nate, and a protracted war with England is what Russia will be least able to maintain. Even the French were unable to carry on such a war with England when they both contested for supremacy in India; and the extent to which Russia broke down after the Crimean war would seem to indicate that it would be hopeless for her under great reverses to prevent her own combustion. The Czar, says Vambery, is constructing railways to facilitate the passage of pilgrims to holy places and of soldiers to India. Be it so. If England can properly utilise the strength she has in India itself, she will be quite able to repel all the Cossacks that the Czar could bring against her. Armed with Snider rifles, the Punjabees and Rajpoots-leaving aside the Mahomedans, who need not be trusted-will be more than a match for such soldiers as the Cossacks.

and

But are not Vambery and the other Russophobists mistaking Russia's object altogether? A regular army can now, says Vambery, be transported in twenty days from the shores of the Caspian to Herat. But Herat is not the key to India, as was long erroneously supposed. Across Afghanistan is a wild raid to ride. People who talk of the march from Herat to India appear to forget how the army of Napoleon I. fared on its invasion of Russia; yet that was an invincible army led on by the greatest warrior of the age, with generals subordinate to him almost as able as their chief. An army that attempted to cross over Afghanistan to come to India would fare much worse. Herat, therefore, does not open India to the invader in the least. It only opens Russia's path to Persia. If it be that Russia is only preparing for the thorough and simultaneous subversion of the Mahomedan power in

Turkey and Persia, England has no call to oppose her to thwart that consummation. She has got a very turbulent Mahomedan population in India to control, which will be less so when the Turks and the Persians cease to be independent; and for the preservation of the balance of power in Europe, Britain has no particular need to interfere, since no one has more heavily freighted that balance than herself.

Of course it is in the power of Russia to provoke a collision with the English if, knowing her risks, she chooses to do so; and this may convulse India and throw back her civilisation for half a century; but it can do nothing more. The people of India as a rule are contented, if not happy, under their present rulers. The Hindu races have no particular reason to hate them, and freely admit in their own way that the white monkeys are zealously working for their civilisation. Some Hindus, it is true, joined the sepoy revolt, but only as dupes; and they well remember the lesson that was taught them on that occasion, and are not likely to rise again. The approach of the Russians may make the Mahomedans restive; but it is not probable that even they would prefer the Russians as masters instead of the English; and though they may wish to fight for their own hand, in that they know they have not the slightest chance of success. Russia would not back them to restore Mahomedanism to India, and the Mahomedans would not submit to the Russians with any better grace than they submit to the English. Were it possible, then, to shake the firm seat of England in India even for a time, it would only be to wear out the Russian and Moslem powers against each other.

The territories held by England in India comprise an area at least eight times as large as that of Great Britain and Ireland, with a population four times as numerous, the latest returns giving the population of the British territory in India alone at one hundred and ninety-five millions. The natives of the country suffice for the cultivation of the soil and the development of its resources, while the service of the Government and the occupations of trade find employment for the large number of Europeans now supported by it. The revenue of India amounts to about fifty millions" sterling; and if the expenditure comes up to a nearly equal sum, or between forty-six and forty-eight millions, that includes the handsome remuneration paid to Europeans for service and on other accounts, by which Great Britain is largely and directly benefited. The imports of merchandise to India are valued at about forty millions, and the exports from it at about sixty millions. A dependency so rich was never possessed by any country before: well governed and consolidated, it would make a firstclass power of itself; and fully does it account for the envy with which the success of the English in India is regarded by other nations. But what other nation would have proved equal to the trust, and have done half as much good to the country held under subjection in return for the advantages reaped from it? The people of India had a civilisation of their own when they were subdued, and this accounts for Christianity not having been able to supersede Brahmanism or Buddhism: but, short of that, the teachings of the English have been fully appreciated, and are emulated and followed, and even the ethics of the English code are now in

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the ascendant in a country which had long retained a name for perjury and dishonesty. And through India, all this civilisation has, to the glory of England, been refracted to China, Japan, Siam, and Persia.

Canada.

Of colonisation proper the noblest result obtained by England was the formation of the United States of America, which have since become independent. Notwithstanding their defection, however, a very fair portion of the North American continent is still an integral part of the British empire, adding to it an area of three and a half million square miles, and a population which has already risen to above four millions. The Canadian Dominion, as this territory is now called, comprises Canada (East and West), New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Breton, with the whole of Hudson Bay territory, which is almost uninhabited. The first of these, Canada, was so named by the Spaniards (Capo di Nada, or the Cape of Nothing) when they went to it in search of gold and were disappointed. The first to settle in it were the French, who named it Nouvelle or New France. A party of convicts colonised it so early as 1598; but no regular settlement was formed till 1608, or about the time when the Pilgrim Fathers went out from Britain to colonise New England. The wars between the English and the French were at this time very frequent, and the French colonies in America came thus to be several times taken and

given back. Canada was finally wrested from France by General Wolfe, in 1759, and formally

ceded by the treaty of 1762. At this time all its wealth consisted of the skins of the bear, the beaver, the buffalo, the fox, the marten, the minx, and the wolf. The wealth and resources of Canada now are quite equal to what the wealth and resources of the United States were at the commencement of their career of independence. Next to England and the United States she has the largest mercantile marine in the world.

New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were both portions of New France or Acadia, and were colonised in 1604. After having been lost and restored on diverse occasions, they were finally transferred to Great Britain in 1713, though they continued to be a source of contest ever after, till 1762, or the time when Canada was formally ceded. Prince Edward Island had been little used by the French, and was not settled till after the conquest of Acadia by Great Britain, when many of the French colonists crossed over the narrow strait to occupy it. It fell into the hands of the English in 1758, when Cape Breton also was taken.

The Hudson Bay territory was named after Hudson, who proceeded in that direction in 1610, on an expedition in search of a north-west passage to India. In 1670, a company, called the Hudson Bay Company, was formed for the appropriation of this terra incognita and the development of commerce in it. These owners held under the words of their charter all the lands and territories lying within the entrance of Hudson Strait not already owned by Great Britain or actually possessed by any other state-that is, all the tract from Labrador and the Atlantic Ocean to British Columbia and the Pacific, the total area of which was equal to about