THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA. 231 



the rapid intercourse with our Indian Empire, through Egypt 

 and the Eed Sea, is in itself an interest of primary import- 

 ance to us, and never more so than at the present moment. 

 The communication thus opened has already reached a speed 

 and regularity of service which place it among the highest 

 efforts of human prowess on the seas. If other and better 

 routes be hereafter obtained through the Persian Grulf), 

 (which is still matter of doubt), equally must we depend on 

 the Mediterranean for a line of passage to that part of the 

 Asiatic coast giving easiest access to the valley of the Eu- 

 phrates. More recently the mail route through this Sea has 

 been taken as the first stage to our Australian colonies ; 

 the shortest line, following the earth's curvature, between 

 England and the great Island-Continent, on the opposite side 

 of the globe. It is a wonderful route to a wonderful coun- 

 try ; each attesting that national energy and power which has 

 brought a new people into birth, and made oceans and seas 

 tributary to the communication with the parent land. The 

 discovery of the Australian gold-fields has doubtless quickened 

 these results, but time would have evolved them even without 

 this great auxiliary. 



All these things are now become familiar to us ; but we 

 nevertheless specify them, because their very familiarity is 

 apt to abate our wonder, and to dissever them from those 

 memorials of older times and things, to which they stand in 

 such singular relation and contrast. Nor must we forget, 

 while speaking of English interests in the Mediterranean, 

 those vast naval and military armaments so recently borne 

 on its waters to the mighty struggle before Sebastopol ; an 

 effort of concentrated power, rising with the need, and 

 greatest at the very moment when peace suspended its 

 further action. These armaments in their course passed 

 along shores and through straits, every bay and promontory 

 of which has its place in ancient poetry or history; and 



