Take the Islands of Jersey and Guernsey in the English Channel, between
England and France, nearer to the French shore than England; the
inhabitants, being a majority of them French, speaking French. Yet when
France was England’s greatest and most dangerous enemy, England held
then, as now, the gates of her enemies. Properly speaking, and adjudged
by any human rule, they belong to France—as naturally as the island of
Heligoland, at the month of the Elbe, belongs to Germany. Gibraltar,
Malta, Cyprus, Suez Canal, Island of Perim in the Straits of Babelmandeb
in the Red Sea, and Socotra, in the same sea; also Aden in the Red Sea,
covering Arabia; Peshawur, the very entrance of or from India into
Afghanistan. In and around the vast empire of India you have Bombay,
Calcutta, Madras, with many similar strongholds; Rangoon, on the Irawady
river, commanding and even menacing Burmah. The vast empire of China is
carefully guarded and held in check by such gates as Singapore, Malacca,
Penang, Hong Kong and Cowloon. Sarawak in Borneo, and Labuan off the
coasts, are such gates. Africa is being gradually gobbled up; her
strongholds and vast areas of country are falling into the hands of
England; the coasts are fast coming under British rule. Recently England
has come into possession of three gates—namely, the island of Socotra,
near the Red Sea, the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean, and the
Sublime Porte, the lofty gateway, Constantinople. And it is now rumoured
that England is negotiating with Portugal for Delogoa Bay in
South-eastern Africa; price, three million dollars. But this people are
not satisfied with all these gates. They want—and they will get what
they want in a very short time, thank Heaven; not what they deserve!—they
want the famous Khyber Pass. This pass is a narrow road between mountain
rocks that rise over two thousand feet at the lowest point. It is some
twenty-eight miles long, while for twenty-two miles the average width is
only 150 feet. The Eastern end the English already hold, called the
Peshawur Pass.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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