With this preliminary review we may proceed to consider the history of colonization within the century. And first we must take up the results of the colonial enterprise of Great Britain, as much the most important of the whole. Of this story we have already described some of the leading features. A chapter has been given to the story of the Indian empire of Great Britain, far the largest of her colonial possessions, and another to that of South Africa. In addition to Hindustan, in which the dominion of Great Britain now extends to Afghanistan and Thibet in the north, the British colony now includes Burmah and the west-coast region of Indo-China, with the Straits Settlements in the Malay peninsula, and the island of Ceylon, acquired in 1802 from Holland. [=Australia and New Zealand=] In the eastern seas Great Britain possesses another colony of vast dimensions, the continental island of Australia, which, with its area of nearly 3,000,000 square miles, is three-fourths the size of Europe. The first British settlement was made here in 1788, at Port Jackson, the site of the present thriving city of Sydney, and the island was long maintained as a penal settlement, convicts being sent there as late as 1868. It was the discovery of gold in 1851 to which Australia owed its great progress. The incitement of the yellow metal drew the enterprising thither by thousands, until the population of the colony is now more than 3,000,000, and is growing at a rapid rate, it having developed other valuable resources besides that of gold. Of its cities, Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, has more than 300,000 population; Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, probably 250,000, while there are other cities of rapid growth. Australia is the one important British colony obtained without a war. In its human beings, as in its animals generally, it stood at a low level of development, and it was taken possession of without a protest from the savage inhabitants. The same cannot be said of the inhabitants of New Zealand, an important group of islands lying east of Australia, which was acquired by Great Britain as a colony in 1840. The Maoris, as the people of these islands call themselves, are of the bold and sturdy Polynesian race, a brave, generous, and warlike people, who have given their new lords and masters no little trouble. A series of wars with the natives began in 1843 and continued until 1869, since which time the colony has enjoyed peace. It can have no more trouble with the Maoris, since there are said to be no more Maoris. They have vanished before the "white man's face." At present this colony is one of the most advanced politically of any region on the face of the earth, so far as attention to the interests of the masses of the people is concerned, and its laws and regulations offer a useful object lesson to the remainder of the world. [=Other British Colonies=]