direct relations with each other, and the trade routes of Calcutta and Shanghai will meet midway between those emporiums.
All these economic revolutions must revive many cities decayed, or even vanished, since the overland routes were abandoned for the safer and easier oceanic highways. Large cities cannot fail again to spring up in Bactriana and Sogdiana, where the main road between Central Europe and India will cross that heading to Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt. But besides the new centres of population that must arise in the West, others will be founded in Central Asia, the rallying-points of Chinese and Russians, of the Hindu and European traders. But the precise locality of these new marts must be determined by political as well as by climatic and other physical considerations, for Asia is a battle-field which is destined soon to witness a decisive struggle in the history of mankind.
Political Rivalries.
The influence of Europe on the Asiatic populations is steadily increasing, so that the vast eastern continent would seem in some respects to be becoming more and more a simple dependency of its little western peninsula. The power of Europe is represented in Asia mainly by the two rival states, England and Russia, differing profoundly from each other in their traditions, political situation, and interests. Russia rules in the northern, England in the southern zone, and many small intermediate peoples struggling to maintain their independence gravitate necessarily to the orbits of these great states. In the extreme east, Japan, while preserving its political autonomy, is striving to rival the European peoples in the form of its administrative system. But the Chinese still cling to their individual nationality. Their power has been but little affected by the recent invasions and treaties with foreign states, and the empire is already beginning to resist further aggression by the inert force of its teeming populations. But these countless masses have also the strength imparted by industry, toil, and patience, while common sense, methodic habits, unflagging tenacity, render them formidable competitors in the race. Compared with the Hindus, the Chinese have the paramount advantage derived from a thorough mixture of races and national cohesion. Their temperate habits also enable them to become acclimatized under the most varied climes. They are an enduring race, which acquires fresh vitality from oppression and defeat. Hence England and Russia are not the only rivals for supremacy in Asia. Nay, more, the Chinese race cannot fail to clash with the peoples of Europe and North America on the fundamental questions of culture and social habits, before taking an active and intelligent part with them in the work of human progress. This conflict must needs retard the development of mankind until its course be again resumed by a final reconciliation of the ideas common to both elements.
The inevitable struggle between these three rival states is still retarded by
