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England, on the other hand, has added to her fame by establishing the following naval and coaling stations along the great highways of trade:—

Heligoland in the North Sea, the Channel Islands, Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Perim, Aden, Ceylon, Singapore, Hong Kong and Labuan; the Accession Islands, St. Helena, and the Cape of Good Hope, in Africa; the Bermuda Islands, Halifax, the West Indies, especially Jamaica, and the Falkland Islands in America, besides many important islands in the South and West Pacific.

By means of these, in the present days of steam, she has been able to maintain her place as the Queen of the Maritime World—a position superior to Russia, although the latter country is lord of one-seventh of the globe.

With such great rivals, we can surely predict that at some future time Russia will work her way into Manchooria and Mongolia to the Yellow Sea and attack the North Pacific. “Everything is obtained by pains,” said Peter the Great, in 1722; “even India was not easily found after the long journey round the Cape of Good Hope.”^[27] To this Soimonf, who afterwards devoted himself for seventeen years to the exploration of Siberia, and was its governor, said that “Russia had a much nearer road to India, and explained the water system of Siberia, how easily and with how little land carriage goods could be sent from Russia to the Pacific and then by ships to India.” Peter replied, “It is a long distance and of no use yet awhile.” But in the present days of telegraphy and railroads it is not a great distance at all.