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 adventure, lawlessness and rediscovery of ancient lands came the age of the great trading companies of Britain and of Holland, an epoch which, though trade reigned supreme and political supremacy was sought after as merely a road to riches, has a romance of its own because of the mighty over-seas empires of which these commer- cial ventures were the beginning. Lastly we have traced the gradual extension of European influence throughout the lands of south-eastern Asia—in Burma, in Malaya, in Siam, and in French Indo-China—of all of which to-day Siam alone retains its ancient independence, though it too has had its administrative system materially altered and improved by contact with the nations of the West. It is to this last period-the nineteenth century, and more especially the concluding half of that century—that the detailed exploration of Chryse the Golden belongs, and it now remains for us to take a rapid survey of the information acquired and of the work which remains to be accomplished.

The coast-line of the great Indo-Chinese peninsula, from the mouths of the Ganges to the boundary between Tongking and China, has now been surveyed and charted with an accuracy that leaves nothing to be desired, and the same may be said for almost the whole of the neigh- bouring archipelago of Malaya. The outline, as it were, has been traced with the utmost exactitude: what is the extent to which that outline has been filled in?

The most important geographical feature of these lav- ishly watered lands is their immense river-systems, and it will be convenient, in the first place, to see what is the state of our present knowledge with regard to these.