At the same time, there will be railways to other parts of Asia—­Ispahan, Bagdad, Damascus, and Jerusalem.  From the last-mentioned city, a line will probably proceed through the land of Edom, to Suez and Cairo; thence to Alexandria.  This last portion is already in hand.  Think of a railway station in the Valley of Jehoshaphat!  As the course of the Jordan presents few ’engineering difficulties,’ there might be a single line all the way from Nazareth to the Dead Sea, on which a steamer might take passengers to the neighbourhood of Petra.  At a point near the shore of that mysterious sheet of water, a late traveller indicates the spot where Lot’s wife was transformed into a pillar of salt.  How interesting it would be to make this a stopping-place for tourists to view the adjacent scenery—­rocky, wild, and scorched, as if fresh from the wondrous work of devastation!

It cannot be doubted that in a period much short of twenty years, railways will have penetrated from Berlin northwards to Russia; and therefore a communication of this kind through the whole of Europe, even to the shores of the Indian Ocean, will be among the ordinary things of the day.

As for communication by electric telegraph, where will it not be?  Every town of any importance, from Moscow to Madras, will be connected by the marvellous wires.  These wires will cross seas; they will reach from London to New York, and from New York to far-western cities—­possibly to California.  The sending of messages thousands of miles, in the twinkling of an eye, will be an everyday affair.  ’Send Dr So-and-so on by the next train,’ will be the order despatched by a family in Calcutta, when requiring medical assistance from London; and accordingly the doctor will set off in his travels per express, from the Thames to the banks of the Ganges.  Spanning the globe by thought will then be no longer a figure of speech—­it will be a reality.  Science will do it all.

Long before twenty years—­most likely in two or three—­a journey round the world by steam may be achieved with comparative ease and at no great expense.  Here is the way we shall go:  London to Liverpool by rail; Liverpool to Chagres by steamer; Chagres to Panama by rail; Panama to Hong-Kong, touching at St Francisco; Hong-Kong to Sincapore, whence, if you have a fancy, you can diverge to Borneo, Australia, and New Zealand; Sincapore to Madras, Bombay, Aden, and Suez—­the whole of the run to this point from Panama being done by steamer; Suez to Cairo, and Cairo to Alexandria (rail in preparation); lastly, by steamer from Alexandria to England.  It is deeply interesting to watch the progress of intrusion on the Pacific.  Already, within these few years, its placid surface has been tracked with steam-navigation; of which almost every day brings us accounts of the extension over that beautiful ocean.  Long secluded, by difficulty of access from Europe, it is now in the course of being effectually opened up by the railway across