The people of the United States must cut loose from the idea that has lost its logic in recent years, that the Pacific Ocean _separates_ America from the lands and islands of Asia, and look upon it as a body of water _connecting_ us with the bountiful East. The old theory was good enough for our home-building fathers, but is blighting to a generation aspiring to Americanize the globe. The genius of our nation should cause our ploughs and harrows to prepare the valley and delta of the Nile for tillage; be responsible for the whir of more of our agricultural machinery in the fields of India; locate our lathes and planers and drilling machines in Eastern shops, in substitution for those made in England or Germany; be responsible for American locomotives drawing American cars in Manchuria and Korea over rails rolled in Pittsburgh, and induce half the inhabitants of southern Asia to dress in fabrics woven in the United States, millions of the people of Cathay to tread the earth in shoes produced in New England, and all swayed to an appreciation of our flour as a substitute for rice--yes, make it easy to obtain pure canned foods everywhere in China and Japan, even to hear the merry click of the typewriter in Delhi, Bangkok and Pekin. Do we not already lead in foreign trade? We do, I gratefully admit; but it is because we sell to less favored peoples our grains and fiber in a raw state. Confessedly, these are self-sellers, for not a bushel of wheat or ounce of cotton is sold because of any enterprise on our part--the buyer must have them, and the initiative of the transaction is his. What economists regard as 'trade' in its most advantageous form, is the selling to foreigners of something combining the natural products and the handiwork of a nation--this is the trade that America should look for in the East, and seek it now. It is not wild prophecy that within five years a considerable number of the sovereign people of the country controlling its growth will feel that it is carrying international comity to the point of philanthropy to export cotton to England and Japan to be there fabricated for the wear of every race of Asia, and sold in successful competition with American textiles. In the pending battle for the world's markets Uncle Sam should win trade by every proper means, and not by methods most easily invoked; and let it ever be remembered that shortsightedness is plainly distinct from altruism. FREDERIC C. PENFIELD. AUTHORS CLUB, NEW YORK CITY, January 26, 1907. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I THE WORLD'S TURNSTILE AT SUEZ 3 II COLOMBO, CEYLON'S COSMOPOLITAN SEA-PORT 30 III THE LURE OF THE PEARL 50 IV UPWARD TO THE SHRINE OF BUDDHA 92 V IN CEYLON'S HILL COUNTRY 108 VI BOMBAY AND ITS PARSEE "JEES" AND "BHOYS" 126