[Sidenote: Services performed.] The steamers engaged on the China line leave San Francisco for Yokohama and Hong Kong every alternate Saturday, connecting at Yokohama with their branch steamers for Shanghai and at Hong Kong with the English and French steamers for Singapore and the principal ports in India, and, viâ the Suez Canal, with the Mediterranean and Atlantic ports of Europe. The New York and Panama line connects at Aspinwall with the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company to Southampton; with the West India and Pacific Steam Packet Company to Liverpool; with the Hamburg-American Steam Packet Company to Hamburg, and with the Companie Générale Trans-Atlantique to France. At Panama, they connect with the Pacific Steam Navigation Company to all South American ports. The Mexican and Central American line leaves San Francisco every alternate Thursday for Panama, stopping at all Mexican and Central American ports. The New York and Panama line leaves New York every alternate Saturday and San Francisco every alternate Wednesday. [Sidenote: China and Japan line.] The China and Japan line, which the company is now promoting with great vigour, was not started until the 1st of January, 1867, when the first of its fleet passed out of the “Golden Gate” of California bound across the Pacific to those ancient nations. The _Great Republic_, _China_, _Japan_, and _America_, all of them wooden vessels with paddle-wheels and “walking beam” engines, soon followed. These vessels, of somewhere about 4000 tons each, make the voyage from San Francisco to Yokohama in twenty-two days, thence to Hong-Kong in seven more, the whole distance occupying, with the stoppage at Yokohama, thirty days. Until recently, the service was monthly each way, but the rapid increase of trade has now induced the company to despatch a steamer from each end, once a fortnight. Between Yokohama and Shanghai, this company runs, in connection with the large steamers, many smaller vessels which, passing through the inland seas of Japan and calling at Hiogo and Nagasaki, have secured a large share of the local traffic, at the same time feeding the trunk line, the vessels of which have very extensive accommodation for the numerous Chinese passengers, between Hong-Kong and San Francisco. Though this company now finds a large and increasing amount of employment for its ships in goods, as well as passengers, consisting chiefly of wheat, flour, treasure, and general merchandise for China, and tea, sugar, cleaned rice, oil, and miscellaneous articles in return, it is largely subsidised by the American Government, which, as well as its subjects, shows considerable jealousy of the steamers of other countries competing for the same trade.