Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/131

Rh opened. What facilities have been given to trade by this great work of the great Frenchman! The P. and O. Company's steamers were about the only steamers by which one could go from India to Europe in the olden days;—what a number of new companies have been started since the opening of the Canal!

The Canal is nearly 90 miles long, and the Canal dues are very heavy and must bring a large profit to the shareholders. The rate is I think 10 Franks for each ton of cargo and for each passenger. A steamer taking 5,000 tons of cargo pays therefore 50,000 Franks, or £2,000 Stirling! And there is scarcely a day that several steamers are not passing through the Canal.

Among the steamers that we passed by in the Canal, I will mention one. It was a Japanese Man-or-War,—entirely manned and officered by the Japanese. Among all the nations of Asia the Japanese are the only people who are keeping abreast of European civilization; and they are doing so by their energy and honest work, and by their freely adopting whatever is good and great in modern civilization. As I am writing these lines I see a correspondence in the "Times" of the 27th December last on the subject which is so interesting that I venture to make a few extracts.

"When the Japanese Government embarked, after the revolution of 1868, on the path of reform, which they have ever since steadily pursued, they looked to the West for capable instructors, and consequently about 1870 began an influx of Europeans into the Japanese service.