We have visited Canton and Shanghai because there we find a few Englishmen, living on Chinese soil, but under their own laws and with certain limited powers of self-government. In Shanghai, even these privileges are not exclusive, as they are shared with other foreigners; and they do not imply any interference with the political sovereignty of China. Wei-hai-wei and the New Territory behind Kaulun we govern, but only on lease; Hongkong and the peninsula of Kaulun alone are ours in full possession. So we return to Hongkong, as the last outpost of British power in the Far East and the real terminus of our voyage. Let us pause here, on the outer rim of our Eastern Empire, and 64 try to realize its position with reference to the great lines of the world’s traffic. South of us lies the route which we have traced from Singapore and India; while another route, as yet in its infancy, leads past Borneo to Australia. Across the Pacific, from the eastward, come the steamers from British Columbia and San Francisco; and soon, when the Panama Canal is finished, there will be direct communication from the Atlantic seaboard of the United States. So we see a great concentration of routes on our Eastern Empire, in the region where the influences of India and China meet and overlap. The key to this frontier region is in Singapore, but behind Singapore lies India. We have approached India from the northwest, by the passage of the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal; and we have seen how our interests in the Mediterranean, at first purely European, have become more and more related to the control of the seaway to India. Southwest is the older route, by way of the Atlantic and the Cape, a route still valuable for some purposes. Here the control of the route led us on to the occupation of the neighbouring mainland of Africa. Southeast again we reach Australia, either directly across the ocean or threading the island group of Malaya; while the Indian Ocean has its own system of minor local routes. So we have lines of traffic from every part of the world converging on the Indian region, with its vast trade and swarming population; the natural junction of all these sea roads, great and small, is Colombo, close to the mainland of the Peninsula, yet at the same time well out in the open sea, the centre of control from which India reaches out in every direction and dominates the Indian Ocean. List of Slides [_The titles printed in heavy type are those of the Maps and Illustrations appearing in the book._] SET I _Slide No_