highways. After the Atlantic, the most crowded ocean routes are those which lead to and ramify in the East. These seas, not so long since the haunts of pirates, are ploughed by the keels of a dozen large steamship lines, and the crowded harbours and busy seaport towns, from Colombo to Nagasaki and Yokohama, rival those of Europe and America.

A great line, the history of which has its origin in the days of sailing craft, and of which Englishmen are justly proud, is the Peninsular and Oriental. To many its services are associated with the memories of a long life spent in the tropics. For more than half a century, since the palmy days of Indiamen and clippers, it has been the chief means of communication between England and the East. The history of this fleet began in 1825; the present company commenced its career in 1836, and was incorporated in 1840. It now owns sixty vessels, the largest of which register close upon 8000 tons. They run between London, India, the Far East, and Australia. The mail contracts are sixteen and a half days to Bombay, thirty-seven and a half days to Shanghai, and thirty-five and a half days to Australia. Seldom are the mails even an hour late-they are generally in advance of the contract times. The Caledonia has landed mails in Bombay within twelve and a quarter days from London. These ships touch at the Indian ports, at those of the Malay Peninsula, at Hong Kong, at the Japanese ports, as far north as Yokohama, and in Australian waters, from Albany to Sydney. Fourteen Peninsular and Oriental steamers are retained on the list of armed cruisers. During the past twenty years the Company has spent over 7,000,000l. on their fleet. It is the oldest but one of the great lines, and its vitality remains unimpaired by its long career of success.

Few perhaps, excepting those who are in touch with the Orient, know that one of the largest and best shipping lines in the world is owned in Japan and manned chiefly by Japanese. This line-the Japan Mail Steamship Company (Nippon Yusen Kaisha) has marvellously developed from half-a-dozen small vessels, owned some thirty years since by the feudal chief of Tosa. At present it comprises a fleet of sixty-seven steamers, besides about a dozen in course of construction. At first and for many years a merely local service, its vessels now sweep the ocean between Antwerp and London and the East, via Suez, calling at numerous intermediate ports. They cross from Yokohama to Seattle, south of Vancouver. There is also an Australian service, as well as one for islands in the South Seas, and another for the Malay Archipelago. The story of the rapid expansion of this line, since the establishment of the present

company in 1885, is like a romance, harmonising well with the rapid development of Japan in other respects.

The largest fleet of vessels in Eastern waters is that of the joint British India Steam Navigation Company and British India Associated Steamers Company. Their vessels, the names of which all terminate in 'a,' as Ellora, Golconda, &c., number over one hundred, but they are mostly of less than 6000 tons. There is scarcely an Eastern port, however obscure, at which some of the vessels of this fleet do not call; and the vast spaces of the ocean area from London to Singapore and Australia are covered by the operations of over twenty distinct services of steamships. They are ubiquitous in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea; down the East Coast of Africa, as far south as Delagoa Bay; far up the Persian Gulf to Busreh; around India from Kurrachee to Calcutta; thence to the Burmese ports, to Java and Australia. Many obscure Arabian and East Indian sea-ports are places of call for these steamers-towns which possess as yet no harbours, where the anchorage is often miles from the shore, and where on landing there are no hotels to welcome the traveller.

The great French line, the Messageries Maritimes de France, is to France and Southern Europe what the Peninsular and Oriental is to England. Its head-quarters are at Marseilles, whence its vessels sail for the East, Australasia, and South America. The company owns sixty-one steamships, which are grouped and allotted for the various services. In the Mediterranean and Black Sea alone they employ eighteen ships. The Messageries steamers to the East all go through Suez. These do not touch the West or South African ports; but a separate Indian Ocean service includes Madagascar and the East African ports, as far south as Natal. The North German Lloyd has an Imperial mail service between Bremen, China, Japan, and Australia, calling at Naples. The AustrianLloyd vessels run between Trieste and Bombay, through Suez. The steamships of the Italian General Navigation Company (United Florio and Rubattino Companies) also take the Suez route from Genoa and Naples to Bombay.

The name of Suez is writ large in the story of the ocean liners. The opening of the canal in 1869 has so greatly diverted the traffic to the East that the proportion of voyages through the canal to those round the Cape is now about as 104 to 60. The duration of the journey to India is shortened by about one-third. Since 1886-7 the canal has been opened for night passages to steamers equipped with electric light. In 1871, 765 ships went through, of a net tonnage of 761,467; in

1897, 2986 ships, of a tonnage of 7,899,373. In 1875, 84,446 passengers travelled by the canal; in 1897, 191,215. Though the ships of all nations are to be seen here, British vessels vastly predominate, contributing an average of 76 per cent. of the tolls. One-seventh of our foreign commerce goes over this

route.

Within living memory the only route to the Far East was that which went eastwards, the alternative being the western voyage round the Horn-a terror to sailing craft. But now there is choice of two western routes across the North American continent, and these absorb a large and increasing volume of trade. Two of the greatest and youngest of the mammoth American railways have become linked with the Orient by fleets of steamers. One of these railways is the Canadian Pacific, which stretches for 2900 miles across the continent from Halifax to Vancouver. The Canadian Pacific owns the three vessels of the Empress line, which cross every three weeks between Vancouver and the ports of China and Japan, carrying those mails of the British Government that go to the East through Canada. By the Empress line one may travel the 10,038 miles which separate Hong Kong from Liverpool with but two changes. There is choice of a dozen lines of steamers across the Atlantic, by which the traveller can land at New York or at Canadian ports. About eight days will cover the 2832 miles from Liverpool to Montreal, and five days the 2906 miles of Canadian Pacific Railway between Montreal and Vancouver; while fourteen days are required for the 4300 miles of ocean between Vancouver and Yokohama. Thus, twenty-seven days only separate Liverpool from Japan. The second route across North America is by the Northern Pacific and Union Pacific lines, which pass through Utah to San Francisco, whence there is a choice of steamship lines to Asia.

6

The ocean voyage of 4300 miles between Vancouver and Yokohama crosses the 180th meridian, opposite to Greenwich, about midway in the ocean. Antipodes day' marks the highest northward position of the ships in the great curve which they describe from port to port, great-circle sailing being taken in order to shorten the voyage, by passing through the narrower spaces between the meridians as they converge towards the pole. It is a dreamy experience, for nowhere is the loneliness of the ocean more evident than in the vast Pacific. There are no

passing sails; no icebergs break the monotony of the voyage. The only excitement is derived from the chance of a typhoon in August or September, but no storm in the open endangers the big taut ships. Life on these steamers is inarked by strong

contrasts with that on the Atlantic vessels. The influence of the Orient is felt. There mingle merchants of the East, old travellers, who are familiar with the route, and who take life leisurely. There are wealthy Chinese and Japanese; dealers in tea, silks, and opium; pearl merchants and teak merchants; planters from Siam and Java and the East Indian Archipelago; missionaries and agents of British commercial houses; and, finally, globe-trotters, in search of health, amusement, or information, whom the much-travelled folk regard with goodhumoured toleration. Chinamen in blue blouses and caps are servants and waiters; they glide to and fro silently at the call of 'boy' or on clapping of the hands, and the luncheon is called 'tiffin.' All this savours of the stationary East, but the West asserts itself on the mechanical side. The electric fan cools the air, the electric light beams, and the highest resources of scientific engineering wait on the safety of the ship and the comfort of the passengers. What is termed 'Asiatic steerage' is a separate class on the Pacific steamers, being retained exclusively for Chinese, Japanese, &c., who indulge in opium smoking it is open to men only. The bones of Chinese who have died in America are often a portion of the cargo carried, and if a Chinaman should die on board, it is stipulated that he shall not be buried at sea, but embalmed and taken to his own land.

The

Australasia can be reached either by eastern or western routes -through Suez, or round the Cape, or across the American continent. Besides the Peninsular and Oriental and other lines already named in connexion with the East there are others whose principal or only business lies in the Antipodes. Among the best-known of these is the great Orient line, which commenced its career in 1877 with the Lusitania. present company was founded in the following year with inonthly sailings, changed since 1880 for fortnightly services. The vessels go through Suez, calling at Colombo on their way to Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney. The Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company is the offspring of the amalgamation of two firms, whose history dates back about half a century. The Company owns twelve excellently fitted mail steamers, besides sailing vessels. They all make the outward voyage round the Cape of Good Hope, calling at Teneriffe, Cape Town, Hobart, and New Zealand, the time occupied being from forty-three to forty-four days. The homeward journey lies round Cape Horn, call being made at Rio de Janeiro and Teneriffe, and the voyage occupies about forty days. One can therefore sail round the world by this line in a trifle over eighty days. Only sixty

years ago the voyage to New Zealand occupied from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty days; the clippers brought the period down to eighty or ninety days; and this has now been reduced by half.

The New Zealand Shipping Company owns a fleet of fourteen steamers, engaged between New Zealand and London, calling at the Cape on the outward, and at Monte Video on the homeward voyage-thus circumnavigating the globe. In 1882 this company made the experiment of fitting up the sailingship Mataura with refrigerators, and took a large quantity of fish and birds from London to New Zealand, bringing back a cargo of frozen beef and mutton at a freight of 23d. per pound. This was the commencement of the frozen meat trade, previous to which the farmers had reared sheep for the wool chiefly, boiling down the carcases for tallow. The introduction of the frozen meat trade still further developed the exports of wool, and has created a new business in cheese, butter, fruits, &c. The passenger vessels of this line, as well as those of the Orient and the Shaw Savill Companies, are now fitted with refrigerating chambers. Some of the largest steamships of the New Zealand Shipping Company will carry from 60,000 to 70,000 carcases. At present those of the Shaw Savill Company carry an average of over 50,000 carcases each, and their entire fleet brings over more than 1,500,000 carcases of mutton annually.

Mechanical refrigeration is effected by the application of simple principles. It has long been known that the compression of a liquid or a gas developes its latent heat into sensible heat. This, therefore, is what is done, whether the substance be gaseous ammonia, liquid carbonic acid, ether, or air. The heat thus rendered sensible is removed by forcing the compressed substance through condenser pipes, over which cold water is allowed to flow. The next stage occurs in the refrigerating chambers, into which the substance, now deprived of its heat, is introduced and within which it expands. During expansion its lost heat must be replaced by withdrawal from surrounding objects, and as the storage chambers are occupied with provisions, the heat is abstracted from them. The precise degree of cold required is capable of regulation, and different classes of provisions are subjected to different degrees of temperature. After the refrigerating agent used has done its work in the storage chambers, and resumed its normal condition, it is taken back to the compresser, to pass through a renewal of the cycle.

To return from this digression: the other great route to the