At present the style is changing, and from wood are becoming iron, with such massive sides of thick steel, that no shot fired from any cannon shall be able to break through! So these English think to sail with these huge iron machines into the waters of any people and force submission. For the mighty cannon, shooting out vast fiery balls of steel, are expected to knock to pieces any Castles and utterly burn and destroy any city. And sheltered in these impregnable, swift, floating fortresses of steel, these Barbarians expect absolutely to dominate over all the Seas, and to sink everything which dares to oppose. This supremacy is already vaunted; and all the taxes which can be got from the people, from the tea and beer which they drink, from the tobacco which they smoke, from the letters and papers which they write and use in affairs, and from a share of their daily toil, are devoted (after handing a certain portion to the Queen and the High-Castes for their pleasures) to these big, floating machines of war, to the huge cannons, and to arm and pay the sailors and soldiers, that this domination be absolutely assured! Still, so far, none of these terrible vessels have proved of any use, as they can neither float nor fight; or, if they float, turn bottom upwards at a small breath of wind, and, if moved to act in concert, are so unmanageable as to be only terrible to each other! The sailors, therefore, dread them as unfit for the sea, and as _Iron Coffins_ to poor Jack, who is forced to go into them! The introduction of _Steam_ has only rendered the Western Barbarians more conceited and more miserable. On nothing do they pride themselves so much as upon the tremendous _Force_, which they have acquired in the various Arts, by the use of steam. They, in this, as in other similar inventions, mistake the nature of the thing used and its effect. They think themselves _wiser_ because they move faster--as if the hare be necessarily wittier than the ox; and more civilised, because more powerful--as if the rhinoceros were to be preferred to the horse. At this moment, the Barbarian tribes of the West are devoting all their energies to this single notion of Supremacy. FORCE is absolutely the most coveted thing--to be strong, the only desirable thing. And the acme of that civilisation of which they boast, glitters only with polished steel, towering high, bristling with terrible weapons of destruction! There are canals not much used, and not commonly of good depth and width. The High-roads are nearly as good, in some parts, as those in our Flowery Land; but more frequently quite inferior, being either very dusty or muddy. They have none of the conveniences for the shelter or rest of travellers, provided everywhere by our Illustrious; nor are the signal towers and fine shade trees, which give such beauty to our roads, to be seen, excepting occasionally, and quite by chance, the latter.