418 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



a year, English mailboats will be steaming to Cuba, 

 Jamaica, and the principal ports of Spanish America, 

 touching once a month at San Juan and Panama. To 

 men of leisure and fortune, jaded with rambling over 

 the ruins of the Old World, a new country will be open- 

 ed. After a journey on the Nile, a day in Petra, and a 

 bath in the Euphrates, English and American travellers 

 will be bitten by moschetoes on the Lake of Nicaragua, 

 and drink Champagne and Burton ale on the desolate 

 shores of San Juan on the Pacific. The random re- 

 marks of the traveller for amusement, and the observa- 

 tions of careful and scientific men, will be brought to- 

 gether, a mass of knowledge will be accumulated and 

 made public, and in my opinion the two oceans will be 

 united. 



In regard to the advantages of this work I shall 

 not go into any details ; I will remark, however, that 

 on one point there exists a great and very general er- 

 ror. In the documents submitted to Congress before 

 referred to, it is stated that " the trade of the United 

 States and of Europe with China, Japan, and the In- 

 dian Archipelago would be facilitated and increased by 

 reason of shortening the distance above four thousand 

 miles;" and in that usually correct work, the Modern 

 Traveller, it is stated that from Europe "the distance to 

 India and China would be shortened more than 10,000 

 miles !" but by measurement on the globe the distance 

 from Europe to India and China will not be shortened 

 at all. This is so contrary to the general impression 

 that I have some hesitation in making the assertion, 

 but it is a point on which the reader may satisfy himself 

 by referring to the globe. The trade of Europe with 

 India and Canton, then, will not necessarily pass through 

 this channel from any saving of distance ; but, from con- 



