articles—silk and tea, for instance—can certainly be brought in fair quantities, viâ the Siberian line, at a reasonable price. One of the great advantages of the line will be the facilities it offers for forwarding letters to and from China, Japan, etc., in considerably less than half the time now taken. As to the social transformation which must inevitably result from the constant passage of so many people belonging to the highly civilized nations of the west, through a country hitherto so backward as Siberia, it may well be summed up as incalculable. That Russia will specially benefit by the creation of a line which she has built at an enormous cost is but just, and, moreover, surely the reward for her courage and enterprise. At the same time, civilization will also find a common interest in the amazing difference which so important a factor must inevitably create in the history of progress in the Far East. _PART II.—JAPAN_ CHAPTER I THE ORIGIN AND PAST HISTORY OF JAPAN Different opinions respecting Japan and the reforms which have been carried out in that Empire within the past few years—Necessity of understanding something of Japanese history in order to appreciate the recent transformation in the country—Origin of the Japanese—Early history—The Mikados—The Japanese adopt Chinese civilization between the fifth and eighth centuries of our era—Inability for the Japanese to accept certain Chinese institutions—Decline of the absolute power of the Mikados—Military government adopted in the twelfth century—Japanese feudalism—Increase of power among the feudal lords in the fourteenth century—Civil wars and anarchy in the fifteenth century—Order re-established and the Government centralized through the action of the great military chieftains at the end of the sixteenth century—Foundation of the dynasty of the Tokugawa Shoguns—Europeans in Japan in the sixteenth century—The Japanese accept our civilization with enthusiasm—Rapid spread of Christianity—Reaction in the seventeenth century—Purely political causes—Persecution of Christians and the expulsion of foreigners—Japan isolated during nearly two centuries.