more than doubtful whether Siam will ever fight her way into anything like the position which Japan has won for herself by a perseverance and force of character which it has been the fashion in some quarters to underrate. If, indeed, Siam eventually should succeed in doing so and defeating the expectations of the majority, there are few of us who would not rejoice. For with all their faults the Siamese are a singularly attractive people, and that their individuality should be merged and lost in that of some powerful neighbour would be no small cause of regret. The gaiety of nations might not be eclipsed, but it would certainly be diminished.

difficulty that will present itself to him of producing any serious facts on the other side."

CHAPTER II

GEOGRAPHY AND COMMERCE

THERE are few parts of the world of which the educated public in Europe know so little as the Indo-Chinese peninsula. Books of travel in Central Asia, and Africa, and South America are eagerly read, while the names of the small band of explorers in this region are scarcely known. Of the few visitors who have a passing acquaintance with Bangkok or Saigon hardly any have penetrated into the interior, and yet here are some of the richest, not to say most interesting, districts of the earth, where not unimportant political issues may be fought out in the future. The whole of Indo-China, with the exception of the appendage of the Malay peninsula, may be regarded geographically as one country, shut off from the rest of the continent by rough mountain barriers, and possessing marked physical features of its own. The peninsula is one long slope downwards to the ocean from the uplands of the north and north-west, which culminate in the lofty mountain ranges of Thibet, and

the rivers flow in a uniformly southerly or southeasterly direction into the Bay of Bengal, the Gulf of Siam, and the Southern China seas. Roughly speaking, it is drained by four or five great rivers. On the western side the Irrawaddy with its tributaries, and the Salween, which for two hundred miles forms the boundary of Burmah and Siam, drain Lower and Upper Burmah, and find their way into the Bay of Bengal, to the west of the long and narrow Malay Peninsula. The Menam, with its great tributary the Meping, has its source in the Laos uplands, and fertilises the whole of central Siam, issuing at last, through land that its own rich deposits have formed, at the head of the Gulf of Siam. The Mekong, by far the longest river of Indo-China, has its rise further north in the highlands of Thibet. After a devious course, during a great part of which it forms the present boundary between Siam and the French possessions, it enters the territory of the ancient kingdom of Cambodia, and at last, forming a delta, reaches the sea in the French colony of Cochin China, whose chief town, Saigon, is situated on a smaller river a little to the east of it. Owing to the rough and mountainous character of the narrow strip of country between the lower Mekong and the China Sea, there is no room for other rivers of importance in Southern Annam; and it is not until we get north as far as Tongking that we reach another great river basin, that of the Red River, which, running more in an

easterly direction, drains Tongking, and which the French hoped would form a means of communication between their colony and the province of Yunnan in Southern China.

It is of great importance to understand the river system of Indo-China, not only for purely physical and geographical reasons, but even more because it affords the key to the commercial, and indirectly to the political situation. It will be readily understood that in an undeveloped and tropical country, thickly overgrown with jungle and forest, where roads and railways hardly exist, the great rivers would naturally form the highways of commerce, even if it were not for the fact that the richest lands lie close to the fertilising waters, and form the chief centres of population. This consideration alone would make this river system of great interest, even if Indo-China were an isolated region, and had no connexion with other parts of the world. But valuable and much coveted as is the trade of IndoChina itself, the control of its great rivers has proved an object of still keener competition, because they have been thought likely to form the lines of trade communication between the sea and the rich and thickly-populated provinces of Southern and Western China. It was as much with Chinese trade as their ultimate objective as from a desire to make territorial acquisitions in Asia that the French first established themselves in Cochin China; and when they found that the

River Mekong did not realise their expectations, they then turned their attention to Tongking, in which region it seemed possible that the Red River would form the easiest means of access to the trade of Yunnan as well as that of the Shans and Laos. Similar considerations would seem to have underlain British policy also in the Far East. It has been reiterated over and over again, and with perfect truth, by British journalists and politicians, that Great Britain is not desirous of acquiring further territory in China or elsewhere in Asia. British policy is a purely commercial one. Whatever happens, we are told, Great Britain must have possession of the trade of the Yangtze Kiang, and if China is to be divided into spheres of influence, this valley must be earmarked as British. Now, of course, the Yangtze is one of the most magnificent waterways, and flows through some of the richest and most populous regions in the world; but why should Great Britain have laid any special claim to its commerce on that account? It was in great measure because the recent acquisitions in Burmah had brought her into close proximity with the upper waters of that river, and because it might be hoped to connect Rangoon on the lower Irrawaddy with far-distant Shanghai by a nearly continuous water communication. A railway was earnestly advocated from Burmah to Yunnan, and a line was actually commenced by way of Konloon on the Salween River. The difficulties, however, have proved