ment of civilisation has thus been reversed, and intellectual life now radiates from Europe to the remotest corners of the earth. Wherever the European explorers first settled they doubtless began their civilising work by massacring, enslaving, or otherwise debasing the natives. But the beneficial influences of superior races have ever commenced by mutual hatred, mistrust, and antagonism. The conflicting elements everywhere contend for the mastery before they awaken to the conviction that all alike are members of the same human family.
Like the civilising action of Asia in former times, that of Europe spread eastwards first from the seaboard. The Portuguese led the way by establishing themselves on the shores of both India and Malaysia; and these were followed successively by the Spaniards, Dutch, English, and French, who founded factories or forts on the islands and coasts of the same regions. At present Cyprus is an English island, while Asia Minor is at least in theory under the protectorate of Great Britain, whose agents are also establishing her supremacy over Baluchistan, Afghanistan, and possibly even over Persia. Several points on the Arabian and Persian seaboards belong, directly or indirectly, to England, which guards the waters of the Persian Gulf, and reigns as undisputed mistress over India, Ceylon, and part of Indo-China. A large portion of Further India is under French rule, while Holland, England, and Spain, share with a few native sultans the possession of the Eastern Archipelago. Of all the Asiatic nations Japan has been most rapidly transformed under European influences, and in the Chinese seaports whole quarters are already occupied by European or American trading communities. Lastly, all the northern division of the continent owns the sway of Russia, whose Cossack pioneers have since the close of the sixteenth century brought the whole of Siberia under the sceptre of the Czar. Thus about one-half the area and one-third the population of Asia belong henceforth politically to Europe, as appears from the subjoined table of the direct and indirect Asiatic possessions of the various European states:—
| Area in Sq. Miles. | Population. | ||
| Asiatic Russia and Dependencies | 6,736,000 | 17,000,000 | |
| British Possessions and Dependencies in Asia | 2,772,000 | 218,500,000 | |
| Dutch | 696,000 | 26,600,000 | |
| French | 56,200 | 2,760,000 | |
| Spanish | 118,200 | 7,450,000 | |
| Portuguese | 7,200 | 770,000 | |
| Total Asia subject to Europe | 10,385,600 | 313,080,000 | |
From the settlements on the seaboard the political conquests and commercial relations of the West have advanced with ever-increasing rapidity towards the interior, although the work of scientific discovery is still far from complete. There are extensive regions of Central Asia scarcely visited except by solitary explorers, while even in the parts already surveyed many obscure problems remain still to be solved.
Progress of Discovery.
The ancients, whose navigators never ventured to sail beyond the Indian waters to China, carried on a tedious overland traffic with that country by caravan
