Asia is the largest continent of the world. It has three other divisions of the world as its neighbours, Europe, Africa, and Australia, and Asia is more or less connected with these, forming with them the land of the eastern hemisphere, while America belongs to the western hemisphere. Europe is so closely and solidly connected with Asia that it may be said to be a peninsula of it. Africa is joined to Asia by an isthmus 70 miles broad, which since 1869 has been cut through by the Suez Canal. On the other hand, Australia is like an enormous island, and lies quite by itself; the only connection between it and Asia consists of the two series of large islands and innumerable small ones which rise above the surface of the intervening sea. The western chain consists of the Sunda Islands, the eastern of the Philippines and New Guinea. Sumatra is the first island of the immense pontoon bridge which extends south-eastwards from the Malay Peninsula. The next is Java, and then follows a row of medium-sized islands to the east. [Illustration: THE SUNDA ISLANDS.] The animal and vegetable life of these islands is very abundant. In their woods live elephants, rhinoceroses, and tapirs; in the brushwood lurk tigers and panthers; and in the depths of their primeval forests dwell monkeys of various species. The largest is the orang-utang, which grows to a height of five feet, is very strong, savage and dangerous, and is almost always seen on trees. On these islands, too, grow many plants and trees which are invaluable to the use of man--sugar-cane, coffee and tea, rice and tobacco, spices, coco-palms, and the tree the bark of which yields the remedy for fever, quinine. This remedy is needed not least on the Sunda Islands themselves, for fever is general in the low-lying districts round the coasts, though the climate 4000 or 5000 feet above sea-level, among the mountains which occupy the interior of the islands, is good and healthy. The equator passes through the middle of Sumatra and Borneo, and therefore perpetual summer with very moist heat prevails in these islands. The only seasons really distinguishable are the rainy and dry seasons, and the Sunda Islands constitute one of the rainiest regions in the world. The people are Malays and are heathen, but along the coasts Mohammedanism has acquired great influence. The savage tribes of the interior have a blind belief in spirits, which animate all lifeless objects, and the souls of the dead share in the joys and sorrows of the living.