As already stated, between 1904 and 1905 at the latest, a continuous railroad will bring Europe in touch with the shores of the Pacific. The distances between Paris, Berlin, and London, and Vladivostok and Port Arthur are as follows: 5,852 miles from St. Petersburg, viâ Moscow. 6,370 miles from Berlin. 7,044 miles from Paris. 7,104 miles from London, viâ Dover and Ostend. European expresses would traverse the longest of these distances in one week; but it must be remembered that it is not at present possible for trains to run over the Siberian Railway at such high speeds as from forty to fifty miles an hour. These are only possible upon the very substantial lines of Western Europe, and are indeed much in excess of what is achieved by the American Trans-Continental trains, once they cross the Mississippi, or by the Canadian Pacific, the speed on which between Montreal and Vancouver rarely exceeds twenty-five miles, and even this relatively low rate cannot be expected at first on the Trans-Siberian Railway. The rails are very light, especially on the first or western sections, and the whole railroad is, in many places, as is often the case in America, rather primitively constructed. It is therefore calculated that the Far East express, the weekly _train-de-luxe_, which is to be organized as soon as the line is completely finished,[14] will take not less than twelve days to perform the journey between London or Paris and Vladivostok and Port Arthur, which will not necessitate a greater speed than twenty miles an hour over the Siberian lines. When, however, the system is better managed and placed on the same footing as that of the Canadian Pacific, the journey may possibly be performed in a few hours under eleven days. The Trans-Siberian route will, once it is opened, be incomparably the shortest route between Europe and the Far East. It takes from Vladivostok to the Japanese ports of Nawoyetsu and Niigata on the Japanese Sea, a distance of about 480 miles, about forty hours by steamer. From thence, about 280 miles of rail, traversed in fifteen hours, will bring the capital of the Mikado within two and a half days from Vladivostok, and about fifteen days from Paris. On the other hand, the Chinese line, which is now being reorganized by an English company between Peking and Tien-tsin, and from thence to Shan-hai-kwan at the foot of the Great Wall, is being extended to Niu-chwang, where it will join the Russian lines, and thus the journey from Paris and London to Peking can be performed in between thirteen and fifteen days. Shanghai, the principal port of China, is distant 575 miles from Port Arthur, and can be reached in two days, and thus Hong-Kong will be only seventeen days’ journey from London. It now takes thirty-four days at least to get from Paris or London to Yokohama viâ the Suez Canal, and twenty-one viâ Canada, and certainly not less than twenty-eight days to reach Shanghai