Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/16

viii the untrodden ways of an as yet undecipherable future, looms ever larger and larger upon the horizon of the public view; Japan, at all times a centre of attraction to the casual traveller from the West, acquires a daily growing interest for the people whose interests in Asia are, by common consent and by the more formal testimony of solemn treaty stipulations, inextricably interwoven with her own. But beyond making an appeal to the interest of the general reader, China provides an unusual field for the enterprise of the merchant and manufacturer; while the commercial and industrial ambitions of Japan invite from them the most careful consideration and the most serious study. Need it be added that in the daily moves and counter-moves of these, the two great forces which give to the term "Far East" its present undeniable significance, the politician will find unending and absorbing material for study and speculation.

Generally speaking, volume i. will be found to appeal more especially, though by no means exclusively, to those who find pleasure in following a narrative of travel in unfamiliar