An Eastern Miscellany

The thought of the results of the application of the prodigious force represented by the latter when scientifically organised to the exploitation of the former may well stagger the imagination. [...] First we have the spell of the Siren— "From the East came the breath of its odours And its heat melted soft in the haze While we dimly descried thy Pagodas 0 Cybele ancient of days ; Heard the hum of thy mystic processions The echo of myriads who cry And the wail of their vain intercessions Through the bare empty vault of the sky." Then come the uneasy questionings which provide the prelude [...] Of the four great rivers which here find their source—the Salwin the Mekong the Hwang-ho and the Yang-tsze—I have in the course of a single journey crossed the first three and travelled for 1500 miles on the bosom of the fourth passing with characteristic suddenness from the broad unruffled waters of the lowerTHE CALL OF THE EAST 13 reaches to the swirling races and majestic gorges of the up [...] The dawn of the twentieth century witnessed the rapid growth of new forces throughout the East— forces generated by the clash of the cold logical calculating brain of the West with the introspetive and contemplative mind of the East. [...] the peaks and precipices of the great lonely mountains in various parts of the Himalayas and had at length reached a far-off corner of the empire where the earth lifts up her hoary head as it were to the very heavens and where amid scenery of the wildest desolation stand some of the loftiest mountain-peaks in the world Here amid crags and precipices of the most apalling description l