First in importance among these is the camel, which ranges over the dry plains of South-Western and Central Asia, from the Red Sea to the farthest extremity of the Desert of Gobi and the shores of Lake Baikal, serving everywhere as the means of transport across the arid wilderness. The elephantanother of the Asiatic quadrupeds which man has domesticated-belongs to the warm and watered regions in the south-east of the continent, including the two Indian peninsulas and the island of Ceylon. The horse frequents all Southern and Middle Asia, as far north as the sixtieth parallel, and the vast plains that stretch to the eastward of the Sea of Aral are probably its original seat. The wild ass inhabits the plains of Central and South-Western Asia.

The vast number of animals belonging to the ox tribe is a marked characteristic of Asiatic zoology. They are most numerous in the high plains of Central Asia, and comprise, besides the common ox, the auroch, yak, zebu (or humped ox), buffalo, and others. Antelopes occur in the drier regions

of the south-west.

Among the carnivora, or flesh-eating animals, the lion, tiger, leopard, hyena, wolf, and jackal are natives of Asia. The lion has now a much less extensive range than formerly, being restricted to the countries lying between the Euphrates and the Indian Desert. The tiger is found over a much wider circuit, and frequents all the woods and jungles of Southern and South-Eastern Asia, roaming as far to the north as the deserts of the Mongolian Plateau and the Altai Mountains. The hyena and jackal belong chiefly to Western Asia; the wolf to the colder districts of the north and west.

The numerous fur-bearing animals which are native to the extreme north of Asia are another of its marked characteristics; among them are the bear, glutton, badger, wolf, fox, lynx, pole-cat, weasel, ermine, marten, otter, sable, squirrel, beaver, hare, and reindeer.

The countries of South-Eastern Asia and the islands of the neighbouring Archipelago are exceedingly rich in variety of birds, especially those of the gallinaceous tribe (that is, the class of birds commonly known as poultry, from the Latin gallus, a cock), many of them distinguished by their beautiful plumage. It is thence that nearly all our breeds of domestic poultry were originally derived.

The golden pheasants of China, and the Argus pheasants of the East Indian Islands, belong to South-Eastern Asia and the Malay regions. The peacock is a native of India.

Among insects, the silkworm is a native of China, and was not introduced into Europe until the close of the fifth century.

INDUSTRIES: Agriculture is the chief industry in the monsoon countries, the teeming populations of which are supported by the extensive and careful culture of the soil. The nomad peoples of the steppes and plateaux of the interior are almost exclusively engaged in pastoral pursuits, and the tribes of the far north subsist by hunting and fishing. The native manufactures of India, China, Japan, and Western Asia are also important.

"Great Britain in the south, and Russia in the north and centre, are rapidly familiarising the native peoples with the various applications of steam power and with the products and manufactures of Europe," with the result that the cotton manufactures of India already compete with the products of the locms

of Lancashire, while China, with her superabundant supplies of cheap and efficient labour, is beginning to develop her enormous resources, and the manufactured products of Japan already enter into serious competition with the Far Eastern trade of European commercial powers.

COMMERCE : The overland trade with Europe has always been large, but it is much less important than the enormous maritime trade, which is carried on chiefly between India, China and Japan, and Great Britain-the bulk of it via the Suez Canal. There is also a considerable and growing over-sea trade between China and Japan and the Pacific ports of the United States and Canada, while the trade between these two countries and India and Australasia is very large.

The overland trade is carried on principally by caravans of camels and horses, and important caravan routes pass through all the larger towns in the interior. In Siberia, China, and India, the magnificent navigable rivers are very largely utilized for the transport of goods and produce, and are supplemented in India by an extensive system of railways. Russia has also constructed railways opening up her Trans-Caspian Territories in Central Asia, and has completed the great Trans-Continental Siberian Railway to the Pacific, with its terminal ports at Vladivostok and Port Arthur. (For a full description of this great enterprise, see page 414). China is only now beginning to permit any considerable extension of railways, but Japan has over 6,300 miles open for traffic; and of recent years pressure has been brought to bear on China by the European Powers to grant numerous concessions for the building of new lines, which are already opening up this densely-peopled land in all directions. All the great centres of trade in Asia are connected with each other and with Europe by telegraph lines and submarine cables, which place the great ports on its southern and eastern coasts in instant communication with the rest of the world.

TRADE DIVISIONS OF ASIA: The recognised trades of Asia are "the Levant," so named from the eastern waters of the Mediterranean Sea, comprising or "covering" Asia Minor south of the Black Sea limit, and Syria, and including the riches of Persia, Turkestan, the Caspian shores, or Central Asia, sent west by caravan. The chief centre of this trade is SMYRNA; the staple products are valonia, drugs, essences, fruits, dyes, and specialties.1

The Red Sea trade speaks for itself, and is common to East Africa and Arabia; it is not of much direct commercial importance, its repute being

1. The eight succeeding paragraphs on the "Trade Divisions of Asia are taken from a new work by Dr. Yeats, entitled "The Golden Gates of Trade," (London: George Philip & Son).

2. For a full list of the commercial products of the Levant, see Dr. Yeats's Manuals of Commerce, vol. iv. Recent and Existing Commerce," p. 200, (London: George Philip & Son).

chiefly as the great highway to India from Europe, including our important coaling stations of ADEN and PERIM, with SUEZ and a military port in SUAKIM. For the rest, the main business is the conveyance of pilgrims in the season for their religious visit to MECCA, a little cross-sea traffic, and a few specialties from the coast. Aden and Suez are centres. PORT SUDAN, north of Suakim, is the terminus of the Desert railway to Berber on the Nile.

The Persian Gulf trade, so named from the sea which runs into the land, separates Arabia from Persia and Baluchistan, covers all the merchandise sent down the Tigris, Euphrates, and Karun rivers, and distributes by the same routes and by caravan. There is no limitation to the area; wherever caravans run, there goods penetrate. This district, like the preceding, is a trade of raw materials and specialties out, measured by manufactures in. The staple pro

ducts are similar to those of the Levant. The centres are BUSHIRE and BASRA, with the certainty of AHWAZ rising to the position of an important commercial centre.

The Indian trade includes all the peninsula of Hindustan and the ports on the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal; it likewise covers an extensive frontier trade, for the resources of Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Kashmir, Tibet, seeking a seaport, naturally gravitate to Indian ports, and consequently assist in building up the total Indian trade.

The chief centres are KARACHI, the focus of the Indus and Punjab river-flow, CALCUTTA, of the Gangetic and Brahmaputra valleys, BOMBAY of the west central districts, MADRAS of the east coast and the Deccan, and RANGOON of the Burmese provinces. Produce varies in accordance with climatic zone; thus wheat is a staple from Bombay, jute from Calcutta and Chittagong, rice from Akyab, Rangoon and Bengal, cotton from Bombay and Surat, seeds from the Coromandel and Malabar coasts.

The Straits and East Indian trade is a name given to mercantile transactions to and from the Straits Settlements, Further India, and the East Indian Islands, the centre of which is SINGAPORE, the gate between the east and the west. It is essentially a coast trade." Singapore, Penang, &c., act as emporiums for the varied produce of this rich district. This is a region of tropical growth, and yields us many of our "luxuries;" it is a commerce of raw materials on one side, measured by finished goods on the other side. This trade covers the rice ports, teak ports, manilla, hemp, and tobacco, East Indian sago, pearl sago, spices, &c.

The China trade speaks for itself; it is the trade with HONG-KONG-Our Chinese emporium-and the "Treaty Ports" of China. Beyond Hong-Kong, SHANGHAI is the central city. Coals and manufactures in, valued by tea, silk, and specialties out, are the characteristics of this trade. Closely allied to the Chinese is the Japanese trade and the North and Central Asian trade, because of similarity of resources, and because much distribution of merchandise with Mongolia, Siberia, &c., takes place by China and the port of VLADIVOSTOK, The new Siberian Railway now taps a considerable amount of this trade.

The China trade, Japan trade, North Asian trade, and East Indian trade, are all comprehended in one term, "Trade with the Eastern Seas."

INHABITANTS: The population of Asia comprehends considerably more than half the human race, and numbers at least 850 millions. China alone is said to contain 400 millions of people, and India has 294 millions, but the countries of Western, Central, and Northern Asia are much less populous.

Although Asia is the most populous of the continents, it is not, on the whole, the most densely peopled. The average density of population in Asia is 49 per square mile, as against 93 in Europe. No less than 85 out of every 100 of the people of Asia dwell in the monsoon countries, and some parts of India and China are more densely peopled, and contain a larger number of populous towns, than any part even of Western Europe. The rest of Asia is very thinly peopled, and contains very few towns with more than 100,000 inhabitants.

Race and Language: Numerous diversities are found among the various families of mankind by whom Asia is inhabited; diversities of language, as well as of personal structure, appearance, and colour of skin. More than 96 different languages are spoken in India alone, nearly all of them, however, derived from a common stock-the Sanskrit tongue. Most of the languages of Western Asia (and also of Europe) are allied, in their roots, to the same stock. The languages of Eastern Asia-China and the Indo-Chinese Peninsula -belong to a totally different class. The Chinese, the Indo-Chinese, and the Mongolian tribes are distinguished by striking differences of personal appearance from other nations of mankind. They have a yellowish-brown (or olive) complexion; a broad and flattened face, with obliquely-set and deeply-sunk eyes (the inner corner slanting down towards the nose); lank and black hair, with little beard; a broad, square, and thick-set frame, with a stature considerably below that of Europeans. These are the distinguishing characteristics of the Mongolian variety of the human family. The Malays, who inhabit the Malay Peninsula and the islands of the East Indian Archipelago, belong to a distinct race of natives, and are by some authorities regarded as forming another of the leading varieties of mankind.

Religion: Of the two great forms of religion-Christianity and Mohammelanism-which originated in South-Western Asia, the latter has spread over Arabia, Asiatic Turkey, Persia, Turkestan, and, to a less extent, over Hindustan and Malaysia; while the former is confined to Armenia, Georgia, and numeri cally unimportant sections of Asiatic Russia and British India. The prevailing religion in India is Brahmanism, from which, about 600 years B.C., sprang Buddhism,' professed by most of the peoples of the Indo-Chinese countries, and by large numbers of the lower classes in China and Japan. The Lamaism of Tibet is another form of Buddhism. The religion of the upper classes in China and Japan is Confucianism. Of the minor forms of religion in the East, the most interesting is the Fire-worship, founded by Zoroaster, and which is still professed by the Parsis of India and the Guebres or Giaours of Persia. The nomadic tribes of Siberia and Central Asia are heathens.

DIVISIONS: By far the larger portion of Asia is held by three powers, two of which are European.

The Russian dominions embrace the whole of the northern part of the continent, a large portion of Central Asia, and the provinces of the Caucasus. Under British control, direct or indirect, is the vast peninsula of India, and the western and southern portions of Further India, besides the islands of Ceylon, Hong-Kong, &c. The Chinese Empire comprises China Proper and the adjacent regions of Tibet, Eastern Turkestan and Zungaria, Mongolia, and Manchuria. The Japanese Empire includes the islands of Japan, Formosa, the Lu-chu, Kurile and Bonin Islands, Southern Sakhalin, the peninsula of Kwantung, with Port Arthur, and a virtual protectorate over Corea.

Of the minor powers in Asia, the most important are the Asiatic possessions of Turkey and Persia, in the west. France occupies or controls the eastern

1. So called from Sakya Muni, the Baddha (ie., | sin was rapid, and it has now mere followers "the enlightened "), a Hindu prince who first pro- (estimated at 455 millions) than any other religion pagated its doctrines in Northern India. Its exten. I in the world.

part of Further India, and also possesses a few small towns in India; Holland has large and important possessions in the East Indian Archipelago; Spain has lost its authority over the Philippine Islands, which are now under the control of the Americans; Portugal has a few small settlements such as Goa on the coast of India, Macao off the coast of China, &c.; while Germany has obtained a footing in Shantung.

The countries of Asia may be arranged in two great groups, namely, the monsoon countries, and those outside the monsoon area.

The Monsoon Countries are India, Further India, the East Indian Archipelago, China, and Japan; but Asiatic Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, and Asiatic Russia lie beyond the monsoon area.

These countries are described in the following order-(1) Our Indian Empire; (2) Further India and the East Indian Archipelago; (3) The Empires of Japan and China; (4) Asiatic Russia, including Siberia, Russian Central Asia, and Caucasia; and (5) Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Persia, Asiatic Turkey, and Arabia.

... All separately-governed British Colonies or Dependencies are separately described.

OUR INDIAN EMPIRE.

OUR INDIAN EMPIRE comprises the central and by far the most important of the three great peninsulas of Southern Asia, together with large territories on the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal. The total area of these vast dominions, most of which are under direct British rule, and the rest subject to British control, is upwards of 1,800,000 square miles, or more than 30 times as large as England and Wales, while the fopulation according to the census of 1901, is 294,417,000 (or about 9 times the population of England and Wales).

The Asiatic Empire of Russia is very much larger in extent than our Indian Empire, but while it has an area of 6% million square miles, its population amounts to not more than 20 millions, as against 2941⁄2 millions on what is actually or virtually British territory.

The Chinese Empire, the only other great Asiatic power, is estimated to have an area of 4 million square miles, or 24 times that of our Indian Empire, and a population of 400 millions.

Within the limits of, or bordering on, our Indian Empire, are several independent Native States and a few unimportant French and Portuguese possessions. British India is divided into nine great Provinces under direct British rule. The Native or Feu atory States of India, some of them of considerable extent, are to all intents British dependencies.

1. The recent census of our Indian Empire was taken on March 1st, 190r, and the totals are so huge that it is difficult to grasp their meaning. In

the United Kingdom about 40, coo enumerators were employed in taking the census; in India a million and a half enumerators were employed.

M