All these means of dominion and dissemination once procured, the great work clearly assigned to the race of Japhet may proceed. Intercourse with the most savage and uncivilized tribes is eagerly cultivated even at the risk of life. New avenues to trade are opened up in places where men, still living in the most primitive state, have few if any wants; and it is considered as part of the keen merchant's skill to fill the minds of these uncouth and unsophisticated barbarians with the desire of every possible luxury. Have we not lately heard that the savages of the Feejee Islands, who were a few years ago cannibals, have now a king seeking the protection of England, if not the annexation of his kingdom to the British empire? Yes, the material civilization of Europe, the new discoveries of steam and magnetism, the untiring energy of men aiming at universal dominion, give to the Caucasian race such a superiority over the rest of mankind that the time seems to be fast approaching when the manners, the dress, the look even of Europeans, will supersede all other types, and spread everywhere the dead level of our habits. This fact has already been realized in America, North and South. Geographers may give lengthened descriptions of the original tribes which still possess a shadow of existence; foreign readers may perhaps imagine that the continent is still in the quiet possession of rude and uncivilized races roaming at will over its surface, and allowing some Europeans to occupy certain cities and harbors for the purposes of trade and barter. We know that nothing could be more erroneous. The Europeans are the real possessors, north and south; the Indians are permitted to exist on a few spots contracting year by year into narrower limits. The northern and larger half of the continent is chiefly the dwelling-place of the most active branch of the bold race of Japhet. The first of the iron lines which are to connect its Atlantic and Pacific coasts has recently been laid. Cities spring up all along its track: the harbors of California, Oregon, and Alaska, will soon swarm much more than now with hardy navigators ready to europeanize the various groups of islands scattered over the Pacific. Already in the Sandwich and Tahiti groups the number of Europeans is greatly in excess of that of the natives. Those natives who, in the Philippine Islands, have been preserved by the Catholic Church, will too soon disappear from the surface of the largest ocean of the globe. Then Eastern Asia will be attacked much more seriously than ever before. Since its discovery, Europeans could only reach it through the long distances which divide Western Europe from China and Japan. But within a short time numerous lines of steamships, starting from San Francisco, Portland, Honolulu, and many other harbors yet nameless, will land travellers in Yokohama, Hakodadi, Yeddo, Shanghai, Canton, and other emporiums of Asia.