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diff --git a/15293-8.txt b/15293-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..51db3b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/15293-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,25999 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Influences of Geographic Environment +by Ellen Churchill Semple + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Influences of Geographic Environment + On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography + +Author: Ellen Churchill Semple + +Release Date: March 8, 2005 [EBook #15293] + +Language: english + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INFLUENCES OF GEOGRAPHIC *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Charlene Taylor, Joshua +Hutchinson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(https://www.pgdp.net). + + + + + + + + INFLUENCES OF GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENT + ON THE BASIS OF RATZEL'S SYSTEM OF + ANTHROPO-GEOGRAPHY + + BY ELLEN CHURCHILL SEMPLE + + + + TO THE MEMORY OF FRIEDRICH RATZEL + + Hither, as to their fountain, other stars + Repairing, in their golden urns draw light. + MILTON. + + + + +PREFACE + + +The present book, as originally planned over seven years ago, was to be +a simplified paraphrase or restatement of the principles embodied in +Friedrich Ratzel's _Anthropo-Geographie_. The German work is difficult +reading even for Germans. To most English and American students of +geographic environment it is a closed book, a treasure-house bolted and +barred. Ratzel himself realized "that any English form could not be a +literal translation, but must be adapted to the Anglo-Celtic and +especially to the Anglo-American mind." The writer undertook, with +Ratzel's approval, to make such an adapted restatement of the +principles, with a view to making them pass current where they are now +unknown. But the initial stages of the work revealed the necessity of a +radical modification of the original plan. + +Ratzel performed the great service of placing anthropo-geography on a +secure scientific basis. He had his forerunners in Montesquieu, +Alexander von Humboldt, Buckle, Ritter, Kohl, Peschel and others; but he +first investigated the subject from the modern scientific point of view, +constructed his system according to the principles of evolution, and +based his conclusions on world-wide inductions, for which his +predecessors did not command the data. To this task he brought thorough +training as a naturalist, broad reading and travel, a profound and +original intellect, and amazing fertility of thought. Yet the field +which he had chosen was so vast, and its material so complex, that even +his big mental grasp could not wholly compass it. His conclusions, +therefore, are not always exhaustive or final. + +Moreover, the very fecundity of his ideas often left him no time to test +the validity of his principles. He enunciates one brilliant +generalization after another. Sometimes he reveals the mind of a seer or +poet, throwing out conclusions which are highly suggestive, on the face +of them convincing, but which on examination prove untenable, or at +best must be set down as unproven or needing qualification. But these +were just the slag from the great furnace of his mind, slag not always +worthless. Brilliant and far-reaching as were his conclusions, he did +not execute a well-ordered plan. Rather he grew with his work, and his +work and its problems grew with him. He took a mountain-top view of +things, kept his eyes always on the far horizon, and in the splendid +sweep of his scientific conceptions sometimes overlooked the details +near at hand. Herein lay his greatness and his limitation. + +These facts brought the writer face to face with a serious problem. +Ratzel's work needed to be tested, verified. The only solution was to go +over the whole field from the beginning, making research for the data as +from the foundation, and checking off the principles against the facts. +This was especially necessary, because it was not always obvious that +Ratzel had based his inductions on sufficiently broad data; and his +published work had been open to the just criticism of inadequate +citation of authorities. It was imperative, moreover, that any +investigation of geographic environment for the English-speaking world +should meet its public well supported both by facts and authorities, +because that public had not previously known a Ritter or a Peschel. + +The writer's own investigation revealed the fact that Ratzel's +principles of anthropo-geography did not constitute a complete, +well-proportioned system. Some aspects of the subject had been developed +exhaustively, these of course the most important; but others had been +treated inadequately, others were merely a hint or an inference, and yet +others were represented by an hiatus. It became necessary, therefor, to +work up certain important themes with a thoroughness commensurate with +their significance, to reduce the scale of others, and to fill up +certain gaps with original contributions to the science. Always it was +necessary to clarify the original statement, where that was adhered to, +and to throw it into the concrete form of expression demanded by the +Anglo-Saxon mind. + +One point more. The organic theory of society and state permeates the +_Anthropo-geographie_, because Ratzel formulated his principles at a +time when Herbert Spencer exercised a wide influence upon European +thought. This theory, now generally abandoned by sociologists, had to be +eliminated from any restatement of Ratzel's system. Though it was +applied in the original often in great detail, it stood there +nevertheless rather as a scaffolding around the finished edifice; and +the stability of the structure, after this scaffolding is removed shows +how extraneous to the whole it was. The theory performed, however, a +great service in impressing Ratzel's mind with the life-giving +connection between land and people. + +The writer's own method of research has been to compare typical peoples +of all races and all stages of cultural development, living under +similar geographic conditions. If these peoples of different ethnic +stocks but similar environments manifested similar or related social, +economic or historical development, it was reasonable to infer that such +similarities were due to environment and not to race. Thus, by extensive +comparison, the race factor in these problems of two unknown quantities +was eliminated for certain large classes of social and historical +phenomena. + +The writer, moreover, has purposely avoided definitions, formulas, and +the enunciation of hard-and-fast rules; and has refrained from any +effort to delimit the field or define the relation of this new science +of anthropo-geography to the older sciences. It is unwise to put tight +clothes on a growing child. The eventual form and scope of the science, +the definition and organization of its material must evolve gradually, +after long years and many efforts of many workers in the field. The +eternal flux of Nature runs through anthropo-geography, and warns +against precipitate or rigid conclusions. But its laws are none the less +well founded because they do not lend themselves to mathematical +finality of statement. For this reason the writer speaks of geographic +factors and influences, shuns the word geographic determinant, and +speaks with extreme caution of geographic control. + +The present volume is offered to the public with a deep sense of its +inadequacy; with the realization that some of its principles may have to +be modified or their emphasis altered after wider research; but also +with the hope that this effort may make the way easier for the scholar +who shall some day write the ideal treatise on anthropo-geography. + +In my work on this book I have only one person to thank, the great +master who was my teacher and friend during his life, and after his +death my inspiration. + +ELLEN CHURCHILL SEMPLE. +LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, +_January_, 1911. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PREFACE + +CHAPTER I. OPERATION OF GEOGRAPHIC FACTORS IN HISTORY + +Man a product of the earth's surface--Persistent effect of geographic +barriers--Recurrent influences of nature-made highways--Regions of +historical similarity--Persistence of climatic influences--Relation of +geography to history--Multiplicity of geographic factors--Evolution of +geographic relations--Interplay of geographic factors--Direct and +indirect effects of environment--Indirect effects in differentiation of +colonial peoples--General importance of indirect effects--Time +element--Previous habitat--Transplanted religions--Partial response to +environment--The larger conception of environment--Unity of the earth +and the human race. + + +CHAPTER II. CLASSES OF GEOGRAPHIC INFLUENCES + +Four classes of influences--Physical effects of environment--Stature +and environment--Effects of dominant activities--Physical effects of +climate--Pigmentation in relation to heat and light--Pigmentation +and altitude--Difficulty of generalization from geographic +distribution--Psychical effects--In Religion--In mind and character--In +language--The great man in history--Economic and social effects--Size of +the social group--Effects on movements of peoples--Segregation and +accessibility--Change of habitat. + + +CHAPTER III. SOCIETY AND STATE IN RELATION TO THE LAND + +People and land--Political geography--Political versus social +geography--Land basis of society--Morgan's _societas_--Land bond in +primitive hunter tribes--In fisher tribes--In pastoral tribes--Land and +state--Strength of the land bond in the state--Evolution of land +tenure--Land and food supply--Advance from natural to artificial basis +of subsistence--Land basis in relation to agriculture--Migratory and +sedentary agriculture--Geographic checks to progress in economic and +social development--Native animal and plant life as factors in +progress--Density of population under different cultural and geographic +conditions--Its relation to government--Territorial expansion of the +state--Artificial checks to population--Extra-territorial relations of +state and people--Theory of progress from the standpoint of +geography--Progressive dependence of man upon nature. + + +CHAPTER IV. MOVEMENTS OF PEOPLES IN THEIR GEOGRAPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE + +Universality of such movements--The name Historical Movement--Its +evolution--Its importance in history--Geographical interpretation of +historical movement--Mobility of primitive peoples--Civilization and +mobility--Migration and ethnic mingling--Cultural modification during +migration--The transit land--War as form of historical +movement--Slavery--Military colonies--Withdrawal and flight--Natural +regions of asylum--Emigration and colonization--Commerce as a form of +historical movement--Movements due to religion--Historical movement and +race distribution--Zonal distribution--Movements to like or better +geographic conditions--Their direction--Return movements--Regions of +attraction and repulsion--Psychical influences in certain movements--Two +results of historical movement--Differentiation and +area--Differentiation and isolation--Geographic conditions of +heterogeneity and homogeneity--Assimilation--Elimination of unfit +variants through historical movement--Geographical origins. + + +CHAPTER V. GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION + +The importance of geographical location--Content of the term +location--Intercontinental location--Natural versus vicinal +location--Naturally defined location--Vicinal location--Vicinal groups +of similar or diverse race and culture--Thalassic vicinal +location--Complementary locations--Continuous and scattered +location--Central versus peripheral location--Mutual relations between +center and periphery--Inland and coastward expansion--Reaction between +center and periphery--Periphery in colonization--Dominant historical +side--Change of historical front--Contrasted historical sides--One-sided +historical location--Scattered location--Due to adverse geographic +conditions--Island way stations on maritime routes--Scattered location +of primitive peoples--Ethnic islands of expansion and +decline--Discontinuous distribution--Contrasted location--Geographical +polarity--Geographical marks of growth and decline--Interpretation of +scattered and marginal location--Contrast between ethnic islands of +growth and decline. + + +CHAPTER VI. GEOGRAPHICAL AREA + +The size of the earth--Relation of area to life--Area and +differentiation--The struggle for space--National area an index +of social and political development--The Oikoumene--The unity of +the human species in relation to the earth--Isolation and +differentiation--Monotonous race type of small area--Wide race +distribution and inner diversities--Large area a guarantee of racial or +national permanence--Weakness of small states--Protection of large area +to primitive peoples--Contrast of large and small areas in +bio-geography--Political domination of large areas--Area and +literature--Small geographic base of primitive societies--Influence of +small, confined areas--The process of territorial growth--Historical +advance from small to large areas--Gradations in area and in +development--Preliminaries to ethnic and political +expansion--Significance of sphere of influence or activity--Nature of +expansion in new and old countries--Relation of ethnic to political +expansion--Relation of people and state to political boundary--Expansion +of civilization--Cultural advantages of large political +area--Politico-economic advantages--Political area and the national +horizon--National estimates of area--Limitations of small tribal +conceptions--Evolution of territorial policies--Colonial expansion--The +mind of colonials. + + +CHAPTER VII. GEOGRAPHICAL BOUNDARIES + +The boundary zone in Nature--Oscillating boundaries of the habitable +area of the earth--Wallace's Line a typical boundary zone--Boundaries as +limits of expansion--Boundary zone as index of growth or +decline--Breadth of boundary zone--Broad frontier zones of active +expansion--Value of barrier boundaries--The sea as the absolute +boundary--Natural boundaries as bases of ethnic and political +boundaries--Primitive waste boundaries--Alien intrusions into border +wastes--Politico-economic significance of the waste boundary--Common +boundary districts--Tariff free zones--Boundary zones of mingled race +elements--Assimilation of civilization in boundary zones--Relation of +ethnic and cultural assimilation--The border zone of assimilation in +political expansion--Tendency toward defection along political +frontiers--The spirit of colonial frontiers--Free border states as +political survivals--Guardians of the marches--Lawless citizens deported +to political frontiers--Drift of lawless elements to the +frontiers--Asylums beyond the border. + + +CHAPTER VIII. COAST PEOPLES + +The coast a zone of transition--The inner edge--Shifting of the inner +edge--Outer edge in original settlement--In early navigation--In +colonization--Inland advance of colonies--Interpenetration of land and +sea--Ratio of shore-line to area--Criticism of the +formula--Accessibility of coasts from hinterland--Accessibility of +coasts from the sea--Embayed coasts--Contrasted coastal belts--Evolution +of ports--Influence of offshore islands--Previous habitat of +coast-dwellers--Habitability of coasts as a factor in maritime +development--Geographic conditions for brilliant maritime +development--Scope and importance of seaward expansion--Ethnic contrast +between coast and interior peoples--Ethnic amalgamations of +coastlands--_Lingua franca_ a product of coasts--Coast-dwellers as +middlemen--Differentiation of coast from inland people--Early +civilization of coasts--Progress from thalassic to oceanic +coasts--Importance of geographic location of coasts--Historical decline +of certain coasts--Complex interplay of geographic factors in +coastlands. + + +CHAPTER IX. OCEANS AND ENCLOSED SEAS + +The water a factor in man's mobility--Oceans and seas the factor of +union in universal history--Origin of navigation--Primitive +forms--Relation of river to marine navigation--Retarded and advanced +navigation--Geographic conditions in Polynesia--Mediterranean versus +Atlantic seamanship--Three geographic stages of maritime +development--Enclosed seas as areas of ethnic and cultural +assimilation--Assimilation facilitated by ethnic kinship--Importance of +zonal and continental location of enclosed seas--Thalassic character of +the Indian Ocean--Limitations of small area in enclosed seas--Successive +maritime periods in history--Contrasted historical rôles of northern and +southern hemispheres--Size of the ocean--Neutrality of the seas--_Mare +clausum and Mare liberum_. + + +CHAPTER X. MAN'S RELATION TO THE WATER + +The protection of a water frontier--Pile villages of ancient +times--Modern pile dwellings--Their geographic +distribution--River-dwellers in old and popular lands--Man's +encroachment upon the sea by reclamation of land--The struggle with the +water--Mound villages in river flood-plains--Social and political gain +by control of the water--A factor in early civilization of arid +lands--The economy of the water--Fisheries--Factors in maritime +expansion--Fisheries as nurseries of seamen--Anthropo-geographic +importance of navigation. + + +CHAPTER XI. THE ANTHROPO-GEOGRAPHY OF RIVERS + +Rivers as intermediaries between land and sea--Sea navigation merges +into river navigation--Historical importance of seas and oceans +influenced by their debouching streams--Lack of coast articulations +supplied by rivers--River highways as basis of commercial +preëminence--Importance of rivers in large countries--Rivers as highways +of expansion--Determinants of routes in arid or semi-arid +lands--Increasing historical importance of rivers from source to +mouth--Value of location at hydrographic centers--Effect of current upon +trade and expansion--Importance of mouth to upstream people--Prevention +of monopoly of river mouths--Motive for canals in lower +course--Watershed canals for extension of inland waterways--Rivers and +railroads--Natural unity of every river system--In arid lands as common +source of water supply--Tendency towards ethnic and cultural unity in a +river valley--Identity of country with river valley--Rivers as +boundaries of races and peoples--Rivers as political boundaries--Fluvial +settlements and peoples--Boatman tribes or castes--River islands as +protected sites--River and lake islands as robber strongholds--River +peninsulas--River islands as sites of trading posts and colonies--Swamps +as barriers and boundaries--Swamps as regions of survivals--Swamps as +places of refuge--The spirit of the marshes--Economic and political +importance of lakes--Lakes as nuclei of states--Lakes as fresh-water +seas. + + +CHAPTER XII. CONTINENTS AND THEIR PENINSULAS + +Insularity of the land-masses--Classification of land-masses according +to size and location--Effect of the size of land-masses--Independence +due to location versus independence due to size--Continental convergence +and ethnic kinship--Africa's location--The Atlantic abyss--Geographical +character of the Pacific--Pacific affinities of North America--The +Atlantic face of America as the infant Orient of the world--The Atlantic +abyss in the movements of peoples--Races and continents--Contrast of the +northern and southern continents--Effects of continental structure upon +historical development--Structure of North and South America--Cultural +superiority of Pacific slope Indians--Coast articulations of +continents--Importance of size in continental articulations--Peninsular +conditions most favorable to historical development--The continental +base of peninsulas--Continental base a zone of transition--Continental +base the scene of invasion and war--Peninsular extremities as areas of +isolation--Ethnic unity of peninsulas--Peninsulas as intermediaries. + + +CHAPTER XIII. ISLAND PEOPLES + +Physical relationship between islands and peninsulas--Character of +insular flora and fauna--Paradoxical influences of island habitat on +man--Conservative and radical tendencies born of isolation and +accessibility--Islands as nurseries and disseminators of distinctive +civilizations--Limitation of small area in insular history--Sources of +ethnic stock of islands on nearest mainland. Ethnic divergence with +increased isolation--Differentiation of peoples and civilizations in +islands--Differentiation of language--Unification of race in +islands--Remoter sources of island populations--Double sources--Mixed +population of small thalassic isles--Significant location of island way +stations--Thalassic islands as goals of maritime expansion--Political +detachability of islands--Insular weakness based upon small area--Island +fragments of broken empires--Area and location as factors in political +autonomy of islands--Historical effects of island isolation in primitive +retardation--Later stimulation of development--Excessive +isolation--Protection of an island environment--Islands as places of +refuge--Islands as places of survival--Effects of small area in +islands--Economic limitations of their small area--Dense population of +islands--Geographic causes of this density--Oceanic climate as +factor--Relation of density to size--Density affected by a focal +location for trade--Overflow of island population and colonies to the +mainland--Precocious development of island agriculture--Intensive +tillage--Emigration and colonization from islands--Recent emigration +from islands--Maritime enterprise as outlet--Artificial checks to +population--Polyandry--Infanticide--Low valuation of human life. + + +CHAPTER XIV. PLAINS, STEPPES AND DESERTS + +Relief of the sea floor--Mean elevations of the continents--Distribution +of relief--Homologous reliefs and homologous +histories--Anthropo-geography of lowlands--Extensive plains unfavorable +to early development--Conditions for fusion in plains--Retardation due +to monotonous environment--Influence of slight geographic features in +plains--Plains and political expansion--Arid plains--Nomadism--Pastoral +life--Pastoral nomads of Arctic plains--Historical importance of steppe +nomads--Mobility of pastoral nomads--Seasonal migrations--Marauding +expeditions--Forms of defense against nomad depredations--Pastoral life +as a training for soldiers--Capacity for political organization and +consolidation--Centralization versus decentralization in +nomadism--Spirit of independence among nomads--Resistance to +conquest--Curtailment of nomadism--Supplementary agriculture of pastoral +nomadism--Irrigation and horticulture--Scant diet of nomads--Effects of +a diminishing water supply--Checks to population--Trade of +nomads--Pastoral nomads as middlemen--Desert markets--Nomad +industries--Arid lands as areas of arrested development--Mental and +moral qualities of nomads--Religion of pastoral nomads. + + +CHAPTER XV. MOUNTAIN BARRIERS AND THEIR PASSES + +Man as part of the mobile envelope of the earth--Inaccessibility of +mountains--Mountains as transit regions--Transition forms of relief +between highlands and lowlands--Piedmont belts as boundary +zones--Density of population in piedmont belts--Piedmont towns and +cities--Piedmonts as colonial or backwoods frontiers--Mountain +carriers--Power of mountain barriers to block or deflect historical +movement--Significance of mountain valleys--Longitudinal valleys--Passes +in mountain barriers--Breadth of mountain barriers--Dominant +transmontane routes--Height and form of mountain barriers--Contrasted +accessibility of opposite slopes--Political and ethnic +effects--Persistence of barrier nature--Importance of mountain +passes--Geographic conditions affecting the historical importance of +passes--Passes determine the transmontane routes--Navigable river +approaches to passes--Types of settlement in the valley approaches--Pass +cities and their markets--Pass peoples--Their political importance. + + +CHAPTER XVI. INFLUENCES OF A MOUNTAIN ENVIRONMENT + +Zones of altitude--Politico-economic value of a varied relief--Belief +and climate--Altitude zones of economic and cultural +development--Altitude and density belts in tropical +highlands--Increasing density where altitude confers safety--Geographic +conditions affecting density of mountain population--Terrace +agriculture--Its geographical distribution--Terrace agriculture in +mountainous islands--Among savage peoples--Fertilizing terrace +lands--Economy of level land--Mountain pastures and stock-raising--Life +and industry of the summer herdsmen--Communal ownership of mountain +pastures--Hay making in high mountains--Winter industries of mountain +peoples--Overpopulation and emigration--Preventive checks to increase of +population--Religious celibacy--Polyandry--Marauding tendencies in +mountaineers--Historical consequences of mountain raiding--Conquest of +mountain regions--Political dismemberment of mountain peoples--Types of +mountain states--Significance of their small size--Mountain isolation +and differentiation--Survival of primitive races in mountains--Diversity +of peoples and dialects--Constriction of mountain areas of ethnic +survival--Isolation and retardation of mountain regions--Mental and +moral qualities of mountain people. + + +CHAPTER XVII. THE INFLUENCES OF CLIMATE UPON MAN + +Importance of climatic influences--Climate in the interplay of +geographic factors--Its direct and indirect effects--Climate determines +the habitable area of the earth--Effect of climate upon relief and hence +upon man--Man's adaptability to climatic extremes--Temperature as +modified by oceans and winds--Rainfall--Temperature and zonal +location--Mutual reactions of contrasted zones--Isothermal lines in +anthropo-geography--Historical effects of compressed +isotherms--Historical effects of slight climatic differences--Their +influence upon distribution of immigration--Temperature and race +temperament--Complexity of this problem--Monotonous climatic +conditions--Effects of Arctic cold--Effect of monotonous heat--The +tropics as goals of migration--The problem of +acclimatization--Historical importance of the temperate zone--Contrast +of the seasons--Duration of the seasons--Effect of long winters and long +summers--Zones of culture--Temperate zone as cradle of civilization + + +INDEX + + + + +LIST OF MAPS. + +DENSITY OF POPULATION IN THE EASTERN HEMISPHERE 8 +DENSITY OF POPULATION IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE 9 +POWELL'S MAP OF INDIAN LINGUISTIC STOCKS 54 +PRIMITIVE INDIAN STOCKS OF SOUTH AMERICA 101 +ETHNOGRAPHICAL MAP OF INDIA 102 +ETHNOGRAPHICAL MAP OF ASIA 103 +ETHNOGRAPHICAL MAP OF AFRICA 105 +DISTRIBUTION OF WILD AND CIVILIZED TRIBES IN THE PHILIPPINES 147 +DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION IN THE PROVINCE OF FINMARKEN 153 +DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1800 156 +THE SLAV-GERMAN BOUNDARY IN EUROPE 223 +ETHNOGRAPHICAL MAP OF RUSSIA 225 +THE GERMAN NORTH SEA COAST 243 +ANCIENT PHOENICIAN AND GREEK COLONIES 251 +RIPARIAN VILLAGES OF THE LOWER ST. LAWRENCE 365 +LAKE OF THE FOUR FOREST CANTONS 374 +THE ANNUAL RAINFALL OF THE WORLD 484 +THE CULTURAL REGIONS OF AFRICA AND ARABIA 487 +DISTRIBUTION OF RELIGIONS IN THE OLD WORLD 513 +DENSITY OF POPULATION IN ITALY 559 +MEAN ANNUAL ISOTHERMS AND HEAT BELTS 612 + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE OPERATION OF GEOGRAPHIC FACTORS IN HISTORY + + +[Sidenote: Man a product of the earth's surface.] + +Man is a product of the earth's surface. This means not merely that he +is a child of the earth, dust of her dust; but that the earth has +mothered him, fed him, set him tasks, directed his thoughts, confronted +him with difficulties that have strengthened his body and sharpened his +wits, given him his problems of navigation or irrigation, and at the +same time whispered hints for their solution. She has entered into his +bone and tissue, into his mind and soul. On the mountains she has given +him leg muscles of iron to climb the slope; along the coast she has left +these weak and flabby, but given him instead vigorous development of +chest and arm to handle his paddle or oar. In the river valley she +attaches him to the fertile soil, circumscribes his ideas and ambitions +by a dull round of calm, exacting duties, narrows his outlook to the +cramped horizon of his farm. Up on the wind-swept plateaus, in the +boundless stretch of the grasslands and the waterless tracts of the +desert, where he roams with his flocks from pasture to pasture and oasis +to oasis, where life knows much hardship but escapes the grind of +drudgery, where the watching of grazing herd gives him leisure for +contemplation, and the wide-ranging life a big horizon, his ideas take +on a certain gigantic simplicity; religion becomes monotheism, God +becomes one, unrivalled like the sand of the desert and the grass of the +steppe, stretching on and on without break or change. Chewing over and +over the cud of his simple belief as the one food of his unfed mind, his +faith becomes fanaticism; his big spacial ideas, born of that ceaseless +regular wandering, outgrow the land that bred them and bear their +legitimate fruit in wide imperial conquests. + +Man can no more be scientifically studied apart from the ground which he +tills, or the lands over which he travels, or the seas over which he +trades, than polar bear or desert cactus can be understood apart from +its habitat. Man's relations to his environment are infinitely more +numerous and complex than those of the most highly organized plant or +animal. So complex are they that they constitute a legitimate and +necessary object of special study. The investigation which they receive +in anthropology, ethnology, sociology and history is piecemeal and +partial, limited as to the race, cultural development, epoch, country or +variety of geographic conditions taken into account. Hence all these +sciences, together with history so far as history undertakes to explain +the causes of events, fail to reach a satisfactory solution of their +problems largely because the geographic factor which enters into them +all has not been thoroughly analyzed. Man has been so noisy about the +way he has "conquered Nature," and Nature has been so silent in her +persistent influence over man, that the geographic factor in the +equation of human development has been overlooked. + +[Sidenote: Stability of geographic factors in history.] + +In every problem of history there are two main factors, variously stated +as heredity and environment, man and his geographic conditions, the +internal forces of race and the external forces of habitat. Now the +geographic element in the long history of human development has been +operating strongly and operating persistently. Herein lies its +importance. It is a stable force. It never sleeps. This natural +environment, this physical basis of history, is for all intents and +purposes immutable in comparison with the other factor in the +problem--shifting, plastic, progressive, retrogressive man. + +[Sidenote: Persistent effect of remoteness.] + +History tends to repeat itself largely owing to this steady, unchanging +geographic element. If the ancient Roman consul in far-away Britain +often assumed an independence of action and initiative unknown in the +provincial governors of Gaul, and if, centuries later, Roman Catholicism +in England maintained a similar independence towards the Holy See, both +facts have their cause in the remoteness of Britain from the center of +political or ecclesiastical power in Rome. If the independence of the +Roman consul in Britain was duplicated later by the attitude of the +Thirteen Colonies toward England, and again within the young Republic by +the headstrong self-reliance, impatient of government authority, which +characterized the early Trans-Allegheny commonwealths in their +aggressive Indian policy, and led them to make war and conclude treaties +for the cession of land like sovereign states; and if this attitude of +independence in the over-mountain men reappeared in a spirit of +political defection looking toward secession from the Union and a new +combination with their British neighbor on the Great Lakes or the +Spanish beyond the Mississippi, these are all the identical effects of +geographical remoteness made yet more remote by barriers of mountain and +sea. This is the long reach which weakens the arm of authority, no +matter what the race or country or epoch. + +[Sidenote: Effect of proximity.] + +As with geographical remoteness, so it is with geographical proximity. +The history of the Greek peninsula and the Greek people, because of +their location at the threshold of the Orient, has contained a +constantly recurring Asiatic element. This comes out most often as a +note of warning; like the _motif_ of Ortrud in the opera of +"Lohengrin," it mingles ominously in every chorus of Hellenic +enterprise or paean of Hellenic victory, and finally swells into a +national dirge at the Turkish conquest of the peninsula. It comes out +in the legendary history of the Argonautic Expedition and the Trojan +War; in the arrival of Phoenician Cadmus and Phrygian Pelops in +Grecian lands; in the appearance of Tyrian ships on the coast of the +Peloponnesus, where they gather the purple-yielding murex and kidnap +Greek women. It appears more conspicuously in the Asiatic sources of +Greek culture; more dramatically in the Persian Wars, in the retreat +of Xenophon's Ten Thousand, in Alexander's conquest of Asia, and +Hellenic domination of Asiatic trade through Syria to the +Mediterranean. Again in the thirteenth century the lure of the +Levantine trade led Venice and Genoa to appropriate certain islands +and promontories of Greece as commercial bases nearer to Asia. In 1396 +begins the absorption of Greece into the Asiatic empire of the Turks, +the long dark eclipse of sunny Hellas, till it issues from the shadow +in 1832 with the achievement of Greek independence. + +[Sidenote: Persistent effect of natural barriers.] + +If the factor is not one of geographical location, but a natural +barrier, such as a mountain system or a desert, its effect is just as +persistent. The upheaved mass of the Carpathians served to divide the +westward moving tide of the Slavs into two streams, diverting one into +the maritime plain of northern Germany and Poland, the other into the +channel of the Danube Valley which guided them to the Adriatic and the +foot of the Alps. This same range checked the westward advance of the +mounted Tartar hordes. The Alps long retarded Roman expansion into +central Europe, just as they delayed and obstructed the southward +advance of the northern barbarians. Only through the partial breaches in +the wall known as passes did the Alps admit small, divided bodies of the +invaders, like the Cimbri and Teutons, who arrived, therefore, with +weakened power and at intervals, so that the Roman forces had time to +gather their strength between successive attacks, and thus prolonged the +life of the declining empire. So in the Middle Ages, the Alpine barrier +facilitated the resistance of Italy to the German emperors, trying to +enforce their claim upon this ancient seat of the Holy Roman Empire. + +It was by river-worn valleys leading to passes in the ridge that +Etruscan trader, Roman legion, barbarian horde, and German army crossed +the Alpine ranges. To-day well-made highways and railroads converge upon +these valley paths and summit portals, and going is easier; but the Alps +still collect their toll, now in added tons of coal consumed by engines +and in higher freight rates, instead of the ancient imposts of physical +exhaustion paid by pack animal and heavily accoutred soldier. Formerly +these mountains barred the weak and timid; to-day they bar the poor, and +forbid transit to all merchandise of large bulk and small value which +can not pay the heavy transportation charges. Similarly, the wide +barrier of the Rockies, prior to the opening of the first overland +railroad, excluded all but strong-limbed and strong-hearted pioneers +from the fertile valleys of California and Oregon, just as it excludes +coal and iron even from the Colorado mines, and checks the free +movement of laborers to the fields and factories of California, thereby +tightening the grip of the labor unions upon Pacific coast industries. + +[Sidenote: Persistent effect of nature-made highways.] + +As the surface of the earth presents obstacles, so it offers channels +for the easy movement of humanity, grooves whose direction determines +the destination of aimless, unplanned migrations, and whose termini +become, therefore, regions of historical importance. Along these +nature-made highways history repeats itself. The maritime plain of +Palestine has been an established route of commerce and war from the +time of Sennacherib to Napoleon.[1] The Danube Valley has admitted to +central Europe a long list of barbarian invaders, covering the period +from Attila the Hun to the Turkish besiegers of Vienna in 1683. The +history of the Danube Valley has been one of warring throngs, of +shifting political frontiers, and unassimilated races; but as the river +is a great natural highway, every neighboring state wants to front upon +it and strives to secure it as a boundary. + +The movements of peoples constantly recur to these old grooves. The +unmarked path of the voyageur's canoe, bringing out pelts from Lake +Superior to the fur market at Montreal, is followed to-day by whaleback +steamers with their cargoes of Manitoba wheat. To-day the Mohawk +depression through the northern Appalachians diverts some of Canada's +trade from the Great Lakes to the Hudson, just as in the seventeenth +century it enabled the Dutch at New Amsterdam and later the English at +Albany to tap the fur trade of Canada's frozen forests. Formerly a line +of stream and portage, it carries now the Erie Canal and New York +Central Railroad.[2] Similarly the narrow level belt of land extending +from the mouth of the Hudson to the eastern elbow of the lower Delaware, +defining the outer margin of the rough hill country of northern New +Jersey and the inner margin of the smooth coastal plain, has been from +savage days such a natural thoroughfare. Here ran the trail of the +Lenni-Lenapi Indians; a little later, the old Dutch road between New +Amsterdam and the Delaware trading-posts; yet later the King's Highway +from New York to Philadelphia. In 1838 it became the route of the +Delaware and Raritan Canal, and more recently of the Pennsylvania +Railroad between New York and Philadelphia.[3] + +The early Aryans, in their gradual dispersion over northwestern India, +reached the Arabian Sea chiefly by a route running southward from the +Indus-Ganges divide, between the eastern border of the Rajputana Desert +and the western foot of the Aravalli Hills. The streams flowing down +from this range across the thirsty plains unite to form the Luni River, +which draws a dead-line to the advance of the desert. Here a smooth and +well-watered path brought the early Aryans of India to a fertile coast +along the Gulf of Cambay.[4] In the palmy days of the Mongol Empire +during the seventeenth century, and doubtless much earlier, it became an +established trade route between the sea and the rich cities of the upper +Ganges.[5] Recently it determined the line of the Rajputana Railroad +from the Gulf of Cambay to Delhi.[6] Barygaza, the ancient seaboard +terminus of this route, appears in Pliny's time as the most famous +emporium of western India, the resort of Greek and Arab merchants.[7] It +reappears later in history with its name metamorphosed to Baroche or +Broach, where in 1616 the British established a factory for trade,[8] +but is finally superseded, under Portuguese and English rule, by nearby +Surat. Thus natural conditions fix the channels in which the stream of +humanity most easily moves, determine within certain limits the +direction of its flow, the velocity and volume of its current. Every new +flood tends to fit itself approximately into the old banks, seeks first +these lines of least resistance, and only when it finds them blocked or +pre-empted does it turn to more difficult paths. + +[Sidenote: Regions of historical similarity.] + +Geographical environment, through the persistence of its influence, +acquires peculiar significance. Its effect is not restricted to a given +historical event or epoch, but, except when temporarily met by some +strong counteracting force, tends to make itself felt under varying +guise in all succeeding history. It is the permanent element in the +shifting fate of races. Islands show certain fundamental points of +agreement which can be distinguished in the economic, ethnic and +historical development of England, Japan, Melanesian Fiji, Polynesian +New Zealand, and pre-historic Crete. The great belt of deserts and +steppes extending across the Old World gives us a vast territory of rare +historical uniformity. From time immemorial they have borne and bred +tribes of wandering herdsmen; they have sent out the invading hordes +who, in successive waves of conquest, have overwhelmed the neighboring +river lowlands of Eurasia and Africa. They have given birth in turn to +Scythians, Indo-Aryans, Avars, Huns, Saracens, Tartars and Turks, as to +the Tuareg tribes of the Sahara, the Sudanese and Bantu folk of the +African grasslands. But whether these various peoples have been Negroes, +Hamites, Semites, Indo-Europeans or Mongolians, they have always been +pastoral nomads. The description given by Herodotus of the ancient +Scythians is applicable in its main features to the Kirghis and Kalmuck +who inhabit the Caspian plains to-day. The environment of this dry +grassland operates now to produce the same mode of life and social +organization as it did 2,400 years ago; stamps the cavalry tribes of +Cossacks as it did the mounted Huns, energizes its sons by its dry +bracing air, toughens them by its harsh conditions of life, organizes +them into a mobilized army, always moving with its pastoral +commissariat. Then when population presses too hard upon the meager +sources of subsistence, when a summer drought burns the pastures and +dries up the water-holes, it sends them forth on a mission of conquest, +to seek abundance in the better watered lands of their agricultural +neighbors. Again and again the productive valleys of the Hoangho, Indus, +Ganges, Tigris and Euphrates, Nile, Volga, Dnieper and Danube have been +brought into subjection by the imperious nomads of arid Asia, just as +the "hoe-people" of the Niger and upper Nile have so often been +conquered by the herdsmen of the African grasslands. Thus, regardless of +race or epoch--Hyksos or Kaffir--history tends to repeat itself in these +rainless tracts, and involves the better watered districts along their +borders when the vast tribal movements extend into these peripheral +lands. + +[Illustration: DENSITY OF POPULATION IN EASTERN HEMISPHERE] + +[Illustration: DENSITY OF POPULATION IN WESTERN HEMISPHERE] + +[Sidenote: Climatic influences.] + +Climatic influences are persistent, often obdurate in their control. +Arid regions permit agriculture and sedentary life only through +irrigation. The economic prosperity of Egypt to-day depends as +completely upon the distribution of the Nile waters as in the days of +the Pharaohs. The mantle of the ancient Egyptian priest has fallen upon +the modern British engineer. Arctic explorers have succeeded only by +imitating the life of the Eskimos, adopting their clothes, food, fuel, +dwellings, and mode of travel. Intense cold has checked both native and +Russian development over that major portion of Siberia lying north of +the mean annual isotherm of degree C. (32 degrees F.); and it has had a +like effect in the corresponding part of Canada. (Compare maps pages 8 +and 9.) It allows these sub-arctic lands scant resources and a +population of less than two to the square mile. Even with the intrusion +of white colonial peoples, it perpetuates the savage economy of the +native hunting tribes, and makes the fur trader their modern exploiter, +whether he be the Cossack tribute-gatherer of the lower Lena River, or +the factor of the Hudson Bay Company. The assimilation tends to be +ethnic as well as economic, because the severity of the climate excludes +the white woman. The debilitating effects of heat and humidity, aided by +tropical diseases, soon reduce intruding peoples to the dead level of +economic inefficiency characteristic of the native races. These, as the +fittest, survive and tend to absorb the new-comers, pointing to +hybridization as the simplest solution of the problem of tropical +colonization. + +[Sidenote: The relation of geography to history.] + +The more the comparative method is applied to the study of +history--and this includes a comparison not only of different +countries, but also of successive epochs in the same country--the more +apparent becomes the influence of the soil in which humanity is +rooted, the more permanent and necessary is that influence seen to be. +Geography's claim to make scientific investigation of the physical +conditions of historical events is then vindicated. "Which was there +first, geography or history?" asks Kant. And then comes his answer: +"Geography lies at the basis of history." The two are inseparable. +History takes for its field of investigation human events in various +periods of time; anthropo-geography studies existence in various +regions of terrestrial space. But all historical development takes +place on the earth's surface, and therefore is more or less molded by +its geographic setting. Geography, to reach accurate conclusions, must +compare the operation of its factors in different historical periods +and at different stages of cultural development. It therefore regards +history in no small part as a succession of geographical factors +embodied in events. Back of Massachusetts' passionate abolition +movement, it sees the granite soil and boulder-strewn fields of New +England; back of the South's long fight for the maintenance of +slavery, it sees the rich plantations of tidewater Virginia and the +teeming fertility of the Mississippi bottom lands. This is the +significance of Herder's saying that "history is geography set into +motion." What is to-day a fact of geography becomes to-morrow a factor +of history. The two sciences cannot be held apart without doing +violence to both, without dismembering what is a natural, vital whole. +All historical problems ought to be studied geographically and all +geographic problems must be studied historically. Every map has its +date. Those in the Statistical Atlas of the United States showing the +distribution of population from 1790 to 1890 embody a mass of history +as well as of geography. A map of France or the Russian Empire has a +long historical perspective; and on the other hand, without that map +no change of ethnic or political boundary, no modification in routes +of communication, no system of frontier defences or of colonization, +no scheme of territorial aggrandizement can be understood. + +[Sidenote: Multiplicity of geographic factors.] + +The study of physical environment as a factor in history was +unfortunately brought into disrepute by extravagant and ill-founded +generalization, before it became the object of investigation according +to modern scientific methods. And even to-day principles advanced in the +name of anthropo-geography are often superficial, inaccurate, based upon +a body of data too limited as to space and time, or couched in terms of +unqualified statement which exposes them to criticism or refutation. +Investigators in this field, moreover, are prone to get a squint in +their eye that makes them see one geographic factor to the exclusion of +the rest; whereas it belongs to the very nature of physical environment +to combine a whole group of influences, working all at the same time +under the law of the resolution of forces. In this plexus of influences, +some operate in one direction and some in another; now one loses its +beneficent effect like a medicine long used or a garment outgrown; +another waxes in power, reinforced by a new geographic factor which has +been released from dormancy by the expansion of the known world, or the +progress of invention and of human development. + +[Sidenote: Evolution of geographic relations.] + +These complex geographic influences cannot be analyzed and their +strength estimated except from the standpoint of evolution. That is one +reason these half-baked geographic principles rest heavy on our mental +digestion. They have been formulated without reference to the +all-important fact that the geographical relations of man, like his +social and political organization, are subject to the law of +development. Just as the embryo state found in the primitive Saxon tribe +has passed through many phases in attaining the political character of +the present British Empire, so every stage in this maturing growth has +been accompanied or even preceded by a steady evolution of the +geographic relations of the English people. + +Owing to the evolution of geographic relations, the physical environment +favorable to one stage of development may be adverse to another, and +_vice versa_. For instance, a small, isolated and protected habitat, +like that of Egypt, Phoenicia, Crete and Greece, encourages the birth +and precocious growth of civilization; but later it may cramp progress, +and lend the stamp of arrested development to a people who were once the +model for all their little world. Open and wind-swept Russia, lacking +these small, warm nurseries where Nature could cuddle her children, has +bred upon its boundless plains a massive, untutored, homogeneous folk, +fed upon the crumbs of culture that have fallen from the richer tables +of Europe. But that item of area is a variable quantity in the equation. +It changes its character at a higher stage of cultural development. +Consequently, when the Muscovite people, instructed by the example of +western Europe, shall have grown up intellectually, economically and +politically to their big territory, its area will become a great +national asset. Russia will come into its own, heir to a long-withheld +inheritance. Many of its previous geographic disadvantages will vanish, +like the diseases of childhood, while its massive size will dwarf many +previous advantages of its European neighbors. + +[Sidenote: Evolution of world relations.] + +This evolution of geographic relations applies not only to the local +environment, but also to the wider world relations of a people. Greeks +and Syrians, English and Japanese, take a different rank among the +nations of the earth to-day from that held by their ancestors 2,000 years +ago, simply because the world relations of civilized peoples have been +steadily expanding since those far-back days of Tyrian and Athenian +supremacy. The period of maritime discoveries in the fifteenth and +sixteenth centuries shifted the foci of the world relations of European +states from enclosed seas to the rim of the Atlantic. Venice and Genoa +gave way to Cadiz and Lagos, just as sixteen centuries before Corinth +and Athens had yielded their ascendency to Rome and Ostia. The keen but +circumscribed trade of the Baltic, which gave wealth and historical +preeminence to Lübeck and the other Hanse Towns of northern Germany from +the twelfth to the seventeenth century, lost its relative importance +when the Atlantic became the maritime field of history. Maritime +leadership passed westward from Lübeck and Stralsund to Amsterdam and +Bristol, as the historical horizon widened. England, prior to this +sudden dislocation, lay on the outskirts of civilized Europe, a terminal +land, not a focus. The peripheral location which retarded her early +development became a source of power when she accumulated sufficient +density of population for colonizing enterprises, and when maritime +discovery opened a way to trans-oceanic lands.[9] + +Meanwhile, local geographic advantages in the old basins remain the +same, although they are dwarfed by the development of relatively greater +advantages elsewhere. The broken coastline, limited area and favorable +position of Greece make its people to-day a nation of seamen, and enable +them to absorb by their considerable merchant fleet a great part of the +trade of the eastern Mediterranean,[10] just as they did in the days of +Pericles; but that youthful Aegean world which once constituted so large +a part of the _oikoumene_, has shrunken to a modest province, and its +highways to local paths. The coast cities of northern Germany still +maintain a large commerce in the Baltic, but no longer hold the +pre-eminence of the old Hanse Towns. The glory of the Venetian Adriatic +is gone; but that the sea has still a local significance is proven by +the vast sums spent by Austria and Hungary on their hand-made harbors of +Trieste and Fiume.[11] The analytical geographer, therefore, while +studying a given combination of geographic forces, must be prepared for +a momentous readjustment and a new interplay after any marked turning +point in the economic, cultural, or world relations of a people. + +[Sidenote: Interplay of geographic factors.] + +Skepticism as to the effect of geographic conditions upon human +development is apparently justifiable, owing to the multiplicity of the +underlying causes and the difficulty of distinguishing between stronger +and weaker factors on the one hand, as between permanent and temporary +effects on the other. We see the result, but find it difficult to state +the equation producing this result. But the important thing is to avoid +seizing upon one or two conspicuous geographic elements in the problem +and ignoring the rest. The physical environment of a people consists of +all the natural conditions to which they have been subjected, not merely +a part. Geography admits no single blanket theory. The slow historical +development of the Russian folk has been due to many geographic +causes--to excess of cold and deficiency of rain, an outskirt location +on the Asiatic border of Europe exposed to the attacks of nomadic +hordes, a meager and, for the most part, ice-bound coast which was +slowly acquired, an undiversified surface, a lack of segregated regions +where an infant civilization might be cradled, and a vast area of +unfenced plains wherein the national energies spread out thin and +dissipated themselves. The better Baltic and Black Sea coasts, the +fertility of its Ukraine soil, and location next to wide-awake Germany +along the western frontier have helped to accelerate progress, but the +slow-moving body carried too heavy a drag. + +[Sidenote: Land and sea in co-operation.] + +The law of the resolutions of forces applies in geography as in the +movement of planets. Failure to recognize this fact often enables +superficial critics of anthropo-geography to make a brave show of +argument. The analysis of these interacting forces and of their various +combinations requires careful investigation. Let us consider the +interplay of the forces of land and sea apparent in every country with +a maritime location. In some cases a small, infertile, niggardly country +conspires with a beckoning sea to drive its sons out upon the deep; in +others a wide territory with a generous soil keeps its well-fed children +at home and silences the call of the sea. In ancient Phoenicia and +Greece, in Norway, Finland, New England, in savage Chile and Tierra del +Fuego, and the Indian coast district of British Columbia and southern +Alaska, a long, broken shoreline, numerous harbors, outlying islands, +abundant timber for the construction of ships, difficult communication +by land, all tempted the inhabitants to a seafaring life. While the sea +drew, the land drove in the same direction. There a hilly or mountainous +interior putting obstacles in the way of landward expansion, sterile +slopes, a paucity of level, arable land, an excessive or deficient +rainfall withholding from agriculture the reward of tillage--some or all +of these factors combined to compel the inhabitants to seek on the sea +the livelihood denied by the land. Here both forces worked in the same +direction. + +In England conditions were much the same, and from the sixteenth century +produced there a predominant maritime development which was due not +solely to a long indented coastline and an exceptional location for +participating in European and American trade. Its limited island area, +its large extent of rugged hills and chalky soil fit only for pasturage, +and the lack of a really generous natural endowment,[12] made it slow to +answer the demands of a growing population, till the industrial +development of the nineteenth century exploited its mineral wealth. So +the English turned to the sea--to fish, to trade, to colonize. Holland's +conditions made for the same development. She united advantages of +coastline and position with a small infertile territory, consisting +chiefly of water-soaked grazing lands. When at the zenith of her +maritime development, a native authority estimated that the soil of +Holland could not support more than one-eighth of her inhabitants. The +meager products of the land had to be eked out by the harvest of the +sea. Fish assumed an important place in the diet of the Dutch, and when +a process of curing it was discovered, laid the foundation of Holland's +export trade. A geographical location central to the Baltic and North +Sea countries, and accessible to France and Portugal, combined with a +position at the mouth of the great German rivers made it absorb the +carrying trade of northern Europe.[13] Land and sea coöperated in its +maritime development. + +[Sidenote: Land and sea opposed.] + +Often the forces of land and sea are directly opposed. If a country's +geographic conditions are favorable to agriculture and offer room for +growth of population, the land forces prevail, because man is primarily +a terrestrial animal. Such a country illustrates what Chisholm, with +Attic nicety of speech, calls "the influence of bread-power on +history,"[14] as opposed to Mahan's sea-power. France, like England, had +a long coastline, abundant harbors, and an excellent location for +maritime supremacy and colonial expansion; but her larger area and +greater amount of fertile soil put off the hour of a redundant +population such as England suffered from even in Henry VIII's time. +Moreover, in consequence of steady continental expansion from the +twelfth to the eighteenth century and a political unification which made +its area more effective for the support of the people, the French of +Richelieu's time, except those from certain districts, took to the sea, +not by national impulse as did the English and Dutch, but rather under +the spur of government initiative. They therefore achieved far less in +maritime trade and colonization.[15] In ancient Palestine, a long +stretch of coast, poorly equipped with harbors but accessible to the +rich Mediterranean trade, failed to offset the attraction of the gardens +and orchards of the Jezreel Valley and the pastures of the Judean hills, +or to overcome the land-born predilections and aptitudes of the +desert-bred Jews. Similarly, the river-fringed peninsulas of Virginia +and Maryland, opening wide their doors to the incoming sea, were +powerless, nevertheless, to draw the settlers away from the riotous +productiveness of the wide tidewater plains. Here again the geographic +force of the land outweighed that of the sea and became the dominant +factor in directing the activities of the inhabitants. + +The two antagonistic geographic forces may be both of the land, one born +of a country's topography, the other of its location. Switzerland's +history has for centuries shown the conflict of two political policies, +one a policy of cantonal and communal independence, which has sprung +from the division of that mountainous country into segregated districts, +and the other one of political centralization, dictated by the necessity +for coöperation to meet the dangers of Switzerland's central location +mid a circle of larger and stronger neighbors. Local geographic +conditions within the Swiss territory fixed the national ideal as a +league of "sovereign cantons," to use the term of their constitution, +enjoying a maximum of individual rights and privileges, and tolerating a +minimum of interference from the central authority. Here was physical +dismemberment coupled with mutual political repulsion. But a location at +the meeting place of French, German, Austrian and Italian frontiers laid +upon them the distasteful necessity of union within to withstand +aggressions crowding upon them from without. Hence the growth of the +Swiss constitution since 1798 has meant a fight of the Confederation +against the canton in behalf of general rights, expanding the functions +of the central government, contracting those of canton and commune.[16] + +[Sidenote: Local and remote geographic factors.] + +Every country forms an independent whole, and as such finds its national +history influenced by its local climate, soil, relief, its location +whether inland or maritime, its river highways, and its boundaries of +mountain, sea, or desert. But it is also a link in a great chain of +lands, and therefore may feel a shock or vibration imparted at the +remotest end. The gradual desiccation of western Asia which took a fresh +start about 2,000 years ago caused that great exodus and displacement of +peoples known as the _Völkerwanderung_, and thus contributed to the +downfall of Rome; it was one factor in the Saxon conquest of Britain and +the final peopling of central Europe. The impact of the Turkish hordes +hurling themselves against the defenses of Constantinople in 1453 was +felt only forty years afterward by the far-off shores of savage America. +Earlier still it reached England as the revival of learning, and it gave +Portugal a shock which started its navigators towards the Cape of Good +Hope in their search for a sea route to India. The history of South +Africa is intimately connected with the Isthmus of Suez. It owes its +Portuguese, Dutch, and English populations to that barrier on the +Mediterranean pathway to the Orient; its importance as a way station on +the outside route to India fluctuates with every crisis in the history +of Suez. + +[Sidenote: Direct and indirect effects of environment.] + +The geographic factors in history appear now as conspicuous direct +effects of environment, such as the forest warfare of the American +Indian or the irrigation works of the Pueblo tribes, now as a group of +indirect effects, operating through the economic, social and political +activities of a people. These remoter secondary results are often of +supreme importance; they are the ones which give the final stamp to the +national temperament and character, and yet in them the causal +connection between environment and development is far from obvious. They +have, therefore, presented pitfalls to the precipitate theorizer. He has +either interpreted them as the direct effect of some geographic cause +from which they were wholly divorced and thus arrived at conclusions +which further investigation failed to sustain; or seeing no direct and +obvious connection, he has denied the possibility of a generalization. + +Montesquieu ascribes the immutability of religion, manners, custom and +laws in India and other Oriental countries to their warm climate.[17] +Buckle attributes a highly wrought imagination and gross superstition to +all people, like those of India, living in the presence of great +mountains and vast plains, knowing Nature only in its overpowering +aspects, which excite the fancy and paralyze reason. He finds, on the +other hand, an early predominance of reason in the inhabitants of a +country like ancient Greece, where natural features are on a small +scale, more comprehensible, nearer the measure of man himself.[18] The +scientific geographer, grown suspicious of the omnipotence of climate +and cautious of predicating immediate psychological effects which are +easy to assert but difficult to prove, approaches the problem more +indirectly and reaches a different solution. He finds that geographic +conditions have condemned India to isolation. On the land side, a great +sweep of high mountains has restricted intercourse with the interior; on +the sea side, the deltaic swamps of the Indus and Ganges Rivers and an +unbroken shoreline, backed by mountains on the west of the peninsula and +by coastal marshes and lagoons on the east, have combined to reduce its +accessibility from the ocean. The effect of such isolation is ignorance, +superstition, and the early crystallization of thought and custom. +Ignorance involves the lack of material for comparison, hence a +restriction of the higher reasoning processes, and an unscientific +attitude of mind which gives imagination free play. In contrast, the +accessibility of Greece and its focal location in the ancient world made +it an intellectual clearing-house for the eastern Mediterranean. The +general information gathered there afforded material for wide +comparison. It fed the brilliant reason of the Athenian philosopher and +the trained imagination which produced the masterpieces of Greek art and +literature. + +[Sidenote: Indirect mental effects.] + +Heinrich von Treitschke, in his recent "Politik," imitates the direct +inference of Buckle when he ascribes the absence of artistic and poetic +development in Switzerland and the Alpine lands to the overwhelming +aspect of nature there, its majestic sublimity which paralyzes the +mind.[19] He reinforces his position by the fact that, by contrast, the +lower mountains and hill country of Swabia, Franconia and Thuringia, +where nature is gentler, stimulating, appealing, and not overpowering, +have produced many poets and artists. The facts are incontestable. They +reappear in France in the geographical distribution of the awards made +by the Paris _Salon_ of 1896. Judged by these awards, the rough +highlands of Savoy, Alpine Provence, the massive eastern Pyrenees, and +the Auvergne Plateau, together with the barren peninsula of Brittany, +are singularly lacking in artistic instinct, while art nourishes in all +the river lowlands of France. Moreover, French men of letters, by the +distribution of their birthplaces, are essentially products of fluvial +valleys and plains, rarely of upland and mountain.[20] + +This contrast has been ascribed to a fundamental ethnic distinction +between the Teutonic population of the lowlands and the Alpine or Celtic +stock which survives in the isolation of highland and peninsula, thus +making talent an attribute of race. But the Po Valley of northern Italy, +whose population contains a strong infusion of this supposedly +stultifying Alpine blood, and the neighboring lowlands and hill country +of Tuscany show an enormous preponderance of intellectual and artistic +power over the highlands of the peninsula.[21] Hence the same contrast +appears among different races under like geographic conditions. +Moreover, in France other social phenomena, such as suicide, divorce, +decreasing birth-rate, and radicalism in politics, show this same +startling parallelism of geographic distribution,[22] and these cannot +be attributed to the stimulating or depressing effect of natural scenery +upon the human mind. + +Mountain regions discourage the budding of genius because they are areas +of isolation, confinement, remote from the great currents of men and +ideas that move along the river valleys. They are regions of much labor +and little leisure, of poverty to-day and anxiety for the morrow, of +toil-cramped hands and toil-dulled brains. In the fertile alluvial +plains are wealth, leisure, contact with many minds, large urban centers +where commodities and ideas are exchanged. The two contrasted +environments produce directly certain economic and social results, +which, in turn, become the causes of secondary intellectual and artistic +effects. The low mountains of central Germany which von Treitschke cites +as homes of poets and artists, owing to abundant and varied mineral +wealth, are the seats of active industries and dense populations,[23] +while their low reliefs present no serious obstacle to the numerous +highways across them. They, therefore, afford all conditions for +culture. + +[Sidenote: Indirect effects in differentiation of colonial peoples.] + +Let us take a different example. The rapid modification in physical and +mental constitution of the English transplanted to North America, South +Africa, Australia and New Zealand has been the result of several +geographic causes working through the economic and social media; but it +has been ascribed by Darwin and others to the effect of climate. The +prevailing energy and initiative of colonists have been explained by the +stimulating atmosphere of their new homes. Even Natal has not escaped +this soft impeachment. But the enterprise of colonials has cropped out, +under almost every condition of heat and cold, aridity and humidity, of +a habitat at sea-level and on high plateau. This blanket theory of +climate cannot, therefore, cover the case. Careful analysis supersedes +it by a whole group of geographic factors working directly and +indirectly. The first of these was the dividing ocean which, prior to +the introduction of cheap ocean transportation and bustling steerage +agents, made a basis of artificial selection. Then it was the man of +abundant energy who, cramped by the narrow environment of a Norwegian +farm or Irish bog, came over to America to take up a quarter-section of +prairie land or rise to the eminence of Boston police sergeant. The +Scotch immigrants in America who fought in the Civil War were nearly two +inches taller than the average in the home country.[24] But the ocean +barrier culled superior qualities of mind and character +also--independence of political and religious conviction, and the +courage of those convictions, whether found in royalist or Puritan, +Huguenot or English Catholic. + +[Sidenote: Indirect effect through isolation.] + +Such colonists in a remote country were necessarily few and could not be +readily reinforced from home. Their new and isolated geographical +environment favored variation. Heredity passed on the characteristics of +a small, highly selected group. The race was kept pure from intermixture +with the aborigines of the country, owing to the social and cultural +abyss which separated them, and to the steady withdrawal of the natives +before the advance of the whites. The homogeneity of island peoples +seems to indicate that individual variations are in time communicated by +heredity to a whole population under conditions of isolation; and in +this way modifications due to artificial selection and a changed +environment become widely spread. + +Nor is this all. The modified type soon becomes established, because the +abundance of land at the disposal of the colonists and the consequent +better conditions of living encourage a rapid increase of population. A +second geographic factor of mere area here begins to operate. Ease in +gaining subsistence, the greater independence of the individual and the +family, emancipation from carking care, the hopeful attitude of mind +engendered by the consciousness of an almost unlimited opportunity and +capacity for expansion, the expectation of large returns upon labor, +and, finally, the profound influence of this hopefulness upon the +national character, all combined, produce a social rejuvenation of the +race. New conditions present new problems which call for prompt and +original solution, make a demand upon the ingenuity and resourcefulness +of the individual, and therefore work to the same end as his previous +removal from the paralyzing effect of custom in the old home country. +Activity is youth and sluggishness or paralysis is age. Hence the +energy, initiative, adaptability, and receptivity to new ideas--all +youthful qualities--which characterize the Anglo-Saxon American as well +as the English Africander, can be traced back to the stimulating +influences, not of a bracing or variable climate, but of the abundant +opportunities offered by a great, rich, unexploited country. Variation +under new natural conditions, when safe-guarded by isolation, tends to +produce modification of the colonial type; this is the direct effect of +a changed environment. But the new economic and social activities of a +transplanted people become the vehicle of a mass of indirect geographic +influences which contribute to the differentiation of the national +character. + +[Sidenote: General importance of indirect effects.] + +The tendency to overlook such links between conspicuous effects and +their remote, less evident geographic causes has been common in +geographic investigation. This direct rather than indirect approach to +the heart of the problem has led to false inferences or to the +assumption that reliable conclusions were impossible. Environment +influences the higher, mental life of a people chiefly through the +medium of their economic and social life; hence its ultimate effects +should be traced through the latter back to the underlying cause. But +rarely has this been done. Even so astute a geographer as Strabo, though +he recognizes the influence of geographic isolation in differentiating +dialects and customs in Greece,[25] ascribes some national +characteristics to the nature of the country, especially to its climate, +and the others to education and institutions. He thinks that the nature +of their respective lands had nothing to do with making the Athenians +cultured, the Spartans and Thebans ignorant; that the predilection for +natural science in Babylonia and Egypt was not a result of environment +but of the institutions and education of those countries.[26] But here +arise the questions, how far custom and education in their turn depend +upon environment; to what degree natural conditions, molding economic +and political development, may through them fundamentally affect social +customs, education, culture, and the dominant intellectual aptitudes of +a people. It is not difficult to see, back of the astronomy and +mathematics and hydraulics of Egypt, the far off sweep of the rain-laden +monsoons against the mountains of Abyssinia and the creeping of the +tawny Nile flood over that river-born oasis. + +[Sidenote: Indirect political and moral effects.] + +Plutarch states in his "Solon" that after the rebellion of Kylon in 612 +B.C. the Athenian people were divided into as many political factions as +there were physical types of country in Attica. The mountaineers, who +were the poorest party, wanted something like a democracy; the people of +the plains, comprising the greatest number of rich families, were +clamorous for an oligarchy; the coast population of the south, +intermediate both in social position and wealth, wanted something +between the two. The same three-fold division appeared again in 564 B.C. +on the usurpation of Peisistratus.[27] Here the connection between +geographic condition and political opinion is clear enough, though the +links are agriculture and commerce. New England's opposition to the War +of 1812, culminating in the threat of secession of the Hartford +Convention, can be traced back through the active maritime trade to the +broken coastline and unproductive soil of that glaciated country. + +In all democratic or representative forms of government permitting free +expression of popular opinion, history shows that division into +political parties tends to follow geographical lines of cleavage. In our +own Civil War the dividing line between North and South did not always +run east and west. The mountain area of the Southern Appalachians +supported the Union and drove a wedge of disaffection into the heart of +the South. Mountainous West Virginia was politically opposed to the +tidewater plains of old Virginia, because slave labor did not pay on the +barren "upright" farms of the Cumberland Plateau; whereas, it was +remunerative on the wide fertile plantations of the coastal lowland. The +ethics of the question were obscured where conditions of soil and +topography made the institution profitable. In the mountains, as also in +New England, a law of diminishing financial returns had for its +corollary a law of increasing moral insight. In this case, geographic +conditions worked through the medium of direct economic effects to more +important political and ethical results. + +The roots of geographic influence often run far underground before +coming to the surface, to sprout into some flowering growth; and to +trace this back to its parent stem is the necessary but not easy task of +the geographer. + +[Sidenote: Time element.] + +The complexity of this problem does not end here. The modification of +human development by environment is a natural process; like all other +natural processes, it involves the cumulative effects of causes +operating imperceptibly but persistently through vast periods of time. +Slowly and deliberately does geography engrave the subtitles to a +people's history. Neglect of this time element in the consideration of +geographic influences accounts equally for many an exaggerated assertion +and denial of their power. A critic undertakes to disprove modification +through physical environment by showing that it has not produced +tangible results in the last fifty or five hundred years. This attitude +recalls the early geologists, whose imaginations could not conceive the +vast ages necessary in a scientific explanation of geologic phenomena. + +The theory of evolution has taught us in science to think in larger +terms of time, so that we no longer raise the question whether European +colonists in Africa can turn into negroes, though we do find the recent +amazing statement that the Yankee, in his tall, gaunt figure, "the +colour of his skin, and the formation of his hair, has begun to +differentiate himself from his European kinsman and approach the type of +the aboriginal Indians."[28] Evolution tells the story of modification +by a succession of infinitesimal changes, and emphasizes the permanence +of a modification once produced long after the causes for it cease to +act. The mesas of Arizona, the earth sculpture of the Grand Canyon +remain as monuments to the erosive forces which produced them. So a +habitat leaves upon man no ephemeral impress; it affects him in one way +at a low stage of his development, and differently at a later or higher +stage, because the man himself and his relation to his environment have +been modified in the earlier period; but traces of that earlier +adaptation survive in his maturer life. Hence man's relation to his +environment must be looked at through the perspective of historical +development. It would be impossible to explain the history and national +character of the contemporary English solely by their twentieth century +response to their environment, because with insular conservatism they +carry and cherish vestiges of times when their islands represented +different geographic relations from those of to-day. Witness the +wool-sack of the lord chancellor. We cannot understand the location of +modern Athens, Rome or Berlin from the present day relations of urban +populations to their environment, because the original choice of these +sites was dictated by far different considerations from those ruling +to-day. In the history of these cities a whole succession of geographic +factors have in turn been active, each leaving its impress of which the +cities become, as it were, repositories. + +[Sidenote: Effect of a previous habitat.] + +The importance of this time element for a solution of +anthropo-geographic problems becomes plainer, where a certain locality +has received an entirely new population, or where a given people by +migration change their habitat. The result in either case is the same, a +new combination, new modifications superimposed on old modifications. +And it is with this sort of case that anthropo-geography most often has +to deal. So restless has mankind been, that the testimony of history and +ethnology is all against the assumption that a social group has ever +been subjected to but one type of environment during its long period of +development from a primitive to a civilized society. Therefore, if we +assert that a people is the product of the country which it inhabits at +a given time, we forget that many different countries which its forbears +occupied have left their mark on the present race in the form of +inherited aptitudes and traditional customs acquired in those remote +ancestral habitats. The Moors of Granada had passed through a wide range +of ancestral experiences; they bore the impress of Asia, Africa and +Europe, and on their expulsion from Spain carried back with them to +Morocco traces of their peninsula life. + +A race or tribe develops certain characteristics in a certain region, +then moves on, leaving the old abode but not all the accretions of +custom, social organization and economic method there acquired. These +travel on with the migrant people; some are dropped, others are +preserved because of utility, sentiment or mere habit. For centuries +after the settlement of the Jews in Palestine, traces of their pastoral +life in the grasslands of Mesopotamia could be discerned in their social +and political organization, in their ritual and literature. Survivals of +their nomadic life in Asiatic steppes still persist among the Turks of +Europe, after six centuries of sedentary life in the best agricultural +land of the Balkan Peninsula. One of these appears in their choice of +meat. They eat chiefly sheep and goats, beef very rarely, and swine not +at all.[29] The first two thrive on poor pastures and travel well, so +that they are admirably adapted to nomadic life in arid lands; the last +two, far less so, but on the other hand are the regular concomitant of +agricultural life. The Turk's taste to-day, therefore, is determined by +the flocks and herds which he once pastured on the Trans-Caspian plains. +The finished terrace agriculture and methods of irrigation, which the +Saracens had learned on the mountain sides of Yemen through a schooling +of a thousand years or more, facilitated their economic conquest of +Spain. Their intelligent exploitation of the country's resources for the +support of their growing numbers in the favorable climatic conditions +which Spain offered was a light-hearted task, because of the severe +training which they had had in their Arabian home. + +The origin of Roman political institutions is intimately connected with +conditions of the naturally small territory where arose the greatness of +Rome. But now, after two thousand years we see the political impress of +this narrow origin spreading to the governments of an area of Europe +immeasurably larger than the region that gave it birth. In the United +States, little New England has been the source of the strongest +influences modifying the political, religious and cultural life of half +a continent; and as far as Texas and California these influences bear +the stamp of that narrow, unproductive environment which gave to its +sons energy of character and ideals. + +[Sidenote: Transplanted religions.] + +Ideas especially are light baggage, and travel with migrant peoples +over many a long and rough road. They are wafted like winged seed by the +wind, and strike root in regions where they could never have originated. +Few classes of ideas bear so plainly the geographic stamp of their +origin as religious ones, yet none have spread more widely. The abstract +monotheism sprung from the bare grasslands of western Asia made slow but +final headway against the exuberant forest gods of the early Germans. +Religious ideas travel far from their seedbeds along established lines +of communication. We have the almost amusing episode of the brawny +Burgundians of the fifth century, who received the Arian form of +Christianity by way of the Danube highway from the schools of Athens and +Alexandria, valiantly supporting the niceties of Greek religious thought +against the Roman version of the faith which came up the Rhone Valley. + +If the sacred literature of Judaism and Christianity take weak hold upon +the western mind, this is largely because it is written in the symbolism +of the pastoral nomad. Its figures of speech reflect life in deserts and +grasslands. For these figures the western mind has few or vague +corresponding ideas. It loses, therefore, half the import, for instance, +of the Twenty-third Psalm, that picture of the nomad shepherd guiding +his flock across parched and trackless plains, to bring them at evening, +weary, hungry, thirsty, to the fresh pastures and waving palms of some +oasis, whose green tints stand out in vivid contrast to the tawny wastes +of the encompassing sands. "He leadeth me beside the still waters," not +the noisy rushing stream of the rainy lands, but the quiet desert pool +that reflects the stars. What real significance has the tropical +radiance of the lotus flower, the sacred symbol of Buddhism, for the +Mongolian lama in the cold and arid borders of Gobi or the wind-swept +highlands of sterile Tibet? And yet these exotic ideas live on, even if +they no longer bloom in the uncongenial soil. But to explain them in +terms of their present environment would be indeed impossible. + +[Sidenote: Partial response to environment] + +A people may present at any given time only a partial response to their +environment also for other reasons. This may be either because their +arrival has been too recent for the new habitat to make its influence +felt; or because, even after long residence, one overpowering +geographic factor has operated to the temporary exclusion of all others. +Under these circumstances, suddenly acquired geographic advantages of a +high order or such advantages, long possessed but tardily made available +by the release of national powers from more pressing tasks, may +institute a new trend of historical development, resulting more from +stimulating geographic conditions than from the natural capacities or +aptitudes of the people themselves. Such developments, though often +brilliant, are likely to be short-lived and to end suddenly or +disastrously, because not sustained by a deep-seated national impulse +animating the whole mass of the people. They cease when the first +enthusiasm spends itself, or when outside competition is intensified, or +the material rewards decrease. + +[Sidenote: The case of Spain.] + +An illustration is found in the mediæval history of Spain. The +intercontinental location of the Iberian Peninsula exposed it to the +Saracen conquest and to the constant reinforcements to Islam power +furnished by the Mohammedanized Berbers of North Africa. For seven +centuries this location was the dominant geographic factor in Spain's +history. It made the expulsion of the Moors the sole object of all the +Iberian states, converted the country into an armed camp, made the +gentleman adventurer and Christian knight the national ideal. It placed +the center of political control high up on the barren plateau of +Castile, far from the centers of population and culture in the river +lowlands or along the coast. It excluded the industrial and commercial +development which was giving bone and sinew to the other European +states. The release of the national energies by the fall of Granada in +1492 and the now ingrained spirit of adventure enabled Spain and +Portugal to utilize the unparalleled advantage of their geographical +position at the junction of the Mediterranean and Atlantic highways, and +by their great maritime explorations in the fifteenth and sixteenth +centuries, to become foremost among European colonial powers. But the +development was sporadic, not supported by any widespread national +movement. In a few decades the maritime preëminence of the Iberian +Peninsula began to yield to the competition of the Dutch and English, +who were, so to speak, saturated with their own maritime environment. +Then followed the rapid decay of the sea power of Spain, followed by +that of Portugal, till by 1648 even her coasting trade was in the hands +of the Dutch, and Dutch vessels were employed to maintain communication +with the West Indies.[30] + +[Sidenote: Sporadic response to a new environment.] + +We have a later instance of sporadic development under the stimulus of +new and favorable geographic conditions, a similar anti-climax. The +expansion of the Russians across the lowlands of Siberia was quite in +harmony with the genius of that land-bred people; but when they reached +Bering Sea, the enclosed basin, the proximity of the American continent, +the island stepping-stones between, and the lure of rich sealskins to +the fur-hunting Cossacks determined a sudden maritime expansion, for +which the Russian people were unfitted. Beginning in 1747, it swept the +coast of Alaska, located its American administrative center first on +Kadiak, then on Baranof Island, and by 1812 placed its southern outposts +on the California coast near San Francisco Bay and on the Farralone +Islands.[31] Russian convicts were employed to man the crazy boats built +of green lumber on the shores of Bering Sea, and Aleutian hunters with +their _bidarkas_ were impressed to catch the seal.[32] The movement was +productive only of countless shipwrecks, many seal skins, and an +opportunity to satisfy an old grudge against England. The territory +gained was sold to the United States in 1867. This is the one instance +in Russian history of any attempt at maritime expansion, and also of any +withdrawal from territory to which the Muscovite power had once +established its claim. This fact alone would indicate that only +excessively tempting geographic conditions led the Russians into an +economic and political venture which neither the previously developed +aptitudes of the people nor the conditions of population and historical +development on the Siberian seaboard were able to sustain. + +[Sidenote: The larger conception of the environment.] + +The history and culture of a people embody the effects of previous +habitats and of their final environment; but this means something more +than local geographic conditions. It involves influences emanating from +far beyond the borders. No country, no continent, no sea, mountain or +river is restricted to itself in the influence which it either exercises +or receives. The history of Austria cannot be understood merely from +Austrian ground. Austrian territory is part of the Mediterranean +hinterland, and therefore has been linked historically with Rome, Italy, +and the Adriatic. It is a part of the upper Danube Valley and therefore +shares much of its history with Bavaria and Germany, while the lower +Danube has linked it with the Black Sea, Greece, the Russian steppes, +and Asia. The Asiatic Hungarians have pushed forward their ethnic +boundary nearly to Vienna. The Austrian capital has seen the warring +Turks beneath its walls, and shapes its foreign policy with a view to +the relative strength of the Sultan and the Czar. + +[Sidenote: Unity of the earth.] + +The earth is an inseparable whole. Each country or sea is physically and +historically intelligible only as a portion of that whole. Currents and +wind-systems of the oceans modify the climate of the nearby continents, +and direct the first daring navigations of their peoples. The +alternating monsoons of the Indian Ocean guided Arab merchantmen from +ancient times back and forth between the Red Sea and the Malabar coast +of India.[33] The Equatorial Current and the northeast trade-wind +carried the timid ships of Columbus across the Atlantic to America. The +Gulf Stream and the prevailing westerlies later gave English vessels the +advantage on the return voyage. Europe is a part of the Atlantic coast. +This is a fact so significant that the North Atlantic has become a +European sea. The United States also is a part of the Atlantic coast: +this is the dominant fact of American history. China forms a section of +the Pacific rim. This is the fact back of the geographic distribution of +Chinese emigration to Annam, Tonkin, Siam, Malacca, the Philippines, +East Indies, Borneo, Australia, Hawaiian Islands, the Pacific Coast +States, British Columbia, the Alaskan coast southward from Bristol Bay +in Bering Sea, Ecuador and Peru. + +As the earth is one, so is humanity. Its unity of species points to some +degree of communication through a long prehistoric past. Universal +history is not entitled to the name unless it embraces all parts of the +earth and all peoples, whether savage or civilized. To fill the gaps in +the written record it must turn to ethnology and geography, which by +tracing the distribution and movements of primitive peoples can often +reconstruct the most important features of their history. + +Anthropo-geographic problems are never simple. They must all be viewed +in the long perspective of evolution and the historical past. They +require allowance for the dominance of different geographic factors at +different periods, and for a possible range of geographic influences +wide as the earth itself. In the investigator they call for pains-taking +analysis and, above all, an open mind. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER I + +[1] George Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, pp. +149-157. New York, 1897. + +[2] A.P. Brigham, Geographic Influences in American History, Chap. I. +Boston, 1903. + +[3] R.H. Whitbeck, Geographic Influences in the Development of New +Jersey, _Journal of Geography_, Vol. V, No. 6. January, 1908. + +[4] Hans Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. II, p. 372. London and New +York, 1902-1906. + +[5] Jean Baptiste Tavernier, Travels in India, 1641-1667. Vol. I, chap. +V and map. London, 1889. + +[6] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, p. 305. London, 1905. + +[7] Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, Vol. II, pp. 464-465, 469. +London, 1883. + +[8] _Imperial Gazetteer for India_, Vol. III, p. 109. London, 1885. + +[9] G.G. Chisholm, The Relativity of Geographic Advantages, _Scottish +Geog. Mag_., Vol. XIII, No. 9, Sept. 1897. + +[10] Hugh Robert Mill, International Geography, p. 347. New York, 1902. + +[11] Joseph Partsch, Central Europe, pp. 228-230. London, 1903. + +[12] H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, pp. 317-323. London, +1904. + +[13] Captain A.T. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon History, pp. 36-38. +Boston, 1902. + +[14] G.G. Chisholm, Economic Geography, _Scottish Geog. Mag_., March, +1908. + +[15] Captain A.T. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon History, pp. 37-38. +Boston, 1902. + +[16] Boyd Winchester, The Swiss Republic, pp. 123, 124, 145-147. +Philadelphia, 1891. + +[17] Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, Book XIV, chap. IV. + +[18] Henry Buckle, History of Civilization in England, Vol. I, pp. +86-106. + +[19] Heinrich von Treitschke, _Politik_, Vol. I, p. 225. Leipzig, 1897. +This whole chapter on _Land und Leute_ is suggestive. + +[20] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 524-525. New York, 1899. + +[21] _Ibid._, 526. + +[22] _Ibid._, 517-520, 533-536. + +[23] Joseph Partsch, Central Europe, pp. 256-257, 268-271. London, 1903. + +[24] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, p. 89. New York, 1899. + +[25] Strabo, Book VII, chap. I, 2. + +[26] Strabo, Book II, chap. III, 7. + +[27] Plutarch, Solon, pp. 13, 29, 154. + +[28] Hans Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. II, pp. 244-245. New York, +1902-1906. + +[29] Roscher, _National-oekonomik des Ackerbaues_, p. 33, note 3. +Stuttgart, 1888. + +[30] Captain A.T. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon History, pp. 41-42, +50-53. Boston, 1902. + +[31] H. Bancroft, History of California, Vol. I, pp. 298, 628-635. San +Francisco. + +[32] Agnes Laut, Vikings of the Pacific, pp. 64-82. New York, 1905. + +[33] Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, Vol. II, pp. 351, 470-471. +London, 1883. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +CLASSES OF GEOGRAPHIC INFLUENCES + + +Into almost every anthropo-geographical problem the element of +environment enters in different phases, with different modes of +operation and varying degrees of importance. Since the causal conception +of geography demands a detailed analysis of all the relations between +environment and human development, it is advisable to distinguish the +various classes of geographic influences. + +[Sidenote: Physical effects.] + +Four fundamental classes of effects can be distinguished. + +1. The first class includes direct physical effects of environment, +similar to those exerted on plants and animals by their habitat. Certain +geographic conditions, more conspicuously those of climate, apply +certain stimuli to which man, like the lower animals, responds by an +adaption of his organism to his environment. Many physiological +peculiarities of man are due to physical effects of environment, which +doubtless operated very strongly in the earliest stages of human +development, and in those shadowy ages contributed to the +differentiation of races. The unity of the human species is as clearly +established as the diversity of races and peoples, whose divergences +must be interpreted chiefly as modifications in response to various +habitats in long periods of time. + +[Sidenote: Variation and natural conditions.] + +Such modifications have probably been numerous in the persistent and +unending movements, shiftings, and migrations which have made up the +long prehistoric history of man. If the origin of species is found in +variability and inheritance, variation is undoubtedly influenced by a +change of natural conditions. To quote Darwin, "In one sense the +conditions of life may be said, not only to cause variability, either +directly or indirectly, but likewise to include natural selection, for +the conditions determine whether this or that variety shall survive."[34] +The variability of man does not mean that every external influence +leaves its mark upon him, but that man as an organism, by the +preservation of beneficent variations and the elimination of deleterious +ones, is gradually adapted to his environment, so that he can utilize +most completely that which it contributes to his needs. This +self-maintenance under outward influences is an essential part of the +conception of life which Herbert Spencer defines as the correspondence +between internal conditions and external circumstances, or August Comte +as the harmony between the living being and the surrounding medium or +_milieu_. + +According to Virchow, the distinction of races rests upon hereditary +variations, but heredity itself cannot become active till the +characteristic or _Zustand_ is produced which is to be handed down.[35] +But environment determines what variation shall become stable enough to +be passed on by heredity. For instance, we can hardly err in attributing +the great lung capacity, massive chests, and abnormally large torsos of +the Quichua and Aymara Indians inhabiting the high Andean plateaus to +the rarified air found at an altitude of 10,000 or 15,000 feet above sea +level. Whether these have been acquired by centuries of extreme lung +expansion, or represent the survival of a chance variation of undoubted +advantage, they are a product of the environment. They are a serious +handicap when the Aymara Indian descends to the plains, where he either +dies off or leaves descendants with diminishing chests.[36] [See map page +101.] + +[Sidenote: Stature and environment] + +Darwin holds that many slight changes in animals and plants, such as +size, color, thickness of skin and hair, have been produced through food +supply and climate from the external conditions under which the forms +lived.[37] Paul Ehrenreich, while regarding the chief race distinctions +as permanent forms, not to be explained by external conditions, +nevertheless concedes the slight and slow variation of the sub-race +under changing conditions of food and climate as beyond doubt.[38] +Stature is partly a matter of feeding and hence of geographic condition. +In mountain regions, where the food resources are scant, the varieties +of wild animals are characterized by smaller size in general than are +corresponding species in the lowlands. It is a noticeable fact that +dwarfed horses or ponies have originated in islands, in Iceland, the +Shetlands, Corsica and Sardinia. This is due either to scanty and +unvaried food or to excessive inbreeding, or probably to both. The +horses introduced into the Falkland Islands in 1764 have deteriorated so +in size and strength in a few generations that they are in a fair way to +develop a Falkland variety of pony.[39] On the other hand, Mr. Homer +Davenport states that the pure-bred Arabian horses raised on his New +Jersey stock farm are in the third generation a hand higher than their +grandsires imported from Arabia, and of more angular build. The result +is due to more abundant and nutritious food and the elimination of long +desert journeys. + +The low stature of the natives prevailing in certain "misery spots" of +Europe, as in the Auvergne Plateau of southern France, is due in part to +race, in part to a disastrous artificial selection by the emigration of +the taller and more robust individuals, but in considerable part to the +harsh climate and starvation food-yield of that sterile soil; for the +children of the region, if removed to the more fertile valleys of the +Loire and Garonne, grow to average stature.[40] The effect of a scant and +uncertain food supply is especially clear in savages, who have erected +fewer buffers between themselves and the pressure of environment. The +Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert are shorter than their Hottentot kindred +who pasture their flocks and herds in the neighboring grasslands.[41] +Samoyedes, Lapps, and other hyperborean races of Eurasia are shorter +than their more southern neighbors, the physical record of an immemorial +struggle against cold and hunger. The stunted forms and wretched aspect +of the Snake Indians inhabiting the Rocky Mountain deserts distinguished +these clans from the tall buffalo-hunting tribes of the plains.[42] Any +feature of geographic environment tending to affect directly the +physical vigor and strength of a people cannot fail to prove a potent +factor in their history. + +[Sidenote: Physical effects of dominant activities.] + +Oftentimes environment modifies the physique of a people indirectly by +imposing upon them certain predominant activities, which may develop one +part of the body almost to the point of deformity. This is the effect of +increased use or disuse which Darwin discusses. He attributes the thin +legs and thick arms of the Payaguas Indians living along the Paraguay +River to generations of lives spent in canoes, with the lower +extremities motionless and the arm and chest muscles in constant +exercise.[43] Livingstone found these same characteristics of broad +chests and shoulders with ill-developed legs among the Barotse of the +upper Zambesi;[44] and they have been observed in pronounced form, +coupled with distinctly impaired powers of locomotion, among the +Tlingit, Tsimshean, and Haida Indians of the southern Alaskan and +British Columbia coast, where the geographic conditions of a mountainous +and almost strandless shore interdicted agriculture and necessitated +sea-faring activities.[45] An identical environment has produced a like +physical effect upon the canoemen of Tierra del Fuego[46] and the +Aleutian Islanders, who often sit in their boats twenty hours at a +time.[47] These special adaptations are temporary in their nature and +tend to disappear with change of occupation, as, for instance, among the +Tlingit Indians, who develop improved leg muscles when employed as +laborers in the salmon canneries of British Columbia. + +[Sidenote: Effects of climate.] + +Both the direct and indirect physical effects of environment thus far +instanced are obvious in themselves and easily explained. Far different +is it with the majority of physical effects, especially those of +climate, whose mode of operation is much more obscure than was once +supposed. The modern geographer does not indulge in the naive hypothesis +of the last century, which assumed a prompt and direct effect of +environment upon the form and features of man. Carl Ritter regarded the +small, slit eyes and swollen lids of the Turkoman as "an obvious effect +of the desert upon the organism." Stanhope Smith ascribed the high +shoulders and short neck of the Tartars of Mongolia to their habit of +raising their shoulders to protect the neck against the cold; their +small, squinting eyes, overhanging brows, broad faces and high cheek +bones, to the effect of the bitter, driving winds and the glare of the +snow, till, he says, "every feature by the action of the cold is harsh +and distorted."[48] These profound influences of a severe climate upon +physiognomy he finds also among the Lapps, northern Mongolians, +Samoyedes and Eskimo. + +[Sidenote: Acclimatization] + +Most of these problems are only secondarily grist for the geographer's +mill. For instance, when the Aryans descended to the enervating lowlands +of tropical India, and in that debilitating climate lost the qualities +which first gave them supremacy, the change which they underwent was +primarily a physiological one. It can be scientifically described and +explained therefore only by physiologists and physico-chemists; and upon +their investigations the geographer must wait before he approaches the +problem from the standpoint of geographical distribution. Into this +sub-class of physical effects come all questions of acclimatization.[49] +These are important to the anthropo-geographer, just as they are to +colonial governments like England or France, because they affect the +power of national or racial expansion, and fix the historical fate of +tropical lands. The present populations of the earth represent physical +adaptation to their environments. The intense heat and humidity of most +tropical lands prevent any permanent occupation by a native-born +population of pure whites. The catarrhal zone north of the fortieth +parallel in America soon exterminates the negroes.[50] + +The Indians of South America, though all fundamentally of the same +ethnic stock, are variously acclimated to the warm, damp, forested +plains of the Amazon; to the hot, dry, treeless coasts of Peru; and to +the cold, arid heights of the Andes. The habitat that bred them tends to +hold them, by restricting the range of climate which they can endure. In +the zone of the Andean slope lying between 4,000 and 6,000 feet of +altitude, which produces the best flavored coffee and which must be +cultivated, the imported Indians from the high plateaus and from the low +Amazon plains alike sicken and die after a short time; so that they take +employment on these coffee plantations for only three or five months, +and then return to their own homes. Labor becomes nomadic on these +slopes, and in the intervals these farm lands of intensive agriculture +show the anomaly of a sparse population only of resident managers.[51] +Similarly in the high, dry Himalayan valley of the upper Indus, over +10,000 feet above sea level, the natives of Ladak are restricted to a +habitat that yields them little margin of food for natural growth of +population but forbids them to emigrate in search of more,--applies at +the same time the lash to drive and the leash to hold, for these +highlanders soon die when they reach the plains.[52] Here are two +antagonistic geographic influences at work from the same environment, +one physical and the other social-economic. The Ladaki have reached an +interesting resolution of these two forces by the institution of +polyandry, which keeps population practically stationary. + +[Sidenote: Pigmentation and climate.] + +The relation of pigmentation to climate has long interested geographers +as a question of environment; but their speculations on the subject have +been barren, because the preliminary investigations of the physiologist, +physicist and chemist are still incomplete. The general fact of +increasing nigrescence from temperate towards equatorial regions is +conspicuous enough, despite some irregularity of the shading.[53] This +fact points strongly to some direct relation between climate and +pigmentation, but gives no hint how the pigmental processes are +affected. The physiologist finds that in the case of the negro, the dark +skin is associated with a dense cuticle, diminished perspiration, +smaller chests and less respiratory power, a lower temperature and more +rapid pulse,[54] all which variations may enter into the problem of the +negroes coloring. The question is therefore by no means simple. + +Yet it is generally conceded by scientists that pigment is a protective +device of nature. The negro's skin is comparatively insensitive to a sun +heat that blisters a white man. Livingstone found the bodies of albino +negroes in Bechuana Land always blistered on exposure to the sun,[55] +and a like effect has been observed among albino Polynesians, and +Melanesians of Fiji.[56] Paul Ehrenreich finds that the degree of +coloration depends less upon annual temperature than upon the direct +effect of the sun's rays; and that therefore a people dwelling in a +cool, dry climate, but exposed to the sun may be darker than another in +a hot, moist climate but living in a dense forest. The forest-dwelling +Botokudos of the upper San Francisco River in Brazil are fairer than the +kindred Kayapo tribe, who inhabit the open campos; and the Arawak of the +Purus River forests are lighter than their fellows in the central Matto +Grosso.[57] Sea-faring coast folk, who are constantly exposed to the +sun, especially in the Tropics, show a deeper pigmentation than their +kindred of the wooded interior.[58] The coast Moros of western Mindanao +are darker than the Subanos, their Malay brethren of the back country, +the lightness of whose color can be explained by their forest life.[59] +So the Duallas of the Kamerun coast of Africa are darker than the +Bakwiri inhabiting the forested mountains just behind them, though both +tribes belong to the Bantu group of people.[60] Here light, in +contradistinction to heat, appears the dominant factor in pigmentation. +A recent theory, advanced by von Schmaedel in 1895, rests upon the +chemical power of light. It holds that the black pigment renders the +negro skin insensitive to the luminous or actinic effects of solar +radiation, which are far more destructive to living protoplasm than the +merely calorific effects.[61] + +[Sidenote: Pigmentation and altitude] + +Coloration responds to other more obscure influences of environment. A +close connection between pigmentation and elevation above sea level has +been established: a high altitude operates like a high latitude. +Blondness increases appreciably on the higher slopes of the Black +Forest, Vosges Mountains, and Swiss Alps, though these isolated +highlands are the stronghold of the brunette Alpine race.[62] Livi, in +his treatise on military anthropometry, deduced a special action of +mountains upon pigmentation on observing a prevailing increase of +blondness in Italy above the four-hundred meter line, a phenomenon which +came out as strongly in Basilicata and Calabria provinces of the south +as in Piedmont and Lombardy in the north.[63] The dark Hamitic Berbers +of northern Africa have developed an unmistakable blond variant in high +valleys of the Atlas range, which in a sub-tropical region rises to the +height of 12,000 feet. Here among the Kabyles the population is fair; +grey, blue or green eyes are frequent, as is also reddish blond or +chestnut hair.[64] Waitz long ago affirmed this tendency of mountaineers +to lighter coloring from his study of primitive peoples.[65] The +modification can not be attributed wholly to climatic contrast between +mountain and plain. Some other factor, like the economic poverty of the +environment and the poor food-supply, as Livi suggests, has had a hand +in the result; but just what it is or how it has operated cannot yet be +defined.[66] + +[Sidenote: Difficulty of Generalization] + +Enough has been said to show that the geographer can formulate no broad +generalization as to the relation of pigmentation and climate from the +occurrence of the darkest skins in the Tropics; because this fact is +weakened by the appearance also of lighter tints in the hottest +districts, and of darker ones in arctic and temperate regions. The +geographer must investigate the questions when and where deeper shades +develop in the skins of fair races; what is the significance of dark +skins in the cold zones and of fair ones in hot zones. His answer must +be based largely on the conclusions of physiologists and physicists, and +only when these have reached a satisfactory solution of each detail of +the problem can the geographer summarize the influence of environment +upon pigmentation. The rule can therefore safely be laid down that in +all investigation of geographic influences upon the permanent physical +characteristics of races, the geographic distribution of these should be +left out of consideration till the last, since it so easily +misleads.[67] Moreover, owing to the ceaseless movements of mankind, +these effects do not remain confined to the region that produced them, +but pass on with the wandering throng in whom they have once developed, +and in whom they endure or vanish according as they prove beneficial or +deleterious in the new habitat. + +[Sidenote: Psychical effects.] + +II. More varied and important are the psychical effects of geographic +environment. As direct effects they are doubtless bound up in many +physiological modifications; and as influences of climate, they help +differentiate peoples and races in point of temperament. They are +reflected in man's religion and his literature, in his modes of thought +and figures of speech. Blackstone states that "in the Isle of Man, to +take away a horse or ox was no felony, but a trespass, because of the +difficulty in that little territory to conceal them or to carry them +off; but to steal a pig or a fowl, which is easily done, was a capital +misdemeanour, and the offender punished with death." The judges or +deemsters in this island of fishermen swore to execute the laws as +impartially "as the herring's backbone doth lie in the middle of the +fish."[68] The whole mythology of the Polynesians is an echo of the +encompassing ocean. The cosmography of every primitive people, their +first crude effort in the science of the universe, bears the impress of +their habitat. The Eskimo's hell is a place of darkness, storm and +intense cold;[69] the Jew's is a place of eternal fire. Buddha, born in +the steaming Himalayan piedmont, fighting the lassitude induced by heat +and humidity, pictured his heaven as Nirvana, the cessation of all +activity and individual life. + +[Sidenote: Indirect effect upon language] + +Intellectual effects of environment may appear in the enrichment of a +language in one direction to a rare nicety of expression; but this may +be combined with a meager vocabulary in all other directions. The +greatest cattle-breeders among the native Africans, such as the Hereros +of western Damaraland and the Dinkas of the upper White Nile, have an +amazing choice of words for all colors describing their animals--brown, +dun, red, white, dapple, and so on in every gradation of shade and hue. +The Samoyedes of northern Russia have eleven or twelve terms to +designate the various grays and browns of their reindeer, despite their +otherwise low cultural development.[70] The speech of nomads has an +abundance of expressions for cattle in every relation of life. It +includes different words for breeding, pregnancy, death, and +slaughtering in relation to every different kind of domestic animal. The +Magyars, among whom pastoral life still survives on the low plains of +the Danube and Theiss, have a generic word for herd, _csorda_, and +special terms for herds of cattle, horses, sheep, and swine.[71] While +the vocabulary of Malays and Polynesians is especially rich in nautical +terms, the Kirghis shepherd tribes who wander over the highlands of +western Asia from the Tian Shan to the Hindu Kush have four different +terms for four kinds of mountain passes. A _daban_ is a difficult, rocky +defile; an _art_ is very high and dangerous; a _bel_ is a low, easy +pass, and a _kutal_ is a broad opening between low hills.[72] + +To such influences man is a passive subject, especially in the earlier +stages of his development; but there are more important influences +emanating from his environment which affect him as an active agent, +challenge his will by furnishing the motives for its exercise, give +purpose to his activities, and determine the direction which they shall +take.[73] These mold his mind and character through the media of his +economic and social life, and produce effects none the less important +because they are secondary. About these anthropo-geography can reach +surer conclusions than regarding direct psychical effects, because it +can trace their mode of operation as well as define the result. Direct +psychical effects are more matters of conjecture, whose causation is +asserted rather than proved. They seem to float in the air, detached +from the solid ground under foot, and are therefore subject matter for +the psychologist rather than the geographer. + +[Sidenote: The great man in history.] + +What of the great man in this geographical interpretation of history? It +seems to take no account of him, or to put him into the melting-pot with +the masses. Both are to some extent true. As a science, +anthropo-geography can deal only with large averages, and these exclude +or minimize the exceptional individual. Moreover, geographic conditions +which give this or that bent to a nation's purposes and determine its +aggregate activities have a similar effect upon the individual; but he +may institute a far-seeing policy, to whose wisdom only gradually is the +people awakened. The acts of the great man are rarely arbitrary or +artificial; he accelerates or retards the normal course of development, +but cannot turn it counter to the channels of natural conditions. As a +rule he is a product of the same forces that made his people. He moves +with them and is followed by them under a common impulse. Daniel Boone, +that picturesque figure leading the van of the westward movement over +the Allegheny Mountains, was born of his frontier environment and found +a multitude of his kind in that region of backwoods farms to follow him +into the wilderness. Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, in the Louisiana +Purchase, carried out the policy of expansion adumbrated in Governor +Spottswood's expedition with the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe over +the Blue Ridge in 1712. Jefferson's daring consummation of the purchase +without government authority showed his community of purpose with the +majority of the people. Peter the Great's location of his capital at St. +Petersburg, usually stigmatized as the act of a despot, was made in +response to natural conditions offering access to the Baltic nations, +just as certainly as ten centuries before similar conditions and +identical advantages led the early Russian merchants to build up a town +at nearby Novgorod, in easy water connection with the Baltic +commerce.[74] + +[Sidenote: Economic and social effects.] + +III. Geographic conditions influence the economic and social development +of a people by the abundance, paucity, or general character of the +natural resources, by the local ease or difficulty of securing the +necessaries of life, and by the possibility of industry and commerce +afforded by the environment. From the standpoint of production and +exchange, these influences are primarily the subject matter of economic +and commercial geography; but since they also permeate national life, +determine or modify its social structure, condemn it to the dwarfing +effects of national poverty, or open to it the cultural and political +possibilities resident in national wealth, they are legitimate material +also for anthropo-geography. + +[Sidenote: Size of the social group.] + +They are especially significant because they determine the size of the +social group. This must be forever small in areas of limited resources +or of limited extent, as in the little islands of the world and the yet +smaller oases. The desert of Chinese Turkestan supports, in certain +detached spots of river-born fertility, populations like the 60,000 of +Kashgar, and from this size groups all the way down to the single +families which Younghusband found living by a mere trickle of a stream +flowing down the southern slope of the Tian Shan. Small islands, +according to their size, fertility, and command of trade, may harbor a +sparse and scant population, like the five hundred souls struggling for +an ill-fed existence on the barren Westman Isles of Iceland; or a +compact, teeming, yet absolutely small social group, like that crowding +Malta or the Bermudas. Whether sparsely or compactly distributed, such +groups suffer the limitations inherent in their small size. They are +forever excluded from the historical significance attaching to the +large, continuously distributed populations of fertile continental +lands. + +[Sidenote: Effect upon movements of peoples.] + +IV. The next class belongs exclusively to the domain of geography, +because it embraces the influence of the features of the earth's surface +in directing the movements and ultimate distribution of mankind. It +includes the effect of natural barriers, like mountains, deserts, +swamps, and seas, in obstructing or deflecting the course of migrating +people and in giving direction to national expansion; it considers the +tendency of river valleys and treeless plains to facilitate such +movements, the power of rivers, lakes, bays and oceans either to block +the path or open a highway, according as navigation is in a primitive or +advanced stage; and finally the influence of all these natural features +in determining the territory which a people is likely to occupy, and the +boundaries which shall separate from their neighbors. + +[Sidenote: River routes.] + +The lines of expansion followed by the French and English in the +settlement of America and also the extent of territory covered by each +were powerfully influenced by geographic conditions. The early French +explorers entered the great east-west waterway of the St. Lawrence River +and the Great Lakes, which carried them around the northern end of the +Appalachian barrier into the heart of the continent, planted them on the +low, swampy, often navigable watershed of the Mississippi, and started +them on another river voyage of nearly two thousand miles to the Gulf of +Mexico. Here were the conditions and temptation for almost unlimited +expansion; hence French Canada reached to the head of Lake Superior, and +French Louisiana to the sources of the Missouri, To the lot of the +English fell a series of short rivers with fertile valleys, nearly +barred at their not distant sources by a wall of forested mountains, but +separated from one another by low watersheds which facilitated lateral +expansion over a narrow belt between mountains and sea. Here a region of +mild climate and fertile soil suited to agriculture, enclosed by strong +natural boundaries, made for compact settlement, in contrast to the wide +diffusion of the French. Later, when a growing population pressed +against the western barrier, mountain gates opened at Cumberland Gap and +the Mohawk Valley; the Ohio River and the Great Lakes became interior +thoroughfares, and the northwestern prairies lines of least resistance +to the western settler. Rivers played the same part in directing and +expediting this forward movement, as did the Lena and the Amoor in the +Russian advance into Siberia, the Humber and the Trent in the progress +of the Angles into the heart of Britain, the Rhone and Danube in the +march of the Romans into central Europe. + +[Sidenote: Segregation and accessibility.] + +The geographical environment of a people may be such as to segregate +them from others, and thereby to preserve or even intensify their +natural characteristics; or it may expose them to extraneous influences, +to an infusion of new blood and new ideas, till their peculiarities are +toned down, their distinctive features of dialect or national dress or +provincial customs eliminated, and the people as a whole approach to the +composite type of civilized humanity. A land shut off by mountains or +sea from the rest of the world tends to develop a homogeneous people, +since it limits or prevents the intrusion of foreign elements; or when +once these are introduced, it encourages their rapid assimilation by the +strongly interactive life of a confined locality. Therefore large or +remote islands are, as a rule, distinguished by the unity of their +inhabitants in point of civilization and race characteristics. Witness +Great Britain, Ireland, Japan, Iceland, as also Australia and New +Zealand at the time of their discovery. The highlands of the Southern +Appalachians, which form the "mountain backyards" of Kentucky, Tennessee +and North Carolina, are peopled by the purest English stock in the +United States, descendants of the backwoodsmen of the late eighteenth +century. Difficulty of access and lack of arable land have combined to +discourage immigration. In consequence, foreign elements, including the +elsewhere ubiquitous negro, are wanting, except along the few railroads +which in recent years have penetrated this country. Here survive an +eighteenth century English, Christmas celebrated on Twelfth Night, the +spinning wheel, and a belief in Joshua's power to arrest the course of +the sun.[75] + +An easily accessible land is geographically hospitable to all +new-comers, facilitates the mingling of peoples, the exchange of +commodities and ideas. The amalgamation of races in such regions depends +upon the similarity or diversity of the ethnic elements and the duration +of the common occupation. The broad, open valley of the Danube from the +Black Sea to Vienna contains a bizarre mixture of several stocks--Turks, +Bulgarians, various families of pure Slavs, Roumanians, Hungarians, and +Germans. These elements are too diverse and their occupation of the +valley too recent for amalgamation to have advanced very far as yet. The +maritime plain and open river valleys of northern France show a complete +fusion of the native Celts with the Saxons, Franks, and Normans who have +successively drifted into the region, just as the Teutonic and scanter +Slav elements have blended in the Baltic plains from the Elbe to the +Vistula. + +[Sidenote: Change of habitat.] + +Here are four different classes of geographic influences, all which may +become active in modifying a people when it changes its habitat. Many of +the characteristics acquired in the old home still live on, or at best +yield slowly to the new environment. This is especially true of the +direct physical and psychical effects. But a country may work a prompt +and radical change in the social organization of an immigrant people by +the totally new conditions of economic life which it presents. These may +be either greater wealth or poverty of natural resources than the race +has previously known, new stimulants or deterrents to commerce and +intercourse, and new conditions of climate which affect the efficiency +of the workman and the general character of production. From these a +whole complex mass of secondary effects may follow. + +The Aryans and Mongols, leaving their homes in the cool barren highlands +of Central Asia where nature dispensed her gifts with a miserly hand, +and coming down to the hot, low, fertile plains of the Indian rivers, +underwent several fundamental changes in the process of adaptation to +their new environment. An enervating climate did its work in slaking +their energies; but more radical still was the change wrought by the +contrast of poverty and abundance, enforced asceticism and luxury, +presented by the old and new home. The restless, tireless shepherds +became a sedentary, agricultural people; the abstemious nomads,--spare, +sinewy, strangers to indulgence--became a race of rulers, revelling in +luxury, lording it over countless subjects; finally, their numbers +increased rapidly, no longer kept down by the scant subsistence of arid +grasslands and scattered oases. + +In a similar way, the Arab of the desert became transformed into the +sedentary lord of Spain. In the luxuriance of field and orchard which +his skilful methods of irrigation and tillage produced, in the growing +predominance of the intellectual over the nomadic military life, of the +complex affairs of city and mart over the simple tasks of herdsman or +cultivator, he lost the benefit of the early harsh training and +therewith his hold upon his Iberian empire. Biblical history gives us +the picture of the Sheik Abraham, accompanied by his nephew Lot, moving +up from the rainless plains of Mesopotamia with his flocks and herds +into the better watered Palestine. There his descendants in the garden +land of Canaan became an agricultural people; and the problem of Moses +and the Judges was to prevent their assimilation in religion and custom +to the settled Semitic tribes about them, and to make them preserve the +ideals born in the starry solitudes of the desert. + +[Sidenote: Retrogression in new habitat.] + +The change from the nomadic to the sedentary life represents an economic +advance. Sometimes removal to strongly contrasted geographic conditions +necessitates a reversion to a lower economic type of existence. The +French colonists who came to Lower Canada in the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries found themselves located in a region of intense +cold, where arable soil was inferior in quality and limited in amount, +producing no staple like the tobacco of Virginia or the wheat of +Maryland or the cotton of South Carolina or the sugar of the West +Indies, by which a young colony might secure a place in European trade. +But the snow-wrapped forests of Canada yielded an abundance of +fur-bearing animals, the fineness and thickness of whose pelts were born +of this frozen north. Into their remotest haunts at the head of Lake +Superior or of Hudson Bay, long lines of rivers and lakes opened level +water roads a thousand miles or more from the crude little colonial +capital at Quebec. And over in Europe beaver hats and fur-trimmed +garments were all the style! So the plodding farmer from Normandy and +the fisherman from Poitou, transferred to Canadian soil, were +irresistibly drawn into the adventurous life of the trapper and +fur-trader. The fur trade became the accepted basis of colonial life; +the _voyageur_ and _courier de bois_, clad in skins, paddling up +ice-rimmed streams in their birch-bark canoes, fraternizing with Indians +who were their only companions in that bleak interior, and married often +to dusky squaws, became assimilated to the savage life about them and +reverted to the lower hunter stage of civilization.[76] + +[Sidenote: The Boers of South Africa] + +Another pronounced instance of rapid retrogression under new unfavorable +geographic conditions is afforded by the South African Boer. The +transfer from the busy commercial cities of the Rhine mouths to the +far-away periphery of the world's trade, from the intensive agriculture +of small deltaic gardens and the scientific dairy farming of the moist +Netherlands to the semi-arid pastures of the high, treeless _veldt_, +where they were barred from contact with the vivifying sea and its +ship-borne commerce, has changed the enterprising seventeenth century +Hollander into the conservative pastoral Boer. Dutch cleanliness has +necessarily become a tradition to a people who can scarcely find water +for their cattle. The comfort and solid bourgeois elegance of the Dutch +home lost its material equipment in the Great Trek, when the long wagon +journey reduced household furniture to its lowest terms. House-wifely +habits and order vanished in the semi-nomadic life which followed.[77] +The gregarious instinct, bred by the closely-packed population of little +Holland, was transformed to a love of solitude, which in all lands +characterizes the people of a remote and sparsely inhabited frontier. It +is a common saying that the Boer cannot bear to see another man's smoke +from his _stoep_, just as the early Trans-Allegheny pioneer was always +on the move westward, because he could not bear to hear his neighbor's +watch-dog bark. Even the Boer language has deteriorated under the +effects of isolation and a lower status of civilization. The native +_Taal_ differs widely from the polished speech of Holland; it preserves +some features of the High Dutch of two centuries ago, but has lost +inflexions and borrowed words for new phenomena from the English, +Kaffirs and Hottentots; can express no abstract ideas, only the concrete +ideas of a dull, work-a-day world.[78] + +The new habitat may eliminate many previously acquired characteristics +and hence transform a people, as in the case of the Boers; or it may +intensify tribal or national traits, as in the seafaring propensities of +the Angles and Saxons when transferred to Britain, and of the +seventeenth century English when transplanted to the indented coasts of +New England; or it may tolerate mere survival or the slow dissuetude of +qualities which escape any particular pressure in the new environment, +and which neither benefit nor handicap in the modified struggle for +existence. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER II + +[34] Darwin, Origin of Species, Chap. V, p. 166. New York, 1895. + +[35] E. Virchow, _Rassenbildung und Erblichkeit_, Bastian +Festschrift, pp. 14, 43, 44. Berlin, 1896. + +[36] Darwin, Descent of Man, pp. 34-35. New York, 1899. + +[37] Darwin, Origin of Species, Chap. I, pp. 8-9. New York, 1895. + +[38] P. Ehrenreich, _Die Urbewohner Brasiliens_, p. 30. Braunschweig, +1897. + +[39] Ratzel, _Die Erde und das Leben_, Vol. I, pp. 364, 365. Leipzig and +Vienna, 1901. + +[40] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 79-86, 96, 100. New York, 1899. + +[41] T. Waitz, Anthropology, pp. 57-58. Edited by J.F. Collingwood. +London, 1863. + +[42] Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the United States, Vol. I, pp. +198-200, 219. Philadelphia, 1853. + +[43] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 33. New York, 1899. + +[44] D. Livingstone, Missionary Travels, p. 266. New York, 1858. + +[45] Alaska, _Eleventh Census Report_, pp. 54, 56. Washington, 1893, and +Albert P. Niblack, The Coast Indians of Southern Alaska and Northern +British Columbia, p. 237. Washington, 1888. + +[46] Fitz-Roy, Voyage of the Beagle, Vol. II, pp. 130-132, 137, 138. +London, 1839. + +[47] H. Bancroft, Native Races, Vol. I, pp. 88-89. San Francisco, 1886. + +[48] S. Stanhope Smith, Essay on the Causes of the Variety of Complexion +and Figure in the Human Species, pp. 103-110. New Brunswick and New +York, 1810. + +[49] For full discussion see A.R. Wallace's article on acclimatization +in Encyclopedia Britanica, and W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe. Chap. XXI. +New York, 1899. + +[50] D.G. Brinton, Races and Peoples, pp. 39-41. Philadelphia, 1901. + +[51] Darwin, Descent of Man, pp. 34-35. New York, 1899. + +[52] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, pp. 137-138. London, 1897. + +[53] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 58-71, Map. New York, 1898. + +[54] _Ibid._, p. 566. D.G. Brinton, Races and Peoples, pp. 29-30. +Philadelphia, 1901. + +[55] D. Livingstone, Missionary Travels, p. 607. New York, 1858. + +[56] Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, p. 83, New York, 1859. + +[57] P. Ehrenreich, _Die Urbewohner Brasiliens_, p. 32. Braunschweig, +1897. + +[58] T. Waitz, Anthropology, pp. 46-49. Edited by Collingwood, London, +1863. + +[59] _Philippine Census_, Vol. I, p. 552. Washington, 1903. + +[60] F. Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, p. 106. London, 1908. + +[61] Major Charles E. Woodruff, The Effect of Tropical Light on the +White Man, New York, 1905, is a suggestive but not convincing discussion +of the theory. + +[62] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 74-77. New York, 1899. + +[63] Quoted in G. Sergi, The Mediterranean Race, p. 73. London and New +York, 1901. + +[64] _Ibid._, pp. 63-69, 74-75. + +[65] T. Waitz, Anthropology, pp. 44-45. Edited by J.F. Collingwood, +London, 1863. + +[66] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, p. 76. New York, 1899. + +[67] For able discussion, see Topinard, Anthropology, pp. 385-392. Tr. +from French, London, 1894. + +[68] J. Johnson, Jurisprudence of the Isle of Man, pp. 44, 71. +Edinburgh, 1811. + +[69] Charles F. Hall, Arctic Researches and Life among the Eskimo, p. +571. New York, 1866. Franz Boas, The Central Eskimo, _Sixth Annual +Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, pp. 588-590. Washington, 1888. + +[70] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 35. London, 1896-1898. + +[71] Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Ackerbaues_, p. 34, note 8. +Stuttgart, 1888. + +[72] Elisée Reclus, The Earth and Its Inhabitants, _Asia_, Vol. I, p. +171. New York, 1895. + +[73] Alfred Hettner, _Die Geographie des Menschen_, pp. 409-410 in +_Geographische Zeitschrift_, Vol. XIII, No. 8. Leipzig, 1907. + +[74] S.B. Boulton, The Russian Empire, pp. 60-64. London, 1882. + +[75] E.C. Semple, The Anglo-Saxons of the Kentucky Mountains, _The +Geographical Journal_, Vol. XVII, No. 6, pp. 588-623. London, 1901. + +[76] E.C. Semple, American History and its Geographic Conditions, pp. +25-31. Boston, 1903. The Influence of Geographic Environment on the +Lower St. Lawrence, Bull. _Amer. Geog. Society_, Vol. XXXVI, p. 449-466. +New York, 1904. + +[77] A.R. Colquhoun, Africander Land, pp. 200-201. New York, 1906. + +[78] _Ibid._, pp. 140-145. James Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, p. +398. New York, 1897. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SOCIETY AND STATE IN RELATION TO THE LAND + + +[Sidenote: People and land.] + +Every clan, tribe, state or nation includes two ideas, a people and its +land, the first unthinkable without the other. History, sociology, +ethnology touch only the inhabited areas of the earth. These areas gain +their final significance because of the people who occupy them; their +local conditions of climate, soil, natural resources, physical features +and geographic situation are important primarily as factors in the +development of actual or possible inhabitants. A land is fully +comprehended only when studied in the light of its influence upon its +people, and a people cannot be understood apart from the field of its +activities. More than this, human activities are fully intelligible only +in relation to the various geographic conditions which have stimulated +them in different parts of the world. The principles of the evolution of +navigation, of agriculture, of trade, as also the theory of population, +can never reach their correct and final statement, unless the data for +the conclusions are drawn from every part of the world, and each fact +interpreted in the light of the local conditions whence it sprang. +Therefore anthropology, sociology and history should be permeated by +geography. + +[Sidenote: Political geography and history.] + +In history, the question of territory,--by which is meant mere area in +contrast to specific geographic conditions--has constantly come to the +front, because a state obviously involved land and boundaries, and +assumed as its chief function the defence and extension of these. +Therefore political geography developed early as an offshoot of history. +Political science has often formulated its principles without regard to +the geographic conditions of states, but as a matter of fact, the most +fruitful political policies of nations have almost invariably had a +geographic core. Witness the colonial policy of Holland, England, France +and Portugal, the free-trade policy of England, the militantism of +Germany, the whole complex question of European balance of power and the +Bosporus, and the Monroe Doctrine of the United States. Dividing lines +between political parties tend to follow approximately geographic lines +of cleavage; and these make themselves apparent at recurring intervals +of national upheaval, perhaps with, centuries between, like a submarine +volcanic rift. In England the southeastern plain and the northwestern +uplands have been repeatedly arrayed against each other, from the Roman +conquest which embraced the lowlands up to about the 500-foot contour +line,[79] through the War of the Roses and the Civil War,[80] to the +struggle for the repeal of the Corn Laws and the great Reform Bill of +1832.[81] Though the boundary lines have been only roughly the same and +each district has contained opponents of the dominant local party, +nevertheless the geographic core has been plain enough. + +[Sidenote: Political versus social geography.] + +The land is a more conspicuous factor in the history of states than in +the history of society, but not more necessary and potent. Wars, which +constitute so large a part of political history, have usually aimed more +or less directly at acquisition or retention of territory; they have +made every petty quarrel the pretext for mulcting the weaker nation of +part of its land. Political maps are therefore subject to sudden and +radical alterations, as when France's name was wiped off the North +American continent in 1763, or when recently Spain's sovereignty in the +Western Hemisphere was obliterated. But the race stocks, languages, +customs, and institutions of both France and Spain remained after the +flags had departed. The reason is that society is far more deeply rooted +in the land than is a state, does not expand or contract its area so +readily. Society is always, in a sense, _adscripta glebae_; an expanding +state which incorporates a new piece of territory inevitably +incorporates its inhabitants, unless it exterminates or expels them. Yet +because racial and social geography changes slowly, quietly and +imperceptibly, like all those fundamental processes which we call +growth, it is not so easy and obvious a task to formulate a natural law +for the territorial relations of the various hunter, pastoral nomadic, +agricultural, and industrial types of society as for those of the +growing state. + +[Sidenote: Land basis of society.] + +Most systems of sociology treat man as if he were in some way detached +from the earth's surface; they ignore the land basis of society. The +anthropo-geographer recognizes the various social forces, economic and +psychologic, which sociologists regard as the cement of societies; but +he has something to add. He sees in the land occupied by a primitive +tribe or a highly organized state the underlying material bond holding +society together, the ultimate basis of their fundamental social +activities, which are therefore derivatives from the land. He sees the +common territory exercising an integrating force,--weak in primitive +communities where the group has established only a few slight and +temporary relations with its soil, so that this low social complex +breaks up readily like its organic counterpart, the low animal organism +found in an amoeba; he sees it growing stronger with every advance in +civilization involving more complex relations to the land,--with settled +habitations, with increased density of population, with a discriminating +and highly differentiated use of the soil, with the exploitation of +mineral resources, and finally with that far-reaching exchange of +commodities and ideas which means the establishment of varied +extra-territorial relations. Finally, the modern society or state has +grown into every foot of its own soil, exploited its every geographic +advantage, utilized its geographic location to enrich itself by +international trade, and when possible, to absorb outlying territories +by means of colonies. The broader this geographic base, the richer, more +varied its resources, and the more favorable its climate to their +exploitation, the more numerous and complex are the connections which +the members of a social group can establish with it, and through it with +each other; or in other words, the greater may be its ultimate +historical significance. The polar regions and the subtropical deserts, +on the other hand, permit man to form only few and intermittent +relations with any one spot, restrict economic methods to the lower +stages of development, produce only the small, weak, loosely organized +horde, which never evolves into a state so long as it remains in that +retarding environment. + +[Sidenote: Morgan's Societas.] + +Man in his larger activities, as opposed to his mere physiological or +psychological processes, cannot be studied apart from the land which he +inhabits. Whether we consider him singly or in a group--family, clan, +tribe or state--we must always consider him or his group in relation to +a piece of land. The ancient Irish sept, Highland clan, Russian mir, +Cherokee hill-town, Bedouin tribe, and the ancient Helvetian canton, +like the political state of history, have meant always a group of people +and a bit of land. The first presupposes the second. In all cases the +form and size of the social group, the nature of its activities, the +trend and limit of its development will be strongly influenced by the +size and nature of its habitat. The land basis is always present, in +spite of Morgan's artificial distinction between a theoretically +landless _societas_, held together only by the bond of common blood, and +the political _civitas_ based upon land.[82] Though primitive society +found its conscious bond in common blood, nevertheless the land bond was +always there, and it gradually asserted its fundamental character with +the evolution of society. + +The savage and barbarous groups which in Morgan's classification would +fall under the head of _societas_ have nevertheless a clear conception +of their ownership of the tribal lands which they use in common. This +idea is probably of very primitive origin, arising from the association +of a group with its habitat, whose food supply they regard as a +monopoly.[83] This is true even of migratory hunting tribes. They claim a +certain area whose boundaries, however, are often ill-defined and +subject to fluctuations, because the lands are not held by permanent +occupancy and cultivation. An exceptional case is that of the Shoshone +Indians, inhabiting the barren Utah basin and the upper valleys of the +Snake and Salmon Rivers, who are accredited with no sense of ownership +of the soil. In their natural state they roved about in small, totally +unorganized bands or single families, and changed their locations so +widely, that they seemed to lay no claim to any particular portion. The +hopeless sterility of the region and its poverty of game kept its +destitute inhabitants constantly on the move to gather in the meager +food supply, and often restricted the social group to the family.[84] +Here the bond between land and tribe, and hence between the members of +the tribe, was the weakest possible. + +[Sidenote: Land bond in hunter tribes.] + +The usual type of tribal ownership was presented by the Comanches, +nomadic horse Indians who occupied the grassy plains of northern Texas. +They held their territory and the game upon it as the common property of +the tribe, and jealously guarded the integrity of their domain.[85] The +chief Algonquin tribes, who occupied the territory between the Ohio +River and the Great Lakes, had each its separate domain, within which it +shifted its villages every few years; but its size depended upon the +power of the tribe to repel encroachment upon its hunting grounds. +Relying mainly on the chase and fishing, little on agriculture, for +their subsistence, their relations to their soil were superficial and +transitory, their tribal organization in a high degree unstable.[86] +Students of American ethnology generally agree that most of the Indian +tribes east of the Mississippi were occupying definite areas at the time +of the discovery, and were to a considerable extent sedentary and +agricultural. Though nomadic within the tribal territory, as they moved +with the season in pursuit of game, they returned to their villages, +which were shifted only at relatively long intervals.[87] + +The political organization of the native Australians, low as they were +in the social scale, seems to have been based chiefly on the claim of +each wretched wandering tribe to a definite territory.[88] In north +central Australia, where even a very sparse population has sufficed to +saturate the sterile soil, tribal boundaries have become fixed and +inviolable, so that even war brings no transfer of territory. Land and +people are identified. The bond is cemented by their primitive religion, +for the tribe's spirit ancestors occupied this special territory.[89] In +a like manner a very definite conception of tribal ownership of land +prevails among the Bushmen and Bechuanas of South Africa; and to the +pastoral Hereros the alienation of their land is inconceivable.[90] [See +map page 105.] + +A tribe of hunters can never be more than a small horde, because the +simple, monotonous savage economy permits no concentration of +population, no division of labor except that between the sexes, and +hence no evolution of classes. The common economic level of all is +reflected in the simple social organization,[91] which necessarily has +little cohesion, because the group must be prepared to break up and +scatter in smaller divisions, when its members increase or its savage +supplies decrease even a little. Such primitive groups cannot grow into +larger units, because these would demand more roots sent down into the +sustaining soil; but they multiply by fission, like the infusorial +monads, and thereafter lead independent existences remote from each +other. This is the explanation of multiplication of dialects among +savage tribes. + +[Sidenote: Land bond in fisher tribes.] + +Fishing tribes have their chief occupation determined by their habitats, +which are found along well stocked rivers, lakes, or coastal fishing +grounds. Conditions here encourage an early adoption of sedentary life, +discourage wandering except for short periods, and facilitate the +introduction of agriculture wherever conditions of climate and soil +permit. Hence these fisher folk develop relatively large and permanent +social groups, as testified by the ancient lake-villages of Switzerland, +based upon a concentrated food-supply resulting from a systematic and +often varied exploitation of the local resources. The coöperation and +submission to a leader necessary in pelagic fishing often gives the +preliminary training for higher political organization.[92] All the +primitive stocks of the Brazilian Indians, except the mountain Ges, are +fishermen and agriculturists; hence their annual migrations are kept +within narrow limits. Each linguistic group occupies a fixed and +relatively well defined district.[93] Stanley found along the Congo +large permanent villages of the natives, who were engaged in fishing and +tilling the fruitful soil, but knew little about the country ten miles +back from the river. These two generous means of subsistence are +everywhere combined in Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia: there they +are associated with dense populations and often with advanced political +organization, as we find it in the feudal monarchy of Tonga and the +savage Fiji Islands.[94] Fisher tribes, therefore, get an early impulse +forward in civilization;[95] and even where conditions do not permit the +upward step to agriculture, these tribes have permanent relations with +their land, form stable social groups, and often utilize their location +on a natural highway to develop systematic trade. For instance, on the +northwest coast of British Columbia and Southern Alaska, the Haida, +Tlingit and Tsimshean Indians have portioned out all the land about +their seaboard villages among the separate families or households as +hunting, fishing, and berrying grounds. These are regarded as private +property and are handed down from generation to generation. If they are +used by anyone other than the owner, the privilege must be paid for. +Every salmon stream has its proprietor, whose summer camp can be seen +set up at the point where the run of the fish is greatest. Combined with +this private property in land there is a brisk trade up and down the +coast, and a tendency toward feudalism in the village communities, owing +to the association of power and social distinction with wealth and +property in land.[96] + +[Sidenote: Land bond in pastoral societies.] + +Among pastoral nomads, among whom a systematic use of their territory +begins to appear, and therefore a more definite relation between land +and people, we find a more distinct notion than among wandering hunters +of territorial ownership, the right of communal use, and the distinct +obligation of common defense. Hence the social bond is drawn closer. The +nomad identifies himself with a certain district, which belongs to his +tribe by tradition or conquest, and has its clearly defined boundaries. +Here he roams between its summer and winter pastures, possibly one +hundred and fifty miles apart, visits its small arable patches in the +spring for his limited agricultural ventures, and returns to them in the +fall to reap their meager harvest. Its springs, streams, or wells assume +enhanced value, are things to be fought for, owing to the prevailing +aridity of summer; while ownership of a certain tract of desert or +grassland carries with it a certain right in the bordering settled +district as an area of plunder.[97] + +The Kara-Kirghis stock, who have been located since the sixteenth +century on Lake Issik-Kul, long ago portioned out the land among the +separate families, and determined their limits by natural features of +the landscape.[98] Sven Hedin found on the Tarim River poles set up to +mark the boundary between the Shah-yar and Kuchar tribal pastures.[99] +John de Plano Carpini, traveling over southern Russia in 1246, +immediately after the Tartar conquest, found that the Dnieper, Don, +Volga and Ural rivers were all boundaries between domains of the various +millionaries or thousands, into which the Tartar horde was +organized.[100] The population of this vast country was distributed +according to the different degrees of fertility and the size of the +pastoral groups.[101] Volney observed the same distinction in the +distribution of the Bedouins of Syria. He found the barren cantons held +by small, widely scattered tribes, as in the Desert of Suez; but the +cultivable cantons, like the Hauran and the Pachalic of Aleppo, closely +dotted by the encampments of the pastoral owners.[102] + +The large range of territory held by a nomadic tribe is all successively +occupied in the course of a year, but each part only for a short period +of time. A pastoral use of even a good district necessitates a move of +five or ten miles every few weeks. The whole, large as it may be, is +absolutely necessary for the annual support of the tribe. Hence any +outside encroachment upon their territory calls for the united +resistance of the tribe. This joint or social action is dictated by +their common interest in pastures and herds. The social administration +embodied in the apportionment of pastures among the families or clans +grows out of the systematic use of their territory, which represents a +closer relation between land and people than is found among purely +hunting tribes. Overcrowding by men or livestock, on the other hand, +puts a strain upon the social bond. When Abraham and Lot, typical +nomads, returned from Egypt to Canaan with their large flocks and herds, +rivalry for the pastures occasioned conflicts among their shepherds, so +the two sheiks decided to separate. Abraham took the hill pastures of +Judea, and Lot the plains of Jordan near the settled district of +Sodom.[103] + +[Sidenote: Geographical mark of low-type societies.] + +The larger the amount of territory necessary for the support of a given +number of people, whether the proportion be due to permanent poverty of +natural resources as in the Eskimo country, or to retarded economic +development as among the Indians of primitive America or the present +Sudanese, the looser is the connection between land and people, and the +lower the type of social organization. For such groups the organic +theory of society finds an apt description. To quote Spencer, "The +original clusters, animal and social, are not only small, but they lack +density. Creatures of low type occupy large spaces considering the small +quantity of animal substance they contain; and low-type societies spread +over areas that are wide relatively to the number of their component +individuals."[104] In common language this means small tribes or even +detached families sparsely scattered over wide areas, living in +temporary huts or encampments of tepees and tents shifted from place to +place, making no effort to modify the surface of the land beyond +scratching the soil to raise a niggardly crop of grain or tubers, and no +investment of labor that might attach to one spot the sparse and migrant +population. [See density maps pages 8 and 9.] + +[Sidenote: Land and state.] + +The superiority over this social type of the civilized state lies in the +highly organized utilization of its whole geographic basis by the mature +community, and in the development of government that has followed the +increasing density of population and multiplication of activities +growing out of this manifold use of the land. Sedentary agriculture, +which forms its initial economic basis, is followed by industrialism and +commerce. The migratory life presents only limited accumulation of +capital, and restricts narrowly its forms. Permanent settlement +encourages accumulation in every form, and under growing pressure of +population slowly reveals the possibilities of every foot of ground, of +every geographic advantage. These are the fibers of the land which +become woven into the whole fabric of the nation's life. These are the +geographic elements constituting the soil in which empires are rooted; +they rise in the sap of the nation. + +[Sidenote: Strength of the land bond in the state.] + +The geographic basis of a state embodies a whole complex of physical +conditions which may influence its historical development. The most +potent of these are its size and zonal location; its situation, whether +continental or insular, inland or maritime, on the open ocean or an +enclosed sea; its boundaries, whether drawn by sea, mountain, desert or +the faint demarking line of a river; its forested mountains, grassy +plains, and arable lowlands; its climate and drainage system; finally +its equipment with plant and animal life, whether indigenous or +imported, and its mineral resources. When a state has taken advantage +of all its natural conditions, the land becomes a constituent part of +the state,[105] modifying the people which inhabit it, modified by them +in turn, till the connection between the two becomes so strong by +reciprocal interaction, that the people cannot be understood apart from +their land. Any attempt to divide them theoretically reduces the social +or political body to a cadaver, valuable for the study of structural +anatomy after the method of Herbert Spencer, but throwing little light +upon the vital processes. + +[Sidenote: Weak land tenure of hunting and pastoral tribes.] + +A people who makes only a transitory or superficial use of its land has +upon it no permanent or secure hold. The power to hold is measured by +the power to use; hence the weak tenure of hunting and pastoral tribes. +Between their scattered encampments at any given time are wide +interstices, inviting occupation by any settlers who know how to make +better use of the soil. This explains the easy intrusion of the English +colonists into the sparsely tenanted territory of the Indians, of the +agricultural Chinese into the pasture lands of the Mongols beyond the +Great Wall, of the American pioneers into the hunting grounds of the +Hudson Bay Company in the disputed Oregon country.[106] The frail bonds +which unite these lower societies to their soil are easily ruptured and +the people themselves dislodged, while their land is appropriated by the +intruder. But who could ever conceive of dislodging the Chinese or the +close-packed millions of India? A modern state with a given population +on a wide area is more vulnerable than another of like population more +closely distributed; but the former has the advantage of a reserve +territory for future growth.[107] This was the case of Kursachsen and +Brandenburg in the sixteenth century, and of the United States +throughout its history. But beside the danger of inherent weakness +before attack, a condition of relative underpopulation always threatens +a retardation of development. Easy-going man needs the prod of a +pressing population. [Compare maps pages 8 and 103 for examples.] + +[Sidenote: Land and food supply.] + +Food is the urgent and recurrent need of individuals and of society. It +dictates their activities in relation to their land at every stage of +economic development, fixes the locality of the encampment or village, +and determines the size of the territory from which sustenance is +drawn. The length of residence in one place depends upon whether the +springs of its food supply are perennial or intermittent, while the +abundance of their flow determines how large a population a given piece +of land can support. + +[Sidenote: Advance from natural to artificial basis of subsistence.] + +Hunter and fisher folk, relying almost exclusively upon what their land +produces of itself, need a large area and derive from it only an +irregular food supply, which in winter diminishes to the verge of +famine. The transition to the pastoral stage has meant the substitution +of an artificial for a natural basis of subsistence, and therewith a +change which more than any other one thing has inaugurated the advance +from savagery to civilization.[108] From the standpoint of economics, the +forward stride has consisted in the application of capital in the form +of flocks and herds to the task of feeding the wandering horde;[109] from +the standpoint of alimentation, in the guarantee of a more reliable and +generally more nutritious food supply, which enables population to grow +more steadily and rapidly; from the standpoint of geography, in the +marked reduction in the per capita amount of land necessary to yield an +adequate and stable food supply. Pastoral nomadism can support in a +given district of average quality from ten to twenty times as many souls +as can the chase; but in this respect is surpassed from twenty to +thirty-fold by the more productive agriculture. While the subsistence of +a nomad requires 100 to 200 acres of land, for that of a skillful farmer +from 1 to 2 acres suffice.[110] In contrast, the land of the Indians +living in the Hudson Bay Territory in 1857 averaged 10 square miles per +capita; that of the Indians in the United States in 1825, subsidized +moreover by the government, 1-1/4 square miles.[111] + +[Sidenote: Land in relation to agriculture.] + +With transition to the sedentary life of agriculture, society makes a +further gain over nomadism in the closer integration of its social +units, due to permanent residence in larger and more complex groups; in +the continuous release of labor from the task of mere food-getting for +higher activities, resulting especially in the rapid evolution of the +home; and finally in the more elaborate organization in the use of the +land, leading to economic differentiation of different localities and +to a rapid increase in the population supported by a given area, so that +the land becomes the dominant cohesive force in society. [See maps pages +8 and 9.] + +[Sidenote: Migratory agriculture] + +Agriculture is adopted at first on a small scale as an adjunct to the +chase or herding. It tends therefore to partake of the same extensive +and nomadic character[112] as these other methods of gaining subsistence, +and only gradually becomes sedentary and intensive. Such was the +superficial, migratory tillage of most American Indians, shifting with +the village in the wake of the retreating game or in search of fresh +unexhausted soil. Such is the agriculture of the primitive Korkus in the +Mahadeo Hills in Central India. They clear a forested slope by burning; +rake over the ashes in which they sow their grain, and reap a fairly +good crop in the fertilized soil. The second year the clearing yields a +reduced product and the third year is abandoned. When the hamlet of five +or six families has exhausted all the land about it, it moves to a new +spot to repeat the process.[113] + +The same superficial, extensive tillage, with abandonment of fields +every few years, prevails in the Tartar districts of the Russian +steppes, as it did among the cattle-raising Germans at the beginning of +their history. Tacitus says of them, _Arva per annos mutant et superest +ager_,[114] commenting at the same time upon their abundance of land and +their reluctance to till. Where nomadism is made imperative by aridity, +the agriculture which accompanies it tends to become fixed, owing to the +few localities blessed with an irrigating stream to moisten the soil. +These spots, generally selected for the winter residence, have their +soil enriched, moreover, by the long stay of the herd and thus avoid +exhaustion.[115] Often, however, in enclosed basins the salinity of the +irrigating streams in their lower course ruins the fields after one or +two crops, and necessitates a constant shifting of the cultivated +patches; hence agriculture remains subsidiary to the yield of the +pastures. This condition and effect is conspicuous along the termini of +the streams draining the northern slope of the Kuen Lun into the Tarim +basin.[116] + +[Sidenote: Geographic checks to progress.] + +The desultory, intermittent, extensive use of the land practised by +hunters and nomads tends, under the growing pressure of population, to +pass into the systematic, continuous, intensive use practised by the +farmer, except where nature presents positive checks to the transition. +The most obvious check consists in adverse conditions of climate and +soil. Where agriculture meets insurmountable obstacles, like the intense +cold of Arctic Siberia and Lapland, or the alkaline soils of Nevada and +the Caspian Depression, or the inadequate rainfall of Mongolia and +Central Arabia, the land can produce no higher economic and social +groups than pastoral hordes. Hence shepherd folk are found in their +purest types in deserts and steppes, where conditions early crystallized +the social form and checked development. [Rainfall map chap. XIV.] + +[Sidenote: Native animal and plant life as factors.] + +Adverse conditions of climate and soil are not the only factors in this +retardation. The very unequal native equipment of the several continents +with plant and animal forms likely to accelerate the advance to nomadism +and agriculture also enters into the equation. In Australia, the lack of +a single indigenous mammal fit for domestication and of all cereals +blocked from the start the pastoral and agricultural development of the +natives. Hence at the arrival of the Europeans, Australia presented the +unique spectacle of a whole continent with its population still held in +the vise of nature. The Americas had a limited variety of animals +susceptible of domestication, but were more meagerly equipped than the +Old World. Yet the Eskimo failed to tame and herd the reindeer, though +their precarious food-supply furnished a motive for the transition. +Moreover, an abundance of grass and reindeer moss (_Cladonia +rangiferina_), and congenial climatic conditions favored it especially +for the Alaskan Eskimo, who had, besides, the nearby example of the +Siberian Chukches as reindeer herders.[117] The buffalo, whose +domesticability has been proved, was never utilized in this way by the +Indians, though the Spaniard Gomara writes of one tribe, living in the +sixteenth century in the southwestern part of what is now United States +territory, whose chief wealth consisted in herds of tame buffalo.[118] +North America, at the time of the discovery, saw only the dog hanging +about the lodges of the Indians; but in South America the llama and +alpaca, confined to the higher levels of the Andes (10,000 to 15,000 +feet elevation) were used in domestic herds only in the mountain-rimmed +valleys of ancient Peru, where, owing to the restricted areas of these +intermontane basins, stock-raising early became stationary,[119] as we +find it in the Alps. Moreover, the high ridges of the Andes supported a +species of grass called _ichu_, growing up to the snowline from the +equator to the southern extremity of Patagonia. Its geographical +distribution coincided with that of the llama and alpaca, whose chief +pasturage it furnished.[120] In contrast, the absence of any wild fodder +plants in Japan, and the exclusion of all foreign forms by the +successful competition of the native bamboo grass have together +eliminated pastoral life from the economic history of the island. + +The Old World, on the other hand, furnished an abundant supply of +indigenous animals susceptible of domestication, and especially those +fitted for nomadic life, such as the camel, horse, ass, sheep and goat. +Hence it produced in the widespread grasslands and deserts of Europe, +Asia, and Africa the most perfect types of pastoral development in its +natural or nomadic form. Moreover, the early history of the civilized +agricultural peoples of these three continents reveals their previous +pastoral mode of life. + +North and South America offered over most of their area conditions of +climate and soil highly favorable to agriculture, and a fair list of +indigenous cereals, tubers, and pulses yielding goodly crops even to +superficial tillage. Maize especially was admirably suited for a race of +semi-migratory hunters. It could be sown without plowing, ripened in a +warm season even in ninety days, could be harvested without a sickle and +at the pleasure of the cultivator, and needed no preparation beyond +roasting before it was ready for food.[121] The beans and pumpkins which +the Indians raised also needed only a short season. Hence many Indian +tribes, while showing no trace of pastoral development, combined with +the chase a semi-nomadic agriculture; and in a few districts where +geographic conditions had applied peculiar pressure, they had +accomplished the transition to sedentary agriculture. + +[Sidenote: Land per capita under various cultural and geographic +conditions.] + +Every advance to a higher state of civilization has meant a progressive +decrease in the amount of land necessary for the support of the +individual, and a progressive increase in the relations between man and +his habitat. The stage of social development remaining the same, the per +capita amount of land decreases also from poorer to better endowed +geographical districts, and with every invention which brings into use +some natural resource. The following classification[122] illustrates the +relation of density of population to various geographic and +socio-economic conditions. + +Hunter tribes on the outskirts of the habitable area, as in Arctic +America and Siberia, require from 70 to 200 square miles per capita; in +arid lands, like the Kalahari Desert and Patagonia, 40 to 200 square +miles per capita; in choice districts and combining with the chase some +primitive agriculture, as did the Cherokee, Shawnee and Iroquois +Indians, the Dyaks of Borneo and the Papuans of New Guinea, 1/2 to 2 +square miles per capita. + +Pastoral nomads show a density of from 2 to 5 to the square mile; +practicing some agriculture, as in Kordofan and Sennar districts of +eastern Sudan, 10 to 15 to the square mile. Agriculture, undeveloped but +combined with some trade and industry as in Equatorial Africa, Borneo +and most of the Central American states, supports 5 to 15 to the square +mile; practised with European methods in young or colonial lands, as in +Arkansas, Texas, Minnesota, Hawaii, Canada and Argentine, or in European +lands with unfavorable climate, up to 25 to the square mile. + +Pure agricultural lands of central Europe support 100 to the square +mile, and those of southern Europe, 200; when combining some industry, +from 250 to 300. But these figures rise to 500 or more in lowland India +and China. Industrial districts of modern Europe, such as England, +Belgium, Saxony, Departments Nord and Rhone in France, show a density of +500 to 800 to the square mile. [See maps pages 8 and 9.] + +[Sidenote: Density of population and government.] + +With every increase of the population inhabiting a given area, and with +the consequent multiplication and constriction of the bonds uniting +society with its land, comes a growing necessity for a more highly +organized government, both to reduce friction within and to secure to +the people the land on which and by which they live. Therefore +protection becomes a prime function of the state. It wards off outside +attack which may aim at acquisition of its territory, or an invasion of +its rights, or curtailment of its geographic sphere of activity. The +modern industrial state, furthermore, with the purpose of strengthening +the nation, assists or itself undertakes the construction of highways, +canals, and railroads, and the maintenance of steamship lines. These +encourage the development of natural resources and of commerce, and +hence lay the foundation for an increased population, by multiplying the +relations between land and people. + +[Sidenote: Territorial expansion of the state.] + +A like object is attained by territorial expansion, which often follows +in the wake of commercial expansion. This strengthens the nation +positively by enlarging its geographic base, and negatively by forcing +back the boundaries of its neighbors. The expansion of the Thirteen +Colonies from the Atlantic slope to the Mississippi River and the Great +Lakes by the treaty concluding the Revolution was a strong guarantee of +the survival of the young Republic against future aggressions either of +England or Spain, though it exchanged the scientific or protecting +boundary of the Appalachian Mountains for the unscientific and exposed +boundary of a river. The expansion to the Rocky Mountains by the +Louisiana purchase not only gave wider play to national energies, +stimulated natural increase of population, and attracted immigration, +but it eliminated a dangerous neighbor in the French, and placed a wide +buffer of untenanted land between the United States and the petty +aggressions of the Spanish in Mexico. Rome's expansion into the valley +of the Po, as later into Trans-Alpine Gaul and Germany, had for its +purpose the protection of the peninsula against barbarian inroads. +Japan's recent aggression against the Russians in the Far East was +actuated by the realization that she had to expand into Korea at the +cost of Muscovite ascendency, or contract later at the cost of her own +independence. + +[Sidenote: Checks to population.] + +If a state lacks the energy and national purpose, like Italy, or the +possibility, like Switzerland, for territorial expansion, and accepts +its boundaries as final, the natural increase of population upon a fixed +area produces an increased density, unless certain social forces +counteract it. Without these forces, the relation of men to the land +would have tended to modify everywhere in the same way. Increase in +numbers would have been attended by a corresponding decrease in the +amount of land at the disposal of each individual. Those states which, +like Norway and Switzerland, cannot expand and which have exploited +their natural resources to the utmost, must resign themselves to the +emigration of their redundant population. But those which have remained +within their own boundaries and have adopted a policy of isolation, like +China, feudal Japan during its two and a half centuries of seclusion, +and numerous Polynesian islands, have been forced to war with nature +itself by checking the operation of the law of natural increase. All the +repulsive devices contributing to this end, whether infanticide, +abortion, cannibalism, the sanctioned murder of the aged and infirm, +honorable suicide, polyandry or persistent war, are the social +deformities consequent upon suppressed growth. Such artificial checks +upon population are more conspicuous in natural regions with sharply +defined boundaries, like islands and oases, as Malthus observed;[123] but +they are visible also among savage tribes whose boundaries are fixed not +by natural features but by the mutual repulsion and rivalry +characterizing the stage of development, and whose limit of population +is reduced by their low economic status. + +[Sidenote: Extra-territorial relations.] + +There is a great difference between those states whose inhabitants +subsist exclusively from the products of their own country and those +which rely more or less upon other lands. Great industrial states, like +England and Germany, which derive only a portion of their food and raw +material from their own territory, supply their dense populations +through international trade. Interruption of such foreign commerce is +disastrous to the population at home; hence the state by a navy protects +the lines of communication with those far-away lands of wheat fields and +cattle ranch. This is no purely modern development. Athens in the time +of Pericles used her navy not only to secure her political domination in +the Aegean, but also her connections with the colonial wheat lands +about the Euxine. + +The modern state strives to render this circle of trade both large and +permanent by means of commercial treaties, customs-unions, trading-posts +and colonies. Thus while society at home is multiplying its relations +with its own land, the state is enabling it to multiply also its +relations with the whole producing world. While at home the nation is +becoming more closely knit together through the common bond of the +fatherland, in the world at large humanity is evolving a brotherhood of +man by the union of each with all through the common growing bond of the +earth. Hence we cannot avoid the question: Are we in process of evolving +a social idea vaster than that underlying nationality? Do the Socialists +hint to us the geographic basis of this new development, when they +describe themselves as an international political party? + +[Sidenote: Geography in the philosophy of history.] + +It is natural that the old philosophy of history should have fixed its +attention upon the geographic basis of historical events. Searching for +the permanent and common in the outwardly mutable, it found always at +the bottom of changing events the same solid earth. Biology has had the +same experience. The history of the life forms of the world leads always +back to the land on which that life arose, spread, and struggled for +existence. The philosophy of history was superior to early sociology, in +that its method was one of historical comparison, which inevitably +guided it back to the land as the material for the first generalization. +Thus it happens that the importance of the land factor in history was +approached first from the philosophical side. Montesquieu and Herder had +no intention of solving sociological and geographical problems, when +they considered the relation of peoples and states to their soil; they +wished to understand the purpose and destiny of man as an inhabitant of +the earth. + +[Sidenote: Theory of progress from the standpoint of geography.] + +The study of history is always, from one standpoint, a study of +progress. Yet after all the century-long investigation of the history of +every people working out its destiny in its given environment, +struggling against the difficulties of its habitat, progressing when it +overcame them and retrograding when it failed, advancing when it made +the most of its opportunities and declining when it made less or +succumbed to an invader armed with better economic or political methods +to exploit the land, it is amazing how little the land, in which all +activities finally root, has been taken into account in the discussion +of progress. Nevertheless, for a theory of progress it offers a solid +basis. From the standpoint of the land social and political +organizations, in successive stages of development, embrace ever +increasing areas, and make them support ever denser populations; and in +this concentration of population and intensification of economic +development they assume ever higher forms. It does not suffice that a +people, in order to progress, should extend and multiply only its local +relations to its land. This would eventuate in arrested development, +such as Japan showed at the time of Perry's visit. The ideal basis of +progress is the expansion of the world relations of a people, the +extension of its field of activity and sphere of influence far beyond +the limits of its own territory, by which it exchanges commodities and +ideas with various countries of the world. Universal history shows us +that, as the geographical horizon of the known world has widened from +gray antiquity to the present, societies and states have expanded their +territorial and economic scope; that they have grown not only in the +number of their square miles and in the geographical range of their +international intercourse, but in national efficiency, power, and +permanence, and especially in that intellectual force which feeds upon +the nutritious food of wide comparisons. Every great movement which has +widened the geographical outlook of a people, such as the Crusades in +the Middle Ages, or the colonization of the Americas, has applied an +intellectual and economic stimulus. The expanding field of advancing +history has therefore been an essential concomitant and at the same time +a driving force in the progress of every people and of the world. + +[Sidenote: Man's increasing dependence upon nature.] + +Since progress in civilization involves an increasing exploitation of +natural advantages and the development of closer relations between a +land and its people, it is an erroneous idea that man tends to +emancipate himself more and more from the control of the natural +conditions forming at once the foundation and environment of his +activities. On the contrary, he multiplies his dependencies upon +nature;[124] but while increasing their sum total, he diminishes the +force of each. There lies the gist of the matter. As his bonds become +more numerous, they become also more elastic. Civilization has +lengthened his leash and padded his collar, so that it does not gall; +but the leash is never slipped. The Delaware Indians depended upon the +forests alone for fuel. A citizen of Pennsylvania, occupying the former +Delaware tract, has the choice of wood, hard or soft coal, coke, +petroleum, natural gas, or manufactured gas. Does this mean +emancipation? By no means. For while fuel was a necessity to the Indian +only for warmth and cooking, and incidentally for the pleasureable +excitement of burning an enemy at the stake, it enters into the +manufacture of almost every article that the Pennsylvanian uses in his +daily life. His dependence upon nature has become more far-reaching, +though less conspicuous and especially less arbitrary. + +[Sidenote: Increase in kind and amount.] + +These dependencies increase enormously both in variety and amount. Great +Britain, with its twenty thousand merchant ships aggregating over ten +million tons, and its immense import and export trade, finds its harbors +vastly more important to-day for the national welfare than in Cromwell's +time, when they were used by a scanty mercantile fleet. Since the +generation of electricity by water-power and its application to +industry, the plunging falls of the Scandinavian Mountains, of the Alps +of Switzerland, France, and Italy, of the Southern Appalachians and the +Cascade Range, are geographical features representing new and +unsuspected forms of national capital, and therefore new bonds between +land and people in these localities. Russia since 1844 has built 35,572 +miles (57,374 kilometers) of railroad in her European territory, and +thereby derived a new benefit from her level plains, which so facilitate +the construction and cheap operation of railroads, that they have become +in this aspect alone a new feature in her national economy. On the other +hand, the galling restrictions of Russia's meager and strategically +confined coasts, which tie her hand in any wide maritime policy, work a +greater hardship to-day than they did a hundred years ago, since her +growing population creates a more insistent demand for international +trade. In contrast to Russia, Norway, with its paucity of arable soil +and of other natural resources, finds its long indented coastline and +the coast-bred seamanship of its people a progressively important +national asset. Hence as ocean-carriers the Norwegians have developed a +merchant marine nearly half as large again as that of Russia and Finland +combined--1,569,646 tons[125] as against 1,084,165 tons. + +This growing dependence of a civilized people upon its land is +characterized by intelligence and self-help. Man forms a partnership +with nature, contributing brains and labor, while she provides the +capital or raw material in ever more abundant and varied forms. As a +result of this coöperation, held by the terms of the contract, he +secures a better living than the savage who, like a mendicant, accepts +what nature is pleased to dole out, and lives under the tyranny of her +caprices. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER III + +[79] H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, p. 196. London, 1904. + +[80] Gardner, Atlas of English History, Map 29. New York, 1905. + +[81] Hereford George, Historical Geography of Great Britain, pp. 58-60. +London, 1904. + +[82] Lewis Morgan, Ancient Society, p. 62. New York, 1878. + +[83] Franklin H. Giddings, Elements of Sociology, p. 247. New York, +1902. + +[84] Schoolcraft, The Indian Tribes of the United States, Vol. I, pp. +198-200, 224. Philadelphia, 1853. + +[85] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 231-232, 241. + +[86] Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, Vol. I, pp. 70-73, 88. New +York, 1895. + +[87] McGee and Thomas, Prehistoric North America, pp. 392-393, 408, Vol. +XIX, of _History of North America_, edited by Francis W. Thorpe, +Philadelphia, 1905. _Eleventh Census Report on the Indians_, p. 51. +Washington, 1894. + +[88] Hans Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. II, pp. 249-250. New York, +1902-1906. + +[89] Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, pp. +13-15. London, 1904. + +[90] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 126. London, 1896-1898. + +[91] Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Ackerbaues_, p. 24. Stuttgart, +1888. + +[92] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 131. London, 1896-1898. + +[93] Paul Ehrenreich, _Die Einteilung und Verbreitung der Völkerstämme +Brasiliens_, Peterman's _Geographische Mittheilungen_, Vol. XXXVII, p. +85. Gotha, 1891. + +[94] Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Ackerbaues_, p. 26, Note 5. +Stuttgart, 1888. + +[95] _Ibid._, p. 27. + +[96] Albert Niblack, The Coast Indians of Southern Alaska and Northern +British Columbia, pp. 298-299, 304, 337-339. Washington, 1888. + +[97] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, p. 173. London, 1896-1898. + +[98] _Ibid._, Vol. III. pp. 173-174. + +[99] Sven Hedin, Central Asia and Tibet, Vol. I, p. 184. New York and +London, 1903. + +[100] John de Plano Carpini, Journey in 1246, p. 130. _Hakluyt Society_, +London, 1904. + +[101] Journey of William de Rubruquis in 1253, p. 188. _Hakluyt +Society_, London, 1903. + +[102] Volney, quoted in Malthus, Principles of Population, Chap. VII, p. +60. London, 1878. + +[103] Genesis, Chap. XIII, 1-12. + +[104] Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, Vol. I. p. 457. New +York. + +[105] Heinrich von Treitschke, _Politik_, Vol. I, pp. 202-204. Leipzig, +1897. + +[106] E.C. Semple, American History and Its Geographic Conditions, pp. +206-207. Boston, 1903. + +[107] Roscher, _Grundlagen des National-Oekonomik_, Book VI. +_Bevölkerung_, p. 694, Note 5. Stuttgart, 1886. + +[108] Edward John Payne, History of the New World Called America, Vol. +I, p. 303-313. Oxford and New York, 1892. + +[109] Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Ackerbaues_, pp. 31, 52. +Stuttgart, 1888. + +[110] _Ibid._, p. 56, Note 5. + +[111] For these and other averages, Sir John Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, +pp. 593-595. New York, 1872. + +[112] Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Ackerbaues_, pp. 79-80, p. 81, +Note 7. Stuttgart, 1888. William I. Thomas, Source Book for Social +Origins, pp. 96-112. Chicago, 1909. + +[113] Capt. J. Forsyth, The Highlands of Central India, pp. 101-107, +168. London, 1889. + +[114] Tacitus, _Germania_, III. + +[115] Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Ackerbaues_, p. 32, Note 15 on p. +36. Stuttgart, 1888. + +[116] E. Huntington, The Pulse of Asia, pp. 202, 203, 212, 213, 236-237. +Boston, 1907. + +[117] Sheldon Jackson, Introduction of Domesticated Reindeer into +Alaska, pp. 20, 25-29, 127-129. Washington, 1894. + +[118] Quoted in Alexander von Humboldt, Aspects of Nature in Different +Lands, pp. 62, 139. Philadelphia, 1849. + +[119] Edward John Payne, History of the New World Called America, Vol. +I, pp. 311-321. 333-354, 364-366. New York, 1892. + +[120] Prescott, Conquest of Peru, Vol. I, p. 47. New York, 1848. + +[121] McGee and Thomas, Prehistoric North America, Vol. XIX, pp. +151-161, of _The History of North America_, edited by Francis W. Thorpe, +Philadelphia, 1905. + +[122] Ratzel, _Anthropo-geographie_, Vol. II, pp. 264-265. + +[123] Malthus, Principles of Population, Chapters V and VII. London, +1878. + +[124] Nathaniel Shaler, Nature and Man in America, pp. 147-151. W.Z. +Ripley, Races of Europe, Chap. I, New York, 1899. + +[125] Justus Perthes, _Taschen-Atlas_, pp. 44, 47. Gotha, 1910. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MOVEMENTS OF PEOPLES IN THEIR GEOGRAPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE + + +[Sidenote: Universality of these movements.] + +The ethnic and political boundaries of Europe to-day are the residuum of +countless racial, national, tribal and individual movements reaching +back into an unrecorded past. The very names of Turkey, Bulgaria, +England, Scotland and France are borrowed from intruding peoples. New +England, New France, New Scotland or Nova Scotia and many more on the +American continents register the Trans-Atlantic nativity of their first +white settlers. The provinces of Galicia in Spain, Lombardy in Italy, +Brittany in France, Essex and Sussex in England record in their names +streams of humanity diverted from the great currents of the +Völkerwanderung. The Romance group of languages, from Portugal to +Roumania, testify to the sweep of expanding Rome, just as the wide +distribution of the Aryan linguistic family points to many roads and +long migrations from some unplaced birthplace. Names like Cis-Alpine and +Trans-Alpine Gaul in the Roman Empire, Trans-Caucasia, Trans-Caspia and +Trans-Baikalia in the Russian Empire, the Transvaal and Transkei in +South Africa, indicate the direction whence the advancing people have +come. + +[Sidenote: Stratification of races] + +Ethnology reveals an east and west stratification of linguistic groups +in Europe, a north and south stratification of races, and another +stratification by altitude, which reappears in all parts of the world, +and shows certain invading dominant races occupying the lowlands and +other displaced ones the highlands. This definite arrangement points to +successive arrivals, a crowding forward, an intrusion of the strong into +fertile, accessible valleys and plains, and a dislodgment of the weak +into the rough but safe keeping of mountain range or barren peninsula, +where they are brought to bay. Ethnic fragments, linguistic survivals, +or merely place names, dropped like discarded baggage along the march +of a retreating army, bear witness everywhere to tragic recessionals. + +[Sidenote: The name Historical Movement.] + +Every country whose history we examine proves the recipient of +successive streams of humanity. Even sea-girt England has received +various intruding peoples from the Roman occupation to the recent influx +of Russian Jews. In prehistoric times it combined several elements in +its population, as the discovery of the "long barrow" men and "round +barrow" men by archaeologists, and the identification of a surviving +Iberian or Mediterranean strain by ethnologists go to prove.[126] Egypt, +Mesopotamia, and India tell the same story, whether in their recorded or +unrecorded history. Tropical Africa lacks a history; but all that has +been pieced together by ethnologists and anthropologists, in an effort +to reconstruct its past, shows incessant movement,--growth, expansion +and short-lived conquest, followed by shrinkage, expulsion or absorption +by another invader.[127] To this constant shifting of races and peoples +the name of historical movement has been given, because it underlies +most of written history, and constitutes the major part of unwritten +history, especially that of savage and nomadic tribes. Two things are +vital in the history of every people, its ethnic composition and the +wars it wages in defense or extension of its boundaries. Both rest upon +historical movements,--intrusions, whether peaceful or hostile, into its +own land, and encroachments upon neighboring territory necessitated by +growth. Back of all such movements is natural increase of population +beyond local means of subsistence, and the development of the war spirit +in the effort to secure more abundant subsistence either by raid or +conquest of territory. + +[Sidenote: Evolution of the Historical Movement.] + +Among primitive peoples this movement is simple and monotonous. It +involves all members of the tribe, either in pursuit of game, or +following the herd over the tribal territory, or in migrations seeking +more and better land. Among civilized peoples it assumes various forms, +and especially is differentiated for different members of the social +group. The civilized state develops specialized frontiersmen, armies, +explorers, maritime traders, colonists, and missionaries, who keep a +part of the people constantly moving and directing external expansion, +while the mass of the population converts the force once expended in the +migrant food-quest into internal activity. Here we come upon a paradox. +The nation as a whole, with the development of sedentary life, increases +its population and therewith its need for external movements; it widens +its national area and its circle of contact with other lands, enlarges +its geographical horizon, and improves its internal communication over a +growing territory; it evolves a greater mobility within and without, +which attaches, however, to certain classes of society, not to the +entire social group. This mobility becomes the outward expression of a +whole complex of economic wants, intellectual needs, and political +ambitions. It is embodied in the conquests which build up empires, in +the colonization which develops new lands, in the world-wide exchange of +commodities and ideas which lifts the level of civilization, till this +movement of peoples becomes a fundamental fact of history. + +[Sidenote: Nature of primitive movements.] + +This movement is and has been universal and varied. When most +unobtrusive in its operation, it has produced its greatest effects. To +seize upon a few conspicuous migrations, like the _Völkerwanderung_ and +the irruption of the Turks into Europe, made dramatic by their relation +to the declining empires of Rome and Constantinople, and to ignore the +vast sum of lesser but more normal movements which by slow increments +produce greater and more lasting results, leads to wrong conclusions +both in ethnology and history. Here, as in geology, great effects do not +necessarily presuppose vast forces, but rather the steady operation of +small ones. It is often assumed that the world was peopled by a series +of migrations; whereas everything indicates that humanity spread over +the earth little by little, much as the imported gypsy moth is gradually +occupying New England or the water hyacinth the rivers of Florida. Louis +Agassiz observed in 1853 that "the boundaries within which the different +natural combinations of animals are known to be circumscribed upon the +surface of the earth, coincide with the natural range of distinct types +of man."[128] The close parallelism between Australian race and flora, +Eskimo race and Arctic fauna, points to a similar manner of dispersion. +Wallace, in describing how the Russian frontier of settlement slowly +creeps forward along the Volga, encroaching upon the Finnish and Tartar +areas, and permeating them with Slav blood and civilization, adds that +this is probably the normal method of expansion.[129] Thucydides describes +the same process of encroachment, displacement, and migration in ancient +Hellas.[130] Strabo quotes Posidonius as saying that the emigration of the +Cimbrians and other kindred tribes from their native seats was gradual +and by no means sudden.[131] The traditions of the Delaware Indians show +their advance from their early home in central Canada southward to the +Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay to have been a slow zigzag movement, +interrupted by frequent long halts, leaving behind one laggard group +here and sending out an offshoot there, who formed new tribes and +thereby diversified the stock.[132] It was an aimless wandering, without +destination and purpose other than to find a pleasanter habitat. The +Vandals appear first as "a loose aggregation of restless tribes who must +not be too definitely assigned to any precise district on the map," +somewhere in central or eastern Prussia.[133] Far-reaching migrations +aiming at a distant goal, like the Gothic and Hunnish conquests of +Italy, demand both a geographical knowledge and an organization too high +for primitive peoples, and therefore belong to a later period of +development.[134] + +[Sidenote: Number and range.] + +The long list of recorded migrations has been supplemented by the +researches of ethnologists, which have revealed a multitude of +prehistoric movements. These are disclosed in greater number and range +with successive investigation. The prehistoric wanderings of the +Polynesians assume far more significance to-day than a hundred years +ago, when their scope was supposed to have its western limit at Fiji and +the Ellice group. They have now been traced to almost every island of +Melanesia; vestiges of their influence have been detected in the +languages of Australia, and the culture of the distant coasts of Alaska +and British Columbia. The western pioneers of America knew the Shoshone +Indians as small bands of savages, constantly moving about in search of +food in the barren region west of the Rocky Mountains, and occasionally +venturing eastward to hunt buffalo on the plains. Recent investigation +has identified as offshoots of this retarded Shoshonean stock the +sedentary agriculturalists of the Moqui Pueblo, and the advanced +populations of ancient Mexico and Central America.[135] Here was a great +human current which through the centuries slowly drifted from the +present frontier of Canada to the shores of Lake Nicaragua. Powell's map +of the distribution of the linguistic stocks of American Indians is +intelligible only in the light of constant mobility. Haebler's map of +the South American stocks reveals the same restless past. This +cartographical presentation of the facts, giving only the final results, +suggests tribal excursions of the nature of migrations; but ethnologists +see them as the sum total of countless small movements which are more or +less part of the normal activity of an unrooted savage people. [Map page +101.] + +Otis Mason finds that the life of a social group involves a variety of +movements characterized by different ranges or scopes. I. The daily +round from bed to bed. II. The annual round from year to year, like that +of the Tunguse Orochon of Siberia who in pursuit of various fish and +game change their residence within their territory from month to month, +or the pastoral nomads who move with the seasons from pasture to +pasture. III. Less systematic outside movements covering the tribal +sphere of influence, such as journeys or voyages to remote hunting or +fishing grounds, forays or piratical descents upon neighboring lands +eventuating usually in conquest, expansion into border regions for +occasional occupation or colonization. IV. Participation in streams of +barter or commerce. V. And at a higher stage in the great currents of +human intercourse, experience, and ideas, which finally compass the +world.[136] In all this series the narrower movement prepares for the +broader, of which it constitutes at once an impulse and a part. + +[Sidenote: Importance of such movements in history.] + +The real character and importance of these movements have been +appreciated by broad-minded historians. Thucydides elucidates the +conditions leading up to the Peloponnesian War by a description of the +semi-migratory population of Hellas, the exposure of the more fertile +districts to incursions, and the influence of these movements in +differentiating Dorian from Ionian Greece.[137] Johannes von Muller, in +the introduction to his history of Switzerland, assigns to federations +and migrations a conspicuous rôle in historical development. Edward A. +Ross sees in such movements a thorough-going selective process which +weeds out the unfit, or rather spares only the highly fit. He lays down +the principle that repeated migrations tend to the creation of energetic +races of men. He adds, "This principle may account for the fact that +those branches of a race achieve the most brilliant success which have +wandered the farthest from their ancestral home.... The Arabs and Moors +that skirted Africa and won a home in far-away Spain, developed the most +brilliant of the Saracen civilizations. Hebrews, Dorians, Quirites, +Rajputs, Hovas were far invaders. No communities in classic times +flourished like the cities of Asia created by the overflow from Greece. +Nowhere under the Czar are there such vigorous, progressive communities +as in Siberia."[138] Brinton distinguishes the associative and dispersive +elements in ethnography. The latter is favored by the physical +adaptability of the human race to all climates and external conditions; +it is stimulated by the food-quest, the pressure of foes, and the +resultant restlessness of an unstable primitive society.[139] + +The earth's surface is at once factor and basis in these movements. In +an active way it directs them; but they in turn clothe the passive earth +with a mantle of humanity. This mantle is of varied weave and thickness, +showing here the simple pattern of a primitive society, there the +intricate design of advanced civilization; here a closely woven or a +gauzy texture, there disclosing a great rent where a rocky peak or the +ice-wrapped poles protrude through the warm human covering. This is the +magic web whereof man is at once woof and weaver, and the flying shuttle +that never rests. Given a region, what is its living envelope, asks +anthropo-geography. Whence and how did it get there? What is the +material of warp and woof? Will new threads enter to vary the color and +design? If so, from what source? Or will the local pattern repeat itself +over and over with dull uniformity? + +[Sidenote: Geographical interpretation of historical movement.] + +It was the great intellectual service of Copernicus that he conceived of +a world in motion instead of a world at rest. So anthropo-geography must +see its world in motion, whether it is considering English colonization, +or the westward expansion of the Southern slave power in search of +unexhausted land, or the counter expansion of the free-soil movement, or +the early advance of the trappers westward to the Rockies after the +retreating game, or the withdrawal thither of the declining Indian +tribes before the protruding line of white settlement, and their +ultimate confinement to ever shrinking reservations. In studying +increase of population, it sees in Switzerland chalet and farm creeping +higher up the Alp, as the lapping of a rising tide of humanity below; it +sees movement in the projection of a new dike in Holland to reclaim from +the sea the land for another thousand inhabitants, movement in Japan's +doubling of its territory by conquest, in order to house and feed its +redundant millions. + +The whole complex relation of unresting man to the earth is the subject +matter of anthropo-geography. The science traces his movements on the +earth's surface, measures their velocity, range, and recurrence, +determines their nature by the way they utilize the land, notes their +transformation at different stages of economic development and under +different environments. Just as an understanding of animal and plant +geography requires a previous knowledge of the various means of +dispersal, active and passive, possessed by these lower forms of life, +so anthropo-geography must start with a study of the movements of +mankind. + +[Sidenote: Mobility of primitive peoples.] + +First of all is to be noted an evolution in the mobility of peoples. In +the lower stages of culture mobility is great. It is favored by the +persistent food-quest over wide areas incident to retarded economic +methods, and by the loose attachment of society to the soil. The small +social groups peculiar to these stages and their innate tendency to +fission help the movements to ramify. The consequent scattered +distribution of the population offers wide interstices between +encampments or villages, and into these vacant spaces other wandering +tribes easily penetrate. The rapid decline of the Indian race in America +before the advancing whites was due chiefly to the division of the +savages into small groups, scattered sparsely over a wide territory. +Hunter and pastoral peoples need far more land than they can occupy at +any one time. Hence the temporarily vacant spots invite incursion. +Moreover, the slight impedimenta carried by primitive folk minimize the +natural physical obstacles which they meet when on the march. The +lightly equipped war parties of the Shawnee Indians used gorges and gaps +for the passage of the Allegheny Mountains which were prohibitive to all +white pioneers except the lonely trapper. Finally, this mobility gets +into the primitive mind. The _Wanderlust_ is strong. Long residence in +one territory is irksome, attachment is weak. Therefore a small cause +suffices to start the whole or part of the social body moving. A +temporary failure of the food supply, cruelty or excessive exaction of +tribute on the part of the chief, occasions an exodus. The history of +every negro tribe in Africa gives instances of such secessions, which +often leave whole districts empty and exposed to the next wandering +occupant. Methods of preventing such withdrawals, and therewith the +diminution of his treasury receipts and his fighting force, belong to +the policy of every negro chieftain. + +[Sidenote: Natural barriers to movement.] + +The checks to this native mobility of primitive peoples are two: +physical and mental. In addition to the usual barriers of mountains, +deserts, and seas before the invention of boats, primeval forests have +always offered serious obstacles to man armed only with stone or bronze +axe, and they rebuffed even man of the iron age. War and hunting parties +had to move along the natural clearings of the rivers, the tracks of +animals, or the few trails beaten out in time by the natives themselves. +Primitive agriculture has never battled successfully against the phalanx +of the trees. Forests balked the expansion of the Inca civilization on +the rainy slope of the Andes, and in Central Africa the negro invaded +only their edges for his yam fields and plantain groves. The earliest +settlements in ancient Britain were confined to the natural clearings of +the chalk downs and oolitic uplands; and here population was chiefly +concentrated even at the close of the Roman occupation. Only gradually, +as the valley woodlands were cleared, did the richer soil of the +alluvial basins attract men from the high, poor ground where tillage +required no preliminary work. But after four centuries of Roman rule and +Roman roads, the clearings along the river valleys were still mere +strips of culture mid an encompassing wilderness of woods. When the +Germanic invaders came, they too appropriated the treeless downs and +were blocked by the forests.[140] On the other hand, grasslands and +savannahs have developed the most mobile people whom we know, steppe +hunters like the Sioux Indians and Patagonians. Thus while the forest +dweller, confined to the highway of the stream, devised only canoe and +dugout boat in various forms for purposes of transportation, steppe +peoples of the Old World introduced the use of draft and pack animals, +and invented the sledge and cart. + +[Sidenote: Effect of geographical horizon.] + +Primitive peoples carry a drag upon their migrations in their restricted +geographical outlook; ignorance robs them of definite goals. The +evolution of the historical movement is accelerated by every expansion +of the geographical horizon. It progresses most rapidly where the +knowledge of outlying or remote lands travels fastest, as along rivers +and thalassic coasts. Rome's location as toll-gate keeper of the Tiber +gave her knowledge of the upstream country and directed her conquest of +its valley; and the movement thus started gathered momentum as it +advanced. Cæsar's occupation of Gaul meant to his generation simply the +command of the roads leading from the Mediterranean to the northern +sources of tin and amber, and the establishment of frontier outposts to +protect the land boundaries of Italy; this represented a bold policy of +inland expansion for that day. The modern historian sees in that step +the momentous advance of history beyond the narrow limits of the +Mediterranean basin, and its gradual inclusion of all the Atlantic +countries of Europe, through whose maritime enterprise the historical +horizon was stretched to include America. In the same way, mediæval +trade with the Orient, which had familiarized Europe with distant India +and Cathay, developed its full historico-geographical importance when it +started the maritime discoveries of the fifteenth century. The expansion +of the geographical horizon in 1512 to embrace the earth inaugurated a +widespread historical movement, which has resulted in the +Europeanization of the world. + +[Sidenote: Civilization and mobility.] + +Civilized man is at once more and less mobile than his primitive +brother. Every advance in civilization multiplies and tightens the bonds +uniting him with his soil; makes him a sedentary instead of a migratory +being. On the other hand every advance in civilization is attended by +the rapid clearing of the forests, by the construction of bridges and +interlacing roads, the invention of more effective vehicles for +transportation whereby intercourse increases, and the improvement of +navigation to the same end. Civilized man progressively modifies the +land which he occupies, removes or reduces obstacles to intercourse, and +thereby approximates it to the open plain. Thus far he facilitates +movements. But while doing this he also places upon the land a dense +population, closely attached to the soil, strong to resist incursion, +and for economic reasons inhospitable to any marked accession of +population from without. Herein lies the great difference between +migration in empty or sparsely inhabited regions, such as predominated +when the world was young, and in the densely populated countries of our +era. As the earth grew old and humanity multiplied, peoples themselves +became the greatest barriers to any massive migrations, till in certain +countries of Europe and Asia the historical movement has been reduced to +a continual pressure, resulting in compression of population here, +repression there. Hence, though political boundaries may shift, ethnic +boundaries scarcely budge. The greatest wars of modern Europe have +hardly left a trace upon the distribution of its peoples. Only in the +Balkan Peninsula, as the frontiers of the Turkish Empire have been +forced back from the Danube, the alien Turks have withdrawn to the +shrinking territory of the Sultan and especially to Asia Minor. + +[Sidenote: Diffusion of culture.] + +Where a population too great to be dislodged occupies the land, conquest +results in the eventual absorption of the victors and their civilization +by the native folk, as happened to the Lombards in Italy, the Vandals in +Africa and the Normans in England. Where the invaders are markedly +superior in culture though numerically weak, conquest results in the +gradual permeation of the conquered with the religion, economic methods, +language, and customs of the new-comers.[141] The latter process, too, is +always attended by some intermixture of blood, where no race repulsion +exists, but this is small in comparison to the diffusion of +civilization. This was the method by which Greek traders and colonists +Hellenized the countries about the eastern Mediterranean, and spread +their culture far back from the shores which their settlements had +appropriated. In this way Saracen armies soon after the death of +Mohammed Arabized the whole eastern and southern sides of the +Mediterranean from Syria to Spain, and Arab merchants set the stamp of +their language and religion on the coasts of East Africa as far as +Moçambique. The handful of Spanish adventurers who came upon the +relatively dense populations of Mexico and Peru left among them a +civilization essentially European, but only a thin strain of Castilian +blood. Thus the immigration of small bands of people sufficed to +influence the culture of that big territory known as Latin America. + +[Sidenote: Ethnic intermixture.] + +That vast sum of migrations, great and small, which we group under the +general term of historical movement has involved an endless mingling of +races and cultures. As Professor Petrie has remarked, the prevalent +notion that in prehistoric times races were pure and unmixed is without +foundation. An examination of the various forms of the historical +movement reveals the extent and complexity of this mingling process. + +In the first place, no migration is ever simple; it involves a number +of secondary movements, each of which in turn occasions a new +combination of tribal or racial elements. The transference of a whole +people from its native or adopted seat to a new habitat, as in the +_Völkerwanderungen_, empties the original district, which then becomes +a catchment basin for various streams of people about its rim; and in +the new territory it dislodges a few or all of the occupants, and +thereby starts up a fresh movement as the original one comes to rest. + +Nor is this all. A torrent that issues from its source in the mountains +is not the river which reaches the sea. On its long journey from +highland to lowland it receives now the milky waters of a glacier-fed +stream, now a muddy tributary from agricultural lands, now the clear +waters from a limestone plateau, while all the time its racing current +bears a burden of soil torn from its own banks. Now it rests in a lake, +where it lays down its weight of silt, then goes on, perhaps across an +arid stretch where its water is sucked up by the thirsty air or +diverted to irrigate fields of grain. So with those rivers of men which +we call migrations. The ethnic stream may start comparatively pure, but +it becomes mixed on the way. From time to time it leaves behind laggard +elements which in turn make a new racial blend where they stop. Such +were the six thousand Aduatici whom Cæsar found in Belgian Gaul. These +were a detachment of the migrating Cimbri, left there in charge of +surplus cattle and baggage while the main body went on to Italy.[142] + +[Sidenote: Complex currents of migration.] + +A migration rarely involves a single people even at the start. It +becomes contagious either by example or by the subjection of several +neighboring tribes to the same impelling force, by reason of which all +start at or near the same time. We find the Cimbri and Teutons combined +with Celts from the island of Batavia[143] in the first Germanic invasion +of the Roman Empire. Jutes, Saxons and Angles started in close +succession for Britain, and the Saxon group included Frisians.[144] An +unavoidable concomitant of great migrations, especially those of nomads, +is their tendency to sweep into the vortex of their movement any people +whom they brush on the way. Both individuals and tribes are thus caught +up by the current. The general convergence of the central German tribes +towards the Danube frontier of the Roman Empire during the Marcomannic +War drew in its train the Lombards from the lower Elbe down to the +middle Danube and Theiss.[145] The force of the Lombards invading Italy +in 568 included twenty thousand Saxons from Swabia, Gepidae from the +middle Danube, Bulgarians, Slavs from the Russian Ukraine, together with +various tribes from the Alpine district of Noricum and the fluvial +plains of Pannonia. Two centuries later the names of these non-Lombard +tribes still survived in certain villages of Italy which had formed +their centers.[146] The army which Attila the Hun brought into Gaul was a +motley crowd, comprising peoples of probable Slav origin from the +Russian steppes, Teutonic Ostrogoths and Gepidae, and numerous German +tribes, besides the Huns themselves. When this horde withdrew after the +death of Attila, Gepidae and Ostrogoths settled along the middle Danube, +and the Slavonic contingent along the Alpine courses of the Drave and +Save Rivers.[147] The Vandal migration which in 409 invaded Spain +included the Turanian Alans and the German Suevi. The Alans found a +temporary home in Portugal, which they later abandoned to join the +Vandal invasion of North Africa, while the Suevi settled permanently in +the northwestern mountains of Spain. The Vandals occupied in Spain two +widely separated districts, one in the mountain region of Galicia next +to the Suevi, and the other in the fertile valley of Andalusia in the +south, while the northeastern part of the peninsula was occupied by +intruding Visigoths.[148] Add to these the original Iberian and Celtic +stocks of the peninsula and the Roman strain previously introduced, and +the various elements which have entered into the Spanish people become +apparent.[149] + +[Sidenote: Cultural modification during migration.] + +The absorption of foreign elements is not confined to large groups whose +names come down in history, nor is the ensuing modification one of blood +alone. Every land migration or expansion of a people passes by or +through the territories of other peoples; by these it is inevitably +influenced in point of civilization, and from them individuals are +absorbed into the wandering throng by marriage or adoption, or a score +of ways. This assimilation of blood and local culture is facilitated by +the fact that the vast majority of historical movements are slow, a +leisurely drift. Even the great _Völkerwanderung_, which history has +shown us generally in the moment of swift, final descent upon the +imperial city, in reality consisted of a succession of advances with +long halts between. The Vandals, whose original seats were probably in +central or eastern Prussia, drifted southward with the general movement +of the German barbarians toward the borders of the Empire late in the +second century, and, after the Marcomannic War (175 A.D.), settled in +Dacia north of the lower Danube under the Roman sway. In 271 they were +located on the middle Danube, and sixty years afterwards in Moravia. +Later they settled for seventy years in Pannonia within the Empire, +where they assimilated Roman civilization and adopted the Arian form of +Christianity from their Gothic neighbors.[150] In Spain, as we have seen, +they occupied Galicia and Andalusia for a time before passing over into +Africa in 429. Here was a migration lasting two centuries and a half, +reaching from the Baltic to the southern shores of the Mediterranean, +starting on the bleak sterile plains of the north amid barbarous +neighbors, ending in the sunny grain fields and rich cities of Roman +Africa. The picture which we get of the victorious Vandals parceling out +the estates of Roman nobles, and, from the standpoint of their more +liberal faith, profiting by the dissensions of the two Catholic sects of +Africa, shows us a people greatly modified by their long sweep through +the civilized outskirts of the Empire. So it was with the Lombards and +Goths who invaded Italy. + +Among primitive tribes, who move in smaller groups and must conform +closely to the dictates of their environment, the modifying effects of +people and land through which they pass are conspicuous. Ratzel +describes the gradual withdrawal of a Hottentot people from western Cape +Colony far into the arid interior before the advance of Kaffirs and +Europeans by saying: "The stock and name of the Namaquas wandered +northward, acquiring new elements, and in course of time filling the old +mold with new contents."[151] This is the typical result of such +primitive movements. The migration of the Delaware Indians from an early +home somewhere northwest of the Great Lakes to their historical habitat +between the Hudson and Potomac Rivers was a slow progress, which +somewhere brought them into contact with maize-growing tribes, and gave +them their start in agriculture.[152] The transit lands through which +these great race journeys pass exercise a modifying effect chiefly +through their culture and their peoples, less through their physical +features and climate. For that the stay of the visitants is generally +too brief. + +[Sidenote: Effect of early maritime migration.] + +Even early maritime migrants did not keep their strains pure. The +untried navigator sailing from island to headland, hugging the coast and +putting ashore for water, came into contact with the natives. Cross +currents of migration can be traced in Polynesian waters, where certain +islands are nodal points which have given and received of races and +culture through centuries of movement. The original white population of +Uruguay differed widely from that of the other Spanish republics of +South America. Its nucleus was a large immigration of Canary Islanders. +These were descendants of Spaniards and the native Guanches of the +Canaries, mingled also with Norman, Flemish and Moorish blood.[153] The +Norse on their way to Iceland may have picked up a Celtic element in the +islands north of Scotland; but from the Faroe group onward they found +only empty Iceland and Greenland. This was an exceptional experience. +Early navigation, owing to its limitations, purposely restricted itself +to the known. Men voyaged where men had voyaged before and were to be +found. Journeys into the untenanted parts of the world were rare. +However, the probable eastward expansion of the Eskimo along the Arctic +rim of North America belongs in this class, so that this northern folk +has suffered no modification from contact with others, except where +Alaska approaches Asia. + +[Sidenote: The transit land.] + +The land traversed by a migrating horde is not to be pictured as a dead +road beneath their feet, but rather as a wide region of transit and +transition, potent to influence them by its geography and people, and to +modify them in the course of their passage. The route which they follow +is a succession of habitats, in which they linger and domicile +themselves for a while, though not long enough to lose wholly the habits +of life and thought acquired in their previous dwelling place. Although +nature in many places, by means of valleys, low plains, mountain passes +or oasis lines, points out the way of these race movements, it is safer +to think and speak of this way as a transit land, not as a path or road. +Even where the district of migration has been the sea, as among the +Caribs of the Antilles Islands, the Moros of the Philippines, and the +Polynesians of the Pacific, man sends his roots like a water plant down +into the restless element beneath, and reflects its influence in all his +thought and activities. + +[Sidenote: War as a form of the historical movement.] + +Every aggressive historical movement, whether bold migration or forcible +extension of the home territory, involves displacement or passive +movement of other peoples (except in those rare occupations of vacant +lands), who in turn are forced to encroach upon the lands of others. +These conditions involve war, which is an important form of the +historical movement, contributing to new social contacts and fusion of +racial stocks. Raids and piratical descents are often the preliminary +of great historical movements. They first expand the geographical +horizon, and end in permanent settlements, which involve finally +considerable transfers of population, summoned to strengthen the +position of the interloper. Such was the history of the Germanic +invasions of Britain, the Scandinavian settlements on the shores of +Iceland, Britain, and France, and the incursions of Saharan tribes into +the Sudanese states. Among pastoral nomads war is the rule; the tribe, a +mobilized nation, is always on a war footing with its neighbors. The +scant supply of wells and pasturage, inadequate in the dry season, +involves rivalry and conflict for their possession as agricultural lands +do not. Failure of water or grass is followed by the decline of the +herds, and then by marauding expeditions into the river valleys to +supply the temporary want of food. When population increases beyond the +limits of subsistence in the needy steppes, such raids become the rule +and end in the conquest of the more favored lands, with resulting +amalgamation of race and culture.[154] + +[Sidenote: Primitive war.] + +The wars of savage and pastoral peoples affect the whole tribe. All the +able-bodied men are combatants, and all the women and children +constitute the spoils of war in case of defeat. This fact is important, +since the purpose of primitive conflicts is to enslave and pillage, +rather than to acquire land. The result is that a whole district may be +laid waste, but when the devastators withdraw, it is gradually +repopulated by bordering tribes, who make new ethnic combinations. After +the destruction of the Eries by the Iroquois in 1655, Ohio was left +practically uninhabited for a hundred and fifty years. Then the +Iroquoian Wyandots extended their settlements into northwestern Ohio +from their base in southern Michigan, while the Miami Confederacy along +the southern shore of Lake Michigan pushed their borders into the +western part. The Muskingum Valley in the eastern portion was occupied +about 1750 by Delawares from eastern Pennsylvania, the Scioto by +Shawnees, and the northeast corner of the territory by detachments of +Iroquois, chiefly Senecas.[155] The long wars between the Algonquin +Indians of the north and the Appalachian tribes of the south kept the +district of Kentucky a No Man's Land, in convenient vacancy for +occupation by the white settlers, when they began the westward +movement.[156] [Map page 156.] + +[Sidenote: Slavery as form of historical movement.] + +This desolation is produced partly by killing, but chiefly by +enslavement of prisoners and the flight of the conquered. Both +constitute compulsory migrations of far-reaching effect in the fusion of +races and the blending of civilizations. The thousands of Greek slaves +who were brought to ancient Rome contributed to its refinement and +polish. All the nations of the known world, from Briton to Syrian and +Jew, were represented in the slave markets of the imperial capital, and +contributed their elements to the final composition of the Roman people. +When we read of ninety-seven thousand Hebrews whom Titus sold into +bondage after the fall of Jerusalem, of forty thousand Greeks sold by +Lucullus after one victory, and the auction _sub corona_ of whole tribes +in Gaul by Cæsar, the scale of this forcible transfer becomes apparent, +and its power as an agent of race amalgamation. Senator Sam Houston of +Texas, speaking of the Comanche Indians, in the United States Senate, +December 31, 1854, said: "There are not less than two thousand prisoners +(whites) in the hands of the Comanches, four hundred in one band in my +own state.... They take no prisoners but women and boys."[157] It was +customary among the Indians to use captured women as concubines and to +adopt into the tribe such boys as survived the cruel treatment to which +they were subjected. Since the Comanches in 1847 were variously +estimated to number from nine to twelve thousand,[158] so large a +proportion of captives would modify the native stock. + +In Africa slavery has been intimately associated with agriculture as a +source of wealth, and therefore has lent motive to intertribal wars. +Captives were enslaved and then gradually absorbed into the tribe of +their masters. Thus war and slavery contributed greatly to that +widespread blending of races which characterizes negro Africa. Slaves +became a medium of exchange and an article of commerce with other +continents. The negro slave trade had its chief importance in the eyes +of ethnologists and historians because, in distributing the black races +in white continents, it has given a "negro question" to the United +States, superseded the native Indian stock of the Antilles by negroes, +and left a broad negro strain in the blood of Colombia, Venezuela, and +Brazil. This particular historical movement, which during the two +centuries of its greatest activity involved larger numbers than the +Tartar invasion of Russia or the Turkish invasion of Europe, for a long +period gave to black Africa the only historical importance which it +possessed for the rest of the world.[159] + +[Sidenote: Fusion by deported and military colonies.] + +In higher stages of political development, war aiming at the subjugation +of large territories finds another means to fuse the subject peoples and +assimilate them to a common standard of civilization. The purpose is +unification and the obliteration of local differences. These are also +the unconscious ends of evolution by historical movement. With this +object, conquerors the world over have used a system of tribal and +racial exchanges. It was the policy of the Incas of ancient Peru to +remove conquered tribes to distant parts of the realm, and supply their +places with colonists from other districts who had long been subjected +and were more or less assimilated.[160] In 722 B.C. the Assyrian king, +Sargon, overran Samaria, carried away the Ten Tribes of Israel beyond +the Tigris and scattered them among the cities of Media, where they +probably merged with the local population. To the country left vacant by +their wholesale deportation he transplanted people from Babylon and +other Mesopotamian cities.[161] The descendants of these, mingled with +the poorer class of Jews still left there, formed the despised +Samaritans of the time of Christ. The Kingdom of Judah later was +despoiled by Nebuchadnezzar of much of its population, which was carried +off to Babylon. + +This plan of partial deportation and colonization characterized the +Roman method of Romanization. Removal of the conquered from their native +environment facilitated the process, while it weakened the spirit and +power of revolt. The Romans met bitter opposition from the mountain +tribes when trying to open up the northern passes of the Apennines. +Consequently they removed the Ligurian tribe of the Apuanians, +forty-seven thousand in number, far south to Samnium. When in 15 B.C. +the region of the Rhaetian Alps was joined to the Empire, forty +thousand of the inhabitants were transplanted from the mountains to the +plain. The same method was used with the Scordisci and Dacians of the +Danube. More often the mortality of war so thinned the population, that +the settlement of Roman military colonies among them sufficed to keep +down revolt and to Romanize the surviving fragment. The large area of +Romance speech found in Roumania and eastern Hungary, despite the +controversy about its origin,[162] seems to have had its chief source in +the extensive Roman colonies planted by the Emperor Trajan in conquered +Dacia.[163] In Iberian Spain, which bitterly resisted Romanization, the +process was facilitated by the presence of large garrisons of soldiers. +Between 196 and 169 B.C. the troops amounted to one hundred and fifty +thousand, and many of them remained in the country as colonists.[164] +Compare the settlement of Scotch troops in French Canada by land grants +after 1763, resulting in the survival to-day of sandy hair, blue eyes, +and highland names among the French-speaking _habitants_ of Murray Bay +and other districts. The Turks in the fifteenth century brought large +bodies of Moslem converts from Asia Minor to garrison Macedonia and +Thessaly, thereby robbing the Anatolian Plateau of half its original +population. Into the vacuum thus formed a current of nomads from inner +Asia has poured ever since.[165] + +[Sidenote: Withdrawal and flight.] + +Every active historical movement which enters an already populated +country gives rise there to passive movements, either compression of the +native folk followed by amalgamation, or displacement and withdrawal. +The latter in some degree attends every territorial encroachment. Only +where there is an abundance of free land can a people retire as a whole +before the onslaught, and maintain their national or racial solidarity. +Thus the Slavs seem largely to have withdrawn before the Germans in the +Baltic plains of Europe. The Indians of North and South America retired +westward before the advance of the whites from the Atlantic coast. The +Cherokee nation, who once had a broad belt of country extending from the +Tennessee Valley through South Carolina to the ocean,[166] first +retracted their frontier to the Appalachian Mountains; in 1816 they were +confined to an ever shrinking territory on the middle Tennessee and the +southern end of the highlands; in 1818 they began to retire beyond the +Mississippi, and in 1828 beyond the western boundary of Arkansas.[167] +The story of the Shawnees and Delawares is a replica of this.[168] In the +same way Hottentots and Kaffirs in South Africa are withdrawing +northward and westward into the desert before the protruding frontier of +white settlement, as the Boers before the English treked farther into +the veldt. [See map page 105.] + +Where the people attacked or displaced is small or a broken remnant, it +often takes refuge among a neighboring or kindred tribe. The small +Siouan tribes of the Carolinas, reduced to fragments by repeated +Iroquois raids, combined with their Siouan kinsmen the Catawbas, who +consequently in 1743 included twenty dialects among their little +band.[169] The Iroquoian Tuscaroras of North Carolina, defeated and +weakened by the whites in 1711, fled north to the Iroquois of New York, +where they formed the Sixth Nation of the Confederation. The Yamese +Indians, who shifted back and forth between the borders of Florida and +South Carolina, defeated first by the whites and then by the Creeks, +found a refuge for the remnant of their tribe among the Seminoles, in +whom they merged and disappeared as a distinct tribe[170]--the fate of +most of these fragmentary peoples. [See map page 54.] + +[Sidenote: Dispersal in flight.] + +When the fugitive body is large, it is forced to split up in order to +escape. Hence every fugitive movement tends to assume the character of a +dispersal, all the more as organization and leadership vanish in the +catastrophe. The fissile character of primitive societies especially +contributes to this end, so that almost every story of Indian and native +African warfare tells of shattered remnants fleeing in several +directions. Among civilized peoples, the dispersal is that of +individuals and has far-reaching historical effects. After the +destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews were scattered over the earth, the +debris of a nation. The religious wars of France during the sixteenth +and seventeenth centuries caused Huguenots to flee to Switzerland, +Germany, Holland, England, and South Carolina; they even tried to +establish a colony on the coast of Brazil. Everywhere they contributed a +valuable element to the economic and social life of the community which +they joined. The great schism in the Russian Church became an agent of +emigration and colonization. It helped to spread the Russian nationality +over remote frontier regions of the empire which previously had been +almost exclusively Asiatic; and distributed groups of dissenters in the +neighboring provinces of Turkey, Roumania, Austria, Poland and +Prussia.[171] + +[Sidenote: Natural regions of retreat.] + +The hope of safety from pursuit drives fugitive peoples into isolated +and barren places that are scarcely accessible or habitable, and thereby +extends the inhabited area of the earth long before mere pressure of +population would have stretched it to such limits. We find these refugee +folk living in pile villages built over the water, in deserts, in +swamps, mangrove thickets, very high mountains, marshy deltas, and +remote or barren islands, all which can be classified as regions of +retreat. Fugitives try to place between themselves and their pursuers a +barrier of sea or desert or mountains, and in doing this have themselves +surmounted some of the greatest obstacles to the spread of the human +race. + +Districts of refuge located centrally to several natural regions of +migration receive immigrants from many sides, and are therefore often +characterized by a bizarre grouping of populations. The cluster of +marshy islands at the head of the Adriatic received fugitives from a +long semi-circle of north Italian cities during the barbarian invasions. +Each refugee colony occupied a separate island, and finally all +coalesced to form the city of Venice. Central mountain districts like +the Alps and Caucasus contain "the sweepings of the plains." The +Caucasus particularly, on the border between Europe and Asia, contains +every physical type and representative of every linguistic family of +Eurasia, except pure Aryan. Nowhere else in the world probably is there +such a heterogeneous lot of peoples, languages and religions. Ripley +calls the Caucasus "a grave of peoples, of languages, of customs and +physical types."[172] Its base, north and south, and the longitudinal +groove through its center from east to west have been swept by various +racial currents, which have cast up their flotsam into its valleys. The +pueblos of our arid Southwest, essentially an area of asylum, are +inhabited by Indians of four distinct stocks, and only one of them, the +Moquis, show clearly kinship to another tribe outside this +territory,[173] so that they are survivals. The twenty-eight different +Indian stocks huddled together in small and diverse linguistic groups +between the Pacific Ocean and the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada and +Cascade Range[174] leave the impression that these protected valleys, +similar to the Caucasus in their ethnic diversity, were an asylum for +remnants of depleted stocks who had fled to the western highlands before +the great Indian migrations of the interior.[175] Making their way +painfully and at great cost of life through a region of mountain and +desert, they came out in diminished bands to survive in the protection +of the great barrier. Of the twenty-one Indian linguistic stocks which +have become extinct since the arrival of the white man, fifteen belong +to this transmontane strip of the Pacific slope[176]--evidence of the +fragmentary character of these stocks and their consequently small power +of resistance, [See map page 54.] + +[Sidenote: Emigration and colonization.] + +Advance to a completely sedentary life, as we see it among modern +civilized nations, prohibits the migration of whole peoples, or even of +large groups when maintaining their political organization. On the other +hand, however, sedentary life and advanced civilization bring rapid +increase of population, improved methods of communication, and an +enlarged geographical horizon. These conditions encourage and facilitate +emigration and colonization, forms of historical movement which have +characterized the great commercial peoples of antiquity and the +overcrowded nations of modern times. These forms do not involve a whole +people, but only individuals and small groups, though in time the total +result may represent a considerable proportion of the original +population. The United States in 1890 contained 980,938 immigrants from +Canada and Newfoundland,[177] or just one-fifth the total population of +the Dominion in that same year. Germany since 1820 has contributed at +least five million citizens to non-European lands. Ireland since 1841 +has seen nearly four millions of its inhabitants drawn off to other +countries,[178] an amount only little less than its present population. +It is estimated that since 1851 emigration has carried off from County +Clare and Kerry seventy-two per cent. of the average population; and yet +those counties are still crowded.[179] Among those who abandon their +homes in search of easier conditions of living, certain ages and certain +social and industrial classes predominate. A typical emigrant group to +America represents largely the lower walks of life, includes an abnormal +proportion of men and adults, and about three-fourths of it are +unskilled laborers and agriculturists.[180] + +Colonization, the most potent instrument of organized expansion, has in +recent centuries changed the relative significance of the great colonial +nations of Europe. It raised England from a small insular country to the +center of a world power. It gave sudden though temporary preëminence to +Spain and Portugal, a new lease of life to little Holland, and ominous +importance to Russia. Germany, who entered the colonial field only in +1880, found little desirable land left; and yet it was especially +Germany who needed an outlet for her redundant population. With all +these states, as with ancient Phoenicia, Greece and Yemen, the initial +purpose was commerce or in some form the exploitation of the new +territory. Colonies were originally trading stations established as safe +termini for trade routes.[181] Colonial government, as administered by +the mother country, originally had an eye single for the profits of +trade: witness the experience of the Thirteen Colonies with Great +Britain. Colonial wars have largely meant the rivalry of competing +nations seeking the same markets, as the history of the Portuguese and +Dutch in the East Indies, and the English and French in America prove. +The first Punic War had a like commercial origin--rivalry for the trade +of _Magna Græcia_ between Rome and Carthage, the dominant colonial +powers of the western Mediterranean. Such wars result in expansion for +the victor. + +[Sidenote: Commerce.] + +Commerce, which so largely underlies colonization, is itself a form of +historical movement. It both causes and stimulates great movements of +peoples, yet it differs from these fundamentally in its relation to the +land. Commerce traverses the land to reach its destination, but takes +account of natural features only as these affect transportation and +travel. It has to do with systems of routes and goals, which it aims to +reach as quickly as possible. It reduces its cortege to essentials; +eliminates women and children. Therefore it surmounts natural barriers +which block the advance of other forms of the historical movement. +Merchant caravans are constantly crossing the desert, but not so +peoples. Traders with loaded yaks or ponies push across the Karakorum +Mountains by passes where a migrating horde would starve and freeze. The +northern limit of the Mediterranean race in Spain lies sharply defined +along the crest of the Pyrenees, whose long unbroken wall forms one of +the most pronounced boundaries in Europe;[182] yet traders and smugglers +have pushed their way through from time immemorial. Long after Etruscan +merchants had crossed northward over the Alps, Roman expansion and +colonization made a detour around the mountains westward into Gaul, with +the result that the Germans received Roman civilization not straight +from the south, but secondhand through their Gallic neighbors west of +the Rhine. + +[Sidenote: Commerce a guide to various movements.] + +Commerce, though differing from other historical movements, may give to +these direction and destination. The trader is frequently the herald of +soldier and settler. He becomes their guide, takes them along the trail +which he has blazed, and gives them his own definiteness of aim. The +earliest Roman conquest of the Alpine tribes was made for the purpose of +opening the passes for traders and abolishing the heavy transit duties +imposed by the mountaineers.[183] Fur-traders inaugurated French +expansion to the far west of Canada, and the Russian advance into +Siberia. The ancient amber route across Russia from the Baltic to the +Euxine probably guided the Goths in their migration from their northern +seats to the fertile lands in southern Russia, where they first appear +in history as the Ostrogoths.[184] The caravan trade across the Sahara +from the Niger to the Mediterranean coast has itself embodied an +historical movement, by bringing out enough negro slaves appreciably to +modify the ethnic composition of the population in many parts of North +Africa.[185] It was this trade which also suggested to Prince Henry of +Portugal in 1415, when campaigning in Morocco, the plan of reaching the +Guinea Coast by sea and diverting its gold dust and slaves to the port +of Lisbon, a movement which resulted in the Portuguese circumnavigation +of Africa.[186] + +Every staple place and trading station is a center of geographical +information; it therefore gives an impulse to expansion by widening the +geographical horizon. The Lewis and Clark Expedition found the Mandan +villages at the northern bend of the Missouri River the center of a +trade which extended west to the Pacific, through the agency of the Crow +and Paunch Indians of the upper Yellowstone, and far north to the +Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Rivers. Here in conversation with British +and French fur-traders of the Northwest Company's posts, they secured +information about the western country they were to explore.[187] +Similarly the trade of the early Jesuit missions at La Pointe near the +west end of Lake Superior annually drew the Indians from a wide circle +sweeping from Green Bay and the Fox River in the south, across the +Mississippi around to the Lake of the Woods and far north of Lake +Superior.[188] Here Marquette first heard of the great river destined to +carry French dominion to the Gulf of Mexico. + +[Sidenote: Movements due to religion.] + +Trade often finds in religion an associate and coadjutor in directing +and stimulating the historical movement. China regards modern Christian +missions as effective European agencies for the spread of commercial and +political power. Jesuit and fur-trader plunged together into the wilds +of colonial Canada; Spanish priest and gold-seeker into Mexico and Peru. +American missionary pressed close upon the heels of fur-trader into the +Oregon country. Jason Lee, having established a Methodist mission on the +Willamette in 1834, himself experienced sudden conversion from +religionist to colonizer. He undertook a temporary mission back to the +settled States, where he preached a stirring propaganda for the +settlement and appropriation of the disputed Oregon country, before the +British should fasten their grip upon it. The United States owes Hawaii +to the expansionist spirit of American missionaries. Thirty years after +their arrival in the islands, they held all the important offices under +the native government, and had secured valuable tracts of lands, laying +the foundation of the landed aristocracy of planters established there +to-day. Their sons and grandsons took the lead in the Revolution of +1893, and in the movement for annexation to the United States. Thus +sometimes do the meek inherit the earth. + +[Sidenote: Religious pilgrimages.] + +The famous pilgrimages of the world, in which the commercial element has +been more or less conspicuous,[189] have contributed greatly to the +circulation of peoples and ideas, especially as they involve multitudes +and draw from a large circle of lands. Their economic, intellectual and +political effects rank them as one phase of the historical movement. +Herodotus tells of seven hundred thousand Egyptians flocking to the city +of Bubastis from all parts of Egypt for the festival of Diana.[190] The +worship of Ashtoreth in Bambyce in Syria drew votaries from all the +Semitic peoples except the Jews. As early as 386 A.D. Christian +pilgrims flocked to Jerusalem from Armenia, Persia, India, Ethiopia, and +even from Gaul and Britain. Jerusalem gave rise to those armed +pilgrimages, the Crusades, with all their far-reaching results. The +pilgrimages to Rome, which in the Jubilee of 1300 brought two hundred +thousand worshipers to the sacred city, did much to consolidate papal +supremacy over Latin Christendom.[191] As the roads to Rome took the +pious wayfarers through Milan, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Bologna, and +other great cities of Italy, they were so many channels for the +distribution of Italian art and culture over the more untutored lands of +western Europe. + +Though Mecca is visited annually by only seventy or eighty thousand +pilgrims, it puts into motion a far greater number over the whole +Mohammedan world, from westernmost Africa to Chinese Turkestan.[192] +Yearly a great pilgrimage, numbering in 1905 eighty thousand souls, +moves across Africa eastward through the Sudan on its way to the Red Sea +and Mecca. Many traders join the caravans of the devout both for +protection and profit, and the devout themselves travel with herds of +cattle to trade in on the way. The merchants are prone to drop out and +settle in any attractive country, and few get beyond the populous +markets of Wadai. The British and French governments in the Sudan aid +and protect these pilgrimages; they recognize them as a political force, +because they spread the story of the security and order of European +rule.[193] The markets of western Tibet, recently opened to Indian +merchants by the British expedition to Lhassa, promote intercourse +between the two countries especially because of the sacred lakes and +mountains in their vicinity, which are goals of pilgrimage alike to +Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist. They offer an opportunity to acquire merit +and profit at the same time, an irresistible combination to the needy, +pious Hindu. Therefore across the rugged passes of the Himalayas he +drives his yaks laden with English merchandise, an unconscious +instrument for the spread of English influence, English civilization and +the extension of the English market, as the Colonial Office well +understands.[194] + +[Sidenote: Historical movement and race distribution.] + +The forms which have been assumed by the historical movement are varied, +but all have contributed to the spread of man over the habitable globe. +The yellow, white and red races have become adapted to every zone; the +black race, whether in Africa, Australia or Melanesia, is confined +chiefly to the Tropics. A like conservatism as to habitat tends to +characterize all sub-races, peoples, and tribes of the human family. The +fact which strikes one in studying the migrations of these smaller +groups is their adherence each to a certain zone or heat belt defined by +certain isothermal lines (see map chap. XVII.), their reluctance to +protrude beyond its limits, and the restricted range and small numerical +strength of such protrusions as occur. This seems to be the conservatism +of the mature race type, which has lost some of its plasticity and shuns +or succumbs to the ordeal of adaptation to contrasted climatic +conditions, except when civilization enables it partially to neutralize +their effects. + +[Illustration: PRIMITIVE INDIAN STOCKS OF SOUTH AMERICA (From Helmolt's +_History of the World_. By permission of Dodd, Mead & Co.)] + +[Sidenote: Migrations in relation to zones and heat belts.] + +In South America, Caribs and Arawaks showed a strictly tropical +distribution from Hayti to the southern watershed of the Amazon. The +Tupis, moving down the Parana-La Plata system, made a short excursion +beyond the Tropic of Capricorn, though not beyond the hot belt, then +turned equator-ward again along the coast.[195] In North America we find +some exceptions to the rule. For instance, though the main area of the +Athapascan stock is found in the frigid belt of Canada and Alaska, north +of the annual isotherm of 0°C. (32°F.) small residual fragments of +these people are scattered also along the Pacific coast of Oregon and +California, marking the old line of march of a large group which drifted +southward into Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and the northern part of +Mexico. The Shoshone stock, which originally occupied the Great Basin +and western intermontane plateau up to the borders of Canada, sent out +offshoots which developed into the ancient civilized tribes of tropical +Mexico and Central America. Both these emigrations to more southern +zones were part of the great southward trend characterizing all +movements on the Pacific side of the continent, probably from an +original ethnic port of entry near Bering Strait; and part also of the +general southward drift in search of more genial climate, which landed +the van of northern Siouan, Algonquin and Iroquoian stocks in the +present area of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and +Louisiana, while the base of their territory stretched out to its +greatest width in southern Canada and contiguous parts of the United +States. [See map page 54.][196] + +[Illustration: ETHNOGRAPHICAL MAP OF INDIA FROM THE INDIAN CENSUS OF +1901.] + +[Illustration: ETHNOGRAPHICAL MAP OF ASIA. Vertical Shading in the +North is Slav.] + +[Sidenote: Range of movements in Asia.] + +If we turn to the eastern hemisphere, we find the Malays and +Malayo-Polynesians, differentiated offshoots of the Mongolian stock, +restricted to the Tropics, except where Polynesians have spread to +outlying New Zealand. The Chinese draw their political boundary nearly +along the Tropic of Cancer, but they have freely lapped over this +frontier into Indo-China as far as Singapore.[197] Combined with this +expansion was the early infiltration of the Chinese into the +Philippines, Borneo, and the western Sunda Isles, all distinctly +tropical. The fact that the Chinese show a physical capacity for +acclimatization found in no other race explains in part their presence +into the Tropics. In contrast, the Aryan folk of India, whether in their +pure type as found in the Punjab and Rajputana Desert, or mingled with +the earlier Dravidian races belong to the hot belt but scarcely reach +the Tropic of Cancer,[198] though their language has far overshot this +line both in the Deccan and the Ganges Delta. One spore of Aryan stock, +in about 450 B.C., moved by sea from the Bay of Cambay to Ceylon; +mingling there with the Tamil natives, they became the progenitors of +the Singhalese, forming a hybrid tropical offshoot. + +Europe, except for its small sub-arctic area, has received immigrants, +according to the testimony of history and ethnology, only from the +temperate parts of Asia and Africa, with the one exception of the +Saracens of Arabia, whose original home lay wholly within the hot +climate belt of 20°C. (68°F.). Saracen expansion, in covering Persia, +Syria, and Egypt, still kept to this hot belt; only in the Barbary Coast +of Africa and in Spain did it protrude into the temperate belt. Though +this last territory was extra-tropical, it was essentially semi-arid and +sub-tropical in temperature, like the dry trade-wind belt whence the +Saracens had sprung. + +[Illustration: ETHNOGRAPHICAL MAP OF AFRICA AND ARABIA.] + +[Sidenote: Range of movements in Africa.] + +The Semitic folk of Arabia and the desert Hamites of northern Africa, +bred by their hot, dry environment to a nomadic life, have been drawn +southward over the Sahara across the Tropic into the grasslands of the +Sudan, permeating a wide zone of negro folk with the political control, +religion, civilization and blood of the Mediterranean north. Here +similar though better conditions of life, a climate hotter though less +arid, attracted Hamitic invasion, while the relatively dense native +population in a lower stage of economic development presented to the +commercial Semites the attraction of lucrative trade. South of the +equator the native Bantu Kaffirs, essentially a tropical people, spread +beyond their zonal border to the south coast of Africa at 33° S.L., +and displaced the yellow Hottentots[199] before the arrival of the Dutch +in 1602; while in the early nineteenth century we hear of the Makololo, +a division of this same Kaffir stock, leaving their native seats near +the southern sources of the Vaal River at 28° S.L. and moving some nine +hundred miles northward to the Barotse territory on the upper Zambesi at +15° S.L.[200] This again was a movement of a pastoral people across a +tropic to other grasslands, to climatic conditions scarcely different +from those which they had left. + +[Sidenote: Colonization and latitude.] + +The modern colonial movements which have been genuine race expansions +have shown a tendency not only to adhere to their zone, but to follow +parallels of latitude or isotherms. The stratification of European +peoples in the Americas, excepting Spanish and Portuguese, coincides +with heat zones. Internal colonization in the United States reveals the +same principle.[201] Russian settlements in Asia stretch across Siberia +chiefly between the fiftieth and fifty-fifth parallels; these same lines +include the ancient Slav territory in Germany between the Vistula and +Weser. The great efflux of home-seekers, as opposed to the smaller +contingent of mere conquerors and exploiters, which has poured forth +from Europe since the fifteenth century, has found its destinations +largely in the temperate parts of the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, +and South Africa. Even the Spanish overlords in Mexico and Peru +domiciled themselves chiefly in the highlands, where altitude in part +counteracts tropical latitude. European immigration into South America +to-day greatly predominates in the temperate portions,--in Argentine, +Uruguay, Paraguay, southern Brazil and southern Chile. While Argentine's +population includes over one million white foreigners, who comprise +twenty per cent. of the total,[202] Venezuela has no genuine white +immigration. Its population, which comprises only one per cent. of pure +whites, consists chiefly of negroes, mulattoes, and Sambos, hybrids of +negro and Indian race. In British Guiana, negroes and East Indian +coolies, both importations from other tropical lands, comprise +eighty-one per cent. of the population.[203] + +The movement of Europeans into the tropical regions of Asia, +Australasia, Africa and America, like the American advance into the +Philippines, represents commercial and political, not genuine ethnic +expansion. Except where it resorts to hybridization, it seeks not new +homesteads, but the profits of tropical trade and the markets for +European manufactures found in retarded populations. These it secures +either by a small but permanently domiciled ruling class, as formerly in +Spanish and Portuguese America, or by a body of European officials, +clerks, agents and soldiers, sent out for a term of years. Such are the +seventy-six thousand Britishers who manage the affairs of commerce and +state in British India, and the smaller number of Dutch who perform the +same functions in the Dutch East India islands. The basis of this system +is exploitation. It represents neither a high economic, ethical, nor +social ideal, and therefore lacks the stamp of geographic finality. + +[Sidenote: Movement to like geographic conditions.] + +A migrating or expanding people, when free to choose, is prone to seek a +new home with like geographic conditions to the old. Hence the stamp +once given by an environment tends to perpetuate itself. All people, +especially those in the lower stages of culture, are conservative in +their fundamental activities. Agriculture is intolerable to pastoral +nomads, hunting has little attraction for a genuine fisher folk. +Therefore such peoples in expansion seek an environment in which the +national aptitudes, slowly evolved in their native seats, find a ready +field. Thus arise natural provinces of distribution, whose location, +climate, physical features, and size reflect the social and economic +adaptation of the inhabitants to a certain type of environment. A +shepherd folk, when breaking off from its parent stock like Abraham's +family from their Mesopotamian kinsmen, seeks a land rich in open +pastures and large enough to support its wasteful nomadic economy. A +seafaring people absorb an ever longer strip of seaboard, like the +Eskimo of Arctic America, or throw out their settlements from inlet to +inlet or island to island, as did Malays and Polynesians in the Pacific, +ancient Greeks and Phoenicians in the subtropical Mediterranean, and the +Norse in the northern seas. The Dutch, bred to the national profession +of diking and draining, appear in their element in the water-logged +coast of Sumatra and Guiana,[204] where they cultivate lands reclaimed +from the sea; or as colonists in the Vistula lowlands, whither Prussia +imported them to do their ancestral task, just as the English employed +their Dutch prisoners after the wars with Holland in the seventeenth +century to dike and drain the fens of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. +Moreover, the commercial talent of the Dutch, trained by their +advantageous situation on the North Sea about the Rhine mouths, guided +their early traders to similar locations elsewhere, like the Hudson and +Delaware Rivers, or planted them on islands either furnishing or +commanding extensive trade, such as Ceylon, Mauritius, the East Indies, +or the Dutch holdings in the Antilles. + +Much farther down in the cultural scale we find the fisher tribes of +Central Africa extending their villages from point to point along the +equatorial streams, and the river Indians of South America gradually +spreading from headwaters to estuary, and thence to the related +environment of the coast. The Tupis, essentially a water race, have left +traces of their occupation only where river or coast enabled them to +live by their inherited aptitudes.[205] The distribution of the ancient +mounds in North America shows their builders to have sought with few +exceptions protected sites near alluvial lowlands, commanding rich soil +for cultivation and the fish supply from the nearby river. Mountaineer +folk often move from one upland district to another, as did the Lombards +of Alpine Pannonia in their conquest of Lombardy and Apennine Italy, +where all their four duchies were restricted to the highlands of the +peninsula.[206] The conquests of the ancient Incas and the spread of +their race covered one Andean valley after another for a stretch of one +thousand five hundred miles, wherever climatic and physical conditions +were favorable to their irrigated tillage and highland herds of llamas. +They found it easier to climb pass after pass and mount to ever higher +altitudes, rather than descend to the suffocating coasts where neither +man nor beast could long survive, though they pushed the political +boundary finally to the seaboard. [Map page 101.] + +[Sidenote: Movement to better geographic conditions.] + +The search for better land, milder climate, and easier conditions of +living starts many a movement of peoples which, in view of their +purpose, necessarily leads them into an environment sharply contrasted +to their original habitat. Such has been the radial outflow of the +Mongoloid tribes down from the rugged highlands of central Asia to the +fertile river lowlands of the peripheral lands; the descent of the Iran +pastors upon the agricultural folk of the Indus, Ganges and Mesopotamian +valleys, and the swoop of desert-born conquerors upon the unresisting +tillers of well-watered fields in all times, from the ancient Hyksos of +the Nile to the modern Fulbe of the Niger Valley. + +[Sidenote: Southward and westward drifts in the northern hemisphere.] + +The attraction of a milder climate has caused in the northern hemisphere +a constantly recurring migration from north to south. In primitive North +America, along the whole broad Atlantic slope, the predominant direction +of Indian migrations was from north to south, accompanied by a drift +from west to east.[207] On the Pacific side of the continent also the +trend was southward. This is generally conceded regardless of theory as +to whether the Indians first found entrance to the continent at its +northeast or northwest corner. It was a movement toward milder +climates.[208] Study of the _Völkerwanderungen_ in Europe reveals two +currents or drifts in varied combination, one from north to south and +the other from east to west, but both of them aimed at regions of better +climate; for the milder temperature and more abundant rainfall of +western Europe made a country as alluring to the Goths, Huns, Alans, +Slavs, Bulgars and Tartars of Asiatic deserts and Russian steppes, as +were the sunny Mediterranean peninsulas to the dwellers of the bleak +Baltic coasts. This is one geographic fact back of the conspicuous +westward movement formulated into an historical principle: "Westward the +star of empire takes its course." The establishment of European colonies +on the western side of the Atlantic, their extension thence to the +Pacific and ever westward, till European culture was transplanted to the +Philippines by Spain and more recently by the United States, constitute +the most remarkable sustained movement made by any one race. + +[Sidenote: Eastward movements.] + +But westward movements are not the only ones. On the Pacific slope of +Asia the star has moved eastward. From highland Mongolia issued the +throng which originally populated the lowlands of China; and ever +since, one nomad conqueror after the other has descended thence to rule +the fruitful plains of Chili and the teeming populations of the Yangtze +Valley.[209] Russia, blocked in its hoped for expansion to the west by +the strong powers of central Europe, stretched its dominion eastward to +the Pacific and for a short time over to Alaska. The chief expansion of +the German people and the German Empire in historical times has also +been from west to east; but this eastward advance is probably only +retracing the steps taken by many primitive Teutonic tribes as they +drifted Rhineward from an earlier habitat along the Vistula. + +[Sidenote: Return movements.] + +Since the world is small, it frequently happens that a people after an +interval of generations, armed with a higher civilization, will reënter +a region which it once left when too crude and untutored to develop the +possibilities of the land, but which its better equipment later enables +it to exploit. Thus we find a backward expansion of the Chinese westward +to the foot of the Pamir, and an internal colonization of the empire to +the Ili feeder of Lake Balkash. The expansion of the Japanese into Korea +and Saghalin is undoubtedly such a return current, after an interval +long enough to work a complete transformation in the primitive +Mongolians who found their way to that island home. Sometimes the return +represents the ebbing of the tide, rather than the back water of a +stream in flood. Such was the retreat of the Moors from Spain to the +Berber districts of North Africa, whither they carried echoes of the +brilliant Saracen civilization in the Iberian Peninsula. Such has been +the gradual withdrawal of the Turks from Europe back to their native +Asia, and slow expulsion of the Tartar tribes from Russia to the barren +Asiatic limits of their former territory. [See map page 225.] + +[Sidenote: Regions of attraction and repulsion.] + +Voluntary historical movements, seeking congenial or choice regions of +the earth, have left its less favored spots undisturbed. Paucity of +resources and isolation have generally insured to a region a peaceful +history; natural wealth has always brought the conqueror. In ancient +Greece the fruitful plains of Thessaly, Boeotia, Elis and Laconia had a +fatal attraction for every migrating horde; Attica's rugged surface, +poor soil, and side-tracked location off the main line of travel +between Hellas and the Peloponnesus saved it from many a rough +visitant,[210] and hence left the Athenians, according to Thucydides, an +indigenous race. The fertility of the Rhine Valley has always attracted +invasion, the barren Black Forest range has repelled and obstructed it. + +The security of such unproductive highlands lies more in their failure +to attract than in their power to resist conquest. When to abundant +natural resources, a single spot adds a reputation for wealth, +magnificence, an exceptional position for the control of territory or +commerce, it becomes a geographical magnet. Such was Delphi for the +Gauls of the Balkan Peninsula in the third century, Rome for the +Germanic and Hunnish tribes of the _Völkerwanderung_, Constantinople for +the Normans, Turks and Russians, Venice for land-locked Austria, the +Mississippi highway and the outlet at New Orleans for our +Trans-Allegheny pioneers. + +[Sidenote: Psychical influences in certain movements.] + +Sometimes the goal is fabulous or mythical, but potent to lure, like the +land of El Dorado, abounding in gold and jewels, which for two centuries +spurred on Spanish exploration in America. Other than purely material +motives may initiate or maintain such a movement, an ideal or a dream of +good, like the fountain of eternal youth which brought Ponce de Leon to +Florida, the search for the Islands of the Blessed, or the spirit of +religious propaganda which stimulated the spread of the Spanish in +Mexico and the French in Canada, or the hope of religious toleration +which has drawn Quaker, Puritan, Huguenot, and Jew to America. It was an +idea of purely spiritual import which directed the century-long movement +of the Crusades toward Jerusalem, half Latinized the Levant, and widened +the intellectual horizon of Europe. A national or racial sentiment which +enhaloes a certain spot may be pregnant with historical results, because +at any moment it may start some band of enthusiasts on a path of +migration or conquest. The Zionist agitation for the return of oppressed +Jews to Palestine, and the establishment of the Liberian Republic for +the negroes in Africa rest upon such a sentiment. The reverence of the +Christian world for Rome as a goal of pilgrimages materially enhanced +the influence of Italy as a school of culture during the Middle Ages. +The spiritual and ethnic association of the Mohammedan world with Mecca +is always fraught with possible political results. The dominant tribes +of the Sudan, followers of Islam, who proudly trace back a fictitious +line of ancestry to the Arabs of Yemen, are readily incited to support a +new prophet sprung from the race of Mecca.[211] The pilgrimages which the +Buddhists of the Asiatic highlands make to the sacred city of Lhassa +ensure China's control over the restless nomads through the +instrumentality of the Grand Lama of Tibet. + +[Sidenote: Results of historical movement.] + +Historical movements are varied as to motive, direction, numerical +strength, and character, but their final results are two, +differentiation and assimilation. Both are important phases of the +process of evolution, but the latter gains force with the progress of +history and the increase of the world's population. + +[Sidenote: Differentiation and area.] + +A people or race which, in its process of numerical growth, spreads over +a large territory subjects itself to a widening range of geographic +conditions, and therefore of differentiation. The broad expansion of the +Teutonic race in Europe, America, Australia and South Africa has brought +it into every variety of habitat. If the territory has a monotonous +relief like Russia, nevertheless, its mere extent involves diversity of +climate and location. The diversity of climate incident to large area +involves in turn different animal and plant life, different crops, +different economic activities. Even in lowlands the relief, geologic +structure, and soil are prone to vary over wide districts. The +monotonous surface of Holland shows such contrasts. So do the North +German lowlands; here the sandy barren flats of the "geest" alternate +with stretches of fertile silt deposited by the rivers or the sea,[212] +and support different types of communities, which have been admirably +described by Gustav Frenssen in his great novel of Jön Uhl. The flat +surface of southern Illinois shows in small compass the teeming +fertility of the famous "American bottom," the poor clay soil of "Egypt" +with its backward population, and the rich prairie land just to the +north with its prosperous and progressive farmer class. + +When the relief includes mountains, the character not only of the land +but of the climate changes, and therewith the type of community. Hence +neighboring districts may produce strongly contrasted types of society. +Madison County of Kentucky, lying on the eastern margin of the Bluegrass +region, contains the rich landed estates, negro laboring class and +aristocratic society characteristic of the "planter" communities of the +old South; and only twenty miles southeast of Richmond, the center of +this wealth and refinement, it includes also the rough barren hill +country of the Cumberland Plateau, where are found one-room cabins, +moonshine stills, feuds, and a backward population sprung from the same +pure English stock as the Bluegrass people. + +[Sidenote: Contrasted environments.] + +Here is differentiation due to the immediate influences of environment. +The phenomenon reappears in every part of the world, in every race and +every age. The contrast between the ancient Greeks of the mountains, +coasts and alluvial valleys shows the power of environment to direct +economic activities and to modify culture and social organization. So +does the differences between the coast, steppe, and forest Indians of +Guiana,[213] the Kirghis of the Pamir pastures and the Irtysh River +valley, the agricultural Berbers of the Atlas Mountains and the Berber +nomads of the Sahara, the Swiss of the high, lonely Engadine and those +of the crowded Aar valley. + +Contrasted environments effect a natural selection in another way and +thereby greatly stimulate differentiation, whenever an intruding people +contest the ownership of the territory with the inhabitants. The +struggle for land means a struggle also for the best land, which +therefore falls to the share of the strongest peoples. Weaklings must +content themselves with poor soils, inaccessible regions of mountain, +swamp or desert. There they deteriorate, or at best strike a slower pace +of increase or progress. The difference between the people of the +highlands and plains of Great Britain or of France is therefore in part +a distinction of race due to this geographical selection,[214] in part a +distinction of economic development and culture due to geographic +influences. Therefore the piedmont belts of the world, except in arid +lands, are cultural, ethnic and often political lines of cleavage, +showing marked differentiation on either side. Isotherms are other such +cleavage lines, marking the limits beyond which an aggressive people did +not desire to expand because of an uncongenial climate. The distinction +between Anglo-Saxon and Latin America is one of zone as well as race. +Everywhere in North America the English stock has dominated or displaced +French and Spanish competitors down to the Mexican frontier. + +As the great process of European colonization has permeated the earth +and multiplied its population, not only the best land but the amount of +this has commenced to differentiate the history of various European +nations, and that in a way whose end cannot yet be definitely predicted. +The best lands have fallen to the first-comers strong enough to hold +them. People who early develop powers of expansion, like the English, or +who, like the French and Russians, formulate and execute vast +territorial policies, secure for their future growth a wide base which +will for all time distinguish them from late-comers into the colonial +field, like Germany and Italy. These countries see the fecundity of +their people redounding to the benefit of alien colonial lands, which +have been acquired by enterprising rivals in the choice sections of the +temperate zone. German and Italian colonies in torrid, unhealthy, or +barren tropical lands, fail to attract emigrants from the mother +country, and therefore to enhance national growth. + +[Sidenote: Two-type populations.] + +When colonizers or conquerors appropriate the land of a lower race, we +find a territory occupied at least for a time by two types of +population, constituting an ethnic, social and often economic +differentiation. The separation may be made geographical also. The +Indians in the United States have been confined to reservations, like +the Hottentots to the twenty or more "locations" in Cape Colony. This is +the simplest arrangement. Whether the second or lower type survives +depends upon their economic and social utility, into which again +geographic conditions enter. The Indians of Canada are a distinct +economic factor in that country as trappers for the Hudson Bay Company, +and they will so remain till the hunting grounds of the far north are +exhausted. The native agriculturists in the Tropics are indispensable to +the unacclimated whites. The negroes of the South, introduced for an +economic purpose, find their natural habitat in the Black Belt. Here we +have an ethnic division of labor for geographical reasons. Castes or +social classes, often distinguished by shades of color as in Brahman +India, survive as differentiations indicating old lines of race +cleavage. There is abundant evidence that the upper classes in Germany, +France, Austria, and the British Isles are distinctly lighter of hair +and eyes than the peasantry.[215] The high-class Japanese are taller and +fairer than the masses. Nearly all the African tribes of the Sudan and +bordering Sahara include two distinct classes, one of lighter and one of +darker shade. Many Fulbe tribes distinguish these classes by the names +of "Blacks" and "Whites."[216] The two-type people are the result of +historical movements. + +[Sidenote: Differentiation and isolation.] + +Differentiation results not only from contrasted geographic conditions, +but also from segregation. A moving or expanding throng in search of +more and better lands drops off one group to occupy a fertile valley or +plain, while the main body goes on its way, till it reaches a +satisfactory destination or destinations. The tendency to split and +divide, characteristic of primitive peoples, is thus stimulated by +migration and expansion. Each offshoot, detached from the main body, +tends to diverge from the stock type. If it reaches a naturally isolated +region, where its contact without is practically cut off, it grows from +its own loins, emphasizes its group characteristic by close in-breeding, +and tends to show a development related to biological divergence under +conditions of isolation. Since man is essentially a gregarious animal, +the size of every such migrating band will always prevent the evolution +of any sharply defined variety, according to the standard of biology. +Nevertheless, the divergent types of men and societies developed in +segregated regions are an echo of the formation of new species under +conditions of isolation which is now generally acknowledged by +biological science. Isolation was recognized by Darwin as an occasional +factor in the origin of species and especially of divergence; in +combination with migration it was made the basis of a theory of +evolution by Moritz Wagner in 1873;[217] and in recent years has come to +be regarded as an essential in the explanation of divergence of types, +as opposed to differentiation.[218] + +[Sidenote: Differentiation and digression.] + +The traditions of the Delaware Indians and Sioux in the north of the +United States territory, and of the Creeks in the south, commence with +each stock group as a united body, which, as it migrates, splits into +tribes and sends out offshoots developing different dialects. Here was +tribal differentiation after entry into the general stock area, the +process going on during migration as well as after the tribes had become +established in their respective habitats. Culture, however, made little +progress till after they became sedentary and took up agriculture to +supplement the chase.[219] Tribes sometimes wander far beyond the limits +of their stock, like the Iroquoian Cherokees of East Tennessee and North +Carolina or the Athapascan Navajos and Apaches of arid New Mexico and +Arizona, who had placed twenty or thirty degrees of latitude between +themselves and their brethren in the basins of the Yukon and Mackenzie +rivers. Such inevitably come into contrasted climatic conditions, which +further modify the immigrants. [See map page 54.] + +Wide digressions differentiate them still further from the parent stock +by landing them amid different ethnic and social groups, by contact with +whom they are inevitably modified. The Namaqua Hottentots, living on the +southern margin of the Hottentot country near the frontier of the +European settlements in Cape Colony, acquired some elements of +civilization, together with a strain of Boer and English blood, and in +some cases even the Dutch vernacular. They were therefore differentiated +from their nomadic and warlike kinsmen in the grasslands north of the +Orange River, which formed the center of the Hottentot area.[220] A view +of the ancient Germans during the first five or six centuries after +Christ reveals differentiation by various contacts in process along all +the ragged borders of the Germanic area. The offshoots who pushed +westward across the Rhine into Belgian Gaul were rapidly Celticized, +abandoning their semi-nomadic life for sedentary agriculture, +assimilating the superior civilization which they found there, and +steadily merging with the native population. They became _Belgae_, +though still conscious of their Teutonic origin.[221] The Batavians, an +offshoot of the ancient Chatti living near the Thuringian Forest, +appropriated the river island between the Rhine and the Waal. There in +the seclusion of their swamps, they became a distinct national unit, +retaining their backward German culture and primitive type of German +speech, which the Chatti themselves lost by contact with the High +Germans.[222] Far away on the southeastern margin of the Teutonic area +the same process of assimilation to a foreign civilization went on a +little later when the Visigoths, after a century of residence on the +lower Danube in contact with the Eastern Empire, adopted the Arian form +of Christianity which had arisen in the Greek peninsula.[223] The border +regions of the world show the typical results of the historical +movement--differentiation from the core or central group through +assimilation to a new group which meets and blends with it along the +frontier. + +[Sidenote: Geographic conditions of heterogeneity and homogeneity.] + +Entrance into a naturally isolated district, from which subsequent +incursions are debarred, gives conditions for divergence and the +creation of a new type. On the other hand, where few physical barriers +are present to form these natural pockets, the process of assimilation +goes on over a wide field. Europe is peculiar among the family of +continents for its "much divided" geography, commented upon by Strabo. +Hence its islands, peninsulas and mountain-rimmed basins have produced a +variegated assemblage of peoples, languages and culture. Only where it +runs off into the monotonous immensity of Russia do we find a people who +in their physical traits, language, and civilization reflect the +uniformity of their environment.[224] + +Africa's smooth outline, its plateau surface rimmed with mountains which +enclose but fail to divide, and its monotonous configuration have +produced a racial and cultural uniformity as striking as Europe's +heterogeneity. Constant movements and commixture, migration and +conquest, have been the history of the black races, varied by victorious +incursions of the Hamitic and Semitic whites from the north, which, +however, have resulted in the amalgamation of the two races after +conquest.[225] Constant fusion has leveled also the social and political +relations of the people to one type; it has eliminated primordial +groups, except where the dwarf hunters have taken refuge in the +equatorial forests and the Bushmen in the southwestern deserts, just as +it has thwarted the development of higher social groups by failure to +segregate and protect. It has sown the Bantu speech broadcast over the +immense area of Central Africa, and is disseminating the Hausa language +through the agency of a highly mixed commercial folk over a wide tract +of the western Sudan. The long east-and-west stretch of the Sudan +grasslands presents an unobstructed zone between the thousand-mile belt +of desert to the north and the dense equatorial forests to the south, +between hunger and thirst on one side, heat and fever and impenetrable +forests on the other. Hence the Sudan in all history has been the +crowded Broadway of Africa. Here pass commercial caravans, hybrid +merchant tribes like the Hausa, throngs of pilgrims, streams of peoples, +herds of cattle moving to busy markets, rude incursive shoppers or +looters from the desert, coming to buy or rob or rule in this highway +belt. [See map page 105.] + +[Sidenote: Differentiation versus assimilation.] + +Historical development advances by means of differentiation and +assimilation. A change of environment stimulates variation. Primitive +culture is loath to change; its inertia is deep-seated. Only a sharp +prod will start it moving or accelerate its speed; such a prod is found +in new geographic conditions or new social contacts. Divergence in a +segregated spot may be overdone. Progress crawls among a people too long +isolated, though incipient civilization thrives for a time in seclusion. +But in general, accessibility, exposure to some measure of ethnic +amalgamation and social contact is essential to sustained progress.[226] +As the world has become more closely populated and means of +communication have improved, geographical segregation is increasingly +rare. The earth has lost its "corners." All parts are being drawn into +the circle of intercourse. Therefore differentiation, the first effect +of the historical movement, abates; the second effect, assimilation, +takes the lead. + +[Sidenote: Elimination by historical movement.] + +The ceaseless human movements making for new combinations have +stimulated development. They have lifted the level of culture, and +worked towards homogeneity of race and civilization on a higher plane. +Since the period of the great discoveries inaugurated by Columbus +enabled the historical movement to compass the world, whole continents, +like North America and Australia, have been reclaimed to civilization by +colonization. The process of assimilation is often ruthless in its +method. Hence it has been attended by a marked reduction in the number +of different ethnic stocks, tribes, languages, dialects, social and +cultural types through wide-spread elimination of the weak, backward or +unfit.[227] These have been wiped out, either by extermination or the +slower process of absorption. The Indian linguistic stocks in the United +States have been reduced from fifty-three to thirty-two; and of those +thirty-two, many survive as a single tribe or the shrinking remnant of +one.[228] In Africa the slave trade has caused the annihilation of many +small tribes.[229] The history of the Hottentots, who have been passive +before the active advance of the English, Dutch and Kaffirs about them, +shows a race undergoing a widespread process of hybridization[230] and +extermination.[231] + +Strong peoples, like the English, French, Russians and Chinese, occupy +ever larger areas. Where an adverse climate precludes genuine +colonization, as it did for the Spanish in Central and South America, +and for the English and Dutch in the Indies, they make their +civilization, if not their race, permeate the acquired territory, and +gradually impose on it their language and economic methods. The Poles, +who once boasted a large and distinguished nationality, are being +Germanized and Russified to their final national extinction. The Finns, +whose Scandinavian offshoot has been almost absorbed in Sweden,[232] are +being forcibly dissolved in the Muscovite dominion by powerful reägents, +by Russian schoolmasters, a Russian priesthood, Russian military +service. + +[Sidenote: No new ethnic types.] + +No new types of races have been developed either by amalgamation or by +transfer to new climatic and economic conditions in historic times. +Contrasted geographic conditions long ago lost their power to work +radical physical changes in the race type, because man even with the +beginnings of civilization learned to protect himself against extremes +of climate. He therefore preserved his race type, which consequently in +the course of ages lost much of its plasticity and therewith its +capacity to evolve new varieties.[233] Where ethnic amalgamations on a +large scale have occurred as a result of the historical movement, as in +Mexico, the Sudan and Central Africa, the local race, being numerically +stronger than the intruders and better adapted to the environment, has +succeeded in maintaining its type, though slightly modified, side by +side with the intruders. The great historical movements of modern times, +however, have been the expansion of European peoples over the retarded +regions of the world. These peoples, coming into contact with inferior +races, and armed generally with a race pride which was antagonistic to +hybrid marriages, preserved their blood from extensive intermixture. +Hybridism, where it existed, was an ephemeral feature restricted to +pioneer days, when white women were scarce, or to regions of extreme +heat or cold, where white women and children could with difficulty +survive. Even in Spanish America, where ethnic blendings were most +extensive, something of the old Spanish pride of race has reasserted +itself. + +[Sidenote: Checks to differentiation.] + +Improved communication maintains or increases the ranks of the intruders +from the home supply. The negroes in North America, imported as they +were _en masse_, then steadily recruited by two centuries of the slave +trade, while their race integrity was somewhat protected by social +ostracism, have not been seriously modified physically by several +generations of residence in a temperate land. Their changes have been +chiefly cultural. The Englishman has altered only superficially in the +various British colonial lands. Constant intercourse and the progress of +inventions have enabled him to maintain in diverse regions approximate +uniformity of physical well-being, similar social and political ideals. +The changed environment modifies him in details of thought, manner, and +speech, but not in fundamentals. + +Moreover, civilized man spreading everywhere and turning all parts of +the earth's surface to his uses, has succeeded to some extent in +reducing its physical differences. The earth as modified by human action +is a conspicuous fact of historical development.[234] Irrigation, +drainage, fertilization of soils, terrace agriculture, denudation of +forests and forestration of prairies have all combined to diminish the +contrasts between diverse environments, while the acclimatization of +plants, animals and men works even more plainly to the same end of +uniformity. The unity of the human race, varied only by superficial +differences, reflects the unity of the spherical earth, whose +diversities of geographical feature nowhere depart greatly from the mean +except in point of climate. Differentiation due to geography, therefore, +early reached its limits. For assimilation no limit can be forseen. + +[Sidenote: Geographical origins.] + +In view of this constant differentiation on the one hand, and +assimilation on the other, the historical movement has made it difficult +to trace race types to their origin; and yet this is a task in which +geography must have a hand. Borrowed civilizations and purloined +languages are often so many disguises which conceal the truth of ethnic +relationships. A long migration to a radically different habitat, into +an outskirt or detached location protected from the swamping effects of +cross-breeding, results eventually in a divergence great enough to +obliterate almost every cue to the ancient kinship. The long-headed +Teutonic race of northern Europe is regarded now by ethnologists as an +offshoot of the long-headed brunette Mediterranean race of African +origin, which became bleached out under the pale suns of Scandinavian +skies. The present distribution of the various Teutonic stocks is a +geographical fact; their supposed cradle in the Mediterranean basin is a +geographical hypothesis. The connecting links must also be geographical. +They must prove the former presence of the migrating folk in the +intervening territory. A dolichocephalic substratum of population, with +a negroid type of skull, has in fact been traced by archaeologists all +over Europe through the early and late Stone Ages. The remains of these +aboriginal inhabitants are marked in France, even in sparsely tenanted +districts like the Auvergne Plateau, which is now occupied by the +broad-headed Alpine race; and they are found to underlie, in point of +time, other brachycephalic areas, like the Po Valley, Bavaria and +Russia.[235] + +The origin of a people can be investigated and stated only in terms of +geography. The problem of origin can be solved only by tracing a people +from its present habitat, through the country over which it has +migrated, back to its original seat. Here are three geographical +entities which can be laid down upon a map, though seldom with sharply +defined boundaries. They represent three successive geographic +locations, all embodying geographic conditions potent to influence the +people and their movement. Hence the geographical element emerges in +every investigation as to origins; whether in ethnology, history, +philology, mythology or religion. The transit land, the course between +start and finish, is of supreme importance. Especially is this true for +religion, which is transformed by travel. Christianity did not conquer +the world in the form in which it issued from the cramped and isolated +environment of Palestine, but only after it had been remodelled in Asia +Minor, Egypt, Greece and Rome, and cosmopolized in the wide contact of +the Mediterranean basin. The Roman speech and civilization, which spread +through the Romance speaking peoples of Europe, were variously diluted +and alloyed before being transplanted by French, Spaniard and Portuguese +to American shores, there to be further transformed. + +[Sidenote: Large centers of dispersion.] + +In view of the countless springs and tributaries that combine to swell +the current of every historical movement, anthropo-geography looks for +the origin of a people not in a narrowly defined area, but in a broad, +ill-defined center of dispersion, from which many streams simultaneously +and successively flow out as from a low-rimmed basin, and which has been +filled from many remoter sources. Autochthones, aborigines are therefore +merely scientific tropes, indicating the limit beyond which the movement +of people cannot be traced in the gray light of an uncertain dawn. The +vaguer and more complex these movements on account of their historical +remoteness, the wider their probable range. The question as to the +geographical origin of the Aryan linguistic family of peoples brings us +to speculative sources, more or less scientifically based, reaching from +Scandinavia and Lithuania to the Hindu Kush Mountains and northern +Africa.[236] The sum total of all these conjectural cradles, amounting +to a large geographical area, would more nearly approximate the truth as +to Aryan origins. For the study of the historical movement makes it +clear that a large, highly differentiated ethnic or linguistic family +presupposes a big center end a long period of dispersion, protracted +wanderings, and a diversified area both for their migrations and +successive settlements. + +[Sidenote: Small centers.] + +The slighter the inner differences in an ethnic stock, whether in +culture, language or physical traits, the smaller was their center of +distribution and the more rapid their dispersal. The small initial +habitat restricts the chances of variation through isolation and +contrasted geographic conditions, as does also the short duration of +their subsequent separation. The amazing uniformity of the Eskimo type +from Bering Strait to eastern Greenland can only thus be explained, even +after making allowance for the monotony of their geographic conditions +and remoteness from outside influences. The distribution of the Bantu +dialects over so wide a region in Central Africa and with such slight +divergences presupposes narrow limits both of space and time for their +origin, and a short period since their dispersal.[237] + +Small centers of dispersion are generally natural districts with fixed +boundaries, favored by their geographical location or natural resources +or by both for the development of a relatively dense population. When +this increases beyond the local limits of subsistence, there follows an +emigration in point of number and duration out of all proportion to the +small area whence it issues. Ancient Phoenicia, Crete, Samos, mediæval +Norway, Venice, Yemen, modern Malta, Gilbert Islands, England and Japan +furnish examples. Such small favored areas, when they embody also strong +political power, may get the start in the occupation of colonial lands. +This gives them a permanent advantage, if their colonies are chosen with +a view to settlement in congenial climates, as were those of the +English, rather than the more ephemeral advantage of trade, as were +those of the Dutch and Portuguese in the Tropics. It seems also +essential to these centers of dispersion, that, to be effective, they +must command the wide choice of outlet and destination afforded by the +mighty common of the sea. Only the Inca Empire in South America gives +us an example of the extensive political expansion of a small mountain +state. + +[Sidenote: Tests of origin.] + +The question arises whether any single rule can as yet be formulated for +identifying the original seats of existing peoples. By some ethnologists +and historians such homes have been sought where the people are +distributed in the largest area, as the Athapascan and Algonquin Indians +are assigned to a northern source, because their territories attained +their greatest continuous extent in Canada, but were intermittent or +attenuated farther south. The fact that colonial peoples often multiply +inordinately in new lands, and there occupy a territory vastly greater +than that of the mother country, points to the danger in such a +generalization. Of the ten millions of Jews in the world, only a handful +remain in the ancient center of dispersion in Palestine, while about +eight millions are found in Poland and the contiguous territories of +western Russia, Roumania, Austria-Hungary and eastern Germany. Moreover, +history and the German element in the "Yiddish" speech of the Russian +Jews point to a secondary center of dispersion in the Rhine cities and +Franconia, whither the Jews were drawn by the trade route up the Rhone +Valley in the third century.[238] + +A more scientific procedure is to look for the early home of a race in +the locality around which its people or family of peoples centers in +modern times. Therefore we place the cradle of the negro race in Africa, +rather than Melanesia. Density often supplies a test, because colonial +lands are generally more sparsely inhabited than the mother country. But +even this conclusion fails always to apply, as in the case of Samos, +which has a population vastly more dense than any section of the Grecian +mainland. The largest compact area including at once the greatest +density of population and the greatest purity of race would more nearly +indicate the center of dispersion; because purity of race is +incompatible with long migrations, as we have seen, though in the native +seat it may be affected by intrusive elements. When this purity of race +is combined with archaic forms of language and culture, as among the +Lithuanians of Aryan speech among the Baltic swamps, it may indicate +that the locality formed a segregated corner of the early center of +dispersion. It seems essential to such an original seat that, whether +large or small, it should be marked by some degree of isolation, as the +condition for the development of specific racial characteristics. + +The complexity of this question of ethnic origins is typical of +anthropo-geographic problems, typical also in the warning which it gives +against any rigidly systematic method of solution. The whole science of +anthropo-geography is as yet too young for hard-and-fast rules, and its +subject matter too complex for formulas. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER IV + +[126] H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, pp. 179-187. London, +1904. W.Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe, pp. 306-310, 319-326. New York, +1899. + +[127] Compare observations of Georg Schweinfurth, The Heart of Africa, +Vol. I, pp. 312-313. London, 1873. + +[128] Nott and Gliddon, Types of Mankind, p. lvii. Philadelphia, 1868. + +[129] D.M. Wallace, Russia, pp. 151-155. New York, 1904. + +[130] Thucydides, Book I, chap. II. + +[131] Strabo, Book II, chap. III, 7. + +[132] McGee and Thomas, Prehistoric North America, pp. 408-414, Vol. XIX +of _History of North America_, edited by T.N. Thorpe. Philadelphia, +1905. + +[133] Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, Vol. II, p. 214. Oxford, 1892. + +[134] Sir John Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, p. 587. New York, 1872. + +[135] D.G. Brinton, The American Race, pp. 116-119. Philadelphia, 1901. + +[136] O.T. Mason, Primitive Travel and Transportation, pp. 249-250. +_Smithsonian Report_, Washington, 1896. + +[137] Thucydides, Book I, chap. II. + +[138] Edward A. Boss, Foundations of Sociology, pp. 359-363, 386-389. +New York, 1905. + +[139] D.G. Brinton, Races and Peoples, pp. 73-75. Philadelphia, 1901. + +[140] John Richard Green, The Making of England, Vol. I, pp. 9-11, +45-46, 52-54, 57, 62. London, 1904. + +[141] James Bryce, The Migration of the Races of Men Considered +Historically, _Scottish Geographical Magazine_, Vol. VIII, pp. 400-421, +and _Smithsonian Report_ for 1893, pp. 567-588. + +[142] Cæsar, _De Bello Gallico_, Book II, chap. 29. + +[143] Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, Vol. I, p. 5. New York, 1883. + +[144] John Richard Green, The Making of England, Vol. I, p. 46. London, +1904. + +[145] Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, Vol. V, pp. 99-101. Oxford, +1895. + +[146] _Ibid._, Vol. V, pp. 156-157. + +[147] Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, Vol. II, pp. 107, 195. Oxford, +1892. + +[148] _Ibid._, Vol. II, pp. 219-223, 230. + +[149] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 276-277. New York, 1899. + +[150] Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, Vol. II, pp. 214-219. Oxford, +1892. + +[151] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, p. 296. London, 1896-1898. + +[152] McGee and Thomas, Prehistoric North America, pp. 408-412, Vol. XIX +of _History of North America._ Philadelphia, 1905. + +[153] Hugh R. Mill, International Geography, p. 858. New York, 1902. + +[154] Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Ackerbaues,_ pp. 44-48. +Stuttgart, 1888. + +[155] Cyrus Thomas, The Indians of North America in Historical Times, p. +261. Vol. II of _History of North America,_ Philadelphia, 1903. + +[156] Roosevelt, Winning of the West, Vol. I, pp. 134-135, 250. New +York, 1895. Justin Winsor, The Westward Movement, p. 16. Boston, 1899. + +[157] Eleventh Census, _Report on the Indians_, p. 54. Washington, 1894. + +[158] _Ibid._, p. 531. + +[159] Hans Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. III, p. 411. New York, +1902-1906. + +[160] Edward John Payne, History of the New World Called America, Vol. +II, pp. 57-58. Oxford, 1899. + +[161] _II Kings_, Chap. XVII, 6-24. + +[162] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 432-434. New York, 1899. + +[163] Hans Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. V, pp. 353-354. New York, +1902-1906. + +[164] _Ibid._, Vol. VI, p. 15. + +[165] D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, p. 247. London, 1902. + +[166] Roosevelt, Winning of the West, Vol. I, p. 248. New York, 1895. + +[167] C.C. Royce, The Cherokee Nation of Indians, pp. 130-131. Maps VIII +and IX. _Fifth Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology_, Washington, 1887. + +[168] Albert Gallatin, Report on the Indians in 1836, reprinted in +Eleventh Census, _Report on the Indians_, p. 33. Washington, 1894. + +[169] Cyrus Thomas, Indians of North America in Historical Times, pp. +94, 96. Vol. II of _History of North America_, Philadelphia, 1903. + +[170] _Ibid._, Vol. II, pp. 100-101. + +[171] Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, Vol. III, pp. +333-334. New York, 1902. + +[172] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 437-438. New York, 1899. + +[173] D.G. Brinton, The American Race, pp. 115-116. Philadelphia, 1901. + +[174] H. Bancroft, The Native Races, Vol. III, pp. 559, 635-638. San +Francisco, 1886. + +[175] Cyrus Thomas, Indians of North America in Historical Times, pp. +381-382, Vol. II of _History of North America_. Philadelphia, 1903. + +[176] Eleventh Census, _Report on the Indians_, p. 35. Washington, 1894. + +[177] Eleventh Census, _Report on Population_, Vol. I, p. cxxxviii. +Washington, 1894. + +[178] Justus Perthes, _Taschen Atlas_, p. 38. Gotha, 1905. + +[179] Richmond Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration, p. 24. New York. + +[180] _Ibid._, pp. 79-80, 113-115. + +[181] Capt. A.T. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon History, pp. 27-28. +Boston, 1902. + +[182] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 247, 272-274. New York, 1899. + +[183] Cæsar, _Bella Gallico_, Book III, chap. I. + +[184] Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, Vol. I, Part I, pp. 34-43. +Oxford, 1892. + +[185] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, pp. 242, 245, 250, 257. +London, 1896-1898. + +[186] John Fiske, Discovery of America, Vol. I, pp. 316-317. Boston, +1893. + +[187] Elliott Coues, History of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Vol. I. +pp. 193-198, 203-212, 240. New York, 1893. + +[188] Francis Parkman, La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, pp. +39-40, Note 2. Boston, 1904. + +[189] George G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, pp. 56-57. London, 1904. + +[190] Herodotus, Book II, 60. + +[191] Encyclopædia Britanica, Article Pilgrimages. + +[192] E. Huntington, The Pulse of Asia, p. 88. Boston, 1907. + +[193] Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, Vol. II, pp. 3-7. +London, 1907. + +[194] C.A. Sherring, Western Tibet and the British Borderland, pp. 3-4, +144-145, 280-284. London, 1906. + +[195] Hans Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. I, pp. 189-191. Map p. +190. New York and London, 1902-1906. + +[196] J.W. Powell, Map of Linguistic Stocks of American Indians, Annual +Report of Bureau of Ethnology, Vol. VII. + +[197] Archibald Little, The Far East, Ethnological Map, p. 8. Oxford, +1905. + +[198] Census of India, 1901, General Report by H.H. Risley and E.A. +Gait, Vol. I, Part I, pp. 500-504; and Ethnographic Appendices by H.H. +Risley, Vol. I, map, p. 60. Calcutta, 1903. P. Vidal de la Blache, _Le +Peuple de l'Inde, d'après la série des recensements_, pp. 431-434, +_Annales de Géographie_, Vol. XV. Paris, 1906. + +[199] Hans Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. III, pp. 422, 424, +434-436. New York, 1902-1906. + +[200] D. Livingstone, Missionary Travels, pp. 97-102. New York, 1858. + +[201] James Bryce, Migrations of the Races of Men Considered +Historically, _Scottish Geographical Magazine_, Vol. VIII, pp. 400-421, +May, 1892. + +[202] Justus Perthes, _Taschen Atlas_, p. 78. Gotha, 1905. + +[203] _Ibid._, p. 80. + +[204] Hugh R. Mill, International Geography, p. 878. New York, 1902. + +[205] Hans Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. I, pp. 189-191. New York, +1902-1906. + +[206] Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, Vol. VI, pp. 23-27, 38-42, 63-68, +83-87. Oxford, 1896. + +[207] McGee and Thomas, Prehistoric North America, Chap. XXI, Vol. XIX +of _History of North America_, Philadelphia, 1905. + +[208] _Ibid._, pp. 83, 87, Map of Migrations, p. 3. + +[209] Archibald Little, The Far East, pp. 34-38. Oxford, 1905. + +[210] Strabo, Book VIII, chap. I, 2. + +[211] Heinrich Barth, Travels in North and Central Africa, Vol. II, p. +548. New York, 1857. + +[212] Joseph Partsch, Central Europe, pp. 104-105. London, 1903. + +[213] E.F. im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, pp. 167-171, 202-207. +London, 1883. + +[214] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, p. 237. New York, 1899. + +[215] _Ibid._, p. 469. + +[216] H. Barth, Human Society in Northern Central Africa, _Journal of +the Royal Geog. Society_, Vol. XXX, p. 116. London, 1860. + +[217] Moritz Wagner, _Die Entstehung der Arten durch räumliche +Sonderung_. Basel, 1889. + +[218] H.W. Conn, The Method of Evolution, pp. 282-295. New York, 1900. + +[219] McGee and Thomas, Prehistoric North America, pp. 418, 424, Vol. +XIX of _History of North America_. Philadelphia, 1905. + +[220] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, pp. 280-283. London, +1896-1898. + +[221] Cæsar, _Bella Gallico_, Book II, chap. IV. + +[222] H. Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. VI, pp. 32-33. New York, +1902-1906. + +[223] Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, Vol. I, Part I, pp. 75, 81, 82. +Oxford, 1895. + +[224] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 34, 341-342. New York, 1899. + +[225] H. Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. III, pp. 400, 417, New +York, 1902-1906. + +[226] A.C. Haddon, The Study of Man, p. xix. New York and London, 1898. + +[227] James Bryce, Migrations of the Races of Men Considered +Historically, _Scottish Geographical Magazine_, Vol. VIII, pp. 400-421. +May, 1892. + +[228] Eleventh Census, _Report on the Indians_, pp. 34-35. Washington, +1894. + +[229] H. Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. III, p. 42. New York, +1902-1906. + +[230] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, pp. 279-283, London, 1896-98. + +[231] Jerome Dowd, The Negro Races, Vol. I, pp. 47-48, 61-62. New York, +1907. + +[232] Sweden, Its People and Its Industries, p. 93. Edited by G. +Sundbärg, Stockholm, 1904. + +[233] Sir John Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, pp. 589-593. New York, 1872. + +[234] G.P. Marsh, The Earth as Modified by Human Action, New York, 1877. + +[235] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 261-267. New York, 1899. + +[236] _Ibid._, pp. 475-485. + +[237] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, pp. 402-405. London, +1896-1898. + +[238] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 371-372. Map, p. 374. New York. +1899. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION + + +[Sidenote: Importance of geographical location.] + +The location of a country or people is always the supreme geographical +fact in its history. It outweighs every other single geographic force. +All that has been said of Russia's vast area, of her steppes and tundra +wastes, of her impotent seaboard on land-locked basins or ice-bound +coasts, of her poverty of mountains and wealth of rivers, fades into the +background before her location on the border of Asia. From her defeat by +the Tartar hordes in 1224 to her attack upon the Mongolian rulers of the +Bosporus in 1877, and her recent struggle with Japan, most of her wars +have been waged against Asiatics. Location made her the bulwark of +Central Europe against Asiatic invasion and the apostle of Western +civilization to the heart of Asia. If this position on the outskirts of +Europe, remote from its great centers of development, has made Russia +only partially accessible to European culture and, furthermore, has +subjected her to the retarding ethnic and social influences emanating +from her Asiatic neighbors,[239] and if the rough tasks imposed by her +frontier situation have hampered her progress, these are all the +limitations of her geographical location, limitations which not even the +advantage of her vast area has been able to outweigh. + +Area itself, important as it is, must yield to location. Location may +mean only a single spot, and yet from this spot powerful influences may +radiate. No one thinks of size when mention is made of Rome or Athens, +of Jerusalem or Mecca, of Gibraltar or Port Arthur. Iceland and +Greenland guided early Norse ships to the continent of America, as the +Canaries and Antilles did those of Spain; but the location of the +smaller islands in sub-tropical latitudes and in the course of the +northeast trade-winds made them determine the first permanent path +across the western seas. + +The historical significance of many small peoples, and the historical +insignificance of many big ones even to the _nil_ point, is merely the +expression of the preponderant importance of location over area. The +Phoenicians, from their narrow strip of coast at the foot of Mount +Lebanon, were disseminators of culture over the whole Mediterranean. +Holland owed her commercial and maritime supremacy, from the thirteenth +to the middle of the seventeenth century, to her exceptional position at +the mouth of the great Rhine highway and at the southern angle of the +North Sea near the entrance to the unexploited regions of the Baltic. +The Iroquois tribes, located where the Mohawk Valley opened a way +through the Appalachian barrier between the Hudson River and Lake +Ontario, occupied both in the French wars and in the Revolution a +strategic position which gave them a power and importance out of all +proportion to their numbers. + +Location often assumes a fictitious political value, due to a +combination of political interests. The Turkish power owes its survival +on the soil of Europe to-day wholly to its position on the Bosporus. +Holland owes the integrity of her kingdom, and Roumania that of hers, to +their respective locations at the mouths of the Rhine and the Danube, +because the interest of western Europe demands that these two important +arteries of commerce should be held by powers too weak ever to tie them +up. The same principle has guaranteed the neutrality of Switzerland, +whose position puts it in control of the passes of the Central Alps from +Savoy to the Tyrol; and, more recently, that of the young state of +Panama, through which the Isthmian Canal is to pass. + +[Sidenote: Content of the term location.] + +Geographical location necessarily includes the idea of the size and form +of a country. Even the most general statement of the zonal and +interoceanic situation of Canada, the United States, Mexico, and the +Russian Empire, indicates the area and contour of their territories. +This is still more conspicuously the case with naturally defined +regions, such as island and peninsula countries. But location includes a +complex of yet larger and more potent relations which go with mere +attachment to this or that continent, or to one or another side of a +continent. Every part of the world gives to its lands and its people +some of its own qualities; and so again every part of this part. +Arabia, India and Farther India, spurs of the Asiatic land-mass, have +had and will always have a radically different ethnic and political +history from Greece, Italy and Spain, the corresponding peninsulas of +Europe, because the histories of these two groups are bound up in their +respective continents. The idea of a European state has a different +content from that of an Asiatic, or North American or African state; it +includes a different race or combination of races, different social and +economic development, different political ideals. Location, therefore, +means climate and plant life at one end of the scale, civilization and +political status at the other. + +[Sidenote: Intercontinental location.] + +This larger conception of location brings a correspondingly larger +conception of environment, which affords the solution of many otherwise +hopeless problems of anthropo-geography. It is embodied in the law that +the influences of a land upon its people spring not only from the +physical features of the land itself, but also from a wide circle of +lands into which it has been grouped by virtue of its location. Almost +every geographical interpretation of the ancient and modern history of +Greece has been inadequate, because it has failed sufficiently to +emphasize the most essential factor in this history, namely, Greece's +location at the threshold of the Orient. This location has given to +Greek history a strong Asiatic color. It comes out in the accessibility +of Greece to ancient Oriental civilization and commerce, and is +conspicuous in every period from the Argonautic Expedition to the +achievement of independence in 1832 and the recent efforts for the +liberation of Crete. This outpost location before the Mediterranean +portals of the vast and arid plains of southwestern Asia, exposed to +every tide of migration or conquest sent out by those hungry lands, had +in it always an element of weakness. In comparison with the shadow of +Asia, which constantly overhung the Greek people and from 1401 to 1832 +enveloped them, only secondary importance can be attributed to +advantageous local conditions as factors in Greek history. + +It is a similar intercontinental location in the isthmian region between +the Mediterranean on the west and the ancient maritime routes of the +Red Sea and Persian Gulf on the east, which gave to Phoenicia the office +of middleman between the Orient and Occident,[240] and predestined its +conquest, now by the various Asiatic powers of Mesopotamia, now by the +Pharaohs of Egypt, now by European Greeks and Romans, now by a +succession of Asiatic peoples, till to-day we find it incorporated in +the Asiatic-European Empire of Turkey. Proximity to Africa has closely +allied Spain to the southern continent in flora, fauna, and ethnic +stock. The long-headed, brunette Mediterranean race occupies the Iberian +Peninsula and the Berber territory of northwest Africa.[241] This +community of race is also reflected in the political union of the two +districts for long periods, first under the Carthaginians, then the +Romans, who secured Hispania by a victory on African soil, and finally +by the Saracens. This same African note in Spanish history recurs to-day +in Spain's interest in Morocco and the influence in Moroccan affairs +yielded her by France and Germany at the Algeciras convention in 1905, +and in her ownership of Ceuta and five smaller _presidios_ on the +Moroccan coast. Compare Portugal's former ownership of Tangier. + +In contradistinction to continental and intercontinental location, +anthropo-geography recognizes two other narrower meanings of the term. +The innate mobility of the human race, due primarily to the eternal +food-quest and increase of numbers, leads a people to spread out over a +territory till they reach the barriers which nature has set up, or meet +the frontiers of other tribes and nations. Their habitat or their +specific geographic location is thus defined by natural features of +mountain, desert and sea, or by the neighbors whom they are unable to +displace, or more often by both. + +[Sidenote: Natural versus vicinal location.] + +A people has, therefore, a twofold location, an immediate one, based +upon their actual territory, and a mediate or vicinal one, growing out +of its relations to the countries nearest them. The first is a question +of the land under their feet; the other, of the neighbors about them. +The first or natural location embodies the complex of local geographic +conditions which furnish the basis for their tribal or national +existence. This basis may be a peninsula, island, archipelago, an oasis, +an arid steppe, a mountain system, or a fertile lowland. The stronger +the vicinal location, the more dependent is the people upon the +neighboring states, but the more potent the influence which it can, +under certain circumstances, exert upon them. Witness Germany in +relation to Holland, France, Austria and Poland. The stronger the +natural location, on the other hand, the more independent is the people +and the more strongly marked is the national character. This is +exemplified in the people of mountain lands like Switzerland, Abyssinia +and Nepal; of peninsulas like Korea, Spain and Scandinavia; and of +islands like England and Japan. To-day we stand amazed at that strong +primordial brand of the Japanese character which nothing can blur or +erase. + +[Sidenote: Naturally defined location.] + +Clearly defined natural locations, in which barriers of mountains and +sea draw the boundaries and guarantee some degree of isolation, tend to +hold their people in a calm embrace, to guard them against outside +interference and infusion of foreign blood, and thus to make them +develop the national genius in such direction as the local geographic +conditions permit. In the unceasing movements which have made up most of +the historic and prehistoric life of the human race, in their migrations +and counter-migrations, their incursions, retreats, and expansions over +the face of the earth, vast unfenced areas, like the open lowlands of +Russia and the grasslands of Africa, present the picture of a great +thoroughfare swept by pressing throngs. Other regions, more secluded, +appear as quiet nooks, made for a temporary halt or a permanent rest. +Here some part of the passing human flow is caught as in a vessel and +held till it crystallizes into a nation. These are the conspicuous areas +of race characterization. The development of the various ethnic and +political offspring of the Roman Empire in the naturally defined areas +of Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, and France illustrates the process of +national differentiation which goes on in such secluded locations. + +A marked influence upon this development is generally ascribed to the +protection afforded by such segregated districts. But protection alone +is only a negative force in the life of a people; it leaves them free to +develop in their own way, but does not say what that way shall be. On +the other hand, the fact that such a district embraces a certain number +of geographic features, and encompasses them by obstructive boundaries, +is of immense historical importance; because this restriction leads to +the concentration of the national powers, to the more thorough +utilization of natural advantages, both racial and geographical, and +thereby to the growth of an historical individuality. Nothing robs the +historical process of so much of its greatness or weakens so much its +effects as its dispersion over a wide, boundless area. This was the +disintegrating force which sapped the strength of the French colonies in +America. The endless valleys of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi and +the alluring fur trade tempted them to an expansion that was their +political and economic undoing. Russia's history illustrates the curse +of a distant horizon. On the other hand, out of a restricted +geographical base, with its power to concentrate and intensify the +national forces, grew Rome and Greece, England and Japan, ancient Peru +and the Thirteen Colonies of America. + +[Sidenote: Vicinal location.] + +If even the most detached and isolated of these natural locations be +examined, its people will, nevertheless, reveal a transitional +character, intermediate between those of its neighbors, because from +these it has borrowed both ethnic stock and culture, Great Britain is an +island, but its vicinal location groups it with the North Sea family of +people. Even in historic times it has derived ancient Belgian stock, +Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Danish and Scandinavian from the long semi-circle of +nearby continental lands, which have likewise contributed so much to the +civilization of the island. Similarly, Japan traces the sources of its +population to the north of Asia by way of the island of Sakhalin, to the +west through Korea, and to the Malay district of the south, whence the +Kuro Siwa has swept stragglers to the shores of Kiu-siu. Like England, +Japan also has drawn its civilization from its neighbors, and then, +under the isolating influence of its local environment, has +individualized both race and culture. Here we have the interplay of the +forces of natural and vicinal location. + +A people situated between two other peoples form an ethnic and cultural +link between the two. The transitional type is as familiar in +anthropo-geography as in biology. The only exception is found in the +young intrusion of a migrating or conquering people, like that of the +Hungarians and Turks in southeastern Europe, and of the Berger Tuaregs +and Fulbes among the negroes of western Sudan; or of a colonizing +people, like that of the Russians in Mongolian Siberia and of Europeans +among the aborigines of South Africa. Even in these instances race +amalgamation tends to take place along the frontiers, as was the case in +Latin America and as occurs to-day in Alaska and northern Canada, where +the "squaw man" is no rarity. The assimilation of culture, at least in a +superficial sense, may be yet more rapid, especially where hard climatic +conditions force the interloper to imitate the life of the native. The +industrial and commercial Hollander, when transplanted to the dry +grasslands of South Africa, became pastoral like the native Kaffirs. The +French voyageur of Canada could scarcely be distinguished from the +Indian trapper; occupation, food, dress, and spouse were the same. Only +a lighter tint of skin distinguished the half-breed children of the +Frenchman. The settlers of the early Trans-Allegheny commonwealths, at +least for a generation or two, showed little outward difference in mode +of life from that of the savage community among which they dwelt.[242] + +[Sidenote: Vicinal groups of similar or diverse race and culture.] + +The more alike the components of such a vicinal group of people, the +easier, freer and more effective will be the mediating function of the +central one. Germany has demonstrated this in her long history as +intermediary between the nations of southeastern and western Europe. The +people of Poland, occupying a portion of the Baltic slope of northern +Europe, fended by no natural barriers from their eastern and western +neighbors, long constituted a transition form between the two. Though +affiliated with Russia in point of language, the Poles are Occidental in +their religion; and their head-form resembles that of northern Germany +rather than that of Russia.[243] The country belongs to western Europe in +the density of its population (74 to the square kilometer or 190 to the +square mile), which is quadruple that of remaining European Russia, and +also in its industrial and social development. The partition of Poland +among the three neighboring powers was the final expression of its +intermediate location and character.[244] One part was joined politically +to the Slav-German western border of Russia, and another to the +German-Slav border of Germany, while the portion that fell to the +Austrian Empire simply extended the northern Slav area of that country +found in Bohemia, Moravia, and the Slovak border of Hungary. [Map page +223.] + +If the intermediate people greatly differs in race or civilization from +both neighbors, it exercises and receives slight influence. The Mongols +of Central Asia, between China on one side and Persia and India on the +other, have been poor vehicles for the exchange of culture between these +two great districts. The Hungarians, located between the Roumanians and +Germans on the east and west, Slovaks and Croatians on the north and +south, have helped little to reconcile race differences in the great +empire of the Danube. + +[Sidenote: Thalassic vicinal location.] + +The unifying effect of vicinal location is greatly enhanced if the +neighboring people are grouped about an enclosed sea which affords an +easy highway for communication. The integrating force of such a basin +will often overcome the disintegrating force of race antagonisms. The +Roman Empire in the Mediterranean was able to evolve an effective +centralized government and to spread one culture over the neighboring +shores, despite great variety of nationality and language and every +degree of cultural development. A certain similarity of natural +conditions, climatic and otherwise, from the Iberian Peninsula to the +borders of the Syrian desert, also aided in the process of amalgamation. + +Where similarity of race already forms a basis for congeniality, such +circumthalassic groups display the highest degree of interactive +influence. These contribute to a further blending of population and +unification of culture, by which the whole circle of the enclosing lands +tends to approach one standard of civilization. This was the history of +the Baltic coast from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, when +the German Hansa distributed the material products of Europe's highest +civilization from Russian Novgorod to Norway. The North Sea group, +first under the leadership of Holland, later under England's guidance, +became a single community of advancing culture, which was a later +reflection of the early community of race stretching from the Faroe and +Shetland Islands to the Rhine and the Elbe. This same process has been +going on for ages about the marginal basins of eastern Asia, the Yellow +and Japan Seas. Community of race and culture stamps China, Korea and +Japan. A general advance in civilization under the leadership of Japan, +the England of the East, now inaugurates the elevation of the whole +group. + +[Sidenote: Complementary locations.] + +An even closer connection exists between adjoining peoples who are +united by ties of blood and are further made economically dependent upon +one another, because of a contrast in the physical conditions and, +therefore, in the products of their respective territories. Numerous +coast and inland tribes, pastoral and agricultural tribes are united +because they are mutually necessary. In British Columbia and Alaska the +fishing Indians of the seaboard long held a definite commercial relation +to the hunting tribes of the interior, selling them the products and +wares of the coast, while monopolizing their market for the inland furs. +Such was the position of the Ugalentz tribe of Tlingits near the mouth +of the Copper River in relation to the up-stream Athapascans; of the +Kinik tribe at the head of Cook's Inlet in relation to the inland +Atnas,[245] of the Chilcats of Chilkoot Inlet to the mountain Tinnehs. +Similarly, the hunting folk of the Kalahari Desert in South Africa +attach themselves to influential tribesmen of the adjacent Bechuana +grasslands, in order to exchange the skins of the desert animals for +spears, knives, and tobacco.[246] Fertile agricultural lands adjoining +pastoral regions of deserts and steppes have in all times drawn to their +border markets the mounted plainsmen, bringing the products of their +herds to exchange for grain; and in all times the abundance of their +green fields has tempted their ill-fed neighbors to conquest, so that +the economic bond becomes a preliminary to a political bond and an +ethnic amalgamation growing out of this strong vicinal location. The +forest lands of Great Russia supplement the grain-bearing Black Lands +of Little Russia; the two are united through geographico-economic +conditions, which would not permit an independent existence to the +smaller, weaker section of the south, ever open to hostile invasion from +Asia.[247] + +[Sidenote: Types of location.] + +Leaving now the ethnic and economic ties which may strengthen the +cohesive power of such vicinal grouping, and considering only its purely +geographic aspects, we distinguish the following types: + + I. Central location. Examples: The Magyars in the Danube Valley; + the Iroquois Indians on the Mohawk River and the Finger Lakes; + Russia from the 10th to the 18th century; Poland from 1000 to its + final partition in 1795; Bolivia, Switzerland, and Afghanistan. + + II. Peripheral location: Ancient Phoenicia; Greek colonies in Asia + Minor and southern Italy; the Roman Empire at the accession of + Augustus; the Thirteen Colonies in 1750; island and peninsula + lands. + + III. Scattered location: English and French settlements in America + prior to 1700; Indians in the United States and the Kaffirs in + South Africa; Portuguese holdings in the Orient, and French in + India. + + IV. Location in a related series: Oasis states grouped along desert + routes; islands along great marine routes. + +[Sidenote: Continuous and scattered location.] + +All peoples in their geographical distribution tend to follow a social +and political law of gravitation, in accordance with which members of +the same tribe or race gather around a common center or occupy a +continuous stretch of territory, as compactly as their own economic +status, and the physical conditions of climate and soil will permit. +This is characteristic of all mature and historically significant +peoples who have risen to sedentary life, maintained their hold on a +given territory, and, with increase of population, have widened their +boundaries. The nucleus of such a people may be situated somewhere in +the interior of a continent, and with growing strength it may expand in +every direction; or it may originate on some advantageous inlet of the +sea and spread thence up and down the coast, till the people have +possessed themselves of a long-drawn hem of land and used this +peripheral location to intercept the trade between their back country +and the sea. + +These are the two types of continuous location. In contrast to them, a +discontinuous or scattered location characterizes the sparse +distribution of primitive hunting and pastoral tribes; or the shattered +fragments of a conquered people, whose territory has been honeycombed by +the land appropriation of the victors; or a declining, moribund people, +who, owing to bad government, poor economic methods, and excessive +competition in the struggle for existence, have shrunk to mere patches. +As a favorable symptom, scattered location regularly marks the healthy +growth of an expanding people, who throw out here and there detached +centers of settlement far beyond the compact frontier, and fix these as +the goal for the advance of their boundary. It is also a familiar +feature of maritime commercial expansion, which is guided by no +territorial ambition but merely aims to secure widely distributed +trading stations at favorable coast points, in order to make the circle +of commerce as ample and resourceful as possible. But this latter form +of scattered location is not permanently sound. Back of it lies the +short-sighted policy of the middleman nation, which makes wholly +inadequate estimate of the value of land, and is content with an +ephemeral prosperity. + +[Sidenote: Central versus peripheral location.] + +A broad territorial base and security of possession are the guarantees +of national survival. The geographic conditions which favor one often +operate against the other. Peripheral location means a narrow base but a +protected frontier along the sea; central location means opportunity for +widening the territory, but it also means danger. A state embedded in +the heart of a continent has, if strong, every prospect of radial +expansion and the exercise of widespread influence; but if weak, its +very existence is imperilled, because it is exposed to encroachments on +every side. A central location minus the bulwark of natural boundaries +enabled the kingdom of Poland to be devoured piecemeal by its voracious +neighbors. The kingdom of Burgundy, always a state of fluctuating +boundaries and shifting allegiances, fell at last a victim to its +central location, and saw its name obliterated from the map. Hungary, +which, in the year 1000, occupied a restricted inland location on the +middle Danube, by the 14th century broke through the barriers of its +close-hugging neighbors, and stretched its boundaries from the Adriatic +to the Euxine; two hundred years later its territory contracted to a +fragment before the encroachments of the Turks, but afterwards recovered +in part its old dimensions. Germany has, in common with the little +Sudanese state of Wadai, an influential and dangerous position. A +central location in the Sudan has made Wadai accessible to the rich +caravan trade from Tripoli and Barca on the north, from the great market +town of Kano in Sokoto on the west, and from the Nile Valley and Red Sea +on the east. But the little state has had to fight for its life against +the aggressions of its western rival Bornu and its eastern neighbor +Darfur. And now more formidable enemies menace it in the French, who +have occupied the territory between it and Bornu, and the English, who +have already caught Darfur in the dragnet of the Egyptian Sudan.[248] + +[Sidenote: Danger of central location.] + +Germany, crowded in among three powerful neighbors like France, Russia, +and Austria, has had no choice about maintaining a strong standing army +and impregnable frontier defenses. The location of the Central European +states between the Baltic and the Balkans has exposed them to all the +limitations and dangers arising from a narrow circle of land neighbors. +Moreover, the diversified character of the area, its complex mountain +systems, and diverging river courses have acted as disintegrating forces +which have prevented the political concentration necessary to repel +interference from without. The Muscovite power, which had its beginning +in a modest central location about the sources of the Dwina, Dnieper and +Volga, was aided by the physical unity of its unobstructed plains, which +facilitated political combination. Hence, on every side it burst through +its encompassing neighbors and stretched its boundaries to the +untenanted frontier of the sea. Central location was the undoing of the +Transvaal Republic. Its efforts to expand to the Indian Ocean were +blocked by its powerful British rival at every point--at Delagoa Bay in +1875 by treaty with Portugal, at Santa Lucia Bay in 1884, and through +Swaziland in 1894. The Orange Free State was maimed in the same way +when, in 1868, she tried to stretch out an arm through Basutoland to the +sea.[249] Here even weak neighbors were effective to curtail the seaward +growth of these inland states, because they were made the tools of one +strong, rapacious neighbor. A central position teaches always the lesson +of vigilance and preparedness for hostilities, as the Boer equipment in +1899, the military organization of Germany, and the bristling fortresses +on the Swiss Alpine passes prove. + +[Sidenote: Mutual relations between center and periphery.] + +How intimate and necessary are the relations between central and +peripheral location is shown by the fact that all states strive to +combine the two. In countries like Norway, France, Spain, Japan, Korea +and Chile, peripheral location predominates, and therefore confers upon +them at once the security and commercial accessibility which result from +contact with the sea. Other countries, like Russia, Germany and +Austro-Hungary, chiefly central in location, have the strategic and even +the commercial value of their coasts reduced by the long, tortuous +course which connects them with the open ocean. Therefore, we find +Russia planning to make a great port at Ekaterina Harbor on the +northernmost point of her Lapland coast, where an out-runner from the +Gulf Stream ensures an ice-free port on the open sea.[250] An admirable +combination of central and peripheral location is seen in the United +States. Here the value of periphery is greatly enhanced by the +interoceanic location of the country; and the danger of entanglements +arising from a marked central location is reduced by the simplicity of +the political neighborhood. But our country has paid for this security +by an historical aloofness and poverty of influence. Civilized countries +which are wholly central in their location are very few, only nine in +all. Six of these are mountain or plateau states, like Switzerland and +Abyssinia, which have used the fortress character of their land to +resist conquest, and have preferred independence to the commercial +advantages to be gained only by affiliation with their peripheral +neighbors. + +[Sidenote: Inland and coastward expansion.] + +Central and peripheral location presuppose and supplement one another. +One people inhabits the interior of an island or continent whose rim is +occupied by another. The first suffers from exclusion from the sea and +therefore strives to get a strip of coast. The coast people feel the +drawback of their narrow foothold upon the land, want a broader base in +order to exploit fully the advantages of their maritime location, fear +the pressure of their hinterland when the great forces there imprisoned +shall begin to move; so they tend to expand inland to strengthen +themselves and weaken the neighbor in their rear. The English colonies +of America, prior to 1763, held a long cordon of coast, hemmed in +between the Appalachian Mountains and the sea. Despite threats of French +encroachments from the interior, they expanded from this narrow +peripheral base into the heart of the continent, and after the +Revolution reached the Mississippi River and the northern boundary of +the Spanish Floridas. They now held a central location in relation to +the long Spanish periphery of the Gulf of Mexico. True to the instincts +of that location, they began to throw the weight of their vast +hinterland against the weak coastal barrier. This gave way, either to +forcible appropriation of territory or diplomacy or war, till the United +States had incorporated in her own territory the peripheral lands of the +Gulf from Florida Strait to the Rio Grande. [See map page 156.] + +[Sidenote: Russian expansion in Asia.] + +In Asia this same process has been perennial and on a far greater scale. +The big arid core of that continent, containing many million square +miles, has been charged with an expansive force. From the appearance of +the Aryans in the Indus Valley and the Scythians on the borders of +Macedonia, it has sent out hordes to overwhelm the peripheral lands from +the Yellow Sea to the Black, and from the Indian Ocean to the White +Sea.[251] To-day Russia is making history there on the pattern set by +geographic conditions. From her most southerly province in Trans-Caspia, +conquered a short twenty-five years ago, she is heading towards the +Indian Ocean. The Anglo-Russian convention of August 31st, 1907, +yielding to Russia all northern Persia as her sphere of influence, +enables her to advance half way to the Persian Gulf, though British +statesmen regard it as a check upon her ambition, because England has +secured right to the littoral. But Russia by this great stride toward +her goal is working with causes, satisfied to let the effects follow at +their leisure. She has gained the best portion of Persia, comprising +the six largest cities and the most important lines of communication +radiating from the capital.[252] This country will make a solid base for +her further advance to the Persian Gulf; and, when developed by Russian +enterprise in railroad building and commerce, it will make a heavy +weight bearing down upon the coast. The Muscovite area which is pressing +upon England's Persian littoral reaches from Ispahan and Yezd to the +far-away shores of the Arctic Ocean. + +[Sidenote: Periphery as goal of expansion.] + +In the essentially complementary character of interior and periphery are +rooted all these coastward and landward movements of expansion. Where an +equilibrium seems to have been reached, the peoples who have accepted +either the one or the other one-sided location have generally for the +time being ceased to grow. Such a location has therefore a passive +character. But the surprising elasticity of many nations may start up an +unexpected activity which will upset this equilibrium. Where the central +location is that of small mountain states, which are handicapped by +limited resources and population, like Nepal and Afghanistan, or +overshadowed by far more powerful neighbors, like Switzerland, the +passive character is plain enough. In the case of larger states, like +Servia, Abyssinia, and Bolivia, which offer the material and +geographical base for larger populations than they now support, it is +often difficult to say whether progression or retrogression is to be +their fate. As a rule, however, the expulsion of a people from a +peripheral point of advantage and their confinement in the interior +gives the sign of national decay, as did Poland's loss of her Baltic +seaboard. Russia's loss of her Manchurian port and the resignation of +her ambition on the Chinese coasts is at least a serious check. On the +other hand, if an inland country enclosed by neighbors succeeds in +somewhere getting a maritime outlet, the sign is hopeful. The +century-old political slogan of Hungary, "To the sea, Magyars!" has +borne fruit in the Adriatic harbor of Fiume, which is to-day the pride +of the nation and in no small degree a basis for its hope of autonomy. +The history of Montenegro took on a new phase when from its mountain +seclusion it recently secured the short strip of seaboard which it had +won and lost so often. Such peripheral holdings are the lungs through +which states breathe. + +[Sidenote: Reaction between center and periphery.] + +History and the study of race distribution reveal a mass of facts which +represent the contrast and reaction between interior and periphery. The +marginal lands of Asia, from northern Japan, where climatic conditions +first make historical development possible, around the whole fringe of +islands, peninsulas and border lowlands to the Aegean coast of Asia +Minor, present a picture of culture and progress as compared with the +high, mountain-rimmed core of the continent, condemned by its remoteness +and inaccessibility to eternal retardation. Europe shows the same +contrast, though in less pronounced form. Its ragged periphery, all the +way from the Balkan Gibraltar at Constantinople to the far northern +projections of Scandinavia and Finland, shows the value of a seaward +outlook both in culture and climate. Germany beyond the Elbe and Austria +beyond the Danube begin to feel the shadow of the continental mass +behind them; and from their eastern borders on through Russia the +benumbing influence of a central location grows, till beyond the Volga +the climatic, economic, social and political conditions of Asia prevail. +Africa is all core: contour and relief have combined to reduce its +periphery to a narrow coastal hem, offering at best a few vantage points +for exploitation to the great maritime merchant peoples of the world. +Egypt, embedded in an endless stretch of desert like a jewel in its +matrix, was powerless to shake off the influence of its continental +environment. Its location was predominantly central; its culture bore +the stamp of isolation and finally of arrested development. Australia, +the classic ground of retardation, where only shades of savagery can be +distinguished, offered the natives of its northern coast some faint +stimuli in the visits of Malay seamen from the nearby Sunda Islands; but +its central tribes, shielded by geographic segregation from external +influences, have retained the most primitive customs and beliefs.[253] + +Expanding Europe has long been wrestling with Africa, but it can not get +a grip, owing to the form of its antagonist; it finds no limb by which +the giant can be tripped and thrown. Asia presents a wide border of +marginal lands, some of them like Arabia and India being almost +continental in their proportions. Since Europe began her career of +maritime and colonial expansion in the sixteenth and seventeenth +centuries, she has seized upon these peripheral projections as if they +were the handles on a pilot wheel, and by them she has steered the +course of Asia ever since. These semi-detached outlyers of the continent +have enabled her to stretch a girdle of European influences around the +central core. Such influences, through the avenues of commerce, railway +concessions, missionary propaganda, or political dominion, have +permeated the accessible periphery and are slowly spreading thence into +the interior. China and Persia have felt these influences not less than +India and Tongking; Japan, which has most effectually preserved its +political autonomy, has profited by them most. + +This historical contrast between center and periphery of continents +reappears in smaller land masses, such as peninsulas and islands. The +principle holds good regardless of size. The whole fringe of Arabia, +from Antioch to Aden and from Mocha to Mascat, has been the scene of +incoming and outgoing activities, has developed live bases of trade, +maritime growth, and culture, while the inert, somnolent interior has +drowsed away its long eventless existence. The rugged, inaccessible +heart of little Sardinia repeats the story of central Arabia in its +aloofness, its impregnability, backwardness, and in the purity of its +race. Its accessible coast, forming a convenient way-station on the +maritime crossroads of the western Mediterranean, has received a +succession of conquerors and an intermittent influx of every ethnic +strain known in the great basin. + +[Sidenote: Periphery of colonization.] + +The story of discovery and colonization, from the days of ancient Greek +enterprise in the Mediterranean to the recent German expansion along the +Gulf of Guinea, shows the appropriation first of the rims of islands and +continents, and later that of the interior. A difference of race and +culture between inland and peripheral inhabitants meets us almost +everywhere in retarded colonial lands. In the Philippines, the wild +people of Luzon, Mindoro and the Visayas are confined almost entirely +to the interior, while civilized or Christianized Malays occupy the +whole seaboard, except where the rugged Sierra Madre Mountains, fronting +the Pacific in Luzon, harbor a sparse population of primitive +Negritos.[254] For centuries Arabs held the coast of East Africa, where +their narrow zone of settlement bordered on that of native blacks, with +whom they traded. Even ancient Greece showed a wide difference in type +of character and culture between the inland and maritime states. The +Greek landsman was courageous and steadfast, but crude, illiterate, +unenterprising, showing sterility of imagination and intellect; while +his brother of the seaboard was active, daring, mercurial, imaginative, +open to all the influences of a refining civilization.[255] To-day the +distribution of the Greeks along the rim of the Balkan peninsula and +Asia Minor, in contrast to the Turks and Slavs of the interior, is +distinctly a peripheral phenomenon.[256] + +The rapid inland advance from the coast of oversea colonists is part of +that restless activity which is fostered by contact with the sea and +supported by the command of abundant resources conferred by maritime +superiority. The Anglo-Saxon invasion of England, as later the English +colonization of America, seized the rim of the land, and promptly pushed +up the rivers in sea-going boats far into the interior. But periphery +may give to central region something more than conquerors and colonists. +From its active markets and cosmopolitan exchanges there steadily filter +into the interior culture and commodities, carried by peaceful merchant +and missionary, who, however, are often only the harbingers of the +conqueror. The accessibility of the periphery tends to raise it in +culture, wealth, density of population, and often in political +importance, far in advance of the center. + +[Illustration: PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. Distribution of Civilized and Wild +Peoples] + +[Sidenote: Dominant historical side.] + +The maritime periphery of a country receives a variety of oversea +influences, blends and assimilates these to its own culture, Hellenizes, +Americanizes or Japanizes them, as the case may be, and then passes them +on into the interior. Here no one foreign influence prevails. On the +land boundaries the case is different. Each inland frontier has to +reckon with a different neighbor and its undiluted influence. A +predominant central location means a succession of such neighbors, on +all sides friction which may polish or rub sore. The distinction +between a many-sided and a one-sided historical development depends upon +the contact of a people with its neighbors. Consider the multiplicity of +influences which have flowed in upon Austria from all sides. But not all +such influences are similar in kind or in degree. The most powerful +neighbor will chiefly determine on which boundary of a country its +dominant historical processes are to work themselves out in a given +epoch. Therefore, it is of supreme importance to the character of a +peopled history on which side this most powerful neighbor is located. +Russia had for several centuries such a neighbor in the Tartar hordes +along its southeastern frontier, and therefore its history received an +Asiatic stamp; so, too, did that of Austria and Hungary in the long +resistance to Turkish invasion. All three states suffered in consequence +a retardation of development on their western sides. After the turmoil +on the Asiatic frontier had subsided, the great centers of European +culture and commerce in Italy, Germany and the Baltic lands began to +assert their powers of attraction. The young Roman Republic drew up its +forces to face the threatening power of Carthage in the south, and +thereby was forced into rapid maritime development; the Roman Empire +faced north to meet the inroads of the barbarians, and thereby was drawn +into inland expansion. All these instances show that a vital historical +turning-point is reached in the development of every country, when the +scene of its great historical happenings shifts from one side to +another. + +[Sidenote: The Mediterranean side of Europe.] + +In addition to the aggressive neighbor, there is often a more sustained +force that may draw the activities of a people toward one or another +boundary of their territory. This may be the abundance of land and +unexploited resources lying on a colonial frontier and attracting the +unemployed energies of the people, such as existed till recently in the +United States,[257] and such as is now transferring the most active +scenes of Russian history to far-away Siberia. But a stronger attraction +is that of a higher civilization and dominant economic interests. So +long as the known world was confined to the temperate regions of Europe, +Asia and Africa, together with the tropical districts of the Indian +Ocean, the necessities of trade between Orient and Occident and the +historical prestige of the lands bordering on the Mediterranean placed +in this basin the center of gravity of the cultural, commercial and +political life of Europe. The continent was dominated by its Asiatic +corner; its every country took on an historical significance +proportionate to its proximity and accessibility to this center. The +Papacy was a Mediterranean power. The Crusades were Mediterranean wars. +Athens, Rome, Constantinople, Venice, and Genoa held in turn the focal +positions in this Asiatic-European sea; they were on the sunny side of +the continent, while Portugal and England lay in shadow. Only that +portion of Britain facing France felt the cultural influences of the +southern lands. The estuaries of the Mersey and Clyde were marshy +solitudes, echoing to the cry of the bittern and the ripple of Celtic +fishing-boat. + +[Sidenote: Change of historical front.] + +After the year 1492 inaugurated the Atlantic period of history, the +western front of Europe superseded the Mediterranean side in the +historical leadership of the continent. The Breton coast of France waked +up, the southern seaboard dozed. The old centers in the Aegean and +Adriatic became drowsy corners. The busy traffic of the Mediterranean +was transferred to the open ocean, where, from Trafalger to Norway, the +western states of Europe held the choice location on the world's new +highway. Liverpool, Plymouth, Glasgow, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp, +Cherbourg, Lisbon and Cadiz were shifted from shadowy margin to +illuminated center, and became the foci of the new activity. Theirs was +a new continental location, maintaining relations of trade and +colonization with two hemispheres. Their neighbors were now found on the +Atlantic shores of the Americas and the peripheral lands of Asia. These +cities became the exponents of the intensity with which their respective +states exploited the natural advantages of this location. + +The experience of Germany was typical of the change of front. From the +tenth to the middle of the sixteenth century, this heir of the old Roman +Empire was drawn toward Italy by every tie of culture, commerce, and +political ideal. This concentration of interest in its southern neighbor +made it ignore a fact so important as the maritime development of the +Hanse Towns, wherein lay the real promise of its future, the hope of its +commercial and colonial expansion. The shifting of its historical center +of gravity to the Atlantic seaboard therefore came late, further +retarded by lack of national unity and national purposes. But the +present wide circle of Germany's transoceanic commerce incident upon its +recent industrial development, the phenomenal increase of its merchant +marine, the growth of Hamburg and Bremen, the construction of ship +canals to that short North Sea coast, and the enormous utilization of +Dutch ports for German commerce, all point to the attraction of distant +economic interests, even when meagerly supported by colonial +possessions. + +Location, therefore, while it is the most important single geographic +factor, is at the same time the one most subject to the vicissitudes +attending the anthropo-geographical evolution of the earth. Its value +changes with the transfer of the seats of the higher civilizations from +sub-tropical to temperate lands; from the margin of enclosed sea to the +hem of the open ocean; from small, naturally defined territories to +large, elastic areas; from mere periphery to a combination of periphery +and interior, commanding at once the freedom of the sea and the +resources of a wide hinterland. + +[Sidenote: Contrasted historical sides.] + +Even in Europe, however, where the Atlantic leaning of all the states is +so marked as to suggest a certain dependence, the strength of this +one-sided attraction is weakened by the complexity and closeness of the +vicinal grouping of the several nations. Germany's reliance upon the +neighboring grain fields of Russia and Hungary and the leather of the +southern steppes counteracts somewhat the far-off magnet of America's +wheat and cattle. England experienced a radical change of geographic +front with the sailing of the Cabots; but the enormous tonnage entering +and passing from the North Sea and Channel ports for her European +trade[258] show the attraction of the nearby Continent. Oftentimes we +find two sides of a country each playing simultaneously a different, yet +an equally important historical part, and thus distributing the +historical activities, while diversifying the historical development of +the people. The young United States were profoundly influenced as to +national ideals and their eventual territorial career by the free, eager +life and the untrammeled enterprise of its wilderness frontier beyond +the Alleghenies, while through the Atlantic seaboard it was kept in +steadying contact with England and the inherited ideals of the race. +Russia is subjected to different influences on its various fronts; it is +progressive, industrial, socialistic on its European side in Poland; +expansive and radical in a different way in colonial Siberia; aggressive +in the south, bending its energies toward political expansion along the +Mediterranean and Persian Gulf seaboards. In all such countries there is +a constant shifting and readjustment of extra-territorial influences. + +[Sidenote: One-sided historical relations.] + +It is otherwise in states of very simple vicinal grouping, coupled with +only a single country or at best two. Spain, from the time Hamilcar +Barca made it a colony of ancient Carthage, down to the decline of its +Saracen conquerors, was historically linked with Africa. Freeman calls +attention to "the general law by which, in almost all periods of +history, either the masters of Spain have borne rule in Africa or the +masters of Africa have borne rule in Spain." The history of such simply +located countries tends to have a correspondingly one-sided character. +Portugal's development has been under the exclusive influence of Spain, +except for the oversea stimuli brought to it by the Atlantic. England's +long southern face close to the French coast had for centuries the +effect of interweaving its history with that of its southern neighbor. +The conspicuous fact in the foreign history of Japan has been its +intimate connection with Korea above all the other states.[259] Egypt, +which projects as an alluvial peninsula into an ocean of desert from +southwestern Asia, has seen its history, from the time of the Shepherd +Kings to that of Napoleon, repeatedly linked with Palestine and Syria. +Every Asiatic or European conquest of these two countries has eventually +been extended to the valley of the Nile; and Egypt's one great period of +expansion saw this eastern coast of the Mediterranean as far as the +Euphrates united to the dominion of the Pharaohs. Here is a one-sided +geographical location in an exaggerated form, emphasized by the +physical and political barrenness of the adjacent regions of Africa and +the strategic importance of the isthmian district between the +Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. + +[Sidenote: Scattered location due to geographic conditions.] + +The forms of vicinal location thus far considered presuppose a compact +or continuous distribution, such as characterizes the more fertile and +populous areas of the earth. Desert regions, whether due to Arctic cold +or extreme aridity, distribute their sparse population in small groups +at a few favored points, and thus from physical causes give rise to the +anthropo-geographical phenomenon of scattered location. Districts of +intense cold, which sustain life only in contact with marine supplies of +food, necessitate an intermittent distribution along the seaboard, with +long, unoccupied stretches between. This is the location we are familiar +with among the Eskimo of Greenland and Alaska, among the Norse and Lapps +in the rugged Norwegian province of Finmarken, where over two-thirds of +the population live by fishing. In the interior districts of this +province about Karasjok and Kantokeino, the reindeer Lapps show a +corresponding scattered grouping here and there on the inhospitable +slopes of the mountains.[260] In that one-half of Switzerland lying above +the altitude where agriculture is possible, population is sprinkled at +wide intervals over the sterile surface of the highlands. + +A somewhat similar scattered location is found in arid deserts, where +population is restricted to the oases dropped here and there at wide +intervals amid the waste of sand. But unlike those fragments of human +life on the frozen outskirts of the habitable world, the oasis states +usually constitute links in a chain of connection across the desert +between the fertile lands on either side, and therefore form part of a +series, in which the members maintain firm and necessary economic +relations. Every caravan route across the Sahara is dotted by a series +of larger or smaller tribal settlements. Tripoli, Sokna, Murzuk, Bilma +and Bornu form one such chain; Algiers, El Golea, Twat, the salt mines +of Taudeni, Arawan and Timbuctoo, another. Bagdad, Hayil, Boreyda and +Mecca trace the road of pilgrim and merchant starting from the Moslem +land of the Euphrates to the shrine of Mohammed.[261] + +[Illustration: DISTRIBUTION OF SETTLEMENT IN THE NORWEGIAN PROVINCE OF +FINMARKEN.] + +[Sidenote: Island way station on maritime routes.] + +Not unlike this serial grouping of oasis states along caravan routes +through the desert are the island way stations that rise out of the +waste of the sea and are connected by the great maritime routes of +trade. Such are the Portuguese Madeiras, Bissagos, and San Thomé on the +line between Lisbon and Portuguese Loanda in West Africa; and their +other series of the Madeiras, Cape Verde, and Fernando, which +facilitated communication with Pernambuco when Brazil was a Portuguese +colony. The classic example of this serial grouping is found in the line +of islands, physical or political, which trace England's artery of +communication with India--Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Perim, Aden, +Sokotra, and Ceylon, besides her dominant position at Suez. + +[Sidenote: Scattered location of primitive tribes.] + +Quite different from this scattered distribution, due to physical +conditions, in an otherwise uninhabited waste is that wide dispersal of +a people in small detached groups which is the rule in lower stages of +culture, and which bespeaks the necessity of relatively large +territorial reserves for the uneconomic method of land utilization +characteristic of hunting, fishing, pastoral nomadism, and primitive +agriculture. A distribution which claims large areas, without, however, +maintaining exclusive possession or complete occupation, indicates among +advanced peoples an unfinished process,[262] especially unfinished +expansion, such as marked the early French and English colonies in +America and the recent Russian occupation of Siberia. Among primitive +peoples it is the normal condition, belongs to the stage of +civilization, not to any one land or any one race, though it has been +called the American form of distribution. + +Not only are villages and encampments widely dispersed, but also the +tribal territories. The Tupis were found by the Portuguese explorers +along the coast of eastern Brazil and in the interior from the mouth of +the La Plata to the lower Amazon, while two distant tribes of the Tupis +were dropped down amid a prevailing Arawak population far away among the +foothills of the Andes in two separate localities on the western +Amazon.[263] [See map page 101.] The Athapascans, from their great +compact northern area between Hudson Bay, the Saskatchewan River, and +the Eskimo shores of the Arctic Ocean sent southward a detached offshoot +comprising the Navajos, Apaches and Lipans, who were found along the Rio +Grande from its source almost to its mouth; and several smaller +fragments westward who were scattered along the Pacific seaboard from +Puget Sound to northern California.[264] The Cherokees of the southern +Appalachians and the Tuscaroras of eastern North Carolina were detached +groups of the Iroquois, who had their chief seat about the lower Great +Lakes and the St. Lawrence. Virginia and North Carolina harbored also +several tribes of Sioux,[265] who were also represented in southern +Mississippi by the small Biloxi nation, though the chief Sioux area lay +between the Arkansas and Saskatchewan rivers. Similarly the Caddoes of +Louisiana and eastern Texas had one remote offshoot on the Platte River +and another, the Arikaras, on the upper Missouri near its great bend. +[See map page 54.] But the territory of the Caddoes, in turn, was +sprinkled with Choctaws, who belonged properly east of the Mississippi, +but who in 1803 were found scattered in fixed villages or wandering +groups near the Bayou Teche, on the Red River, the Washita, and the +Arkansas.[266] Their villages were frequently interspersed with others of +the Biloxi Sioux. + +This fragmentary distribution appears in Africa among people in parallel +stages of civilization. Dr. Junker found it as a universal phenomenon in +Central Africa along the watershed between the White Nile and the +Welle-Congo. Here the territory of the dominant Zandeh harbored a motley +collection of shattered tribes, remnants of peoples, and intruding or +refugee colonies from neighboring districts.[267] The few weak bonds +between people and soil characterizing retarded races are insufficient +to secure permanent residence in the face of a diminished game supply, +as in the case of the Choctaws above cited, or of political disturbance +or oppression, or merely the desire for greater independence, as in that +of so many African tribes. + +[Illustration: DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1800.] + +[Sidenote: Ethnic islands of expansion.] + +A scattered location results in all stages of civilization when an +expanding or intruding people begins to appropriate the territory of a +different race. Any long continued infiltration, whether peaceful or +aggressive, results in race islands or archipelagoes distributed through +a sea of aborigines. Semitic immigration from southern Arabia has in +this way striped and polka-dotted the surface of Hamitic Abyssinia.[268] +Groups of pure German stock are to-day scattered through the Baltic and +Polish provinces of Russia.[269] [See map page 223.] In ancient times the +advance guard of Teutonic migration crossed the Rhenish border of Gaul, +selected choice sites here and there, after the manner of Ariovistus, +and appeared as enclaves in the encompassing Gallic population. While +the Anahuac plateau of Mexico formed the center of the Aztec or Nahuatl +group of Indians, outlying colonies of this stock occurred among the +Maya people of the Tehuantepec region, and in Guatemala and +Nicaragua.[270] + +Such detached fragments or rather spores of settlement characterize all +young geographical boundaries, where ethnic and political frontiers are +still in the making. The early French, English, Dutch, and Swedish +settlements in America took the form of archipelagoes in a surrounding +sea of Indian-owned forest land; and in 1800, beyond the frontier of +continuous settlement in the United States long slender peninsulas and +remote outlying islands of white occupation indicated American advance +at the cost of the native. Similarly the Portuguese, at the end of the +sixteenth century, seized and fortified detached points along the coast +of East Africa at Sofala, Malindi, Mombassa, Kilwa, Lamu, Zanzibar and +Barava, which served as way stations for Portuguese ships bound for +India, and were outposts of expansion from their Moçambique +territory.[271] The snow-muffled forests of northern Siberia have their +solitudes broken at wide intervals by Russian villages, located only +along the streams for fishing, gold-washing and trading with the native. +These lonely clearings are outposts of the broad band of Muscovite +settlement which stretches across southern Siberia from the Ural +Mountains to the Angara River.[272] [See map page 103.] + +[Sidenote: Political islands of expansion.] + +The most exaggerated example of scattered political location existing +to-day is found in the bizarre arrangement of European holdings on the +west coast of Africa between the Senegal and Congo rivers. Here in each +case a handful of governing whites is dropped down in the midst of a +dark-skinned population in several districts along the coast. The six +detached seaboard colonies of the French run back in the interior into a +common French-owned hinterland formed by the Sahara and western Sudan, +which since 1894 link the Guinea Coast colonies with French Algeria and +Tunis; but the various British holdings have no territorial cohesion at +any point, nor have the Spanish or Portuguese or German. The scattered +location of these different European possessions is for the most part +the expression of a young colonizing activity, developed in the past +fifty years, and signalized by the vigorous intrusion of the French and +Germans into the field. To the anthropo-geographer the map of western +Africa presents the picture of a political situation wholly immature, +even embryonic. The history of similar scattered outposts of political +expansion in America, India and South Africa teaches us to look for +extensive consolidation. + +[Sidenote: Ethnic islands of survival.] + +Race islands occur also when a land is so inundated by a tide of +invasion or continuous colonization that the original inhabitants +survive only as detached remnants, where protecting natural conditions, +such as forests, jungles, mountains or swamps, provide an asylum, or +where a sterile soil or rugged plateau has failed to attract the +cupidity of the conqueror. The dismembered race, especially one in a +lower status of civilization, can be recognized as such islands of +survival by their divided distribution in less favored localities, into +which they have fled, and in which seldom can they increase and +recombine to recover their lost heritage. In Central Africa, between the +watersheds of the Nile, Congo and Zambesi, there is scarcely a large +native state that does not shelter in its forests scattered groups of +dwarf hunter folk variously known as Watwa, Batwa, and Akka.[273] They +serve the agricultural tribes as auxiliaries in war, and trade with them +in meat and ivory, but also rob their banana groves and manioc patches. +The local dispersion of these pygmies in small isolated groups among +stronger peoples points to them as survivals of a once wide-spread +aboriginal race, another branch of which, as Schweinfurth suggested, is +probably found in the dwarfed Bushmen and Hottentots of South +Africa.[274] [See map page 105.] + +Similar in distribution and in mode of life are the aborigines of the +Philippines, the dwarf Negritos, who are still found inhabiting the +forests in various localities. They are dispersed through eight +provinces of Luzon and in several other islands, generally in the +interior, whither they have been driven by the invading Malays.[275] [See +map page 147.] But the Negritos crop out again in the mountain interior +of Formosa and Borneo, in the eastern peninsula of Celebes, and in +various islands of the Malay Archipelago as far east as Ceram and +Flores, amid a prevailing Malay stock. Toward the west they come to the +surface in the central highland of Malacca, in the Nicobar and Andaman +Islands, and in several mountain and jungle districts of India. Here +again is the typical geographic distribution of a moribund aboriginal +race, whose shrivelled patches merely dot the surface of their once wide +territory.[276] The aboriginal Kolarian tribes of India are found under +the names of Bhils, Kols and Santals scattered about in the fastnesses +of the Central Indian jungles, the Vindhyan Range, and in the Rajputana +Desert, within the area covered by Indo-Aryan occupation.[277] [See map +page 103.] + +[Sidenote: Discontinuous distribution.] + +Such broad, intermittent dispersal is the anthropological prototype of +the "discontinuous distribution" of biologists. By this they mean that +certain types of plants and animals occur in widely separated regions, +without the presence of any living representatives in the intermediate +area. But they point to the rock records to show that the type once +occupied the whole territory, till extensive elimination occurred, owing +to changes in climatic or geologic conditions or to sharpened +competition in the struggle for existence, with the result that the type +survived only in detached localities offering a favorable +environment.[278] In animal and plant life, the ice invasion of the +Glacial Age explains most of these islands of survival; in human life, +the invasion of stronger peoples. The Finnish race, which in the ninth +century covered nearly a third of European Russia, has been shattered by +the blows of Slav expansion into numerous fragments which lie scattered +about within the old ethnic boundary from the Arctic Ocean to the +Don-Volga watershed.[279] The encroachments of the whites upon the red +men of America early resulted in their geographical dispersion. The map +showing the distribution of population in 1830 reveals large detached +areas of Indian occupancy embedded in the prevailing white +territory.[280] The rapid compression of the tribal lands and the +introduction of the reservation system resulted in the present +arrangement of yet smaller and more widely scattered groups. Such +islands of survival tend constantly to contract and diminish in number +with the growing progress, density, and land hunger of the surrounding +race. The Kaffir islands and the Hottentot "locations" in South Africa, +large as they now are, will repeat the history of the American Indian +lands, a history of gradual shrinkage and disappearance as territorial +entities. + +[Sidenote: Contrasted location.] + +Every land contains in close juxtaposition areas of sharply contrasted +cultural, economic and political development, due to the influence of +diverse natural locations emphasizing lines of ethnic cleavage made +perhaps by some great historical struggle. In mountainous countries the +conquered people withdraw to the less accessible heights and leave the +fertile valleys to the victorious intruders. The two races are thus held +apart, and the difference in their respective modes of life forced upon +them by contrasted geographic conditions tends still farther for a time +to accentuate their diversity. The contrasted location of the dislodged +Alpine race, surviving in all the mountains and highlands of western +Europe over against the Teutonic victors settled in the plains,[281] has +its parallel in many parts of Asia and Africa; it is almost always +coupled with a corresponding contrast in mode of life, which is at least +in part geographically determined. In Algeria, the Arab conquerors, who +form the larger part of the population, are found in the plains where +they live the life of nomads in their tents; the Berbers, who were the +original inhabitants, driven back into the fastnesses of the Atlas +ranges, form now an industrious, sedentary farmer class, living in stone +houses, raising stock, and tilling their fields as if they were market +gardeners.[282] In the Andean states of South America, the eastern slopes +of the Cordilleras, which are densely forested owing to their position +in the course of the trade-winds, harbor wild, nomadic tribes of hunting +and fishing Indians who differ in stock and culture from the Inca +Indians settled in the drier Andean basins.[283] [See map page 101.] + +[Sidenote: Geographical polarity.] + +Every geographical region of strongly marked character possesses a +certain polarity, by reason of which it attracts certain racial or +economic elements of population, and repels others. The predatory tribes +of the desert are constantly reinforced by refugee outlaws from the +settled agricultural communities along its borders.[284] The mountains +which offer a welcome asylum for the persecuted Waldenses have no lure +for the money-making Jew, who is therefore rarely found there. The +negroes of the United States are more and more congregating in the Gulf +States, making the "Black Belt" blacker. The fertile tidewater plains +of ante-bellum Virginia and Maryland had a rich, aristocratic white +population of slave-holding planters; the mountain backwoods of the +Appalachian ranges, whose conditions of soil and relief were ill adapted +for slave cultivation, had attracted a poorer democratic farmer class, +who tilled their small holdings by their own labor and consequently +entertained little sympathy for the social and economic system of the +tidewater country. This is the contrast between mountain and plain which +is as old as humanity. It presented problems to the legislation of +Solon, and caused West Virginia to split off from the mother State +during the Civil War.[285] + +Each contrasted district has its own polarity; but with this it attracts +not one but many of the disruptive forces which are pent up in every +people or state. Certain conditions of climate, soil, and tillable area +in the Southern States of the Union made slave labor remunerative, while +opposite conditions in the North combined eventually to exclude it +thence. Slave labor in the South brought with it in turn a whole train +of social and economic consequences, notably the repulsion of foreign +white immigration and the development of shiftless or wasteful +industrial methods, which further sharpened the contrast between the two +sections. The same contrast occurs in Italian territory between Sicily +and Lombardy. Here location at the two extremities of the peninsula has +involved a striking difference in ethnic infusions in the two districts, +different historical careers owing to different vicinal grouping, and +dissimilar geographic conditions. These effects operating together and +attracting other minor elements of divergence, have conspired to +emphasize the already strong contrast between northern and southern +Italy. + +[Sidenote: Geographical marks of growth.] + +In geographical location can be read the signs of growth or decay. There +are racial and national areas whose form is indicative of development, +expansion, while others show the symptoms of decline. The growing people +seize all the geographic advantages within their reach, whether lying +inside their boundaries or beyond. In the latter case, they promptly +extend their frontiers to include the object of their desire, as the +young United States did in the case of the Mississippi River and the +Gulf coast. European peoples, like the Russians in Asia, all strive to +reach the sea; and when they have got there, they proceed to embrace as +big a strip of coast as possible. Therefore the whole colonization +movement of western and central Europe was in the earlier periods +restricted to coasts, although not to such an excessive degree as that +of the Phoenicians and Greeks. Their own maritime location had +instructed them as to the value of seaboards, and at the same time made +this form of expansion the simplest and easiest. + +[Sidenote: Marks of inland expansion.] + +On the other hand, that growing people which finds its coastward advance +blocked, and is therefore restricted to landward expansion, seizes upon +every natural feature that will aid its purpose. It utilizes every +valley highway and navigable river, as the Russians did in the case of +the Dnieper, Don, Volga, Kama and Northern Dwina in their radial +expansion from the Muscovite center at Moscow, and as later they used +the icy streams of Siberia in their progress toward the Pacific; or as +the Americans in their trans-continental advance used the Ohio, +Tennessee, the Great Lakes, and the Missouri. They reach out toward +every mountain pass leading to some choice ultramontane highway. Bulges +or projecting angles of their frontier indicate the path they plan to +follow, and always include or aim at some natural feature which will +facilitate their territorial growth. The acquisition of the province of +Ticino in 1512 gave the Swiss Confederation a foothold upon Lake +Maggiore, perhaps the most important waterway of northern Italy, and the +possession of the Val Leventina, which now carries the St. Gotthard +Railroad down to the plains of the Po. Every bulge of Russia's Asiatic +frontier, whether in the Trans-Caucasus toward the Mesopotamian basin +and the Persian Gulf, or up the Murghab and Tedjend rivers toward the +gates of Herat, is directed at some mountain pass and an outlet seaward +beyond. + +If this process of growth bring a people to the borders of a desert, +there they halt perhaps for a time, but only, as it were, to take breath +for a stride across the sand to the nearest oasis. The ancient +Egyptians advanced by a chain of oases--Siwa, Angila, Sella and Sokna, +across the Libyan Desert to the Syrtis Minor. The Russians in the last +twenty-five years have spread across the arid wastes of Turkestan by way +of the fertile spots of Khiva, Bukhara and Merv to the irrigated slopes +of the Hindu Kush and Tian Shan Mountains. The French extended the +boundaries of Algiers southward into the desert to include the caravan +routes focusing at the great oases of Twat and Tidekelt, years before +their recent appropriation of the western Sahara. + +[Sidenote: Marks of decline.] + +As territorial expansion is the mark of growth, so the sign of decline +is the relinquishment of land that is valuable or necessary to a +people's well-being. The gradual retreat of the Tartars and in part also +of the Kirghis tribes from their best pasture lands along the Volga into +the desert or steppes indicates their decrease of power, just as the +withdrawal of the Indians from their hunting grounds in forest and +prairie was the beginning of their decay. Bolivia maimed herself for all +time when in 1884 she relinquished to Chile her one hundred and eighty +miles of coast between the Rio Lao and the twenty-fourth parallel. Her +repeated efforts later to recover at least one seaport on the Pacific +indicate her own estimate of the loss by which she was limited to an +inland location, and deprived of her maritime periphery.[286] + +[Sidenote: Interpretation of scattered and marginal location.] + +The habits of a people and the consequent demands which they make upon +their environment must be taken into account in judging whether or not a +restricted geographical location is indicative of a retrograde process. +The narrow marginal distribution of the Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshean +Indians on the islands and coastal strips of northwestern America means +simply the selection of sites most congenial to those inveterate fisher +tribes. The fact that the English in the vicinity of the Newfoundland +Banks settled on a narrow rim of coast in order to exploit the +fisheries, while the French peasants penetrated into the interior +forests and farmlands of Canada, was no sign of territorial decline. +English and French were both on the forward march, each in their own +way. The scattered peripheral location of the Phoenician trading +stations and later of the Greek colonies on the shores of the +Mediterranean was the expression of the trading and maritime activity of +those two peoples. Centuries later a similar distribution of Arab posts +along the coast of East Africa, Madagascar and the western islands of +the Sunda Archipelago indicated the great commercial expansion of the +Mohammedan traders of Oman and Yemen. The lack came when this +distribution, normal as a preliminary form, bore no fruit in the +occupation of wide territorial bases. [See map page 251.] + +[Sidenote: Prevalence of ethnic islands of decline.] + +In general, however, any piecemeal or marginal location of a people +justifies the question as to whether it results from encroachment, +dismemberment, and consequently national or racial decline. This +inference as a rule strikes the truth. The abundance of such ethnic +islands and reefs--some scarcely distinguishable above the flood of the +surrounding population--is due to the fact that when the area of +distribution of any life form, whether racial or merely animal, is for +any cause reduced, it does not merely contract but breaks up into +detached fragments. These isolated groups often give the impression of +being emigrants from the original home who, in some earlier period of +expansion, had occupied this outlying territory. At the dawn of western +European history, Gaul was the largest and most compact area of Celtic +speech. For this reason it has been regarded as the land whence sprang +the Celts of Britain, the Iberian Peninsula, the Alps and northern +Italy. Freeman thinks that the Gauls of the Danube and Po valleys were +detachments which had been left behind in the great Celtic migration +toward the west;[287] but does not consider the possibility of a once far +more extensive Celtic area, which, as a matter of fact, once reached +eastward to the Weser River and the Sudetes Mountains and was later +dismembered.[288] The islands of Celtic speech which now mark the western +flank of Great Britain and Ireland are shrunken fragments of a Celtic +linguistic area which, as place-names indicate, once comprised the whole +country.[289] Similarly, all over Russia Finnic place-names testify to +the former occupation of the country by a people now submerged by the +immigrant Slavs, except where they emerge in ethnic islands in the far +north and about the elbow of the Volga.[290] [See map page 225.] Beyond +the compact area of the Melanesian race occupying New Guinea and the +islands eastward to the Fiji and Loyalty groups, are found scattered +patches of negroid folk far to the westward, relegated to the interiors +of islands and peninsulas. The dispersed and fragmentary distribution of +this negroid stock has suggested that it formed the older and primitive +race of a wide region extending from India to Fiji and possibly even +beyond.[291] + +[Sidenote: Contrast between ethnic islands of growth and decline.] + +Ethnic or political islands of decline can be distinguished from islands +of expansion by various marks. When survivals of an inferior people, +they are generally characterized by inaccessible or unfavorable +geographic location. When remnants of former large colonial possessions +of modern civilized nations, they are characterized by good or even +excellent location, but lack a big compact territory nearby to which +they stand in the relation of outpost. Such are the Portuguese fragments +on the west coast of India at Goa, Damaon, and Diu Island, and the +Portuguese half of the island of Timor with the islet of Kambing in the +East Indies. Such also are the remnants of the French empire in India, +founded by the genius of François Dupleix, which are located on the +seaboard at Chandarnagar, Carical, Pondicherry, Yanaon and Mahe. They +tell the geographer a far different story from that of the small +detached French holding of Kwang-chan Bay and Nao-chan Island on the +southern coast of China, which are outposts of the vigorous French +colony of Tongking. + +The scattered islands of an intrusive people, bent upon conquest or +colonization, are distinguished by a choice of sites favorable to growth +and consolidation, and by the rapid extension of their boundaries until +that consolidation is achieved; while the people themselves give signs +of the rapid differentiation incident to adaptation to a new +environment. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER V + +[239] Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, Vol. I. pp. +98-101. New York. 1893. + +[240] George Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, pp. +5-8, 12, 13, 19-28, 37. New York, 1897. + +[241] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 272-273. New York, 1899. + +[242] Monette, History of the Valley of the Mississippi, Vol. II, chap. +I. 1846. + +[243] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 336, 334. Map. p. 53. New York, +1899. + +[244] J. Partsch, Central Europe, p. 137. London, 1903. + +[245] Eleventh Census, Report for Alaska, pp. 66, 67, 70. Washington, +1893. + +[246] Livingstone, Travels in South Africa, p. 56. New York, 1858. + +[247] Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, Vol I, pp. 36, +108. New York, 1893. + +[248] Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, Vol. II, pp. 127-130, +170. London, 1907. + +[249] James Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, pp. 147, 150, 170-173. +New York, 1897. + +[250] Alexander P. Engelhardt, A Russian Province of the North, pp. 135, +140-147, 165, 170. Translated from the Russian. London, 1899. + +[251] For full and able discussion, see H. J. Mackinder, The +Geographical Pivot of History, in the _Geographical Journal_, April, +1904. London. + +[252] The Anglo-Russian Agreement, with map, in _The Independent_, +October, 10, 1907. + +[253] Spencer and Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. +xii. London, 1904. + +[254] Census of the Philippine Islands, Vol. I, p. 526; Vol II, pp. +34-35, 50-52 and map. Washington, 1903. + +[255] Grote, History of Greece, Vol. II, pp. 225-226. New York, 1859. + +[256] W.Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe, pp. 402-410, map. New York, +1899. + +[257] Frederick J. Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American +History, in the _Annual Report of the American Historical Association_ +for 1893, pp. 199-227. Washington, 1894. + +[258] Hugh R. Mill, International Geography, pp. 150-152. New York, +1902. + +[259] W.E. Griffis, The Mikado's Empire, Vol. I, pp. 75, 83. New York, +1903. Henry Dyer, Dai Nippon, pp. 59, 69. New York, 1904. + +[260] Norway, Official Publication, pp. 4, 83, 99, and map. Christiania, +1900. + +[261] D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, pp. 221-224, map. London, 1902. + +[262] Heinrich von Treitschke, _Politik_, Vol. I, p. 224. Leipzig, 1897. + +[263] Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. I, pp. 189-191. New York, +1902-1906. + +[264] Eleventh Census, _Report on the Indians_, pp. 36-37. Washington, +1894. + +[265] John Fiske, Old Virginia and her Neighbors, Vol. II, p. 299. +Boston, 1897. + +[266] Eleventh Census, _Report on the Indians_, pp. 30-31. Washington, +1894. + +[267] Dr. William Junker, Travels in Africa, 1882-1886, pp. 30, 31, 34, +37, 44, 50-54, 64, 94-95, 140, 145-148. London, 1892. + +[268] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, pp. 193-195. London, +1896-1898. + +[269] Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, Empire of the Tsars, Vol. I, pp. 124-129. +Hew York, 1893. + +[270] D.G. Brinton, The American Race, p. 266. Philadelphia, 1901. + +[271] Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. III, pp. 484, 485. New York, +1902-06. + +[272] Nordenskiold, The Voyage of the Vega, p. 291. New York, 1882. + +[273] H.M. Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, Vol. II, pp. 100-103, +218. In Darkest Africa, Vol. I, pp. 208, 261, 374-375; Vol. II, pp. +40-44. + +[274] Georg Schweinfurth, The Heart of Africa, Vol. II, chap. XI, 3rd +edition, London. + +[275] Census of the Philippine Islands, Vol. I, pp. 411, 436, 532, 533. +Washington, 1903. + +[276] Quatrefages, The Pygmies, pp. 24-51. New York, 1895. + +[277] Sir T.H. Holdich, India, pp. 202-203, map. London, 1905. + +[278] Darwin, Origin of Species, Vol. II, chap. XII. New York, 1895. + +[279] Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, Vol. I, pp. +66-70, maps facing pp. 64 and 80. New York, 1893. + +[280] Eleventh Census of the United States, _Report on Population_, Part +I, map p. 23. Washington, 1894. + +[281] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, Chapters 7, 8, 11. New York, 1899. + +[282] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 910. New York, 1902. + +[283] _Ibid._, pp. 832, 836. + +[284] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, pp. 175, 257. London, +1896-1898. + +[285] E.C. Semple, American History and its Geographic Conditions, pp. +280-287. Boston, 1903. + +[286] C.E. Akers, History of South America, 1854-1894, pp. 501-502, +556-562. New York, 1904. + +[287] E.A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, p. 14. London, 1882. + +[288] Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. VI, pp. 125-132, map. New +York, 1902-1906. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 274, 297, 308, 472-473. +New York, 1899. + +[289] H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, pp. 183-191. London, +1904. + +[290] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 26, 353, 361-365. Map. New York, +1899. + +[291] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, 214-218. London, 1896-1898. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +GEOGRAPHICAL AREA + + +[Sidenote: The size of the earth.] + +Every consideration of geographical area must take as its starting point +the 199,000,000 square miles (510,000,000 square kilometers) of the +earth's surface. Though some 8,000,000 square miles (21,000,000 square +kilometers) about the poles remain unexplored, and only the twenty-eight +per cent. of the total constituting the land area is the actual habitat +of man, still the earth as a whole is his planet. Its surface fixes the +limits of his possible dwelling place, the range of his voyages and +migrations, the distribution of animals and plants on which he must +depend. These conditions he has shared with all forms of life from the +amoeba to the civilized nation. The earth's superficial area is the +primal and immutable condition of earth-born, earth-bound man; it is the +common soil whence is sprung our common humanity. Nations belong to +countries and races to continents, but humanity belongs to the whole +world. Naught but the united forces of the whole earth could have +produced this single species of a single genus which we call Man. + +[Sidenote: Relation of area to life.] + +The relation of life to the earth's area is a fundamental question of +bio-geography. The amount of that area available for terrestrial life, +the proportion of land and water, the reduction or enlargement of the +available surface by the operation of great cosmic forces, all enter +into this problem, which changes from one geologic period to another. +The present limited plant life of the Arctic regions is the impoverished +successor of a vegetation abundant enough at the eighty-third parallel +to produce coal. That was in the Genial Period, when the northern +hemisphere with its broad land-masses presented a far larger area for +the support of life than to-day. Then the Glacial Period spread an +ice-sheet from the North Pole to approximately the fiftieth parallel, +forced back life to the lower latitudes, and confined the bio-sphere to +the smaller land-masses of the southern hemisphere and a girdle north of +the equator. The sum total of life on the globe was greatly reduced at +the height of glaciation, and since the retreat of the ice has probably +never regained the abundance of the Middle Tertiary; so that our period +is probably one of relative impoverishment and faulty adjustment both +of life to life and of life to physical environment.[292] The continent of +North America contained a small vital area during the Later Cretaceous +Period, when a notable encroachment of the sea submerged the Atlantic +coastal plain, large sections of the Pacific coast, the Great Plains, +Texas and the adjacent Gulf plain up the Mississippi Valley to the mouth +of the Ohio.[293] + +The task of estimating the area supporting terrestrial life which the +earth presented at any given time is an important one, not only because +the amount of life depends upon this area, but because every increase of +available area tends to multiply conditions favorable to variation. +Darwin shows that largeness of area, more than anything else, affords +the best conditions for rapid and improved variation through natural +selection; because a large area supports a larger number of individuals +in whom chance variations, advantageous in the struggle for existence, +appear oftener than in a small group. This position is maintained also +by the most recent evolutionists.[294] + +On purely geographical grounds, also, a large area stimulates +differentiation by presenting a greater diversity of natural conditions, +each of which tends to produce its appropriate species or variety.[295] +Consider the different environments found in a vast and varied continent +like Eurasia, which extends from the equator far beyond the Arctic +Circle, as compared with a small land-mass like Australia, relatively +monotonous in its geographic conditions; and observe how much farther +evolution has progressed in the one than in the other, in point of +animal forms, races and civilization. If we hold with Moritz Wagner and +others that isolation in naturally defined regions, alternating with +periods of migration, offers the necessary condition for the rapid +evolution of type forms, and thus go farther than Darwin, who regards +isolation merely as a fortunate contributory circumstance, we find that +for the evolution of mankind it is large areas like Eurasia which afford +the greatest number and variety of these naturally segregated habitats, +and at the same time the best opportunity for vast historical movements. + +[Sidenote: The struggle for space.] + +Evolution needs room but finds the earth's surface limited. Everywhere +old and new forms of life live side by side in deadly competition; but +the later improved variety multiplies and spreads at the cost of less +favored types. The struggle for existence means a struggle for space.[296] +This is true of man and the lower animals. A superior people, invading +the territory of its weaker savage neighbors, robs them of their land, +forces them back into corners too small for their support, and continues +to encroach even upon this meager possession, till the weaker finally +loses the last remnant of its domain, is literally crowded off the +earth, becomes extinct as the Tasmanians and so many Indian tribes have +done.[297] The superiority of such expansionists consists primarily in +their greater ability to appropriate, thoroughly utilize and populate a +territory. Hence this is the faculty by which they hasten the extinction +of the weaker; and since this superiority is peculiar to the higher +stages of civilization, the higher stages inevitably supplant the lower. + +[Sidenote: Area an index of social and political development.] + +The successive stages of social development--savage, pastoral nomadic, +agricultural, and industrial--represent increasing density of +population, increasing numerical strength of the social group, and +finally increasing geographical area, resulting in a vastly enlarged +social group or state. Increase in the population of a given land is +accompanied by a decrease in the share which each individual can claim +as his own. This progressive readjustment to a smaller proportion of +land brings in its train the evolution of all economic and social +processes, reacting again favorably on density of population and +resulting eventually in the greatly increased social group and enlarged +territory of the modern civilized state. Hence we may lay down the rule +that change in areal relations, both of the individual to his decreasing +quota of land, and of the state to its increasing quota of the earth's +surface is an important index of social and political evolution. +Therefore the rise and decline not only of peoples but of whole +civilizations have depended upon their relations to area. Therefore +problems of area, such as the expansion of a small territory, the +economic and political mastery of a large one, dominate all history. + +[Sidenote: The Oikoumene.] + +Humanity's area of distribution and historical movement call the +Oikoumene. It forms a girdle around the earth between the two polar +regions, and embraces the Tropics, the Temperate Zones, and a part of +the North Frigid, in all, five-sixths of the earth's surface. This area +of distribution is unusually large. Few other living species so nearly +permeate the whole vital area, and many of these have reached their wide +expansion only in the company of man. Only about 49,000,000 square miles +(125,000,000 square kilometers) of the Oikoumene is land and therefore +constitutes properly the habitat of man. But just as we cannot +understand a nation from the study of its own country alone, but must +take into consideration the wider area of its spreading activities, so +we cannot understand mankind without including in his world not only his +habitat but also the vastly larger sphere of his activities, which is +almost identical with the earth itself. The most progressive peoples +to-day find their scientific, economic, religious and political +interests embracing the earth. + +[Sidenote: Unity of the human species in the relation to the earth.] + +Mankind has in common with all other forms of life the tendency toward +expansion. The more adaptable and mobile an organism is, the wider the +distribution which it attains and the greater the rapidity with which it +displaces its weaker kin. In the most favored cases it embraces the +whole vital area of the earth, leaving no space free for the development +of diversity of forms, and itself showing everywhere only superficial +distinctions. Mankind has achieved such wide distribution. Before his +persistent intrusions and his mobility, the earth has no longer any +really segregated districts where a strongly divergent type of the man +animal might develop. Hence mankind shows only superficial distinctions +of hair, color, head-form and stature between its different groups. It +has got beyond the point of forming species, and is restricted to the +slighter variations of races. Even these are few in comparison with the +area of the earth's surface, and their list tends to decrease. The +Guanches and Tasmanians have vanished, the Australians are on the road +to extinction; and when they shall have disappeared, there will be one +variety the less in humanity. So the process of assimilation advances, +here by the simple elimination of weaker divergent types of men, there +by amalgamation and absorption into the stock of the stronger. + +This unity of the human species has been achieved in spite of the fact +that, owing to the three-fold predominance of the water surface of the +globe, the land surface appears as detached fragments which rise as +islands from the surrounding ocean. Among these fragments we have every +gradation in size, from the continuous continental mass of +Eurasia-Africa with its 31,000,000 square miles, the Americas with +15,000,000, Australia with nearly 3,000,000, Madagascar with 230,000, +and New Zealand with 104,000, down to Guam with its 199 square miles, +Ascension with 58, Tristan da Cunha with 45, and the rocky Islet of +Helgoland with its scant 150 acres. All these down to the smallest +constitute separate vital districts. + +[Sidenote: Isolation and differentiation.] + +Small, naturally defined areas, whether their boundaries are drawn by +mountains, sea, or by both, always harbor small but markedly individual +peoples, as also peculiar or endemic animal forms, whose differentiation +varies with the degree of isolation. Such peoples can be found over and +over again in islands, peninsulas, confined mountain valleys, or +desert-rimmed oases. The cause lies in the barriers to expansion and to +accessions of population from without which confront such peoples on +every side. Broad, uniform continental areas, on the other hand, where +nature has erected no such obstacles are the habitats of wide-spread +peoples, monotonous in type. The long stretch of coastal lowlands +encircling the Arctic Ocean and running back into the wide plains of +North America and Eurasia show a remarkable uniformity of animal and +plant forms[298] and a striking similarity of race through the Lapps, the +Samoyedes of northern Russia, the various Mongolian tribes of Arctic +Siberia to Bering Strait, and the Eskimo, that curiously transitional +race, formerly classified as Mongolian and more recently as a divergent +Indian stock; for the Eskimos are similar to the Siberians in stature, +features, coloring, mode of life, in everything but head-form, though +even the cephalic indices approach on the opposite shores of Bering +Sea.[299] Where geography draws no dividing line, ethnology finds it +difficult to do so. Where the continental land-masses converge is found +similarity or even identity of race, easy gradations from one type to +another; where they diverge most widely in the peninsular extremities of +South America, South Africa and Australia, they show the greatest +dissimilarity in their native races, and a corresponding diversity in +their animal life.[300] Geographical proximity combined with accessibility +results in similarity of human and animal occupants, while a +corresponding dissimilarity is the attendant of remoteness or of +segregation. Therefore, despite the distribution of mankind over the +total habitable area of the earth, his penetration into its detached +regions and hidden corners has maintained such variations as still exist +in the human family. + +[Sidenote: Monotonous race type of small area.] + +If the distribution of the several races be examined in the light of +this conclusion, it becomes apparent that the races who have succeeded +in appropriating only limited portions of the earth's surface, though +each may be a marked variant of the human family, are characterized by +few inner diversities, either of physical features or culture. Their +subdivisions feel only in a slight degree the differentiating effects of +geographic remoteness, which in a small area operates with weakened +force; and they enjoy few of those diversities of environment which +stimulate variation. They form close and distinct ethnic unities also +because their scant numbers restrict the appearance of variations. The +habitat of the negro race in Africa south of the Sahara, relatively +small, limited in its zonal location almost wholly to the Tropics, +poorly diversified both in relief and contour, has produced only a +retarded and monotonous social development based upon tropical +agriculture or a low type of pastoral life. The still smaller, still +less varied habitat of the Australian race, again tropical or +sub-tropical in location, has produced over its whole extent only one +grade of civilization and that the lowest, one physical, mental and +moral type.[301] + +[Sidenote: Wide race distribution and inner diversities.] + +The Mongoloid area of distribution, on the other hand, is so large that +it necessarily includes a great range of climates and variety of +geographic conditions. [Maps pages 103 and 225.] Representatives of this +race, reflecting their diversified habitats, show many ethnic +differentiations. They reveal also every stage and phase of cultural +development from the industrialism of Japan, with its artistic and +literary concomitants, to the savage economy and retarded intellectual +life of the Chukches fisher tribes or the Giljak hunters of Sakhalin. +The white race, identified primarily with Europe, that choice and +diversified continent, comprised also a large area of southwestern Asia +and the northern third of Africa. It thus extended from the Arctic +Circle well within the Tropics. Its area included every variety of +geographic condition and originally every degree of cultural +development; but the rapid expansion in recent centuries of the most +advanced peoples of this race has made them the apostles of civilization +to the whole world. It has also given them, through the occupation of +Australia and the Americas, the widest distribution and the most varied +habitats. As agents of the modern historical movement, however, they are +subjected to all its assimilating effects, which tend to counteract the +diversities born of geographic segregation, and to raise all branches of +the white race to one superior cosmopolitan type. On the other hand, the +vast international division of labor and specialization of production, +geographically based and entailed by advancing economic development, +besides the differences of traditions and ideals reaching far back into +an historic past and rooted in the land, will serve to maintain many +subtle inner differences between even the most progressive nations. + +[Sidenote: Area and language.] + +Hence the wide area which Darwin found to be most favorable to +improved variation and rapid evolution in animals, operates to the +same end in human development, and its influence becomes a law of +anthropo-geography. It permeates the higher aspects of life. The wide, +varied area occupied by the Germanic tribes of Europe permitted the +evolution of the many dialects which finally made the richness of +modern German speech. English has gained in vocabulary and idiom with +every expansion of its area. New territories mean to a people new +pursuits, new relations, new wants; and all these become reflected in +their speech. Languages, like peoples, cease to grow with national +stagnation.[302] To such stagnation movement or expansion is the +surest antidote. America will in time make its contribution to the +English tongue. The rich crop of slang that springs up on the frontier +is not wholly to be deplored. The crudeness and vigor of cowboy speech +are marks of youth: they are also promises of growth. Language can not +live by dictionary alone. It tends to form new variants with every +change of habitat. The French of the Canadian _habitant_ has absorbed +Indian and English words, and adapted old terms to new uses;[303] but +it is otherwise a survival of seventeenth century French. Boer speech +in South Africa shows the same thing--absorption of new Kaffir and +English words, coupled with marks of retardation due to isolation. +Religion in the same way gains by wide dispersal. Christianity is one +thing in St. Petersburg, another among the Copts of Cairo, another in +Rome, another in London, and yet another in Boston. Buddhism takes on +a different color in Ceylon, Tibet, China and Japan. In religion as in +other phases of human development, differentiation must mean eventual +enrichment, a larger content of the religious idea, to which each +faith makes its contribution. + +[Sidenote: Large area a guarantee of racial or national permanence.] + +The larger the area occupied by a race or people, other geographic +conditions being equal, the surer the guarantee of their permanence, and +the less the chance of their repression or annihilation. A broad +geographic base means generally abundant command of the resources of +life and growth. Though for a growing people of wide possessions, like +the Russians, the significance of the land may not be obvious, it +becomes apparent enough in national decline and decay; for these even in +their incipiency betray themselves in a loss of territory. A people +which, voluntarily or otherwise, renounces its hold upon its land is on +the downward path. Nothing else could show so plainly the national +vitality of Japan as her tenacious purpose to get back Port Arthur taken +from her by the Shimonoseki treaty in 1895. A people may decrease in +numbers without serious consequences if it still retains its land; for +herein lies its resources by which it may again hope to grow. The +recurring loss of millions of lives in China from the wide-sweeping +floods of the Hoangho is a passing episode, forgotten as soon as the +mighty stream is re-embanked and the flooded plains reclaimed. The +Civil War in the United States involved a temporary diminution of +population and check to progress, but no lasting national weakness +because no loss of territory. But the expulsion of the American Indians +from their well-stocked hunting grounds in the Mississippi Valley and +Atlantic plain to more restricted and barren lands in the far West, and +the withdrawal of the Australian natives from the fertile coasts to the +desert interior have meant racial renunciation of the sources of life. + +Hence a people who are conquered and dislodged from their territory, as +were the ancient Britons by the Saxons, the Slavs from the land between +the Elbe and the Niemen by the mediæval Germans, and the Kaffirs in +South Africa by the Dutch and English, the Ainos from Hondo by the +Japanese, and the whole original Alpine race by the later coming Teutons +from the fertile valleys and plains into the more barren highlands of +western Europe, have little or no chance of regaining their own. When +conquest results not in dislodgement, but only in the subjection of an +undisturbed native population to a new ruling class, the vanquished +retain their hold, only slightly impaired, perhaps, upon their +strength-giving fields, recover themselves, and sooner or later conquer +their conquerors either by absorption or revolution. This was the +history of ancient Egypt with its Shepherd Kings, of England with its +Norman lords, of Mexico and Peru with their Spanish victors. + +[Sidenote: Weakness of small states.] + +A large area throws around all the life forms which it supports the +protection of its mere distances, which facilitate defense in +competition with other forms, render attack difficult, and afford room +for retreat under pursuit. On the other hand, the small area is easily +compassed by the invaders, and its inhabitants soon brought to bay. +Since there is a general correspondence between size of area and number +of inhabitants, where physical conditions and economic development are +similar, a small area involves a further handicap of numerical weakness +of population. Greece has always suffered from the small size of the +peninsula and the further political dismemberment entailed by its +geographic subdivisions. Despite superior civilization and national +heroism, it has fallen a victim to almost every invader. Belgium, +Holland, Switzerland exist as distinct nations only on sufferance. +Finland's history since 1900 shows that the day for the national +existence of small peoples is passing.[304] The fragmentary political +geography of the Danube basin gives the geographer the impression of an +artist's crayon studies of details, destined later to be incorporated in +a finished picture. Their small areas promise short-lived autonomy. The +recent absorption of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria indicates the +destiny of these Danubian states as fixed by the law of increasing +territorial aggregates. + +What is true of states is true also of peoples. The extinction of the +retarded "provisional peoples" of the earth progresses more rapidly in +small groups than in large, and in small islands more quickly than in +continental areas. Of the twenty-one Indian stocks or families which +have died out in the United States, fifteen belonged to the small bands +once found in the Pacific coast states, and four more were similar +fragments found on the lower Mississippi and its bayous.[305] [See map +page 54.] The native Gaunches of Teneriffe Island disappeared long ago. +The last Tasmanian died in 1876. New Zealand, whose area is four times +that of Tasmania, and therefore gives some respite before the +encroachments of the whites, still harbors 47,835 Maoris, or little over +one-third the native population of the island in 1840.[306] But these +compete for the land with nearly one million English colonists, and in +the limited area of the islands they will eventually find no place of +retreat before the relentless white advance. + +To the Australians, on the other hand, much inferior to the Maoris, the +larger area of their continent affords extensive deserts and steppes +into which the natives have withdrawn and whither the whites do not care +to follow. Hence mere area, robbed of every other favorable geographical +circumstance, has contributed to the survival of the 230,000 natives in +Australia. Similarly the Arawaks were early wiped out on the island of +Cuba and the Caribs on San Domingo and the smaller Antilles by the +truculent methods of the Spanish conquerors, while both stocks survive +on the continent of South America. Even the truculent methods of the +Spanish conquerors could make little impression upon the relatively +massive populations of Mexico and Peru, whose survival and latter-day +recovery of independence can be ascribed largely though not solely to +their ample territorial base. So the vast area of the United States and +Canada has afforded a hinterland of asylum to the retreating Indians, +whose moribund condition, especially in the United States, is betrayed +by their scattered distribution in small, unfavorable localities. On the +other hand, the vast extent of Arctic and sub-Arctic Canada, combined +with the adverse climatic conditions of the region, will guarantee the +northern Indians a longer survival. In Tierra del Fuego, the +encroachments of sheep-farmers and gold-miners from Patagonia twenty +years ago, by fencing off the land and killing off the wild guanaco, +threatened the existence of this animal and of the Onas natives of the +island. These, soon brought to bay in that natural enclosure, attacked +the farmers, whose reprisals between 1890 and 1900 reduced the number of +the Onas from 2,000 to 800 souls.[307] + +[Sidenote: Contrast of large and small areas in bio-geography.] + +The same law holds good in bio-geography; here, too, area gives strength +and a small territorial foothold means weakness. The native flora and +fauna of New Zealand seem involved in the same process of extinction as +the native race. The Maoris themselves have observed this fact and +applied the principle to their own obvious fate. They have seen hardy +imported English grasses offering deadly competition to the indigenous +vegetation; the Norway rat, entering by European ships, extirpating the +native variety; the European house fly, purposely imported and +distributed to destroy the noxious indigenous species.[308] The same +unequal combat between imported plants and animals, equipped by the +fierce Iliads of continental areas, and the local flora and fauna has +taken place on the little island of St. Helena, to the threatened +destruction of the native forms.[309] + +The preponderant migration of animals from the northern to the southern +hemisphere is attributed by Darwin to the greater extent of land in the +north, whereby the northern types have existed in greater numbers and +have been so perfected through natural selection and competition, that +they have surpassed the southern forms in dominating power and therefore +have encroached successfully.[310] Also the races and nations of the +northern continents have seriously invaded the southern land-masses and +are still expanding. It is the largest continent, Eurasia, which has +been the chief center of dispersal. + +[Sidenote: Political domination of large areas.] + +The Temperate Zone of North America will always harbor a more powerful +people than the corresponding zone of South America, because the latter +continent begins to contract and tapers off to a point where the other +at the northern Tropic begins to spread out. Therefore North America +possesses more abundantly all the advantages accruing to a continent +from a location in the Temperate Zone. The wide basis of the North Slavs +in Russia and Siberia has given them a natural leadership in the whole +Slav family, just as the broad unbroken area of ever expanding Prussia +gave that state the ascendency in the German Empire over the +geographically partitioned and politically dismembered surface of +southern Germany. English domination of the United Kingdom is based not +only upon race, location, geographical features and resources, but also +on the larger size of England. So in the United States, abolitionist +statesmen adopted the most effective means of fighting slavery when they +limited its area by law, while permitting free states to go on +multiplying in the new territory of the vast Northwest. + +In a peninsula political ascendency often falls to the broad base +connecting it with the continent, because this part alone has the area +to support a large population, and moreover commands a large hinterland, +whence it continually draws new and invigorating blood. The geographical +basis of the Aryan and later the Mongol supremacy in India was the wide +zone of lowlands between the Indus and the Brahmaputra. [See map page +103.] The only ancient Greek state ever able to dominate the Balkan +Peninsula was non-Hellenic Macedonia, after it had extended its +boundaries to the Euxine and the Adriatic. To-day a much larger area in +this same peninsular base harbors the widespread southern Slavs, who +numerically and economically far outweigh Albanians and Greeks, and who +could with ease achieve political domination over the small Turkish +minority, were it not for the European fear of a Slavic Bosporus, and +its union with Russia. The Cisalpine Gauls of the wide Po basin +repeatedly threatened the existence of the smaller but more civilized +Etruscan and Latin tribes. The latter, maturing their civilization under +the concentrating influences of a limited area, at last dominated the +larger Celtic district to the north. But in the nineteenth century this +district took the lead in the movement for a United Italy, and now +exercises the strong influence in Italian affairs which belongs to it by +reason of its superior area, location, and more vigorous race. [See map +of Italy's population, Chap. XVI.] + +The broad territorial base of the Anglo-Saxon race, Slavs, Germans and +Chinese promises a long ethnic life, whereas the narrow foothold, of the +Danes, Dutch, Greeks, and the Turks in Europe carries with it the +persistent risk of conquest and absorption by a larger neighbor. Such a +fate repeatedly threatens these people, but has thus far been warded +off, now by the protection of an isolating environment, now by the +diplomatic intervention of some not disinterested power. The scattered +fragments of Osman stock in European Turkey, which constitute only about +ten per cent. of the total population, and are almost lost in the +surrounding mass of Slavs and Greeks, provide a poor guarantee for the +duration of the race and their empire on European soil. On the other +hand, the Osmani who are compactly spread over the whole interior of +Asia Minor have a better prospect of national survival. + +[Sidenote: Area and literature.] + +An important factor in the preservation of national consciousness and +the spread of national influence is always a national language and +literature. This principle is recognized by the government of the Czar +in its Russification of Finland,[311] Poland, and the German centers in +the Baltic provinces, when it substitutes Russian for the local language +in education, law courts and all public offices, and restricts the +publication of local literature. The survival of a language and its +literature is intimately connected with area and the population which +that area can support. The extinction of small, weak peoples has its +counterpart in the gradual elimination of dialects and languages having +restricted territorial sway, whose fate is foreshadowed by the unequal +competition of their literatures with those of numerically stronger +peoples. An author writing in a language like the Danish, intelligible +to only a small public, can expect only small returns for his labor in +either influence, fame, or fortune. The return may be so small that it +is prohibitive. Hence we find the Danish Hans Christian Andersen and the +Norwegian Ibsen writing in German, as do also many Scandinavian +scientists. Georg Brandes abandons his native Danish and seeks a larger +public by making English the language of his books. The incentive to +follow a literary career, especially if it includes making a living, is +relatively weak among a people of only two or three millions, but gains +enormously among large and cultivated peoples, like the seventy million +German-speaking folk of Europe, or the one hundred and thirty millions +of English speech scattered over the world. The common literature which +represents the response to this incentive forms a bond of union among +the various branches of these peoples, and may be eventually productive +of political results. + +[Sidenote: Small geographic base of primitive societies.] + +Growth has been the law of human societies since the birth of man's +gregarious instinct. It has manifested itself in the formation of ever +larger social groups, appropriating ever larger areas. It has registered +itself geographically in the protrusion of ethnic boundaries, +economically in more intensive utilization of the land, socially in +increasing density of population, and politically in the formation of +ever larger national territorial aggregates. The lowest stages of +culture reveal small tribes, growing very slowly or at times not at all, +disseminated over areas small in themselves but large for the number of +their inhabitants, hence sparsely populated. The size of these primitive +holdings depends upon the natural food supply yielded by the region. +They assume wide dimensions but support groups of only a few families on +the chill rocky coasts of Tierra del Fuego or the sterile plains of +central Australia; and they contract to smaller areas dotted with fairly +populous villages in the fertile districts of the middle Congo or +bordering the rich coast fishing grounds of southern Alaska and British +Columbia. But always land is abundant, and is drawn upon in widening +circles when the food supply becomes inadequate or precarious. + +[Sidenote: Influence of small confined areas.] + +Where nature presents barriers to far-ranging food-quests, man is forced +to advance from the natural to the artificial basis of subsistence; he +leaves the chase for the sedentary life of agriculture. Extensive +activities are replaced by intensive ones, wide dispersal of tribal +energies by concentration. The extensive forests and grassy plains of +the Americas supported abundant animal life and therefore afforded +conditions for the long survival of the hunting tribes; nature put no +pressure upon man to coerce him to progress, except in the small +mountain-walled valleys of Peru and Mexico, and in the restricted +districts of isthmian Central America. Here game was soon exhausted. +Agriculture became an increasing source of subsistence and was forced by +limited area out of its migratory or _essartage_ stage of development +into the sedentary. As fields become fixed in such enclosed areas, so do +the cultivators. Here first population becomes relatively dense, and +thereby necessitates more elaborate social and political organization in +order to prevent inner friction. + +The geographically enclosed district has the further advantage that its +inhabitants soon come to know it out to its boundaries, understand its +possibilities, exploit to the utmost its resources, and because of the +closeness of their relationship to it and to each other come to develop +a conscious national spirit. The population, since it cannot easily +spread beyond the nature-set limits, increases in density. The members +of the compact society react constantly upon one another and exchange +the elements of civilization. Thus the small territory is characterized +by the early maturity of a highly individualized civilization, which +then, with inherent power of expansion, proceeds to overleap its narrow +borders and conquer for itself a wide sphere of influence. Hand in hand +with this process goes political concentration, which aids the +subsequent expansion. Therefore islands, oases, slender coastal strips +and mountain valleys repeatedly show us small peoples who, in their +seclusion, have developed a tribal or national consciousness akin in +its intensity to clan feeling. This national feeling is conspicuous in +the English, Japanese, Swiss and Dutch, as it was in the ancient +city-states of Greece. The accompanying civilization, once brought to +maturity in its narrow breeding place, spreads under favorable +geographic conditions over a much larger space, which the accumulated +race energy takes for its field of activity. The flower which thus early +blooms may soon fade and decay; nevertheless the geographically evolved +national consciousness persists and retains a certain power of renewal. +This has been demonstrated in the Italians and modern Greeks, in the +Danes and the Icelanders. In the Jews it has resisted exile from their +native land, complete political dissolution, and dispersal over the +habitable world. Long and often as Italy had to submit to foreign +dominion, the idea of the national unity of the peninsula was never +lost. + +[Sidenote: The process of territorial growth.] + +In vast unobstructed territories, on the other hand, the evil of wide, +sparse dispersal is checked only by natural increase of population and +the impinging of one growing people upon another, which restricts the +territory of either. When the boundary waste between the small scattered +tribal groups has been occupied, encroachment from the side of the +stronger follows; then comes war, incorporation of territory, +amalgamation of race and coalescence, or the extinction of the weaker. +The larger people, commanding its larger area, expands numerically and +territorially, and continues to throw out wider frontiers, till it meets +insurmountable natural obstacles or the confines of a people strong as +itself. After a pause, during which the existing area is outgrown and +population begins to press harder upon the limits of subsistence, the +weight of a nation is thrown against the barrier, be it physical or +political. In consequence, the old boundaries are enlarged, either by +successful encroachment upon a neighbor, or, in case of defeat, by +incorporation in the antagonist's territory. But even defeat brings +participation in a larger geographic base, wider coöperation, a greater +sum total of common national interests, and especially the protection of +the larger social group. The Transvaal and the Orange Free State find +compensation for the loss of independence by their incorporation in the +British Empire, even if gradual absorption be the destiny of the Boer +stock. + +[Sidenote: Area and growth.] + +Of adjacent areas equally advanced in civilization and in density of +population but of unequal size, the larger must dominate because its +people have the resistance and aggressive force inherent in the larger +mass. This is the explanation of the absorption of so many colonies and +conquerors by the native races, when no great cultural abyss or race +antagonism separates the two. The long rule of the Scandinavians in the +Hebrides ended in their absorption by the local Gaelic stock, simply +because their settlements were too small and the number of their women +too few. The lowlands on the eastern coasts of Scotland accommodated +larger bands of Norse, who even to-day can be distinguished from the +neighboring Scotch of the Highlands; but on the rugged western coast, +where only small and widely separated deltas at the heads of the fiords +offered a narrow foothold to the invaders, their scattered ethnic +islands were soon inundated by the contiguous population.[312] The +Teutonic elements, both English and Norwegian, which for centuries +filtered into Ireland, have been swallowed up in the native Celtic +stock, except where religious antagonisms served to keep the two apart. +So the dominant Anglo-Saxon population of England was a solvent for the +Norman French, and the densely packed humanity of China for their Manchu +conquerors. + +On the other hand, extensive areas, like early North America and +Australia, sparsely inhabited by small scattered groups who have only an +attenuated connection with their soil and therefore only a feeble hold +upon their land, cannot compete with small areas, if these have the +dense and evenly distributed population which ensures a firm tenure of +the land. Small, geographically confined areas foster this compact and +systematic occupation on the part of their inhabitants, since they put +barriers in the way of precipitate and disintegrating expansion; and +this characteristic compensates in some degree and for a period at least +for the weakness otherwise inherent in the narrow territorial base. + +[Sidenote: Historical advance from small to large areas.] + +Every race, people, and state has had the history of progress from a +small to a large area. All have been small in their youth. The bit of +land covered by Roma Quadrata has given language, customs, laws, +culture, and a faint strain of Latin blood to nations now occupying half +a million square miles of Europe. The Arab inundation, which flooded the +vast domain of the Caliphs, traced back to that spring of ethnic and +religious energy which welled up in the arid plain of Mecca and the +Arabian oases. The world-wide maritime expansion of the English-speaking +people had its starting point in the lowlands of the Elbe. The makers of +empire in northern China were cradled in the small highland valley of +the Wei River. The little principality of Moscow was the nucleus of the +Russian Empire. + +Penetration into a people's remote past comes always upon some limited +spot which has nurtured the young nation, and reveals the fact that +territorial expansion is the incontestible feature of their history. +This advance from small to large characterizes their political area, the +scope of their trade relations, their spheres of activity, the size of +their known world, and finally the sway of their religions. Every +religion in its early stages of development bears the stamp of a narrow +origin, traceable to the circumscribed habitat of the primitive social +group, or back of that to the small circle of lands constituting the +known world whence it sprang. First it is tribal, and makes a +distinction between my God and thy God; but even when it has expanded to +embody a universal system, it still retains vestigial forms of its +narrow past. Jerusalem, Mecca and Rome remain the sacred goal of +pilgrimages, while the vaster import of a monotheistic faith and the +higher ethical teaching of the brotherhood of man have encircled the +world. + +When religion, language and race have spread, in their wake comes the +growing state. Everywhere the political area tends gradually to embrace +the whole linguistic area of which it forms a part, and finally the yet +larger race area. Only the diplomacy of united Europe has availed to +prevent France from absorbing French-speaking Belgium, or Russia from +incorporating into her domain that vast Slav region extending from the +Drave and Danube almost to the Gulf of Corinth, now parcelled out among +seven different states, but bound to the Muscovite empire by ties of +related speech, by race and religion. The detachment of the various +Danubian principalities from the uncongenial dominion of the Turks, +though a dismemberment of a large political territory and a seeming +backward step, can be regarded only as a leisurely preliminary for a new +territorial alignment. History's movements are unhurried; the backward +step may prepare for the longer leap forward. It is impossible to resist +the conclusion that the vigorous, reorganized German Empire will one day +try to incorporate the Germanic areas found in Austria, Switzerland and +Holland. + +[Sidenote: Gradations in area and in development.] + +Throughout the life of any people, from its foetal period in some small +locality to its well rounded adult era marked by the occupation and +organization of a wide national territory, gradations in area mark +gradations of development. And this is true whether we consider the +compass of their commercial exchanges, the scope of their maritime +ventures, the extent of their linguistic area, the measure of their +territorial ambitions, or the range of their intellectual interests and +human sympathies. From land to ethics, the rule holds good. Peoples in +the lower stages of civilization have contracted spacial ideas, desire +and need at a given time only a limited territory, though they may +change that territory often; they think in small linear terms, have a +small horizon, a small circle of contact with others, a small range of +influence, only tribal sympathies; they have an exaggerated conception +of their own size and importance, because their basis of comparison is +fatally limited. With a mature, widespread people like the English or +French, all this is different; they have made the earth their own, so +far as possible. + +Just because of this universal tendency towards the occupation of ever +larger areas and the formation of vaster political aggregates, in making +a sociological or political estimate of different peoples, we should +never lose sight of the fact that all racial and national +characteristics which operate towards the absorption of more land and +impel to political expansion are of fundamental value. A ship of state +manned by such a crew has its sails set to catch the winds of the world. + + +[Sidenote: Preliminaries to ethnic and political expansion.] + +Territorial expansion is always preceded by an extension of the circle +of influence which a people exerts through its traders, its deep-sea +fishermen, its picturesque marauders and more respectable missionaries, +and earlier still by a widening of its mere geographical horizon through +fortuitous or systematic exploration. The Northmen visited the coasts of +Britain and France first as pirates, then as settlers. Norman and Breton +fishermen were drawing in their nets on the Grand Bank of Newfoundland +thirty years before Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence. Japanese fishing +boats preceded Japanese colonists to the coasts of Yezo. Trading fleets +were the forerunners of the Greek colonies along the Black Sea and +Mediterranean, and of Phoenician settlements in North Africa, Sicily and +Spain. It was in the wake of trapper and fur trader that English and +American pioneer advanced across our continent to the Pacific; just as +in French Canada Jesuit priest and voyageur opened the way for the +settler. Religious propaganda was yoked with greed of conquest in the +campaigns of Cortez and Pizarro. Modern statesmen pushing a policy of +expansion are alive to the diplomatic possibilities of missionaries +endangered or their property destroyed. They find a still better asset +to be realized on territorially in enterprising capitalists settled +among a weaker people, by whom their property is threatened or +overtaxed, or their trade interfered with. The British acquisition of +Hongkong in 1842 followed a war with China to prevent the exclusion of +the English opium trade from the Celestial Empire. The annexation of the +Transvaal resulted from the expansion of English capitalists to the Rand +mines, much as the advance of the United States flag to the Hawaiian +Islands followed American sugar planters thither. American capital in +the Caribbean states of South America has repeatedly tried to embroil +those countries with the United States government; and its increasing +presence in Cuba is undoubtedly ominous for the independence of the +island, because with capital go men and influence. + +When the foreign investor is not a corporation but a government, the +expanding commercial influence looks still more surely to tangible +political results; because such national enterprises have at bottom a +political motive, however much overlaid by an economic exterior. When +the British government secured a working majority of the Suez Canal +stock, it sealed the fate of Egypt to become ultimately a province of +the British Empire. Russian railroads in Manchuria were the +well-selected tool for the Russification and final annexation of the +province. The weight of American national enterprise in the Panama Canal +Zone sufficed to split off from the Colombian federation a peripheral +state, whose detachment is obviously a preliminary for eventual +incorporation into United States domain. The efforts of the German +government to secure from the Sultan of Turkey railroad concessions +through Asia Minor for German capitalists has aroused jealousy in +financial and political circles in St. Petersburg, and prompted a demand +from the Russian Foreign Office upon Turkey for the privilege of +constructing railroads through eastern Asia Minor.[313] + +[Sidenote: Significance of sphere of activity or influence.] + +Beyond the home of a people lies its sphere of influence or activities, +which in the last analysis may be taken as a protest against the +narrowness of the domestic habitat. It represents the larger area which +the people wants and which in course of time it might advantageously +occupy or annex. It embodies the effort to embrace more varied and +generous natural conditions, whereby the struggle for subsistence may be +made less hard. Finally, it is an expression of the law that for peoples +and races the struggle for existence is at bottom a struggle for space. +Geography sees various forms of the historical movement as the struggle +for space in which humanity has forever been engaged. In this struggle +the stronger peoples have absorbed ever larger portions of the earth's +surface. Hence, through continual subjection to new conditions here or +there and to a greater sum total of various conditions, they gain in +power by improved variation, as well as numerically by the enlargement +of their geographic base. The Anglo-Saxon branch of the Teutonic stock +has, by its phenomenal increase, overspread sections of whole +continents, drawn from their varied soils nourishment for its finest +efflorescence, and thereby has far out-grown the Germanic branch by +which, at the start, it was overshadowed. The fact that the British +Empire comprises 28,615,000 square kilometers or exactly one-fifth of +the total land area of the earth, and that the Russian Empire contains +over one-seventh, are full of encouragement for Anglo-Saxon and Slav, +but contain a warning to the other peoples of the world. + +[Sidenote: Nature of expansion in new and old countries.] + +The large area which misleads a primitive folk into excessive dispersion +and the dissipation of their tribal powers, offers to an advanced +people, who in some circumscribed habitat have learned the value of +land, the freest conditions for their development. A wide, unobstructed +territory, occupied by a sparse population of wandering tribes capable +of little resistance to conquest or encroachment, affords the most +favorable conditions to an intruding superior race. Such conditions the +Chinese found in Mongolia and Manchuria, the Russians in Siberia, and +European colonists in the Americas, Australia and Africa. Almost +unlimited space and undeveloped resources met their land hunger and +their commercial ambition. Their numerical growth was rapid, both by the +natural increase reflecting an abundant food supply, and by accessions +from the home countries. Expansion advanced by strides. In contrast to +this care-free, easy development in a new land, growth in old countries +like Europe and the more civilized parts of Asia means a slow protrusion +of the frontier, made at the cost of blood; it means either the +absorption of the native people, because there are no unoccupied corners +into which they can be driven, or the imposition upon them of an +unwelcome rule exercised by alien officials. Witness the advance of the +Russians into Poland and Finland, of the Germans into Poland and +Alsace-Lorraine, of the Japanese into Korea, and of the English into +crowded India. + +The rapid unfolding of the geographical horizon in a young land +communicates to an expanding people new springs of mobility, new motives +for movement out and beyond the old confines, new goals holding out new +and undreamt of benefits. Life becomes fresh, young, hopeful. Old checks +to natural increase of population are removed. Emigrant bands beat out +new trails radiating from the old home. They go on individual initiative +or state-directed enterprises; but no matter which, the manifold life +in the far-away periphery reacts upon the center to vivify and +rejuvenate it. + +[Sidenote: Relation of ethnic to political expansion.] + +The laws of the territorial growth of peoples and of states are in +general the same. The main differences between the two lies in the fact +that ethnic expansion, since it depends upon natural increase, is slow, +steady, and among civilized peoples is subject to slight fluctuations; +while the frontiers of a state, after a long period of permanence, can +suddenly be advanced by conquest far beyond the ethnic boundaries, +often, however, only to be as quickly lost again. Therefore the +important law may be laid down, that the more closely the territorial +growth of a state keeps pace with that of its people, and the more +nearly the political area coincides with the ethnic, the greater is the +strength and stability of the state. This is the explanation of the +vigor and permanence of the early English colonies in America. The slow +westward protrusion of their frontier of continuous settlement within +the boundaries of the Allegheny Mountains formed a marked contrast to +the wide sweep of French voyageur camp and lonely trading-station in the +Canadian forests, and even more to the handful of priests and soldiers +who for three centuries kept an unsteady hold upon the Spanish empire in +the Western Hemisphere. The political advance of the United States +across the continent from the Alleghenies to the Mississippi, thence to +the Rocky Mountains, and thence to the Pacific was always preceded by +bands of enterprising settlers, who planted themselves beyond the +frontier and beckoned to the flag to follow. The great empires of +antiquity were enlarged mechanically by conquest and annexation. They +were mosaics, not growths. The cohesive power of a common ethnic bond +was lacking; so was the modern substitute for this to be found in close +economic interdependence maintained by improved methods of +communication. Hence these empires soon broke up again along lines of +old geographic and ethnic cleavage. For Rome, the cementing power of the +Mediterranean and the fairly unified civilization which this enclosed +sea had been evolving since the dawn of Cretan and Phoenician trade, +compensated in part for the lack of common speech and national ideals +throughout the political domain. But the Empire proved in the end to be +merely a mosaic, easily broken. + +[Sidenote: Relation of people and state to political boundary.] + +The second point of difference between the expansion of peoples and of +states lies in their respective relation to the political frontier. This +confines the state like a stockade, fixing the territorial limits of its +administrative functions; but for the subjects of the state it is an +imaginary line, powerless to check the range of their activities, except +when a military or tariff war is going on. The state boundary, if it +coincides with a strong natural barrier, may for decades or even +centuries succeed in confining a growing people, if these, by +intelligent economy, increase the productivity of the soil whose area +they are unable to extend. Yet the time comes even for these when they +must break through the barriers and secure more land, either by foreign +conquest or colonization. The classic example of the confinement of a +people within its political boundaries is the long isolation of Japan +from 1624 to 1854. The pent-up forces there accumulated, in a population +which had doubled itself in the interval and which by hard schooling was +made receptive to every improved economic method, manifest themselves in +the insistent demand for more land which has permeated all the recent +policy of Japan. But the history of Japan is exceptional. The rule is +that the growing people slowly but continually overflow their political +boundary, which then advances to cover the successive flood plains of +the national inundation, or yet farther to anticipate the next rise. +This has been the history of Germany in its progress eastward across the +Elbe, the Oder, the Vistula and the Niemen. The dream of a greater +empire embraces all the German-speaking people from Switzerland, Tyrol +and Steiermark to those outlying groups in the Baltic provinces of +Russia and the related offshoot in Holland.[314] [See map page 223.] + +Though political boundaries, especially where they coincide with natural +barriers, may restrict the territorial growth of a people, on the other +hand, political expansion is always a stimulus to racial expansion, +because it opens up more land and makes the conditions of life easier +for an increasing people, by relieving congestion in the older areas. +More than this, it materially aids while guiding and focusing the +out-going streams of population. Thus it keeps them concentrated for the +reinforcement of the nation in the form of colonies, and tends to reduce +the political evil of indiscriminate emigration, by which the streams +are dissipated and diverted to strengthen other nations. Witness the +active internal colonization practiced by Germany in her Polish +territory,[315] by Russia in Siberia, in an effort to make the ethnic +boundary hurry after and overtake the political frontier. + +[Sidenote: Expansion of civilization.] + +Just as the development of a people and state is marked by advance from +small to ever larger areas, so is that of a civilization. It may +originate in a small district; but more mobile than humanity itself, it +does not remain confined to one spot, but passes on from individual to +individual and from people to people. Greece served only as a garden in +which the flowers of Oriental and Egyptian civilization were temporarily +transplanted. As soon as they were modified and adapted to their new +conditions, their seed spread over all Europe. The narrow area of +ancient Greece, which caused the early dissemination of its people over +the Mediterranean basin, and thereby weakened the political force of the +country at home, was an important factor in the wide distribution of its +culture. Commerce, colonization and war are vehicles of civilization, +where favorable geographic conditions open the way for trade in the wake +of the victorious army. The imposition of Roman dominion meant +everywhere the gift of Roman civilization. The Crusaders brought back +from Syria more than their scars and their trophies. Every European +factory in China, every Hudson Bay Company post in the wilds of northern +Canada, every Arab settlement in savage Africa is surrounded by a sphere +of trade; and this in turn is enclosed in a wider sphere of influence +through which its civilization, though much diluted, has filtered. The +higher the civilization, the wider the area which it masters. The +manifold activities of a civilized people demand a large sphere of +influence, and include, furthermore, improved means of communication +which enable it to control such a sphere. + +Even a relatively low civilization may spread over a vast area if +carried by a highly mobile people. Mohammedanism, which embodies a +cultural system as well as a religion, found its vehicles of dispersal +in the pastoral nomads occupying the arid land of northern Africa and +western Asia, and thus spread from the Senegal River to Chinese +Turkestan. It was carried by the maritime Arabs of Oman and Yemen to +Malacca and Sumatra, where it was communicated to the seafaring Malays. +These island folk, who approximate the most highly civilized peoples in +their nautical efficiency, distributed the meager elements of Mohammedan +civilization over the Malay Archipelago. [See map of the Religions of +the Eastern Hemisphere, in chapter XIV.] + +[Sidenote: Cultural advantages of large political area.] + +The larger the area which a civilized nation occupies, the more numerous +are its points of contact with other peoples, and the less likely is +there to be a premature crystallization of its civilization from +isolation. Extension of area on a large scale means eventually extension +of the seaboard and access to those multiform international relations +which the ocean highway confers. The world wide expansion of the British +Empire has given it at every outward step wider oceanic contact and +eventually a cosmopolitan civilization. The same thing is true of the +other great colonial empires of history, whether Portuguese, Spanish, +Dutch or French; and even of the great continental empires, like Russia +and the United States. The Russian advance across Siberia, like the +American advance across the Rockies, meant access to the Pacific, and a +modification of its civilization on those remote shores. + +A large area means varied vicinal locations and hence differentiation of +civilization, at least along the frontier. How rapidly the vivifying +influences of this contact will penetrate into the bulk of the interior +depends upon size, location as scattered or compact, and general +geographic conditions like navigable rivers or mountains, which +facilitate or bar intercourse with that interior. The Russian Empire has +eleven different nations, speaking even more different languages, on its +western and southern frontiers. Its long line of Asiatic contact will +inevitably give to the European civilization transplanted hither in +Russian colonies a new and perhaps not unfruitful development. The +Siberian citizen of future centuries may compare favorably with his +brother in Moscow. Japan, even while impressing its civilization upon +the reluctant Koreans, will see itself modified by the contact and its +culture differentiated by the transplanting; but the content of Japanese +civilization will be increased by every new variant thus formed. + +[Sidenote: Politico-economic advantages.] + +The larger the area brought under one political control, the less the +handicap of internal friction and the greater its economic independence. +Vast territory has enabled the United States to maintain with advantage +a protective tariff, chiefly because the free trade within its own +borders was extensive. The natural law of the territorial growth of +states and peoples means an extension of the areas in which peace and +coöperation are preserved, a relative reduction of frontiers and of the +military forces necessary to defend them,[316] diminution in the sum +total of conflicts, and a wider removal of the border battle fields. In +place of the continual warfare between petty tribes which prevailed in +North America four hundred years ago, we have to-day the peaceful +competition of the three great nations which have divided the continent +among them. The political unification of the Mediterranean basin under +the Roman Empire restricted wars to the remote land frontiers. The +foreign wars of Russia, China, and the United States in the past century +have been almost wholly confined to the outskirts of their big domains, +merely scratching the rim and leaving the great interior sound and +undisturbed. Russia's immense area is the military ally on which she can +most surely count. The long road to Moscow converted Napoleon's victory +into a defeat; and the resistless advance of the Japanese from Port +Arthur to the Sungari River led only to a peace robbed of the chief +fruits of victory. The numerous wars of the British Empire have been +limited to this or that corner, and have scarcely affected the +prosperity of the great remainder, so that their costs have been readily +borne and their wounds rapidly healed. + +[Sidenote: Political area and the national horizon.] + +The territorial expansion of peoples and states is attended by an +evolution of their spacial conceptions and ideals. Primitive peoples, +accustomed to dismemberment in small tribal groups, bear all the marks +of territorial contraction. Their geographical horizon is usually fixed +by the radius of a few days' march. Inter-tribal trade and intercourse +reach only rudimentary development, under the prevailing conditions of +mutual antagonism and isolation, and hence contribute little to the +expansion of the horizon. Knowing only their little world, such +primitive groups overestimate the size and importance of their own +territory, and are incapable of controlling an extensive area. This is +the testimony of all travellers who have observed native African states. +Though the race or stock distribution may be wide, like that of the +Athapascan and Algonquin Indians, and their war paths long, like the +campaigns of the Iroquois against the Cherokees of the Tennessee River, +yet the unit of tribal territory permanently occupied is never large. + +[Sidenote: National estimates of area.] + +Small naturally defined regions, which take the lead in historical +development because they counteract the primitive tendency towards +excessive dispersal, are in danger of teaching too well their lesson of +concentration. In course of time geographic enclosure begins to betray +its limitations. The extent of a people's territory influences their +estimate of area _per se_, determines how far land shall be made the +basis of their national purposes, fixes the territorial scale of their +conquests and their political expansion. This is a conspicuous +psychological effect of a narrow local environment. A people embedded +for centuries in a small district measure area with a short yardstick. +The ancient Greeks devised a philosophic basis for the advantages of the +small state, which is extolled in the writings of Plato and +Aristotle.[317] Aristotle wanted it small enough, "to be comprehended at +one glance of the statesman's eye." Plato's ideal democracy, by rigid +laws limiting the procreative period of women and men and providing for +the death of children born out of this period or out of wedlock, +restricted its free citizens to 5,040 heads of families,[318] all living +within reach of the agora, and all able to judge from personal knowledge +of a candidate's fitness for office. This condition was possible only +in dwarf commonwealths like the city-states of the Hellenic world. The +failure of the Greeks to build up a political structure on a territorial +scale commensurate with their cultural achievements and with the wide +sphere of their cultural influence can be ascribed chiefly to their +inability to discard the contracted territorial ideas engendered by +geographic and political dismemberment. The little Judean plateau, which +gave birth to a universal religion, clung with provincial bigotry to the +narrow tribal creed and repudiated the larger faith of Christ, which +found its appropriate field in Mediterranean Europe. + +[Sidenote: Estimates of area in small maritime states.] + +Maritime peoples of small geographic base have a characteristic method +of expansion which reflects their low valuation of area. Their limited +amount of arable soil necessitates reliance upon foreign sources of +supply, which are secured by commerce. Hence they found trading stations +or towns among alien peoples on distant coasts, selecting points like +capes or inshore islets which can be easily defended and which at the +same time command inland or maritime routes of trade. The prime +geographic consideration is location, natural and vicinal. The area of +the trading settlement is kept as small as possible to answer its +immediate purpose, because it can be more easily defended.[319] Such were +the colonies of the ancient Phoenicians and Greeks in the Mediterranean, +of the Medieval Arabs and the Portuguese on the east coast of Africa and +in India. This method reached its ultimate expression in point of small +area, seclusion, and local autonomy, perhaps, in the Hanse factories in +Norway and Russia.[320] But all these widespread nuclei of expansion +remained barren of permanent national result, because they were designed +for a commercial end, and ignored the larger national mission and surer +economic base found in acquisition of territory. Hence they were +short-lived, succumbing to attack or abandoned on the failure of local +resources, which were ruthlessly exploited. + +[Sidenote: Limitations of small territorial conceptions.] + +That precocious development characteristic of small naturally defined +areas shows its inherent weakness in the tendency to accept the enclosed +area as a nature-made standard of national territory. The earlier a +state fixes its frontier without allowance for growth, the earlier comes +the cessation of its development. Therefore the geographical nurseries +of civilization were infected with germs of decay. Such was the history +of Egypt, of Yemen, of Greece, Crete, and Phoenicia. These are the +regions which, as Carl Ritter says, have given the whole fruit of their +existence to the world for its future use, have conferred upon the world +the trust which they once held, afterward to recede, as it were, from +view.[321] They were great in the past, and now they belong to those +immortal dead whose greatness has been incorporated in the world's +life--"the choir invisible" of the nations. + +[Sidenote: Evolution of territorial policies.] + +The advance from a small, self-dependent community to interdependent +relations with other peoples, then to ethnic expansion or union of +groups to form a state or empire is a great turning point in any +history. Thereby the clan or tribe discards the old paralyzing seclusion +of the primitive society and the narrow habitat, and joins that march of +ethnic, political and cultural progress which has covered larger and +larger areas, and by increase of common purpose has cemented together +ever greater aggregates. + +Nothing is more significant in the history of the English in America +than the rapid evolution of their spacial ideals, their abandonment of +the small territorial conception brought with them from the mother +country and embodied, for example, in that munificent land grant, fifty +by a hundred miles in extent, of the first Virginia charter in 1606, and +their progress to schemes of continental expansion. Every accession of +territory to the Thirteen Colonies and to the Republic gave an impulse +to growth. Expansion kept pace with opportunity. Only in small and +isolated New England did the contracted provincial point of view +persist. It manifested itself in a narrow policy of concentration and +curtailment, which acquiesced in the occlusion of the Mississippi River +to the Trans-Allegheny settlements by Spain in 1787, and which later +opposed the purchase of the Louisiana territory[322] and the acquisition +of the Philippines. + +All peoples who have achieved wide expansion have developed in the +process vast territorial policies. This is true of the pastoral nomads +who in different epochs have inundated Europe, northern Africa and the +peripheral lands of Asia, and of the great colonial nations who in a few +decades have brought continents under their dominion. In nomadic hordes +it is based upon habitual mobility and the possession of herds, which +are at once incentive and means for extending the geographical horizon; +but it suffers from the evanescent character of nomadic political +organization, and the tendency toward dismemberment bred in all pastoral +life by dispersal over scattered grazing grounds. Hence the empires set +up by nomad conquerors like the Saracens and Tartars soon fall apart. + +[Sidenote: Colonial expansion.] + +Among highly civilized agricultural and industrial peoples, on the other +hand, a vast territorial policy is at once cause and effect of national +growth; it is at once an innate tendency and a conscious purpose +tenaciously followed. It makes use of trade and diplomacy, of scientific +invention and technical improvement, to achieve its aims. It becomes an +accepted mark of political vigor and an ideal even among peoples who +have failed to enlarge their narrow base. The model of Russian expansion +on the Pacific was quickly followed by awakened Japan, stirred out of +her insular complacence by the threat of Muscovite encroachment. Germany +and Italy, each strengthened and enlarged as to national outlook by +recent political unification, have elbowed their way into the crowded +colonial field. The French, though not expansionists as individuals, +have an excellent capacity for collective action when directed by +government. The officials whom Louis XIV sent to Canada in the +seventeenth century executed large schemes of empire reflecting the +dilation of French frontiers in Europe. These ideals of expansion seem +to have been communicated by the power of example, or the threat of +danger in them, to the English colonists in Virginia and Pennsylvania, +and later to Washington and Jefferson. + +[Sidenote: The mind of colonials.] + +The best type of colonial expansion is found among the English-speaking +people of America, Australia and South Africa. Their spacial ideas are +built on a big scale. Distances do not daunt them. The man who could +conceive a Cape-to-Cairo railroad, with all the schemes of territorial +aggrandizement therein implied, had a mind that took continents for its +units of measure; and he found a fitting monument in a province of +imperial proportions whereon was inscribed his name. Bryce tells us that +in South Africa the social circle of "the best people" includes +Pretoria, Johannesburg, Kimberley, Bloemfontein and Cape Town--a social +circle with a diameter of a thousand miles![323] + +The spirit of our western frontier, so long as there was a frontier, was +the spirit of movement, of the conquest of space. It found its +expression in the history of the Wilderness Road and the Oregon Trail. +When the center of population in the United States still lingered on the +shore of Chesapeake Bay, and the frontier of continuous settlement had +not advanced beyond the present western boundary of Virginia and +Pennsylvania, the spacious mind of Thomas Jefferson foresaw the +Mississippi Valley as the inevitable and necessary possession of the +American people, and looked upon the trade of the far-off Columbia River +as a natural feeder of the Mississippi commerce.[324] + +Emerson's statement that the vast size of the United States is reflected +in the big views of its people applies not only to political policy, +which in the Monroe Doctrine for the first time in history has embraced +a hemisphere; nor is it confined to the big scale of their economic +processes. Emerson had in mind rather their whole conception of national +mission and national life, especially their legislation,[325] for which +he anticipated larger and more Catholic aims than obtain in Europe, +hampered as it is by countless political and linguistic boundaries and +barred thereby from any far-reaching unity of purpose and action. + +Canada, British South Africa, Australia and the United States, though +widely separated, have in common a certain wide outlook upon life, a +continental element in the national mind, bred in their people by their +generous territories. The American recognizes his kinship of mind with +these colonial Englishmen as something over and above mere kinship of +race. It consists in their deep-seated common democracy, the democracy +born in men who till fields and clear forests, not as plowmen and +wood-cutters, but as makers of nations. It consists in identical +interests and points of view in regard to identical problems growing out +of the occupation and development of new and almost boundless +territories. Race questions, paucity of labor, highways and railroads, +immigration, combinations of capital, excessive land holdings, and +illegal appropriation of land on a large scale, are problems that meet +them all. The monopolistic policy of the United States in regard to +American soil as embodied in the Monroe Doctrine, and the expectation +lurking in the mental background of every American that his country may +eventually embrace the northern continent, find their echo in +Australia's plans for wider empire in the Pacific. The Commonwealth of +Australia has succeeded in getting into its own hands the administration +of British New Guinea (90,500 square miles.) It has also secured from +the imperial government the unusual privilege of settling the relations +between itself and the islands of the Pacific, because it regards the +Pacific question as the one question of foreign policy in which its +interests are profoundly involved. In the same way the British in South +Africa, sparsely scattered though they are, feel an imperative need of +further expansion, if their far-reaching schemes of commerce and empire +are to be realized. + +[Sidenote: Colonials as road builders.] + +The effort to annihilate space by improved means of communication has +absorbed the best intellects and energies of expanding peoples. The +ancient Roman, like the Incas of Peru, built highways over every part of +the empire, undaunted by natural obstacles like the Alps and Andes. +Modern expansionists are railroad builders. Witness the long list of +strategic lines, constructed or subsidized by various governments during +the past half century--the Union Pacific, Central Pacific, Canadian +Pacific, Trans-Siberian, Cairo-Khartoum, Cape Town-Zambesi, and now the +proposed Trans-Saharan road, designed to unite the Mediterranean and +Guinea colonies of French Africa. The equipment of the American roads, +with their heavy rails, giant locomotives, and enormous freight cars, +reveals adaptation to a commerce that covers long distances between +strongly differentiated areas of production, and that reflects the vast +enterprises of this continental country. The same story comes out in the +ocean vessels which serve the trade of the Great Lakes, and in the acres +of coal barges in a single fleet which are towed down the Ohio and +Mississippi by one mammoth steel tug. + +[Sidenote: Practical bent of colonials.] + +The abundant natural resources awaiting development in such big new +countries give to the mind of the people an essentially practical bent. +The rewards of labor are so great that the stimulus to effort is +irresistible. Economic questions take precedence of all others, divide +political parties, and consume a large portion of national legislation; +while purely political questions sink into the background. Civilization +takes on a material stamp, becomes that "dollar civilization" which is +the scorn of the placid, paralyzed Oriental or the old world European. +The genius of colonials is essentially practical. Impatience of +obstacles, short cuts aiming at quick returns, wastefulness of land, of +forests, of fuel, of everything but labor, have long characterized +American activities. The problem of an inadequate labor supply attended +the sudden accession of territory opened for European occupation by the +discovery of America, and caused a sudden recrudescence of slavery, +which as an industrial system had long been outgrown by Europe. It has +also given immense stimulus to invention, and to the formation of labor +unions, which in the newest colonial fields, like Australia and New +Zealand, have dominated the government and given a Utopian stamp to +legislation. + +Yet underlying and permeating this materialism is a youthful idealism. +Transplanted to conditions of greater opportunity, the race becomes +rejuvenated, abandons outgrown customs and outworn standards, +experiences an enlargement of vision and of hope, gathers courage and +energy equal to its task, manages somehow to hitch its wagon to a star. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER VI + +[292] Chamberlain and Salisbury, Geology, Vol. III, pp. 483-485. New +York, 1906. + +[293] _Ibid._, p. 137 and map p. 138. + +[294] Darwin, Origin of Species, Vol. I, chap. IV, pp. 124-132; Vol. II, +chap; XII, p. 134. New York, 1895. H. W. Conn, The Method of Evolution, +p. 54. London and New York, 1900. + +[295] _Ibid._, pp. 194-197, 226-227, 239-242, 342-350. + +[296] Ratzel, _Der Lebensraum, eine bio-geographische Studie_, p. 51. +Tubingen, 1901. + +[297] D. G, Brinton, Races and Peoples, pp. 271, 293-295. Philadelphia, +1901. + +[298] A. Heilprin, Geographical Distribution of Animals, pp. 57-61. +London, 1894. + +[299] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, p. 39, maps pp. 43, 78. New York, +1899. + +[300] Darwin, Origin of Species, Vol. II, chap. XII, pp. 130-131. New +York, 1895. + +[301] Richard Semon, In the Australian Bush, p. 211. London, 1899. + +[302] J.H.W. Stuckenburg, Sociology, Vol. I, p. 324. New York and +London, 1903. + +[303] E. G. Semple, The Influences of Geographic Environment on the +Lower St. Lawrence. Bulletin American Geographical Society, Vol. XXXVI, +pp. 464-465. 1904. + +[304] B. Limedorfer, Finland's Plight, _Forum_, Vol. XXXII, pp. 85-93. + +[305] Eleventh Census, Report on the Indians, p. 35. Washington, 1894. + +[306] A.B. Wallace, Australasia, Vol. I, p. 454. London, 1893. + +[307] W.S. Barclay, Life in Terra del Fuego, _The Nineteenth Century_, +Vol. 55, p. 97. January, 1904. + +[308] A.E. Wallace, Australasia, Vol. I, pp. 454-455. London, 1893. + +[309] Darwin, Origin of Species, Vol. II, chap. XIII, p. 178. New York, +1895. + +[310] _Ibid._, Vol. II, chap. XII, p. 167-168. + +[311] Nesbit Bain, Finland and the Tsar, _Fortnightly Review_, Vol. 71, +p. 735. E. Limedorfer, Finland's Plight, _Forum_, Vol. 32, pp. 85-93. + +[312] Archibald Geikie, The Scenery of Scotland, pp. 398-399. London, +1887. + +[313] Railways in Asia Minor, _Littell's Living Age_, Vol. 225, p. 196. + +[314] J. Ellis Barker, Modern Germany, pp. 38-66. London, 1907. + +[315] The Polish Danger in Prussia, _Westminster Review_, Vol. 155, p. +375. + +[316] Heinrich von Treitschke, _Politik_, Vol. I, pp. 223-224. Leipzig, +1897. + +[317] Plato, Critias, 112. Aristotle, Politics, Book II, chap. VII; Book +IV, chap. IV; Book VII, chap. IV. + +[318] Plato, _De Legibus_, Book V, chaps. 8, 9, 10, 11. + +[319] Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Handels und Gewerbefleisses_, +pp. 180-187. Stuttgart, 1899. + +[320] Blanqui, History of Political Economy, pp. 150-152. New York, +1880. + +[321] Carl Ritter, Comparative Geography, p. 63. New York, 1865. + +[322] E. C. Semple, American History and its Geographic Conditions, pp. +42-43, 109, 110. Boston, 1903. + +[323] James Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, pp. 405-6. New York, +1897. + +[324] P. L. Ford, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. VIII. Letter to +John Bacon, April 30, 1803; and Confidential Message to Congress on the +Expedition to the Pacific, January 18, 1803. + +[325] Emerson, The Young American, in Nature Addresses and Lectures, pp. +369-371. Centenary Edition, Boston. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +GEOGRAPHICAL BOUNDARIES + + +[Sidenote: The boundary zone in nature.] + +Nature abhors fixed boundary lines and sudden transitions; all her +forces combine against them. Everywhere she keeps her borders melting, +wavering, advancing, retreating. If by some cataclysm sharp lines of +demarcation are drawn, she straightway begins to blur them by creating +intermediate forms, and thus establishes the boundary zone which +characterizes the inanimate and animate world. A stratum of limestone or +sandstone, when brought into contact with a glowing mass of igneous +rock, undergoes various changes due to the penetrating heat of the +volcanic outflow, so that its surface is metamorphosed as far as that +heat reaches. The granite cliff slowly deposits at its base a rock-waste +slope to soften the sudden transition from its perpendicular surface to +the level plain at its feet. The line where a land-born river meets the +sea tends to become a sandbar or a delta, created by the river-borne +silt and the wash of the waves, a form intermediate between land and +sea, bearing the stamp of each, fluid in its outlines, ever growing by +the persistent accumulation of mud, though ever subject to inundation +and destruction by the waters which made it. The alluvial coastal hems +that edge all shallow seas are such border zones, reflecting in their +flat, low surfaces the dead level of the ocean, in their composition the +solid substance of the land; but in the miniature waves imprinted on the +sands and the billows of heaped-up boulders, the master workman of the +deep leaves his mark. [See map page 243.] + +Under examination, even our familiar term coastline proves to be only an +abstraction with no corresponding reality in nature. Everywhere, whether +on margin of lake or gulf, the actual phenomenon is a coast zone, +alternately covered and abandoned by the waters, varying in width from a +few inches to a few miles, according to the slope of the land, the range +of the tide and the direction of the wind. It has one breadth at the +minimum or neap tide, but increases often two or three fold at spring +tide, when the distance between ebb and flood is at its maximum. At the +mouth of Cook's Inlet on the southern Alaskan coast, where the range of +tides is only eight feet, the zone is comparatively narrow, but widens +rapidly towards the head of the inlet, where the tide rises twenty-three +feet above the ebb line, and even to sixty-five feet under the influence +of a heavy southwest storm. On flat coasts we are familiar with the wide +frontier of salt marshes, that witness the border warfare of land and +sea, alternate invasion and retreat. In low-shored estuaries like those +of northern Brittany and northwestern Alaska, this amphibian girdle of +the land expands to a width of four miles, while on precipitous coasts +of tideless sea basins it contracts to a few inches. Hence this boundary +zone changes with every impulse of the mobile sea and with every varying +configuration of the shore. Movement and external conditions are the +factors in its creation. They make something that is only partially akin +to the two contiguous forms. Here on their outer margins land and ocean +compromise their physical differences, and this by a law which runs +through animate and inanimate nature. Wherever one body moves in +constant contact with another, it is subjected to modifying influences +which differentiate its periphery from its interior, lend it a +transitional character, make of it a penumbra between light and shadow. +The modifying process goes on persistently with varying force, and +creates a shifting, changing border zone which, from its nature, cannot +be delimited. For convenience' sake, we adopt the abstraction of a +boundary line; but the reality behind this abstraction is the important +thing in anthropo-geography. + +[Sidenote: Gradations in the boundary zone.] + +All so-called boundary lines with which geography has to do have this +same character,--coastlines, river margins, ice or snow lines, limits of +vegetation, boundaries of races or religions or civilizations, frontiers +of states. They are all the same, stamped by the eternal flux of nature. +Beyond the solid ice-pack which surrounds the North Pole is a wide +girdle of almost unbroken drift ice, and beyond this is an irregular +concentric zone of scattered icebergs which varies in breadth with +season, wind and local current; a persistent decrease in continuity from +solid pack to open sea. The line of perpetual snow on high mountains +advances or retreats from season to season, from year to year; it drops +low on chilly northern slopes and recedes to higher altitudes on a +southern exposure; sends down long icy tongues in dark gorges, and +leaves outlying patches of old snow in shaded spots or beneath a +covering of rock waste far below the margin of the snow fields. + +In the struggle for existence in the vegetable world, the tree line +pushes as far up the mountain as conditions of climate and soil will +permit. Then comes a season of fiercer storms, intenser cold and +invading ice upon the peaks. Havoc is wrought, and the forest drops back +across a zone of border warfare--for war belongs to borders--leaving +behind it here and there a dwarfed pine or gnarled and twisted juniper +which has survived the onslaught of the enemy, Now these are stragglers +in the retreat, but are destined later in milder years to serve as +outposts in the advance of the forest to recover its lost ground. Here +we have a border scene which is typical in nature--the belt of unbroken +forest, growing thinner and more stunted toward its upper edge, +succeeded by a zone of scattered trees, which may form a cluster perhaps +in some sheltered gulch where soil has collected and north winds are +excluded, and higher still the whitened skeleton of a tree to show how +far the forest once invaded the domain of the waste. + +[Sidenote: Oscillating boundaries] + +The habitable area of the earth everywhere shows its boundaries to be +peripheral zones of varying width, now occupied and now deserted, +protruding or receding according to external conditions of climate and +soil, and subject to seasonal change. The distribution of human life +becomes sparser from the temperate regions toward the Arctic Circle, +foreshadowing the unpeopled wastes of the ice-fields beyond. The outward +movement from the Tropics poleward halts where life conditions +disappear, and there finds its boundary; but as life conditions advance +or retreat with the seasons, so does that boundary. On the west coast of +Greenland the Eskimo village of Etah, at about the seventy-eighth +parallel, marks the northern limit of permanent or winter settlement; +but in summer the Eskimo, in his kayak, follows the musk-ox and seal +much farther north and there leaves his igloo to testify to the wide +range of his poleward migration. Numerous relics of the Eskimo and their +summer encampments have been found along Lady Franklin Bay in northern +Grinnell Land (81° 50' N. L.), but in the interior, on the outlet +streams of Lake Hazen, explorers have discovered remains of habitations +which had evidently, in previous ages, been permanently occupied.[326] The +Murman Coast of the Kola Peninsula has in summer a large population of +Russian fishermen and forty or more fishing stations; but when the catch +is over at the end of August, and the Arctic winter approaches, the +stations are closed, and the three thousand fishermen return to their +permanent homes on the shores of the White Sea.[327] Farther east along +this polar fringe of Russia, the little village of Charbarova, located +on the Jugor Strait, is inhabited in summer by a number of Samoyedes, +who pasture their reindeer over on Vaygats Island, and by some Russians +and Finns, who come from the White Sea towns to trade with the Samoyedes +and incidentally to hunt and fish. But in the fall, when a new ice +bridge across the Strait releases the reindeer from their enclosed +pasture on the island, the Samoyedes withdraw southward, and the +merchants with their wares to Archangel and other points. This has gone +on for centuries.[328] On the Briochov Islands at the head of the Yenisei +estuary Nordenskiold found a small group of houses which formed a summer +fishing post in 1875, but which was deserted by the end of August.[329] + +[Sidenote: Altitude boundary zones.] + +An altitude of about five thousand feet marks the limit of village life +in the Alps; but during the three warm months of the year, the summer +pastures at eight thousand feet or more are alive with herds and their +keepers. The boundary line of human life moves up the mountains in the +wake of spring and later hurries down again before the advance of +winter. The Himalayan and Karakorum ranges show whole villages of +temporary occupation, like the summer trading town of Gartok at 15,000 +feet on the caravan route from Leh to Lhassa, or Shahidula (3,285 meters +or 10,925 feet) on the road between Leh and Yarkand;[330] but the boundary +of permanent habitation lies several thousand feet below. Comparable to +these are the big hotels that serve summer stage-coach travel over the +Alps and Rockies, but which are deserted when the first snow closes the +passes. Here a zone of altitude, as in the polar regions a zone of +latitude, marks the limits of the habitable area. + +[Sidenote: "Wallace's Line" a typical boundary zone.] + +The distribution of animals and races shows the limit of their movements +or expansion. Any boundary defining the limits of such movements can not +from its nature be fixed, and hence can not be a line. It is always a +zone. Yet "Wallace's Line," dividing the Oriental from the Australian +zoological realm, and running through Macassar Strait southward between +Bali and Lombok, is a generally accepted dictum. The details of +Wallace's investigation, however, reveal the fact that this boundary is +not a line, but a zone of considerable and variable width, enclosing the +line on either side with a marginal belt of mixed character. Though +Celebes, lying to the east of Macassar Strait, is included in the +Australian realm, it has lost so large a proportion of Australian types +of animals, and contains so many Oriental types from the west, that +Wallace finds it almost impossible to decide on which side of the line +it belongs.[331] The Oriental admixture extends yet farther east over the +Moluccas and Timor. Birds of Javan or Oriental origin, to the extent of +thirty genera, have spread eastward well across Wallace's Line; some of +these stop short at Flores, and some reach even to Timor,[332] while +Australian cockatoos, in turn, have been seen on the west coast of Bali +but not in Java, Heilprin avoids the unscientific term line, because he +finds his zoological realms divided by "transition regions," which are +intermediate in animal types as they are in geographical location.[333] +Wallace notes a similar "debatable land" in the Rajputana Desert east of +the Indus, which is the border district between the Oriental and +Ethiopian realms.[334] + +[Sidenote: Boundaries as limits of movements or expansion.] + +Such boundaries mark the limits of that movement which is common to all +animate things. Every living form spreads until it meets natural +conditions in which it can no longer survive, or until it is checked by +the opposing expansion of some competing form. If there is a change +either in the life conditions or in the strength of the competing forms, +the boundary shifts. In the propitious climate of the Genial Period, +plants and animals lived nearer to the North Pole than at present; then +they fell back before the advance of the ice sheet. The restless +surface of the ocean denies to man a dwelling place; every century, +however, the Dutch are pushing forward their northern boundary by +reclamation of land from the sea; but repeatedly they have had to drop +back for a time when the water has again overwhelmed their hand-made +territory. + +[Sidenote: Peoples as barriers.] + +The boundaries of race and state which are subjected to greatest +fluctuations are those determined by the resistance of other peoples. +The westward sweep of the Slavs prior to eighth century carried them +beyond the Elbe into contact with the Germans; but as these increased in +numbers, outgrew their narrow territories and inaugurated a +counter-movement eastward, the Slavs began falling back to the Oder, to +the Vistula, and finally to the Niemen. Though the Mohawk Valley opened +an easy avenue of expansion westward for the early colonists of New +York, the advance of settlements up this valley for several decades went +on at only a snail's pace, because of the compact body of Iroquois +tribes holding this territory. In the unoccupied land farther south +between the Cumberland and Ohio rivers the frontier went forward with +leaps and bounds, pushed on by the expanding power of the young +Republic. [See map page 156.] + +Anything which increases the expanding force of a people--the +establishment of a more satisfactory government by which the national +consciousness is developed, as in the American and French revolutions, +the prosecution of a successful war by which popular energies are +released from an old restraint, mere increase of population, or an +impulse communicated by some hostile and irresistible force behind--all +are registered in an advance of the boundary of the people in question +and a corresponding retrusion of their neighbor's frontier. + +[Sidenote: Boundary zone as index of growth or decline.] + +The border district is the periphery of the growing or declining race or +state. It runs the more irregularly, the greater are the variations in +the external conditions as represented by climate, soil, barriers, and +natural openings, according as these facilitate or obstruct advance. +When it is contiguous with the border of another state or race, the two +form a zone in which ascendency from one side or the other is being +established. The boundary fluctuates, for equilibrium of the contending +forces is established rarely and for only short periods. The more +aggressive people throws out across this debatable zone, along the lines +of least resistance or greatest attraction, long streamers of +occupation; so that the frontier takes on the form of a fringe of +settlement, whose interstices are occupied by a corresponding fringe of +the displaced people. Such was its aspect in early colonial America, +where population spread up every fertile river valley across a zone of +Indian land; and such it is in northern Russia to-day, where long narrow +Slav bands run out from the area of continuous Slav settlement across a +wide belt of Mongoloid territory to the shores of the White Sea and +Arctic Ocean.[335] [See maps pages 103 and 225.] + +The border zone is further broadened by the formation of ethnic islands +beyond the base line of continuous settlement, which then advances more +or less rapidly, if expansion is unchecked, till it coalesces with these +outposts, just as the forest line on the mountains may reach, under +advantageous conditions, its farthest outlying tree. Such ethnic +peninsulas and islands we see in the early western frontiers of the +United States from 1790 to 1840, when that frontier was daily moving +westward.[336] [See map page 156.] + +[Sidenote: Breadth of the boundary zone.] + +The breadth of the frontier zone is indicative of the activity of growth +on the one side and the corresponding decline on the other, because +extensive encroachment in the same degree disintegrates the territory of +the neighbor at whose cost such encroachment is made. A straight, narrow +race boundary, especially if it is nearly coincident with a political +boundary, points to an equilibrium of forces which means, for the time +being at least, a cessation of growth. Such boundaries are found in old, +thickly populated countries, while the wide, ragged border zone belongs +to new, and especially to colonial peoples. In the oldest and most +densely populated seats of the Germans, where they are found in the +Rhine Valley, the boundaries of race and empire are straight and simple; +but the younger, eastern border, which for centuries has been steadily +advancing at the cost of the unequally matched Slavs, has the ragged +outline and sparse population of a true colonial frontier. Between two +peoples who have had a long period of growth behind them, the +oscillations of the boundary decrease in amplitude, as it were, and +finally approach a state of rest. Each people tends to fill out its area +evenly; every advance in civilization, every increase of population, +increases the stability of their tenure, and hence the equilibrium of +the pressure upon the boundary. Therefore, in such countries, racial, +linguistic and cultural boundaries tend to become simpler and +straighter. + +[Sidenote: The broad frontier zone of active expansion.] + +The growth is more apparent, or, in other words, the border zone is +widest and most irregular, where a superior people intrudes upon the +territory of an interior race. Such was the broad zone of thinly +scattered farms and villages amid a prevailing wilderness and hostile +Indian tribes which, in 1810 and 1820, surrounded our Trans-Allegheny +area of continuous settlement in a one to two hundred mile wide girdle. +Such has been the wide, mobile frontier of the Russian advance in +Siberia and until recently in Manchuria, which aimed to include within a +dotted line of widely separated railway-guard stations, Cossack +barracks, and penal colonies, the vast territory which later generations +were fully to occupy. Similar, too, is the frontier of the Dutch and +English settlements in South Africa, which has been pushed forward into +the Kaffir country--a broad belt of scattered cattle ranches and +isolated mining hives, dropped down amid Kaffir hunting and grazing +lands. Broader still was that shadowy belt of American occupation which +for four decades immediately succeeding the purchase of Louisiana +stretched in the form of isolated fur-stations, lonely trappers' camps, +and shifting traders' _rendezvous_ from the Mississippi to the western +slope of the Rockies and the northern watershed of the Missouri, where +it met the corresponding nebulous outskirts of the far-away Canadian +state on the St. Lawrence River. + +The same process with the same geographical character has been going on +in the Sahara, as the French since 1890 have been expanding southward +from the foot of the Atlas Mountains in Algeria toward Timbuctoo at the +cost of the nomad Tuaregs. Territory is first subdued and administered +by the military till it is fully pacified. Then it is handed over to the +civil government. Hence the advancing frontier consists of a military +zone of administration, with a civil zone behind it, and a weaker +wavering zone of exploration and scout work before it.[337] Lord Curzon +in his Romanes lecture describes the northwest frontier of India as just +such a three-ply border. + +[Sidenote: Economic factors in expanding frontiers.] + +The untouched resources of such new countries tempt to the widespread +superficial exploitation, which finds its geographical expression in a +broad, dilating frontier. Here the man-dust which is to form the future +political planet is thinly disseminated, swept outward by a centrifugal +force. Furthermore, the absence of natural barriers which might block +this movement, the presence of open plains and river highways to +facilitate it, and the predominance of harsh conditions of climate or +soil rendering necessary a savage, extensive exploitation of the slender +resources, often combine still further to widen the frontier zone. This +was the case in French Canada and till recent decades in Siberia, where +intense cold and abundant river highways stimulated the fur trade to the +practical exclusion of all other activities, and substituted for the +closely grouped, sedentary farmers with their growing families the +wide-ranging trader with his Indian or Tunguse wife and his half-breed +offspring. Under harsh climatic conditions, the fur trade alone afforded +those large profits which every infant colony must command in order to +survive; and the fur trade meant a wide frontier zone of scattered posts +amid a prevailing wilderness. The French in particular, by the +possession of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi rivers, the greatest +systems in America, were lured into the danger of excessive expansion, +attenuated their ethnic element, and failed to raise the economic status +of their wide border district, which could therefore offer only slight +resistance to the spread of solid English settlement.[338] Yet more +recently, the chief weakness of the Russians in Siberia and +Manchuria--apart from the corruption of the national government--was the +weakness of a too remote and too sparsely populated frontier, and of a +people whose inner development had not kept pace with their rate of +expansion. + +[Sidenote: Value of barrier boundaries.] + +Wasteful exploitation of a big territory is easier than the economical +development of a small district. This is one line of least resistance +which civilized man as well as savage instinctively follows, and which +explains the tendency toward excessive expansion characteristic of all +primitive and nascent peoples. For such peoples natural barriers which +set bounds to this expansion are of vastly greater importance than they +are for mature or fully developed peoples. The reason is this: the +boundary is only the expression of the outward movement or growth, which +is nourished from the same stock of race energy as is the inner +development. Either carried to an excess weakens or retards the other. +If population begins to press upon the limits of subsistence, the +acquisition of a new bit of territory obviates the necessity of applying +more work and more intelligence to the old area, to make it yield +subsistence for the growing number of mouths; the stimulus to adopt +better economic methods is lost. Therefore, natural boundaries drawn by +mountain, sea and desert, serving as barriers to the easy appropriation +of new territory, have for such peoples a far deeper significance than +the mere determination of their political frontiers by physical +features, or the benefit of protection. + +The land with the most effective geographical boundaries is a naturally +defined region like Korea, Japan, China, Egypt, Italy, Spain, France or +Great Britain--a land characterized not only by exclusion from without +through its encircling barriers, but also by the inclusion within itself +of a certain compact group of geographic conditions, to whose combined +influences the inhabitants are subjected and from which they cannot +readily escape. This aspect is far more important than the mere +protection which such boundaries afford. They are not absolutely +necessary for the development of a people, but they give it an early +start, accelerate the process, and bring the people to an early +maturity; they stimulate the exploitation of all the local geographic +advantages and resources, the formation of a vivid tribal or national +consciousness and purpose, and concentrate the national energies when +the people is ready to overleap the old barriers. The early development +of island and peninsula peoples and their attainment of a finished +ethnic and political character are commonplaces of history. The stories +of Egypt, Crete and Greece, of Great Britain and Japan, illustrate the +stimulus to maturity which emanates from such confining boundaries. The +wall of the Appalachians narrowed the westward horizon of the early +English colonies in America, guarded them against the excessive +expansion which was undermining the French dominion in the interior of +the continent, set a most wholesome limit to their aims, and thereby +intensified their utilization of the narrow land between mountains and +sea. France, with its limits of growth indicated by the Mediterranean, +Pyrenees, Atlantic, Channel, Vosges, Jura and Western Alps, found its +period of adolescence shortened and, like Great Britain, early reached +its maturity. Nature itself set the goal of its territorial expansion, +and by crystallizing the political ideal of the people, made that goal +easier to reach, just as the dream of "United Italy" realized in 1870 +had been prefigured in contours drawn by Alpine range and Mediterranean +shore-line. + +[Sidenote: The sea as the absolute boundary] + +The area which a race or people occupies is the resultant of the +expansive force within and the obstacles without, either physical or +human. Insurmountable physical obstacles are met where all life +conditions disappear, as on the borders of the habitable world, where +man is barred from the unpeopled wastes of polar ice-fields and +unsustaining oceans. The frozen rim of arctic lands, the coastline of +the continents, the outermost arable strip on the confines of the +desert, the barren or ice-capped ridge of high mountain range, are all +such natural boundaries which set more or less effective limits to the +movement of peoples and the territorial growth of states. The sea is the +only absolute boundary, because it alone blocks the continuous, unbroken +expansion of a people. When the Saxons of the lower Elbe spread to the +island of Britain, a zone of unpeopled sea separated their new +settlements from their native villages on the mainland. Even the most +pronounced land barriers, like the Himalayas and Hindu Kush, have their +passways and favored spots for short summer habitation, where the people +from the opposite slopes meet and mingle for a season. Sandy wastes are +hospitable at times. When the spring rains on the mountains of Abyssinia +start a wave of moisture lapping over the edges of the Nubian desert, +it is immediately followed by a tide of Arabs with their camels and +herds, who make a wide zone of temporary occupation spread over the +newly created grassland, but who retire in a few weeks before the +desiccating heat of summer.[339] + +[Sidenote: Natural boundaries as bases of ethnic and political +boundaries.] + +Nevertheless, all natural features of the earth's surface which serve to +check, retard or weaken the expansion of peoples, and therefore hold +them apart, tend to become racial or political boundaries; and all +present a zone-like character. The wide ice-field of the Scandinavian +Alps was an unpeopled waste long before the political boundary was drawn +along it. "It has not in reality been a definite natural _line_ that has +divided Norway from her neighbour on the east; it has been a _band_ of +desert land, up to hundreds of miles in width. So utterly desolate and +apart from the area of continuous habitation has this been, that the +greater part of it, the district north of Trondhjem, was looked upon +even as recently as the last century as a common district. Only nomadic +Lapps wandered about in it, sometimes taxed by all three countries. A +parcelling out of this desert common district was not made toward Russia +until 1826. Toward Sweden it was made in 1751."[340] In former centuries +the Bourtanger Moor west of the River Ems used to be a natural desert +borderland separating East and West Friesland, despite the similarity of +race, speech and country on either side of it. It undoubtedly +contributed to the division of Germany and the Netherlands along the +present frontier line, which has been drawn the length of this moor for +a hundred kilometers.[341] + +[Sidenote: Primitive waste boundaries.] + +Any geographical feature which, like this, presents a practically +uninhabitable area, forms a scientific boundary, not only because it +holds apart the two neighboring peoples and thereby reduces the contact +and friction which might be provocative of hostilities, but also because +it lends protection against attack. This motive, as also the zone +character of all boundaries, comes out conspicuously in the artificial +border wastes surrounding primitive tribes and states in the lower +status of civilization. The early German tribes depopulated their +borders in a wide girdle, and in this wilderness permitted no neighbors +to reside. The width of this zone indicated the valor and glory of the +state, but was also valued as a means of protection against unexpected +attack.[342] Cæsar learned that between the Suevi and Cherusci tribes +dwelling near the Rhine "_silvam esse ibi, infinita magnitudine quae +appelletur Bacenis; hanc longe introrsus pertinere et pro nativo muro +objectam Cheruscos ab Suevis Suevosque ab Cheruscis injuriis +incursionibusque prohibere_."[343] The same device appears among the +Huns. When Attila was pressing upon the frontier of the Eastern Empire +in 448 A.D., his envoys sent to Constantinople demanded that the Romans +should not cultivate a belt of territory, a hundred miles wide and three +hundred miles long, south of the Danube, but maintain this as a +March.[344] When King Alfonso I. (751-764 A.D.) of mountain Asturias +began the reconquest of Spain from the Saracens, he adopted the same +method of holding the foe at arm's length. He seized Old Castile as far +as the River Duoro, but the rest of the province south of that stream he +converted into a waste boundary by transporting the Christians thence to +the north side, and driving the Mohammedans yet farther southward.[345] +Similarly Xenophon found that the Armenian side of the River Kentrites, +which formed the boundary between the Armenian plains and the highlands +of Karduchia, was unpeopled and destitute of villages for a breadth of +fifteen miles, from fear of the marauding Kurds.[346] In the eastern +Sudan, especially in that wide territory along the Nile-Congo watershed +occupied by the Zandeh, Junker found the frontier wilderness a regular +institution owing to the exposure of the border districts in the +perennial intertribal feuds.[347] The same testimony comes from +Barth,[348] Boyd Alexander,[349] Speke,[350] and other explorers in the +Sudan and the neighboring parts of equatorial Africa. + +[Sidenote: Border wastes of Indian lands.] + +The vast and fertile region defined by the Ohio and Tennessee rivers, +lay as a debatable border between the Algonquin Indians of the north +and the Appalachians of the south. Both claimed it, both used it for +hunting, but neither dared dwell therein.[351] Similarly the Cherokees +had no definite understanding with their savage neighbors as to the +limits of their respective territories The effectiveness of their claim +to any particular tract of country usually diminished with every +increase of its distance from their villages. The consequence was that a +considerable strip of territory between the settlements of two tribes, +Cherokees and Creeks for instance, though claimed by both, was +practically considered neutral ground and the common hunting ground of +both.[352] The Creeks, whose most western villages from 1771 to 1798 were +located along the Coosa and upper Alabama rivers,[353] were separated by +300 miles of wilderness from the Chickasaws to the northwest, and by a +150-mile zone from the Choctaws. The most northern Choctaw towns, in +turn, lay 160 miles to the south of the Chickasaw nation, whose compact +settlements were located on the watershed between the western sources of +the Tombigby and the head stream of the Yazoo.[354] The wide intervening +zone of forest and canebrake was hunted upon by both nations.[355] + +Sometimes the border is preserved as a wilderness by formal agreement. A +classic example of this case is found in the belt of untenanted land, +fifty to ninety kilometers wide, which China and Korea once maintained +as their boundary. No settler from either side was allowed to enter, and +all travel across the border had to use a single passway, where three +times annually a market was held.[356] On the Russo-Mongolian border +south of Lake Baikal, the town of Kiakhta, which was established in 1688 +as an entrepôt of trade between the two countries, is occupied in its +northern half by Russian factories and in its southern by the +Mongolian-Chinese quarters, while between the two is a neutral space +devoted to commerce.[357] + +[Sidenote: Alien intrusions into border wastes.] + +These border wastes do not always remain empty, however, even when their +integrity is respected by the two neighbors whom they serve to divide; +alien races often intrude into their unoccupied reaches. The boundary +wilderness between the Sudanese states of Wadai and Dar Fur harbors +several semi-independent states whose insignificance is a guarantee of +their safety from conquest.[358] Similarly in the wide border district +between the Creeks on the east and the Choctaws on the west were found +typical small, detached tribes--the Chatots and Thomez of forty huts +each on the Mobile River, the Tensas tribe with a hundred huts on the +Tensas River, and the Mobilians near the confluence of the Tombigby and +Alabama.[359] Along the desolate highland separating Norway and Sweden +the nomadic Lapps, with their reindeer herds, have penetrated southward +to 62° North Latitude, reinforcing the natural barrier by another +barrier of alien race. From this point southward, the coniferous forests +begin and continue the border waste in the form of a zone some sixty +miles wide; this was unoccupied till about 1600, when into it slowly +filtered an immigration of Finns, whose descendants to-day constitute an +important part of the still thin population along the frontier to the +heights back of Christiania. Only thirty miles from the coast does the +border zone between Norway and Sweden, peopled chiefly by intruding +foreign stocks, Lapps and Finns, contract and finally merge into the +denser Scandinavian settlements.[360] + +Where the border waste offers favorable conditions of life and the +intruding race has reached a higher status of civilization, it +multiplies in this unpeopled tract and soon spreads at the cost of its +less advanced neighbors. The old No Man's Land between the Ohio and +Tennessee was a line of least resistance for the expanding Colonies, who +here poured in a tide of settlement between the northern and southern +Indians, just as later other pioneers filtered into the vague border +territory of weak tenure between the Choctaws and Creeks, and there on +the Tombigby, Mobile and Tensas rivers, formed the nucleus of the State +of Alabama.[361] + +[Sidenote: Politico-economic significance of the waste boundary.] + +This untenanted hem of territory surrounding so many savage and +barbarous peoples reflects their superficial and unsystematic +utilization of their soil, by reason of which the importance of the land +itself and the proportion of population to area are greatly reduced. It +is a part of that uneconomic and extravagant use of the land, that +appropriation of wide territories by small tribal groups, which +characterizes the lower stages of civilization, as opposed to the +exploitation of every square foot for the support of a teeming humanity, +which marks the most advanced states. Each stage puts its own valuation +upon the land according to the return from it which each expects to +get. The low valuation is expressed in the border wilderness, by which a +third or even a half of the whole area is wasted; and also in the +readiness with which savages often sell their best territory for a song. + +For the same reason they leave their boundaries undefined; a mile nearer +or farther, what does it matter? Moreover, their fitful or nomadic +occupation of the land leads to oscillations of the frontiers with every +attack from without and every variation of the tribal strength within. +Their unstable states rarely last long enough in a given form or size to +develop fixed boundaries; hence, the vagueness as to the extent of +tribal domains among all savage peoples, and the conflicting land claims +which are the abiding source of war. Owing to these overlapping +boundaries--border districts claimed but not occupied--the American +colonists met with difficulties in their purchase of land from the +Indians, often paying twice for the same strip. + +[Sidenote: Common boundary districts.] + +Even civilized peoples may adopt a waste boundary where the motive for +protection is peculiarly strong, as in the half-mile neutral zone of +lowland which ties the rock of Gibraltar to Spain. On a sparsely +populated frontier, where the abundance of land reduces its value, they +may throw the boundary into the form of a common district, as in the +vast, disputed Oregon country, accepted provisionally as a district of +joint occupancy between the United States and Canada from 1818 to 1846, +or that wide highland border which Norway so long shared with Russia and +Sweden. In South America, where land is abundant and population sparse, +this common boundary belt is not rare. It suggests a device giving that +leeway for expansion desired by all growing states. By the treaty of +1866, the frontier between Chile and Bolivia crossed the Atacama desert +at 24° South Latitude; but the zone between 23° and 25° was left under +the common jurisdiction of the two states, for exploitation of the guano +deposits and mineral wealth.[362] A common border district on a much +larger scale is found between Brazil and the eastern frontier of French +Guiana. It includes a belt 185 miles (300 kilometers) wide between the +Oyapok and Arawary rivers, and is left as a neutral district till its +fate is decided by arbitration.[363] All these instances are only +temporary phases in the evolution of a political frontier from wide, +neutral border to the mathematically determined boundary line required +by modern civilized states. + +[Sidenote: Tariff free zones.] + +Even when the boundary line has been surveyed and the boundary pillars +set up, the frontier is prone to assert its old zonal nature, simply +because it marks the limits of human movements. Rarely, for instance, +does a customs boundary coincide with a political frontier, even in the +most advanced states of Europe, except on the coasts. The student of +Baedecker finds a gap of several miles on the same railroad between the +customs frontier of Germany and France, or France and Italy. Where the +border district is formed by a high and rugged mountain range, the +custom houses recede farther and farther from the common political line +upon the ridge, and drop down the slope to convenient points, leaving +between them a wide neutral tariff zone, like that in Haute Savoie along +the massive Mont Blanc Range between France and Italy. + +Allied to this phase, yet differing from it, is the "Zona Libre" or Free +Zone, 12 miles broad and 1,833 miles long, which forms the northern hem +of Mexico from the Gulf to the Pacific. Here foreign goods pay only +18-1/2 per cent., formerly only 2-1/2 per cent., of the usual federal +duties. Goods going on into the interior pay the rest of the tariff at +the inner margin of the Zone. This arrangement was adopted in 1858 to +establish some sort of commercial equilibrium between the Mexican towns +of the Rio Grande Valley, which were burdened by excessive taxation on +internal trade, and the Texas towns across the river, which at this time +enjoyed a specially low tariff. Consequently prices of food and +manufactured goods were twice or four times as high on the Mexican as on +the American side. The result was persistent smuggling, extensive +emigration from the southern to the northern bank, and the commercial +decline of the frontier states of Mexico, till the Zona Libre adjusted +the commercial discrepancy.[364] Since 1816 a tariff free zone a league +wide has formed the border of French Savoy along the Canton and Lake of +Geneva, thus uniting this canton by a free passway with the Swiss +territory at the upper end of the lake.[365] + +[Sidenote: Boundary zones of mingled race elements.] + +When the political boundary has evolved by a system of contraction out +of the wide waste zone to the nicely determined line, that line, +nevertheless, is always encased, as it were, in a zone of contact +wherein are mingled the elements of either side. The zone includes the +peripheries of the two contiguous racial or national bodies, and in it +each is modified and assimilated to the other. On its edges it is +strongly marked by the characteristics of the adjacent sides, but its +medial band shows a mingling of the two in ever-varying proportions; it +changes from day to day and shifts backward and forward, according as +one side or the other exercises in it more potent economic, religious, +racial, or political influences. + +Its peripheral character comes out strongly in the mingling of +contiguous ethnic elements found in every frontier district. Here is +that zone of transitional form which we have seen prevails so widely in +nature. The northern borderland of the United States is in no small +degree Canadian, and the southern is strongly Mexican. In the Rio Grande +counties of Texas, Mexicans constituted in 1890 from 27 to 55 per cent. +of the total population, and they were distributed in considerable +numbers also in the second tier of counties. A broad band of French and +English Canadians overlaps the northern hem of United States territory +from Maine to North Dakota.[366] In the New York and New England counties +bordering on the old French province of Quebec, they constitute from 11 +to 22 per cent. of the total population, except in two or three western +counties of Maine which have evidently been mere passways for a tide of +_habitants_ moving on to more attractive conditions of life in the +counties just to the south.[367] But even these large figures do not +adequately represent the British-American element within our boundaries, +because they leave out of account the native-born of Canadian parents +who have been crossing our borders for over a generation. + +[Sidenote: Ethnic border zones in the Alps.] + +If we turn to northern Italy, where a mountain barrier might have been +expected to segregate the long-headed Mediterranean stock from the +broad-headed Alpine stock, we find as a matter of fact that the ethnic +type throughout the Po basin is markedly brachycephalic and becomes more +pronounced along the northern boundary in the Alps, till it culminates +in Piedmont along the frontier of France, where it becomes identical +with the broad-headed Savoyards.[368] More than this, Provençal French is +spoken in the Dora Baltea Valley of Piedmont; and along the upper Dora +Riparia and in the neighboring valleys of the Chisone and Pellice are +the villages of the refugee Waldenses, who speak an idiom allied to the +Provençal. More than this, the whole Piedmontese Italian is +characterized by its approach to the French, and the idiom of Turin +sounds very much like Provençal.[369] To the north there is a similar +exchange between Italy and Switzerland with the adjacent Austrian +province of the Tyrol. In the rugged highlands of the Swiss Grisons +bordering upon Italy, we find a pure Alpine stock, known to the ancients +as the Rhaetians, speaking a degenerate Latin tongue called Romansch, +which still persists also under the names of Ladino and Frioulian in the +Alpine regions of the Tyrol and Italy. In fact, the map of linguistic +boundaries in the Grisons shows the dovetailing of German, Italian, and +Romansch in a broad zone.[370] The traveller in the southern Tyrol +becomes accustomed in the natives to the combination of Italian +coloring, German speech, and Alpine head form; whereas, if on reaching +Italy he visits the hills back of Vicenza, he finds the German +settlements of Tredici and Sette Communi, where German customs, +folklore, language, and German types of faces still persist, survivals +from the days of German infiltration across the Brenner Pass.[371] + +[Illustration: SLAV-GERMAN BOUNDARY IN EUROPE.] + +[Sidenote: The Slav-German boundary.] + +Where Slavs and Teutons come together in Central Europe, their race +border is a zone lying approximately between 14 and 24 degrees East +Longitude; it is crossed by alternate peninsulas of predominant Germans +and Austrians from the one side, Czechs and Poles from the other, the +whole spattered over by a sprinkling of the two elements. Rarely, and +then only for short stretches, do political and ethnic boundaries +coincide. The northern frontier hem of East Prussia lying between the +River Niemen and the political line of demarcation is quite as much +Lithuanian as German, while German stock dots the whole surface of the +Baltic provinces of Russia as far as St. Petersburg, The eastern rim of +the Kaiser's empire as far south as the Carpathians presents a broad +band of the Polish race, averaging about fifty kilometers (30 miles) in +width, sparsely sprinkled with German settlements; these are found +farther east also as an ethnic archipelago dotting the wide Slav area of +Poland. The enclosed basin of Bohemia, protected on three sides by +mountain walls and readily accessible to the Slav stock at the sources +of the Vistula, enabled the Czechs to penetrate far westward and there +maintain themselves; but in spite of encompassing mountains, the inner +or Bohemian slopes of the Boehmer Wald, Erz, and Sudetes ranges +constitute a broad girdle of almost solid German population.[372] In the +Austrian provinces of Moravia and Silesia, which form the southeastward +continuation of this Slav-German boundary zone, 60 per cent. of the +population are Czechs, 33 per cent. are German, and 7 per cent., found +in the eastern part of Silesia, are Poles.[373] + +An ethnic map of the western Muscovite Empire in Europe shows a marked +infiltration into White and Little Russia of West Slavs from Poland, +and in the province of Bessarabia alternate areas of Russians and +Roumanians. The latter in places form an unbroken ethnic expansion +from the home kingdom west of the Pruth, extending in solid bands as +far as the Dniester, and throwing out ethnic islands between this +stream and the Bug. + +[Illustration: ETHNOGRAPHICAL MAP OF RUSSIA. +MONGOLOID: Kalmucks, Kirghis, Nogai, Tartars, Bashkirs, Voguls, +Ostiaks, Samoyedes. +ZIRIAN: Mingled Mongoloid and Finnish.] + +[Sidenote: Assimilation of culture in boundary zones.] + +In the northern provinces of Russia, in the broad zone shared by the +aboriginal Finns and the later-coming Slavs, Wallace found villages in +every stage of Russification. "In one everything seemed thoroughly +Finnish; the inhabitants had a reddish-olive skin, very high cheek +bones, obliquely set eyes, and a peculiar costume; none of the women and +very few of the men could understand Russian and any Russian who visited +the place was regarded as a foreigner. In the second, there were already +some Russian inhabitants; the others had lost something of their purely +Finnish type, many of the men had discarded the old costume and spoke +Russian fluently, and a Russian visitor was no longer shunned. In a +third, the Finnish type was still further weakened; all the men spoke +Russian, and nearly all the women understood it; the old male costume +had entirely disappeared and the old female was rapidly following it; +and intermarriage with the Russian population was no longer rare. In a +fourth, intermarriage had almost completely done its work, and the old +Finnish element could be detected merely in certain peculiarities of +physiognomy and accent." This amalgamation extends to their +religions--prayers wholly pagan devoutly uttered under the shadow of a +strange cross, next the Finnish god Yumak sharing honors equally with +the Virgin, finally a Christianity pure in doctrine and outward forms +except for the survival of old pagan ceremonies in connection with the +dead.[374] + +At the confluence of the Volga and Kama rivers, this boundary zone of +Russians and Finns meets the borderland of the Asiatic Mongols; and here +is found an intermingling of races, languages, religions, and customs +scarcely to be equalled elsewhere. Finns are infused with Tartar as well +as Russian blood, and Russians show Tartar as well as Finnish traits. +The Bashkirs, who constitute an ethnic peninsula running from the solid +Mongolian mass of Asia, show every type of the mongrel.[375] [See map +page 225.] + +[Sidenote: Boundary zones of assimilation in Asia.] + +If we turn to Asia and examine the western race boundary of the +expanding Chinese, we find that a wide belt of mingled ethnic elements, +hybrid languages, and antagonistic civilizations marks the transition +from Chinese to Mongolian and Tibetan areas. The eastern and southern +frontiers of Mongolia, formerly marked by the Great Wall, are now +difficult to define, owing to the steady encroachment of the +agricultural Chinese on the fertile edges of the plateau, where they +have converted the best-watered pastures of the Mongols into millet +fields and vegetable gardens, leaving for the nomad's herds the more +sterile patches between.[376] Every line of least resistance--climatic, +industrial, commercial--sees the Chinese widening this transitional +zone. He sprinkles his crops over the "Land of Grass," invades the trade +of the caravan towns, sets up his fishing station on the great northern +bend of the Hoangho in the Ordos country, three hundred miles beyond the +Wall, to exploit the fishing neglected by the Mongols.[377] The +well-watered regions of the Nan-Shan ranges has enabled him to drive a +long, narrow ethnic wedge, represented by the westward projection of +Kansu Province between Mongolia and Tibet, into the heart of the Central +Plateau. [See map page 103.] Here the nomad Si Fan tribes dwell side by +side with Chinese farmers,[378] who themselves show a strong infusion of +the Mongolian and Tibetan blood to the north and south, and whose +language is a medley of all three tongues.[379] + +[Sidenote: Boundary zones of mountain Tibet.] + +In easternmost Tibet, in the elevated province of Minjak (2,600 meters +or 8,500 feet), M. Hue found in 1846 a great number of Chinese from the +neighboring Sze-Chuan and Yun-nan districts keeping shops and following +the primary trades and agriculture. The language of the Tibetan natives +showed the effect of foreign intercourse; it was not the pure speech of +Lhassa, but was closely assimilated to the idiom of the neighboring Si +Fan speech of Sze-Chuan and contained many Chinese expressions. He found +also a modification of manners, customs, and costumes in this peripheral +Tibet; the natives showed more of the polish, cunning, and covetousness +of the Chinese, less of the rudeness, frankness, and strong religious +feeling characteristic of the western plateau man.[380] Just across the +political boundary in Chinese territory, the border zone of assimilation +shows predominance of the Chinese element with a strong Tibetan +admixture both in race and civilization.[381] Here Tibetan traders with +their yak caravans are met on the roads or encamped in their tents by +the hundred about the frontier towns, whither they have brought the +wool, sheep, horses, hides and medicinal roots of the rough highland +across that "wild borderland which is neither Chinese nor Tibetan." The +Chinese population consists of hardy mountaineers, who eat millet and +maize instead of rice. The prevailing architecture is Tibetan and the +priests on the highways are the red and yellow lamas from the Buddhist +monasteries of the plateau. "The Country is a cross between China and +Tibet."[382] + +Even the high wall of the Himalayas does not suffice to prevent similar +exchanges of ethnic elements and culture between southern Tibet and +northern India. Lhassa and Giamda harbor many emigrants from the +neighboring Himalayan state of Bhutan, allow them to monopolize the +metal industry, in which they excel, and to practise undisturbed their +Indian form of Buddhism.[383] The southern side of this zone of +transition is occupied by a Tibetan stock of people inhabiting the +Himalayan frontiers of India and practising the Hindu religion.[384] In +the hill country of northern Bengal natives are to be seen with the +Chinese queue hanging below a Hindu turban, or wearing the Hindu caste +mark on their broad Mongolian faces. With these are mingled genuine +Tibetans who have come across the border to work in the tea plantations +of this region.[385] [See map page 102.] + +[Sidenote: Relation of ethnic and cultural assimilation.] + +The assimilation of culture within a boundary zone is in some respects +the result of race amalgamation, as, for instance, in costume, religion, +manners and language; but in economic points it is often the result of +identical geographic influences to which both races are alike subjected. +For example, scarcity of food on the arid plateau of Central Asia makes +the Chinese of western Kansu eat butter and curds as freely as do the +pastoral Mongols, though such a diet is obnoxious to the purely +agricultural Chinese of the lowlands.[386] The English pioneer in the +Trans-Allegheny wilderness shared with the Indians an environment of +trackless forests and savage neighbors; he was forced to discard for a +time many essentials of civilization, both material and moral. Despite a +minimum of race intermixture, the men of the Cumberland and Kentucky +settlements became assimilated to the life of the red man; they borrowed +his scalping knife and tomahawk, adopted his method of ambush and +extermination in war; like him they lived in great part by the chase, +dressed in furs and buckskin, and wore the noiseless moccasin. Here the +mere fact of geographical location on a remote frontier, and of almost +complete isolation from the centers of English life on the Atlantic +slope, and the further fact of persistent contact with a lower status of +civilization, resulted in a temporary return to primitive methods of +existence, till the settlements secured an increase of population +adequate for higher industrial development and for defence. + +A race boundary involves almost inevitably a cultural boundary, often, +too, a linguistic and religionary, occasionally a political boundary. +The last three are subject to wide fluctuation, frequently overstepping +all barriers of race and contrasted civilizations. Though one often +accompanies another, it is necessary to distinguish the different kinds +of boundaries and to estimate their relative importance in the history +of a people or state. We may lay down the rule that the greater, more +permanent, and deep-seated the contrasts on the two sides of a border, +the greater is its significance; and that, on this basis, boundaries +rank in importance, with few exceptions, in the following order: racial, +cultural, linguistic, and political. The less marked the contrasts, in +general, the more rapid and complete the process of assimilation in the +belt of borderland. + +[Sidenote: The boundary zone in political expansion.] + +The significance of the border zone of assimilation for political +expansion lies in the fact that it prepares the way for the advance of +the state boundary from either side; in it the sharp edge of racial and +cultural antagonism is removed, or for this antagonism a new affinity +may be substituted. The zone of American settlement, industry, and +commerce which in 1836 projected beyond the political boundary of the +Sabine River over the eastern part of Mexican Texas facilitated the +later incorporation of the State into the Union, just as a few years +earlier the Baton Rouge District of Spanish West Florida had gravitated +to the United States by reason of the predominant American element +there, and thus extended the boundary of Louisiana to the Pearl River. +When the political boundary of Siberia was fixed at the Amur River, the +Muscovite government began extending the border zone of assimilation far +to the south of that stream by the systematic Russification of +Manchuria, with a view to its ultimate annexation. Schleswig-Holstein +and Alsace-Lorraine, by reason of their large German population, have +been readily incorporated into the German Empire. Only in Lorraine has a +considerable French element retarded the process. The considerable +sprinkling of Germans over the Baltic provinces of Russia and Poland +west of the Vistula, and a certain Teutonic stamp of civilization which +these districts have received, would greatly facilitate the eastward +extension of the German Empire; while their common religions, both +Protestant and Roman Catholic, would help obliterate the old political +fissure. Thus the borderland of a country, so markedly differentiated +from its interior, performs a certain historical function, and becomes, +as it were, an organ of the living, growing race or state. + +[Sidenote: Tendency toward defection along political frontiers.] + +Location on a frontier involves remoteness from the center of national, +cultural, and political activities; these reach their greatest intensity +in the core of the nation and exercise only an attenuated influence on +the far-away borders, unless excellent means of communication keep up a +circulation of men, commodities, and ideas between center and periphery. +For the frontier, therefore, the centripetal force is weakened; the +centrifugal is strengthened often by the attraction of some neighboring +state or tribe, which has established bonds of marriage, trade, and +friendly intercourse with the outlying community. Moreover, the mere +infusion of foreign blood, customs, and ideas, especially a foreign +religion, which is characteristic of a border zone, invades the national +solidarity. Hence we find that a tendency to political defection +constantly manifests itself along the periphery. A long reach weakens +the arm of authority, especially where serious geographical barriers +intervene; hence border uprisings are usually successful, at least for a +time. When accomplished, they involve that shrinkage of the frontiers +which we have found to be the unmistakable symptom of national decline. + +This defection shows itself most promptly in conquered border tribes of +different blood, who lack the bond of ethnic affinity, and whose +remoteness emboldens them to throw off the political yoke. The decay of +the Roman Empire, after its last display of energy under Trajan, was +registered in the revolt of its peripheral districts beyond the +Euphrates, Danube, and Rhine, as also in the rapid Teutonization of +eastern Gaul, which here prepared the way for the assertion of +independence. The border satraps of the ancient Persian Empire were +constantly revolting, as the history of Asia Minor shows. Aragon, Old +Castile, and Portugal were the first kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula +to throw off Saracen dominion. Mountain ranges and weary stretches of +desert roads enabled the rebellions in Chinese Turkestan and the border +districts of Sungaria in 1863 to be maintained for several years.[387] + +[Sidenote: Centrifugal forces on the frontier.] + +A feeble grasp upon remote peripheral possessions is often further +weakened by the resistance of an immigrant population from beyond the +boundary, which brings with it new ideas of government. This was the +geographical history of the Texan revolt. A location on the far northern +outskirts of Mexican territory, some twelve hundred miles from the +capital, rendered impossible intelligent government control, the +enforcement of the laws, and prompt defence against the Indians. +Remoteness weakened the political cohesion. More than this, the American +ethnic boundary lapped far over eastern Texas, forming that border zone +of two-fold race which we have come to know. This alien stock, +antagonistic to the national ideals emanating from the City of Mexico, +dominant over the native population by reason of its intelligence, +energy, and wealth, ruptured the feeble political bond and asserted the +independence of Texas. Quite similar was the history of the "Independent +State of Acre," which in 1899 grew up just within the Bolivian frontier +under the leadership of Brazilian caoutchouc gatherers, resisted the +collection of taxes by the Bolivian government, and four years later +secured annexation to Brazil.[388] + +Even when no alien elements are present to weaken the race bond, if +natural barriers intervene to obstruct and retard communications between +center and periphery, the frontier community is likely to develop the +spirit of defection, especially if its local geographic, and hence +social, conditions are markedly different from those of the governing +center. This is the explanation of that demand for independent statehood +which was rife in our Trans-Allegheny settlements from 1785 to 1795, and +of that separatist movement which advocated political alliance with +either the British colonies to the north or the Spanish to the west, +because these were nearer and offered easier access to the sea. A +frontier location and an intervening mountain barrier were important +factors in the Whisky Rebellion in western Pennsylvania, just as similar +conditions later suggested the secession of the Pacific States from the +Union. Disaffection from the government was manifested by the Trek Boers +of early South Africa, "especially by those who dwelt in the outlying +districts where the Government had exerted and could exert little +control." In 1795 the people of Graaf-Reinet, a frontier settlement of +that time, revolted against the Dutch South African Company and set up a +miniature republic.[389] + +[Sidenote: The spirit of colonial frontiers.] + +The spirit of the colonial frontier is the spirit of freedom, the spirit +of men who have traveled far, who are surcharged with energy, enterprise +and self-reliance, often with impatience of restraint. A severe process +of elimination culls out for the frontier a population strikingly +differentiated from the citizens of the old inhabited centers. Then +remoteness of location and abundance of opportunity proceed to emphasize +the qualities which have squeezed through the sieve of natural and +social selection. This is the type bred upon our own frontier, which, +West beyond West, has crossed the continent from the backwoods of the +Allegheny Mountains to the Pacific. The Siberian frontier develops much +the same type on the eastern edge of the Russian Empire. Here army +officers find a compensation for their rough surrounding in the escape +from the excessive bureaucracy of the capitals. Here is to be noted the +independence, self-reliance and self-respect characteristic of other +colonial frontiers. The Russian of the Asiatic border is proud to call +himself a Siberian: he is already differentiated in his own +consciousness. The force of Moscow tradition and discipline is faint +when it reaches him, it has traveled so far. Even the elaborate +observances of the orthodox Greek Church tend to become simplified on +the frontier. The question naturally arises whether in the Russian +Empire, as in the United States, the political periphery will in time, +react upon the center, infuse it with the spirit of progress and +youth.[390] + +[Sidenote: Free border states as political survivals.] + +When to a border situation is added a geographic location affording +conditions of long-established isolation, this tendency to maintain +political autonomy becomes very pronounced. This is the explanation of +so many frontier mountain states that have retained complete or partial +independence, such as Nepal, Bhutan, the Asturias, which successfully +withstood Saracen attack, and Montenegro, which has repelled alike +Venetian, Servian, and Turkish dominion. Europe especially has numerous +examples of these unabsorbed border states, whose independence +represents the equilibrium of the conflicting political attractions +about them. But all these smallest fragments of political territory have +either some commercial or semi-political union with one or another of +their neighbors. The little independent principality of Liechtenstein, +wedged in between Switzerland and the Tyrol, is included in the customs +union of Austro-Hungary. The small, independent duchy of Luxemburg, +which has been attached in turn to all the great states which have grown +up along its borders, is included in the _Zollverein_ of Germany. The +republic of Andorra, far up in a lofty valley of the Pyrenees, which has +maintained its freedom for a thousand years, acknowledges certain rights +of suzerainty exercised by France and the Spanish bishopric of +Urgel.[391] + +[Sidenote: Guardians of the marches.] + +Oftentimes a state gains by recognizing this freedom-loving spirit of +the frontier, and by turning it to account for national defence along an +exposed boundary. In consequence of the long wars between Scotland and +England, to the Scotch barons having estates near the Border were given +the Wardenships of the Marches, offices of great power and dignity; and +their clans, accustomed only to the imperfect military organization +demanded by the irregular but persistent hostilities of the time and +place, developed a lawless spirit. Prohibited from agriculture by their +exposed location, they left their fields waste, and lived by pillage and +cattle-lifting from their English and even their Scotch neighbors. The +valor of these southern clans, these "reivers of the Border," was the +bulwark of Scotland against the English, but their mutinous spirit +resisted the authority of the king and led them often to erect +semi-independent principalities.[392] + +[Sidenote: Border nomads as frontier police.] + +China has fringed her western boundaries with quasi-independent tribes +whose autonomy is assured and whose love of freedom is a guarantee of +guerilla warfare against any invader from Central Asia. The Mantze +tribes in the mountain borders of Sze-Chuan province have their own +rulers and customs, and only pay tribute to China.[393] The highlands of +Kansu are sprinkled with such independent tribes. Sometimes a definite +bargain is entered into--a self-governing military organization and a +yearly sum of money in return for defence of the frontier. The Mongol +tribes of the Charkar country or "Borderland" just outside the Great +Wall northwest of Pekin constitute a paid army of the Emperor to guard +the frontier against the Khalkhas of northern Mongolia, the tribe of +Genghis Khan.[394] Similarly, semi-independent military communities for +centuries made a continuous line of barriers against the raids of the +steppe nomads along the southern and southeastern frontiers of Russia, +from the Dnieper to the Ural rivers. There were the "Free Cossacks," +located on the debatable ground between the fortified frontier of the +agricultural steppe and marauding Crimean Tartars. Nominally subjects of +the Czar, they obeyed him when it suited them, and on provocation rose +in open revolt. The Cossacks of the Dnieper, who to the middle of the +seventeenth century formed Poland's border defence against Tartar +invasion, were jealous of any interference with their freedom. They lent +their services on occasions to the Sultan of Turkey, and even to the +Crimean Khan; and finally, in 1681, attached themselves and their +territory to Russia.[395] Here speaks that spirit of defection which is +the natural product of the remoteness and independence of frontier life. +The Russians also attached to themselves the Kalmucks located between +the lower Volga and Don, and used them as a frontier defence against +their Tartar and Kirghis neighbors.[396] In this case, as in that of the +Cossacks and the Charkars of eastern Mongolia, we have a large body of +men living in the same arid grassland, leading the same pastoral life, +and carrying on the same kind of warfare as the nomadic marauders whose +pillaging, cattle-lifting raids they aim to suppress. The imperial +orders to the Charkars limit them strictly to the life of herdmen, with +the purpose of maintaining their mobility and military efficiency. So in +olden times, for the Don Cossacks agriculture was prohibited on pain of +death, lest they should lose their taste for the live-stock booty of a +punitive raid. A still earlier instance of this utilization of border +nomads is found in the first century after Christ, when the Romans made +the Arabian tribe of Beni Jafre, dwelling on the frontier of Syria, the +warders of the eastern marches of the Empire.[397] + +[Sidenote: Lawless citizens deported to frontiers.] + +The advancing frontier of an expanding people often carries them into a +sparsely settled country where the unruly members of society can with +advantage be utilized as colonists. After centralized and civilized +Russia began to encroach with the plow upon the pastures of the steppe +Cossacks, and finally suppressed these military republics, the more +turbulent and obstinate remnants of them she colonized along the Kuban +and Terek rivers, to serve as bulwarks against the incursions of the +Caucasus tribes and as the vanguard of the advance southward.[398] + +This is one principle underlying the transportation of criminals to the +frontier. They serve to hold the new country. There these waste elements +of civilization are converted into a useful by-product. They may be only +political radicals or religious dissenters: if so, so much the better +colonial material. The Russian government formerly transported the +rebellious sect of the Molokans or Unitarians to the outskirts of the +Empire, where the danger of contagion was reduced. Hence they are to be +found to-day scattered in the Volga province of Samara, on the border of +the Kirghis steppe, in the Crimea, the Caucasus, and Siberia, still +faithful and still persecuted.[399] Since 1709 the Russian advance into +Siberia has planted its milestones in settlements formed of prisoners of +war, political exiles, and worse offenders.[400] Penal colonists located +on the shores of Kamchatka helped build and man the crazy boats which +set out for Alaska at the end of the eighteenth century. China settles +its thieves and cheats among the villages of its own border provinces of +Shensi[401] and Kansu; but its worst criminals it transports far away to +the Hi country on the western frontier of the Empire, where they have +doubtless contributed to the spirit of revolt that has there manifested +itself.[402] + +[Sidenote: Drift of lawless elements to the frontiers.] + +The abundance of opportunity and lack of competition in a new frontier +community, its remoteness from the center of authority, and its +imperfect civil government serve to attract thither the vicious, as well +as the sturdy and enterprising. The society of the early Trans-Allegheny +frontier included both elements. The lawless who drifted to the border +formed gangs of horse thieves, highwaymen, and murderers, who called +forth from the others the summary methods of lynch law.[403] North +Carolina, which in its early history formed the southern frontier of +Virginia, swarmed with ruffians who had fled thither to escape +imprisonment or hanging, and whose general attitude was to resist all +regular authority and especially to pay no taxes.[404] Similarly, that +wide belt of mountain forest which forms the waste boundary between +Korea and Manchuria is the resort of bandits, who have harried both +sides of the border ever since this neutral district was established in +the thirteenth century.[405] The frontier communities of the Russian +Cossacks in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were regular +asylums for runaway serfs and peasants who were fleeing from taxation; +their hetmans were repeatedly fugitive criminals. The eastern border of +Russia formed by the Volga basin in 1775 was described as "an asylum for +malcontents and vagabonds of all kinds, ruined nobles, disfrocked monks, +military deserters, fugitive serfs, highwaymen, and Volga +pirates"--disorderly elements which contributed greatly to the +insurrection led by the Ural Cossacks in that year.[406] "The Debatable +Land," a tract between the Esk and Sark rivers, formerly claimed by both +England and Scotland, was long the haunt of thieves, outlaws and +vagabonds, as indeed was the whole Border, subject as it was to the +regular jurisdiction of neither side.[407] + +[Sidenote: Asylums beyond the border.] + +Just beyond the political boundary, where police authority comes to an +end and where pursuit is cut short or retarded, the fleeing criminal +finds his natural asylum. Hence all border districts tend to harbor +undesirable refugees from the other side. Deserters and outlaws from +China proper sprinkle the eastern districts of Mongolia.[408] Marauding +bands of Apaches and Sioux, after successful depredations on American +ranches, for years fled across the line into Mexico and Canada before +the hammering hoof-beats of Texas Ranger and United States cavalry, +until a treaty with Mexico in 1882, authorizing such armed pursuit to +cross the boundary, cut off at least one asylum.[409] Our country +exchanges other undesirable citizens with its northern and southern +neighbors in cases where no extradition treaty provides for their +return; and the borders of the individual states are crossed and +recrossed by shifty gentlemen seeking to dodge the arm of the law. The +fact that so many State boundaries fall in the Southern Appalachians, +where illicit distilling and feud murders provide most of the cases on +the docket, has materially retarded the suppression of these crimes by +increasing the difficulty both of apprehending the offender and of +subpoenaing the reluctant witness. + +[Sidenote: Border refugees and ethnic mingling.] + +Dissatisfied, oppressed, or persecuted members of a political community +are prone to seek an asylum across the nearest border, where happier or +freer conditions of life are promised. There they contribute to that +mixture of race which characterizes every boundary zone, though as an +embittered people they may also help to emphasize any existing political +or religious antagonism. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 +was followed by an exodus of Huguenots from France to the Protestant +states of Switzerland, the Palatinate of the Rhine, and Holland, as also +across the Channel into southern England; just as in recent years the +Slav borderland of eastern Germany has received a large immigration of +Polish Jews from Russia. When the Polish king in 1571 executed the +leader of the Dnieper Cossacks, thousands of these bold borderers left +their country and joined the community of the Don; and in 1722 after the +Dnieper community had been crushed by Peter the Great, a similar exodus +took place across the southern boundary into the Crimea, whereby the +Tartar horde was strengthened, just as a few years before, during an +unsuccessful revolt of the Don Cossacks, some two thousand of the +malcontents crossed the southern frontier to the Kuban River in +Circassia.[410] The establishment of American independence in 1783 saw an +exodus of loyalists from the United States into the contiguous districts +of Ontario, New Brunswick, and Spanish Florida, Five years later +discontent with the Federal Government for its dilatory opposition to +the occlusion of the Mississippi and the lure of commercial betterment +sent many citizens of the early Trans-Allegheny commonwealths to the +Spanish side of the Mississippi,[411] while the Natchez District on the +east bank of the river contained a sprinkling of French who had become +dissatisfied with Spanish rule in Louisiana and changed their domicile. + +These are some of the movements of individuals and groups which +contribute to the blending of races along every frontier, and make of +the boundary a variable zone, as opposed to the rigid artificial line in +terms of which we speak. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER VII + +[326] A.W. Greely, Report of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, Vol. I, +pp. 28-33, 236. Misc. Doc. No. 393. Washington, 1888. + +[327] A.P. Engelhardt, A Russian Province of the North, pp. 123-130. +Translated from the Russian. London, 1899. + +[328] Nordenskiold, Voyage of the Vega, pp. 60-62. New York, 1882. + +[329] _Ibid._, pp. 146, 161. + +[330] Col. F.E. Younghusband, The Heart of a Continent, pp. 194-199. +London, 1904. + +[331] A.R. Wallace, Geographical Distribution of Animals, Vol. I, pp. +387-389, 426-431, 436-438. London, 1876. + +[332] _Ibid._, 409, 424. + +[333] A. Heilprin, Geographical Distribution of Animals, pp. 105-108. +London, 1894. + +[334] A.R. Wallace, Geographical Distribution of Animals, Vol. I, pp. +313, 321-322. London, 1876. + +[335] Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, Vol. I, +ethnographical map. New York, 1893. + +[336] Eleventh Census of the United States, _Population_, Part I., maps +on pp. xviii-xxiii. + +[337] L. March Phillipps, In the Desert, pp. 64-68, 77. London, 1905. + +[338] Fully treated in E.C. Semple, American History and Its Geographic +Conditions, pp. 22-31. Boston, 1903. + +[339] Sir S.W. Baker, The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, pp. 88, +128-129, 135. Hartford, 1868. + +[340] Norway, Official Publication for the Paris Exhibition, pp. 3-4 and +map. Christiania, 1900. + +[341] J. Partsch, Central Europe, p. 297. London, 1903. + +[342] Cæsar, _Bello Gallico_, Book IV, chap. 3 and Book VI, chap. 23. + +[343] _Ibid._, Book VI, chap. 10. + +[344] T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, Vol. II, p. 56, Note I. +Oxford, 1892. + +[345] Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. IV, p. 510. New York, +1902-1906. + +[346] Grote, History of Greece, Vol. IX, chap. 70, pp. 99, 115. New +York, 1859. + +[347] Dr. Wilhelm Junker, Travels in Africa, pp. 18, 45, 79, 87, 115, +117, 138, 191, 192, 200, 308, 312, 325, 332. Translated from the German. +London, 1892. + +[348] H. Barth, Human Society in North Central Africa, _Journal Royal +Geographical Society_, Vol. XXX, pp. 123-124. London, 1860. + +[349] Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, Vol. II, pp. 163-164. +London, 1907. + +[350] John H. Speke, Discovery of the Sources of the Nile, pp. 74, 89, +91, 94, 95, 173, 176-177, 197. New York, 1868. + +[351] Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, Vol. I, pp. 50, 70, +135. New York, 1895. + +[352] C. C. Royce, The Cherokee Nations of Indians, p. 140. _Fifth +Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_. Washington, 1884. + +[353] Albert J. Pickett, History of Alabama, pp. 79-89, 113-115, 1851. +Reprint, Birmingham, 1900. James Adair, History of the American Indians, +p. 257. London, 1775. + +[354] _Ibid._, pp. 252-3, 282. + +[355] Albert J. Pickett, History of Alabama, pp. 133-135. 1851. Reprint, +Birmingham, 1900. + +[356] Archibald Little, The Far East, p. 249. Oxford, 1905. + +[357] M. Huc, Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844-1846, Vol. I, +p. 74. Translated from the French. Reprint, Chicago, 1898. + +[358] Nachtigal, _Sahara und Sudan_, Vol. I, pp. 102, 448; Vol. III, pp. +203-205, 314. Leipzig, 1889. Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, +Vol. II, p. 170. London, 1907. + +[359] Albert J. Pickett, History of Alabama, pp. 118-119. 1851. Reprint, +Birmingham, 1900. + +[360] Norway, Official Publication for the Paris Exhibition, pp. 5, +83-84. Christiania, 1900. + +[361] Albert J. Pickett, History of Alabama, pp. 416, 417, 461, 467. +1857. Reprint, Birmingham, 1900. + +[362] C.E. Akers, History of South America, 1854-1904, p. 435. New +York, 1904. + +[363] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 883. New York, 1902. + +[364] Matias Romero, Mexico and the United States, pp. 433-441. New +York, 1898. + +[365] E. Hertslet, The Map of Europe by Treaty, 1814-1875, Vol. I, pp. +422, 425, 426; Vol. II, p. 1430. + +[366] Eleventh Census of the United States, _Population_, Part I., map +No. 10 and p. cxliii. + +[367] _Ibid._ Based on comparison of Tables 15 and 33 for the States +mentioned. + +[368] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 250-253. New York, 1899. + +[369] W. Deecke, Italy, pp. 325, 347, 349. Translated from the German. +London, 1904. + +[370] Sydow-Wagner, _Methodischer Schul-Atlas, Völker und +Sprachenkarten_, No. 13. Gotha, 1905. W. Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. +282-284. New York, 1899. + +[371] _Ibid._, pp. 255-257. W. Deecke, Italy, p. 357. London, 1904. + +[372] Sydow-Wagner, _Methodischer Schul-Atlas, Völker und +Sprachenkarten_ No, 13. Gotha, 1905. + +[373] Hugh R. Mill, International Geography, p. 309. New York, 1902. + +[374] D.M. Wallace, Russia, pp. 151-155. New York, 1904. + +[375] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, p. 362. New York, 1899. + +[376] Archibald Little, The Far East. Map p. 8 and pp. 171-172. Oxford, +1905. M. Huc, Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844-1846. Vol. I, +pp. 2-4, 21, 197-201, 284. Reprint, Chicago, 1898. + +[377] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 166-170. + +[378] _Ibid._, Vol II, p. 23. + +[379] _Ibid._, Vol. I, 312-313. + +[380] _Ibid._, Vol. II, pp. 319-322, 327. + +[381] M. Huc, Journey through the Chinese Empire, Vol. I, p. 36. New +York, 1871. + +[382] Isabella Bird Bishop, The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, Vol. II, pp. +70-71, 88, 91, 92, 104-109, 113, 117, 133, 134, 155, 194, 195. London, +1900. + +[383] M. Huc, Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844-1846, Vol. II, +pp. 155-156, 264. Reprint, Chicago, 1898. + +[384] C.A. Sherring, Western Tibet and the British Borderland, pp. 60, +65-73, 205, 347-358. London, 1906. Statistical Atlas of India, pp. +61-62, maps. Calcutta, 1895. _Imperial Gazetteer of India_, Vol. I, p. +295-296. Oxford, 1907. + +[385] Eliza E. Scidmore, Winter India, pp. 106-108. New York, 1903. + +[386] M. Huc, Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China, 1844-1846, Vol. I, +pp. 312-313. Reprint, Chicago, 1898. + +[387] Alexis Krausse, Russia in Asia, pp. 174-175. New York, 1899. + +[388] Charles E. Akers, History of South America, 1854-1904, p. 562. New +York, 1904. + +[389] James Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, pp. 108-109. New York, +1897. + +[390] O.P. Crosby, Tibet and Turkestan, pp. 15-20. + +[391] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 378. New York, 1902. H. +Spencer, A Visit to Andorra, _Fortnightly Review_, Vol. 67, pp. 44-60. +1897. + +[392] Wm. Robertson, History of Scotland, pp. 19-20. New York, 1831. The +Scotch Borderers, _Littell's Living Age_, Vol 40, p. 180. + +[393] Isabella Bird Bishop, The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, Vol. II, pp. +209-210. London, 1900. + +[394] M. Huc, Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844-1846, Vol. I, +pp. 41, 42, 97. Reprint, Chicago, 1898. + +[395] D.M. Wallace, Russia, pp. 352-356. New York, 1904. Article on +Cossacks in Encyclopedia Britannica. + +[396] Pallas, Travels in Southern Russia, Vol. I, pp. 126-129; 442; Vol. +II, pp. 330-331. London, 1812. + +[397] G. Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 9. New +York, 1897. + +[398] D.M. Wallace, Russia, p. 358. New York, 1904. Walter K. Kelly, +History of Russia, Vol. II, pp. 394-395. London, 1881. + +[399] D.M. Wallace, Russia, p. 298. New York, 1904. + +[400] Alexis Krausse, Russia in Asia, pp. 43, 53. New York, 1899. + +[401] Francis H. Nichol, Through Hidden Shensi, pp. 139-140. New York, +1902. + +[402] M. Hue, Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844-1846, Vol. I, +p. 23. Reprint, Chicago, 1898. + +[403] Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, Vol. I, pp. 130-132. +New York, 1895. + +[404] John Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, Vol. II, pp. 311, +315-321. Boston, 1897. + +[405] Archibald Little, The Far East, p. 249. Oxford, 1905. + +[406] Alfred Rambaud, History of Russia, Vol. II, pp. 45, 199-200. +Boston, 1886. + +[407] Malcolm Lang, History of Scotland, Vol. I, pp. 42-43. London, +1800. The Scotch Borderland, _Gentleman's Magazine_, Vol. CCLX, p. 191. +1886. + +[408] Friedrich Ratel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, p. 175, London, +1896. + +[409] A.B. Hart, Foundations of American Foreign Policy, pp. 81-82. New +York, 1901. + +[410] Alfred Rambaud, History of Russia, Vol. II, pp. 45, 50. Boston, +1886. + +[411] Justin Winsor, The Westward Movement, p. 366. Boston, 1899. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +COAST PEOPLES + + +[Sidenote: The coast a zone of transition.] + +Of all geographical boundaries, the most important is that between land +and sea. The coast, in its physical nature, is a zone of transition +between these two dominant forms of the earth's surface; it bears the +mark of their contending forces, varying in its width with every +stronger onslaught of the unresting sea, and with every degree of +passive resistance made by granite or sandy shore. So too in an +anthropo-geographical sense, it is a zone of transition. Now the +life-supporting forces of the land are weak in it, and it becomes merely +the rim of the sea; for its inhabitants the sea means food, clothes, +shelter, fuel, commerce, highway, and opportunity. Now the coast is +dominated by the exuberant forces of a productive soil, so that the +ocean beyond is only a turbulent waste and a long-drawn barrier: the +coast is the hem of the land. Neither influence can wholly exclude the +other in this amphibian belt, for the coast remains the intermediary +between the habitable expanse of the land and the international highway +of the sea. The break of the waves and the dash of the spray draw the +line beyond which human dwellings cannot spread; for these the shore is +the outermost limit, as for ages also in the long infancy of the races, +before the invention of boat and sail, it drew the absolute boundary to +human expansion. In historical order, its first effect has been that of +a barrier, and for the majority of peoples this it has remained; but +with the development of navigation and the spread of human activities +from the land over sea to other countries, it became the gateway both of +land and sea--at once the outlet for exploration, colonization, and +trade, and the open door through which a continent or island receives +contributions of men or races or ideas from transoceanic shores. Barrier +and threshold: these are the _rôles_ which coasts have always played in +history. To-day we see them side by side. But in spite of the immense +proportions assumed by transmarine intercourse, the fact remains that +the greater part of the coasts of the earth are for their inhabitants +only a barrier and not an outlet, or at best only a base for timorous +ventures seaward that rarely lose sight of the shore. + +[Illustration: GERMAN NORTH SEA COAST.] + +[Sidenote: Width of coastal zones.] + +As intermediary belt between land and sea, the coast becomes a peculiar +habitat which leaves its mark upon its people. We speak of coast strips, +coastal plains, "tidewater country," coast cities; of coast tribes, +coast peoples, maritime colonies; and each word brings up a picture of a +land or race or settlement permeated by the influences of the sea. The +old term of "coastline" has no application to such an intermediary belt, +for it is a zone of measurable width; and this width varies with the +relief of the land, the articulation of the coast according as it is +uniform or complex, with the successive stages of civilization and the +development of navigation among the people who inhabit it. + +Along highly articulated coasts, showing the interpenetration of sea and +land in a broad band of capes and islands separated by tidal channels +and inlets, or on shores deeply incised by river estuaries, or on low +shelving beaches which screen brackish lagoons and salt marshes behind +sand reefs and dune ramparts, and which thus form an indeterminate +boundary of alternate land and water, the zone character of the coast in +a physical sense becomes conspicuous. In an anthropological sense the +zone character is clearly indicated by the different uses of its inner +and outer edge made by man in different localities and in different +periods of history. + +[Sidenote: The inner edge.] + +The old German maritime cities of the North Sea and the Baltic were +located on rivers from 6 to 60 miles from the open sea, always on the +inner edge of the coastal belt. Though primarily trading towns, linked +together once in the sovereign confederacy of the Hanseatic League, they +fixed their sites on the last spurs of firm ground running out into the +soft, yielding alluvium, which was constantly exposed to inundation. +Land high enough to be above the ever threatening flood of river and +storm-driven tide on this flat coast, and solid enough to be built upon, +could not be found immediately on the sea. The slight elevations of +sandy "geest" or detrital spurs were limited in area and in time +outgrown. Hence the older part of all these river towns, from Bremen to +Königsberg, rests upon hills, while in every case the newer and lower +part is built on piles or artificially raised ground on the alluvium.[412] +So Utrecht, the Ultrajectum of the Romans, selected for its site a long +raised spur running out from the solid ground of older and higher land +into the water-soaked alluvium of the Netherlands. It was the most +important town of all this region before the arts of civilization began +the conquest by dike and ditch of the amphibian coastal belt which now +comprises one-fourth of the area and holds one-half the population of +the Netherlands.[413] So ancient London marked the solid ground at the +inner edge of the tidal flats and desolate marshes which lined the +Thames estuary, as the Roman Camulodunum and its successor Colchester on +its steep rise or _dun_ overlooked the marshes of the Stour inlet.[414] +Farther north about the Wash, which in Roman days extended far inland +over an area of fens and tidal channels, Cambridge on the River Cam, +Huntingdon and Stamford on the Nen, and Lincoln on the Witham--all river +seaports--defined the firm inner edge of this wide low coast. In the +same way the landward rim of the tidal waters and salt marshes of the +Humber inlet was described by a semicircle of British and Roman +towns--Doncaster, Castleford, Todcaster, and York.[415] On the flat or +rolling West African coastland, which lines the long shores of the Gulf +of Guinea with a band 30 to 100 miles wide, the sandy, swampy tracts +immediately on the sea are often left uninhabited; native population is +distributed most frequently at the limit of deep water, and here at head +of ship-navigation the trading towns are found.[416] + +[Sidenote: Inner edge as head of sea navigation.] + +While, on low coasts at any rate, the inner edge tends to mark the limit +of settlement advancing from the interior, as the head of sea navigation +on river and inlet it has also been the goal of immigrant settlers from +oversea lands. The history of modern maritime colonization, especially +in America, shows that the aim of regular colonists, as opposed to mere +traders, has been to penetrate as far as possible into the land while +retaining communication with the sea, and thereby with the mother +country. The small boats in use till the introduction of steam +navigation fixed this line far inland and gave the coastal zone a +greater breadth than it has at present, and a more regular contour. In +colonial America this inner edge coincided with the "fall-line" of the +Atlantic rivers, which was indicated by a series of seaport towns; or +with the inland limit of the tides, which on the St. Lawrence fell above +Quebec, and on the Hudson just below Albany. + +[Sidenote: Shifting of the inner edge.] + +With the recent increase in the size of vessels, two contrary effects +are noticed. In the vast majority of cases, the inner edge, as marked by +ports, moves seaward into deeper water, and the zone narrows. The days +when almost every tobacco plantation in tidewater Virginia had its own +wharf are long since past, and the leaf is now exported by way of +Norfolk and Baltimore. Seville has lost practically all its sea trade to +Cadiz, Rouen to Havre, and Dordrecht to Rotterdam. In other cases the +zone preserves its original width by the creation of secondary ports on +or near the outer edge, reserved only for the largest vessels, while the +inner harbor, by dredging its channel, improves its communication with +the sea. Thus arises the phenomenon of twin ports like Bremen and +Bremerhaven, Dantzig and Neufahrwasser, Stettin and Swinemünde, Bordeaux +and Pauillac, London and Tilbury. Or the original harbor seeks to +preserve its advantage by canalizing the shallow approach by river, +lagoon, or bay, as St. Petersburg by the Pantiloff canal through the +shallow reaches of Kronstadt Bay; or Königsberg by its ship canal, +carried for 25 miles across the Frisches Haff to the Baltic;[417] or +Nantes by the Loire ship canal, which in 1892 was built to regain for +the old town the West Indian trade recently intercepted by the rising +outer port of St. Nazaire, at the mouth of the Loire estuary.[418] In +northern latitudes, however, the outer ports on enclosed sea basins like +the Baltic become dominant in the winter, when the inner ports are +ice-bound. Otherwise the outer port sinks with every improvement in the +channel between the inner port and the sea. Hamburg has so constantly +deepened the Elbe passage that its outport of Cuxhaven has had little +chance to rise, and serves only as an emergency harbor; while on the +Weser, maritime leadership has oscillated between Bremen and +Bremerhaven.[419] So the whole German coast and the Russian Baltic have +seen a more or less irregular shifting backward and forward of maritime +importance between the inner and the outer edges. + +[Sidenote: Artificial extension of inner edge.] + +The width of the coast zone is not only prevented from contracting by +dredging and canaling, but it is even increased. By deepening the +channel, the chief port of the St. Lawrence River has been removed from +Quebec 180 miles upstream to Montreal, and that of the Clyde from Port +Glasgow 16 miles to Glasgow itself, so that now the largest ocean +steamers come to dock where fifty years ago children waded across the +stream at ebb tide. Such artificial modifications, however, are rare, +for they are made only where peculiarly rich resources or superior lines +of communication with the hinterland justify the expenditures; but they +find their logical conclusion in still farther extensions of sea +navigation into the interior by means of ship canals, where previously +no waterway existed. Instances are found in the Manchester ship canal +and the Welland, which, by means of the St. Lawrence and the Great +Lakes, makes Chicago accessible to ocean vessels. Though man +distinguishes between sea and inland navigation in his definitions, in +his practice he is bound by no formula and recognizes no fundamental +difference where rivers, lakes, and canals are deep enough to admit his +sea-going craft. + +Such deep landward protrusions of the head of marine navigation at +certain favored points, as opposed to its recent coastward trend in most +inlets and rivers, increase the irregularity of the inner edge of the +coast zone by the marked discrepancy between its maximum and minimum +width. They are limited, however, to a few highly civilized countries, +and to a few points in those countries. But their presence testifies to +the fact that the evolution of the coast zone with the development of +civilization shows the persistent importance of this inner edge. + +[Sidenote: Outer edge in original settlement.] + +The outer edge finds its greatest significance, which is for the most +part ephemeral, in the earlier stages of navigation, maritime +colonization, and in some cases of original settlement. But this +importance persists only on steep coasts furnishing little or no level +ground for cultivation and barred from interior hunting or grazing land; +on many coral and volcanic islands of the Pacific Ocean whose outer rim +has the most fertile soil and furnishes the most abundant growth of coco +palms, and whose limited area only half suffices to support the +population; and in polar and sub-polar districts, where harsh climatic +conditions set a low limit to economic development. In all these regions +the sea must provide most of the food of the inhabitants, who can +therefore never lose contact with its waters. In mountainous Tierra del +Fuego, whose impenetrably forested slopes rise directly from the sea, +with only here and there a scanty stretch of stony beach, the natives of +the southern and western coasts keep close to the shore. The straits and +channels yield them all their food, and are the highways for all their +restless, hungry wanderings.[420] The steep slopes and dense forests +preclude travel by land, and force the wretched inhabitants to live as +much in their canoes as in their huts. The Tlingit and Haida Indians of +the mountainous coast of southern Alaska locate their villages on some +smooth sheltered beach, with their houses in a single row facing the +water, and the ever-ready canoe drawn up on shore in front. They select +their sites with a view to food supply, and to protection in case of +attack. On the treeless shores of Kadiak Island and of the long narrow +Alaska Peninsula near by, the Eskimo choose their village location for +an accumulation of driftwood, for proximity to their food supply, and a +landing-place for their kayaks and bidarkas. Hence they prefer a point +of land or gravel spit extending out into the sea, or a sand reef +separating a salt-water lagoon from the open sea. The Aleutian Islanders +regard only accessibility to the shell-fish on the beach and their +pelagic hunting and fishing; and this consideration has influenced the +Eskimo tribes of the wide Kuskokwin estuary to such an extent, that they +place their huts only a few feet above ordinary high tide, where they +are constantly exposed to overflow from the sea.[421] Only among the +great tidal channels of the Yukon delta are they distributed over the +whole wide coastal zone, even to its inner edge. + +The coast Chukches of northeastern Siberia locate their tent villages on +the sand ramparts between the Arctic Ocean and the freshwater lagoons +which line this low tundra shore. Here they are conveniently situated +for fishing and hunting marine animals, while protected against the +summer inundations of the Arctic rivers.[422] The whole western side of +Greenland, from far northern Upernivik south to Cape Farewell, shows +both Eskimo and Danish settlements almost without exception on +projecting points of peninsulas or islands, where the stronger effect of +the warm ocean current, as well as proximity to the food supply, serve +to fix their habitations; although the remains of the old Norse +settlements in general are found in sheltered valleys with summer +vegetation, striking off from the fiords some 20 miles back from the +outer coast.[423] Cæsar found that the ancient Veneti, an immigrant +people of the southern coast of Brittany, built their towns on the +points of capes and promontories, sites which gave them ready contact +with the sea and protection against attack from the land side, because +every rise of the tide submerged the intervening lowlands.[424] Here a +sterile plateau hinterland drove them for part of their subsistence to +the water, and the continuous intertribal warfare of small primitive +states to the sea-girt asylums of the capes. + +[Sidenote: Outer edge in early navigation.] + +In the early history of navigation and exploration, striking features of +this outer coast edge, like headlands and capes, became important sea +marks. The promontory of Mount Athos, rising 6,400 feet above the sea +between the Hellespont and the Thessalian coast, and casting its shadow +as far as the market-place of Lemnos, was a guiding point for mariners +in the whole northern Aegean.[425] For the ancient Greeks Cape Malia was +long the boundary stone to the unknown wastes of the western +Mediterranean, just as later the Pillars of Hercules marked the portals +to the _mare tenebrosum_ of the stormy Atlantic. So the Sacred +Promontory (Cape St. Vincent) of the Iberian Peninsula defined for +Greeks and Romans the southwestern limit of the habitable world.[426] +Centuries later the Portuguese marked their advance down the west coast +of Africa, first by Cape Non, which so long said "No!" to the struggling +mariner, then by Cape Bojador, and finally by Cape Verde. + +In coastwise navigation, minor headlands and inshore islands were points +to steer by; and in that early maritime colonization, which had chiefly +a commercial aim, they formed the favorite spots for trading stations. +The Phoenicians in their home country fixed their settlements by +preference on small capes, like Sidon and Berytus, or on inshore +islets, like Tyre and Aradus,[427] and for their colonies and trading +stations they chose similar sites, whether on the coast of Sicily,[428] +Spain, or Morocco.[429] Carthage was located on a small hill-crowned cape +projecting out into the Bay of Carthage. The two promontories embracing +this inlet were edged with settlements, especially the northern arm, +which held Utica and Hippo,[430] the latter on the site of the modern +French naval station of Bizerta. + +[Illustration: MAP OF ANCIENT PHOENICIAN AND GREEK COLONIES.] + +[Sidenote: Outer edge and piracy.] + +In this early Hellenic world, when Greek sea-power was in its infancy, +owing to the fear of piracy, cities were placed a few miles back from +the coast; but with the partial cessation of this evil, sites on shore +and peninsula were preferred as being more accessible to commerce,[431] +and such of the older towns as were in comparatively easy reach of the +seaboard established there each its own port. Thus we find the ancient +urban pairs of Argos and Nauplia, Troezene and Pogon, Mycenæ and +Eiones, Corinth commanding its Aegean port of Cenchreæ 8 miles away on +the Saronic Gulf to catch the Asiatic trade, and connected by a walled +thoroughfare a mile and a half long with Lechæum, a second harbor on +the Corinthian Gulf which served the Italian commerce.[432] In the same +group belonged Athens and its Piræus, Megara and Pegæ, Pergamus and +Elaæ in western Asia Minor.[433] These ancient twin cities may be taken +to mark the two borders of the coast zone. Like the modern ones which we +have considered above, their historical development has shown an advance +from the inner toward the outer edge, though owing to different causes. +However, the retired location of the Baltic and North Sea towns of +Germany served as a partial protection against the pirates who, in the +Middle Ages, scoured these coasts.[434] Lubeck, originally located nearer +the sea than at present, and frequently demolished by them, was finally +rebuilt farther inland up the Trave River.[435] Later the port of +Travemünde grew up at the mouth of the little estuary. + +[Sidenote: Outer edge in colonization.] + +The early history of maritime colonization shows in general two +geographic phases: first, the appropriation of the islet and headland +outskirts of the seaboard, and later--it may be much later--an advance +toward the inner edge of the coast, or yet farther into the interior. +Progress from the earlier to the maturer phase depends upon the social +and economic development of the colonizers, as reflected in their +valuation of territorial area. The first phase, the outcome of a low +estimate of the value of land, is best represented by the Phoenician and +earliest Greek colonies, whose purposes were chiefly commercial, and who +sought merely such readily accessible coastal points as furnished the +best trading stations on the highway of the Mediterranean and the +adjacent seas. The earlier Greek colonies, like those of the Triopium +promontory forming the south-western angle of Asia Minor, Chalcidice, +the Thracian Chersonesus, Calchedon, Byzantium, the Pontic Heraclea, and +Sinope, were situated on peninsulas or headlands, that would afford a +convenient anchor ground; or, like Syracuse and Mitylene, on small +inshore islets, which were soon outgrown, and from which the towns then +spread to the mainland near by. The advantages of such sites lay in +their accessibility to commerce, and in their natural protection against +the attack of strange or hostile mainland tribes. For a nation of +merchants, satisfied with the large returns but also with the ephemeral +power of middlemen, these considerations sufficed. While the Phoenician +trading posts in Africa dotted the outer rim of the coast, the inner +edge of the zone was indicated by Libyan or Ethiopian towns, where the +inhabitants of the interior bartered their ivory and skins for the +products of Tyre.[436] So that commercial expansion of the Arabs down the +east coast of Africa in the first and again in the tenth century seized +upon the offshore islands of Zanzibar, Pemba, and Mafia, the small +inshore islets like Mombasa and Lamu, and the whole outer rim of the +coast from the equator southward to the Rovuma River.[437] The Sultan of +Zanzibar, heir to this coastal strip, had not expanded it a decade ago, +when he had to relinquish the long thread of his continental +possessions. + +[Sidenote: Inland advance of colonies.] + +But when a people has advanced to a higher conception of colonization as +an outlet for national as well as commercial expansion, and when it sees +that the permanent prosperity of both race and trade in the new locality +depends upon the occupation of larger tracts of territory and the +development of local resources as a basis for exchanges, their +settlements spread from the outer rim of the coasts to its inner edge +and yet beyond, if alluvial plains and river highways are present to +tempt inland expansion. Such was the history of many later colonies of +the Greeks[438] and Carthaginians, and especially of most modern colonial +movements, for these have been dominated by a higher estimate of the +value of land. + +After the long Atlantic journey, the outposts of the American coast were +welcome resting-places to the early European voyagers, but, owing to +their restricted area and therefore limited productivity, they were soon +abandoned, or became mere bases for inland expansion. The little island +of Cuttyhunk, off southern Massachusetts, was the site of Gosnold's +abortive attempt at colonization in 1602, like Raleigh's attempt on +Roanoke Island in 1585, and the later one of Popham on the eastern +headland of Casco Bay. The Pilgrims paused at the extremity of Cape Cod, +and again on Clark's Island, before fixing their settlement on Plymouth +Bay. Monhegan Island, off the Maine coast, was the site of an early +English trading post, which, however, lasted only from 1623 to 1626;[439] +and the same dates fix the beginning and end of a fishing and trading +station established on Cape Ann, and removed later to Salem harbor. The +Swedes made their first settlement in America on Cape Henlopen, at the +entrance of Delaware Bay; but their next, only seven years later, they +located well up the estuary of the Delaware River. Thus for the modern +colonist the outer edge of the coast is merely the gateway of the land. +From it he passes rapidly to the settlement of the interior, wherever +fertile soil and abundant resources promise a due return upon his labor. + +[Sidenote: Interpenetration of land and sea.] + +Since it is from the land, as the inhabited portion of the earth's +surface, that all maritime movements emanate, and to the land that all +oversea migrations are directed, the reciprocal relations between land +and sea are largely determined by the degree of accessibility existing +between the two. This depends primarily upon the articulation of a +land-mass, whether it presents an unbroken contour like Africa and +India, or whether, like Europe and Norway, it drops a fringe of +peninsulas and a shower of islands into the bordering ocean. Mere +distance from the sea bars a country from its vivifying contact; every +protrusion of an ocean artery into the heart of a continent makes that +heart feel the pulse of life on far-off, unseen shores. The Baltic inlet +which makes a seaport of St. Petersburg 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) +back from the western rim of Europe, brings Atlantic civilization to +this half-Asiatic side of the continent. The solid front presented by +the Iberian Peninsula and Africa to the Atlantic has a narrow crack at +Gibraltar, whence the Mediterranean penetrates inland 2,300 miles (3,700 +kilometers), and converts the western foot of the Caucasus and the roots +of the Lebanon Mountains into a seaboard. By means of the Arabian Sea, +the Indian Ocean runs northward 1,300 miles (2,200 kilometers) from Cape +Comorin to meet the Indus delta; and then turns westward 700 miles +farther through the Oman and Persian gulfs to receive the boats from the +Tigris and Euphrates. Such marine inlets create islands and peninsulas; +which are characterized by proximity to the sea on all or many sides; +and in the interior of the continents they produce every degree of +nearness, shading off into inaccessible remoteness from the watery +highway of the deep. + +The success with which such indentations open up the interior of the +continents depends upon the length of the inlets and the size of the +land-mass in question. Africa's huge area and unbroken contour combine +to hold the sea at arm's length, Europe's deep-running inlets open that +small continent so effectively that Kazan, Russia's most eastern city of +considerable size, is only 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) distant from the +nearest White Sea, Baltic, and Azof ports. Asia, the largest of all the +continents, despite a succession of big indentations that invade its +periphery from Sinai peninsula to East Cape, has a vast inland area +hopelessly far from the surrounding oceans. + +[Sidenote: Ratio of shoreline to area.] + +In order to determine the coast articulation of any country or +continent, Carl Ritter and his followers divided area by shoreline, the +latter a purely mathematical line representing the total contour length. +By this method Europe's ratio is one linear mile of coast to 174 square +miles of area, Australia's 1:224, Asia's 1:490, and Africa's 1:700. This +means that Europe's proportion of coast is three times that of Asia and +four times that of Africa; that a country like Norway, with a shoreline +of 12,000 miles traced in and out along the fiords and around the larger +islands,[440] has only 10 square miles of area for every mile of +seaboard, while Germany, with every detail of its littoral included in +the measurement, has only 1,515 miles of shoreline and a ratio of one +mile of coast to every 159 square miles of area. + +The criticism has been made against this method that it compares two +unlike measures, square and linear, which moreover increase or decrease +in markedly different degrees, according as larger or smaller units are +used. But for the purposes of anthropo-geography the method is valid, +inasmuch as it shows the amount of area dependent for its marine outline +upon each mile of littoral. A coast, like every other boundary, performs +the important function of intermediary in the intercourse of a land with +its neighbors; hence the length of this sea boundary materially affects +this function. Area and coastline are not dead mathematical quantities, +but like organs of one body stand in close reciprocal activity, and can +be understood only in the light of their persistent mutual relations. +The division of the area of a land by the length of its coastline yields +a quotient which to the anthropo-geographer is not a dry figure, but an +index to the possible relations between seaboard and interior. A +comparison of some of these ratios will illustrate this fact. + +Germany's shoreline, traced in contour without including details, +measures 787 miles; this is just one-fifth that of Italy and two-fifths +that of France, so that it is short. But since Germany's area is nearly +twice Italy's and a little larger than that of France, it has 267 square +miles of territory for every mile of coast, while Italy has only 28 +square miles, and France 106. Germany has towns that are 434 miles from +the nearest seaboard, but in Italy the most inland point is only 148 +miles from the Mediterranean.[441] If we turn now to the United States +and adopt Mendenhall's estimate of its general or contour coastline as +5,705 miles, we find that our country has 530 square miles of area +dependent for its outlet upon each mile of seaboard. This means that our +coast has a heavy task imposed upon it, and that its commercial and +political importance is correspondingly enhanced; that the extension of +our Gulf of Mexico littoral by the purchase of Florida and the +annexation of Texas were measures of self-preservation, and that the +unbroken contour and mountain-walled face of our Pacific littoral is a +serious national handicap. + +[Sidenote: Criticism of this formula.] + +But this method is open to the legitimate and fundamental criticism +that, starting from the conception of a coast as a mere line instead of +a zone, it ignores all those features which belong to every littoral as +a strip of the earth's surface--location, geologic structure, relief, +area, accessibility to the sea in front and to the land behind, all +which vary from one part of the world's seaboard to another, and serve +to differentiate the human history of every littoral. Moreover, of all +parts of the earth's surface, the coast as the hem of the sea and land, +combining the characters of each, is most complex. It is the coast as a +human habitat that primarily concerns anthropo-geography. A careful +analysis of the multifarious influences modifying one another in this +mingled environment of land and water reveals an intricate interplay of +geographic forces, varying from inland basin to marginal sea, from +marginal sea to open ocean, and changing from one historical period to +another--an interplay so mercurial that it could find only a most +inadequate expression in the rigid mathematical formula of Carl Ritter. + +[Sidenote: Accessibility of coasts from hinterland.] + +As the coast, then, is the border zone between the solid, inhabited land +and the mobile, untenanted deep, two important factors in its history +are the accessibility of its back country on the one hand, and the +accessibility of the sea on the other. A littoral population barred from +its hinterland by mountain range or steep plateau escarpment or desert +tract feels little influence from the land; level or fertile soil is too +limited in amount to draw inland the growing people, intercourse is too +difficult and infrequent, transportation too slow and costly. Hence the +inhabitants of such a coast are forced to look seaward for their racial +and commercial expansion, even if a paucity of good harbors limits the +accessibility of the sea; they must lead a somewhat detached and +independent existence, so far as the territory behind them is concerned. +Here the coast, as a peripheral organ of the interior, as the outlet +for its products, the market for its foreign exchanges, and the medium +for intercourse with its maritime neighbors, sees its special function +impaired. But it takes advantage of its isolation and the protection of +a long sea boundary to detach itself politically from its hinterland, as +the histories of Phoenicia, the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, Dalmatia, +the republics of Amalfi, Venice, and Genoa, the county of Barcelona, and +Portugal abundantly prove. At the same time it profits by its seaboard +location to utilize the more varied fields of maritime enterprise before +it, in lieu of the more or less forbidden territory behind it. The +height and width of the landward barrier, the number and practicability +of the passways across it, and especially the value of the hinterland's +products in relation to their bulk, determine the amount of intercourse +between that hinterland and its mountain or desert barred littoral. + +[Sidenote: Mountain-barred hinterlands.] + +The interior is most effectively cut off from the periphery, where a +mountain range or a plateau escarpment traces the inner line of the +coastland, as in the province of Liguria in northern Italy, Dalmatia, +the western or Malabar coast of India, most parts of Africa, and long +stretches of the Pacific littoral of the Americas. The highland that +backs the Norwegian coast is crossed by only one railroad, that passing +through the Trondhjem depression; and this barrier has served to keep +Norway's historical connection with Sweden far less intimate than with +Denmark. The long inlet of the Adriatic, bringing the sea well into the +heart of Southern Europe, has seen nevertheless a relatively small +maritime development, owing to the wall of mountains that everywhere +shuts out the hinterland of its coasts. The greatness of Venice was +intimately connected with the Brenner Pass over the Alps on the one +hand, and the trade of the eastern Mediterranean on the other. Despite +Austro-Hungary's crucial interest in the northeast corner of the +Adriatic as a maritime outlet for this vast inland empire, and its +herculean efforts at Trieste and Fiume to create harbors and to connect +them by transmontane railroads with the valley of the Danube, the +maritime development of this coast is still restricted, and much of +Austria's trade goes out northward by German ports.[442] Farther south +along the Dalmatian and Albanian coasts, the deep and sheltered bays +between the half-submerged roots of the Dinaric Alps have developed only +local importance, because they lack practicable connection with the +interior. This was their history too in early Greek and Roman days, for +they found only scant support in the few caravans that crossed by the +Roman road to Dyrrachium to exchange the merchandise of the Aegean for +the products of the Ionian Isles. Spain has always suffered from the +fact that her bare, arid, and unproductive tableland almost everywhere +rises steeply from her fertile and densely populated coasts; and +therefore that the two have been unable to coöperate either for the +production of a large maritime commerce or for national political unity. +Here the diverse conditions of the littoral and the wall of the great +central terrace of the country have emphasized that tendency to +defection that belongs to every periphery, and therefore necessitated a +strong centralized government to consolidate the restive maritime +provinces with their diverse Galician, Basque, Catalonian, and +Andalusian folk into one nation with the Castilians of the plateau.[443] + +[Sidenote: Accessible hinterlands.] + +Where mountain systems run out endwise into the sea, the longitudinal +valleys with their drainage streams open natural highways from the +interior to the coast. This structure has made the Atlantic side of the +Iberian Peninsula far more open than its Mediterranean front, and +therefore contributed to its leadership in maritime affairs since 1450. +So from the shores of Thrace to the southern point of the Peloponnesus, +all the valleys of Greece open out on the eastern or Asiatic side. Here +every mountain-flanked bay has had its own small hinterland to draw +upon, and every such interior has been accessible to the civilization of +the Aegean; here was concentrated the maritime and cultural life of +Hellas.[444] The northern half of Andean Colombia, by way of the parallel +Atrato, Rio Cauco, and Magdalena valleys, has supported the activities +of its Caribbean littoral, and through these avenues has received such +foreign influences as might penetrate to inland Bogota. In like manner, +the mountain-ridged peninsula of Farther India keeps its interior in +touch with its leading ports through its intermontane valleys of the +Irawadi, Salwin, Menam, and Mekong rivers. + +Low coasts rising by easy gradients to wide plains, like those of +northern France, Germany, southern Russia, and the Gulf seaboard of the +United States, profit by an accessible and extensive hinterland. +Occasionally, however, this advantage is curtailed by a political +boundary reinforced by a high protective tariff, as Holland, Belgium, +and East Prussia[445] know to their sorrow. + +These low hems of the land, however, often meet physical obstructions to +ready communications with the interior in the silted inlets, shallow +lagoons, marshes, or mangrove swamps of the littoral itself. Here the +larger drainage streams give access across this amphibian belt to the +solid land behind. Where they flow into a tide-swept bay like the North +Sea or the English Channel, they scour out their beds and preserve the +connection between sea and land;[446] but debouchment into a tideless +basin like the Caspian or the Gulf of Mexico, even for such mighty +streams as the Volga and the Mississippi, sees the slow silting up of +their mouths and the restriction of their agency in opening up the +hinterland. Thus the character of the bordering sea may help to +determine the accessibility of the coast from the land side. + +[Sidenote: Accessibility of coasts from the sea.] + +Its accessibility from the sea depends primarily upon its degree of +articulation; and this articulation depends upon whether the littoral +belt has suffered elevation or subsidence. When the inshore sea rests +upon an uplifted bottom, the contour of the coast is smooth and +unbroken, because most of the irregularities of surface have been +overlaid by a deposit of waste from the land; so it offers no harbor +except here and there a silted river mouth, while it shelves off through +a broad amphibian belt of tidal marsh, lagoon, and sand reef to a +shallow sea. Such is the coast of New Jersey, most of the Gulf seaboard +of the United States and Mexico, the Coromandel coast of India, and the +long, low littoral of Upper Guinea. Such coasts harbor a population of +fishermen living along the strands of their placid lagoons,[447] and +stimulate a timid inshore navigation which sometimes develops to +extensive coastwise intercourse, where a network of lagoons and deltaic +channels forms a long inshore passage, as in Upper Guinea, but which +fears the break of the surf outside.[448] + +The rivers draining these low uplifted lands are deflected from their +straight path to the sea by coastwise deposits, and idly trail along for +miles just inside the outer beach; or they are split up into numerous +offshoots among the silt beds of a delta, to find their way by shallow, +tortuous channels to the ocean, so that they abate their value as +highways between sea and land. The silted mouths of the Nile excluded +the larger vessels even of Augustus Cæsar's time and admitted only their +lighters,[449] just as to-day the lower Rufigi River loses much of its +value to German East Africa because of its scant hospitality to vessels +coming from the sea. + +[Sidenote: Embayed coasts.] + +The effect of subsidence, even on a low coastal plain, is to increase +accessibility from the sea by flooding the previous river valleys and +transforming them into a succession of long shallow inlets, alternating +with low or hilly tongues of land. Such embayed coasts form our Atlantic +seaboard from Delaware Bay, through Chesapeake Bay to Pamlico Sound, the +North Sea face of England, the funnel-shaped "förden" or firths on the +eastern side of Jutland and Schleswig-Holstein, and the ragged sounds or +"Bodden" that indent the Baltic shore of Germany from the Bay of Lubeck +to the mouth of the Oder River.[450] Although the shallowness of the +bordering sea and the sand-bars and sand reefs which characterize all +flat coasts here also exclude the largest vessels, such coasts have +nevertheless ample contact with both land and sea. They tend to develop, +therefore, the activities appropriate to both. A fertile soil and +abundant local resources, as in tidewater Maryland and Virginia, make +the land more attractive than the sea; the inhabitants become farmers +rather than sailors. On the other hand, an embayed coastland promising +little return to the labor of tillage, but with abundant fisheries and a +superior location for maritime trade, is sure to profit by the +accessible sea, and achieve the predominant maritime activity which +characterized the mediæval Hanse Towns of northern Germany and colonial +New England. + +[Sidenote: Maritime activity on steep embayed coasts.] + +Subsidence that brings the beat of the surf against the bolder reliefs +of the land produces a ragged, indented coast, deep-water inlets +penetrating far into the country, hilly or mountainous tongues of land +running far out into the sea and breaking up into a swarm of islands and +rocks, whose outer limits indicate approximately the old prediluvial +line of shore.[451] Such are the fiord regions of Norway, southern +Alaska, British Columbia, Greenland, and southern Chile; the Rias or +submerged river valley coast of northwestern Spain; and the deeply +sunken mountain flank of Dalmatia, whose every lateral valley has become +a bay or a strait between mainland and island. All these coasts are +characterized by a close succession of inlets, a limited amount of level +country for settlement or cultivation, and in their rear a steep slope +impeding communication with their hinterland. Inaccessibility from the +land, a high degree of accessibility from the sea, and a paucity of +local resources unite to thrust the inhabitants of such coasts out upon +the deep, to make of them fishermen, seamen, and ocean carriers. The +same result follows where no barrier on the land side exists, but where +a granitic or glaciated soil in the interior discourages agriculture and +landward expansion, as in Brittany, Maine, and Newfoundland. In all +these the land repels and the sea attracts. Brittany furnishes one-fifth +of all the sailors in France's merchant marine,[452] and its pelagic +fishermen sweep the seas from Newfoundland to Iceland. Three-fifths of +the maritime activity of the whole Austrian Empire is confined to the +ragged coast of Dalmatia, which furnishes to-day most of the sailors for +the imperial marine, just as in Roman days it manned the Adriatic fleet +of the Cæsars.[453] The Haida, Tsimshean, and Tlingit Indians of the +ragged western coast of British Columbia and southern Alaska spread +their villages on the narrow tide-swept hem of the land, and subsist +chiefly by the generosity of the deep. They are poor landsmen, but +excellent boat-makers and seamen, venturing sometimes twenty-five miles +out to sea to gather birds' eggs from the outermost fringe of rocks. + +[Sidenote: Contrasted coastal belts.] + +As areas of elevation or subsidence are, as a rule, extensive, it +follows that coasts usually present long stretches of smooth simple +shoreline, or a long succession of alternating inlet and headland. +Therefore different littoral belts show marked contrasts in their degree +of accessibility to the sea, and their harbors appear in extensive +groups of one type--fiords, river estuaries, sand or coral reef lagoons, +and embayed mountain roots. A sudden change in relief or in geologic +history sees one of these types immediately succeeded by a long-drawn +group of a different type. Such a contrast is found between the Baltic +and North Sea ports of Denmark and Germany, the eastern and southern +seaboards of England, the eastern and western sides of Scotland, and the +Pacific littoral of North America north and south of Juan de Fuca +Strait, attended by a contrasted history. + +A common morphological history, marked by mountain uplift, glaciation, +and subsidence, has given an historical development similar in not a few +respects to the fiord coasts of New England, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, +the Alaskan "panhandle," and southern Chile. Large subsidence areas on +the Mediterranean coasts from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Bosporus +have in essential features duplicated each other's histories, just as +the low infertile shores of the Baltic from Finland to the Skager Rack +have had much in common in their past development. + +Where, however, a purely local subsidence, as in Kamerun Bay and Old +Calabar on the elsewhere low monotonous stretch of the Upper Guinea +coast,[454] or a single great river estuary, as in the La Plata and the +Columbia, affords a protected anchorage on an otherwise portless shore, +such inlets assume increased importance. In the long unbroken reach of +our Pacific seaboard, San Francisco Bay and the Columbia estuary are of +inestimable value; while, by the treaty of 1848 with Mexico, the +international boundary line was made to bend slightly south of west from +the mouth of the Gila River to the coast, in order to include in the +United States territory the excellent harbor of San Diego. The mere +nicks in the rim of Southwest Africa constituting Walfish Bay and Angra +Pequena assume considerable value as trading stations and places of +refuge along that 1,200-mile reach of inhospitable coast extending from +Cape Town north to Great Fish Bay.[455] It is worthy of notice in passing +that, though both of these small inlets lie within the territory of +German Southwest Africa, Walfish Bay with 20 miles of coast on either +side is a British possession, and that two tiny islets which commands +the entrance to the harbor of Angra Pequena, also belong to Great +Britain. On the uniform coast of East Africa, the single considerable +indentation formed by Delagoa Bay assumes immense importance, which, +however, is due in part to the mineral wealth of its Transvaal +hinterland. From this point northward for 35 degrees of latitude, a +river mouth, like that fixing the site of Beira, or an inshore islet +affording protected harborage, like that of Mombasa, serves as the +single ocean gateway of a vast territory, and forms the terminus of a +railroad--proof of its importance. + +[Sidenote: Evolution of ports.] + +The maritime evolution of all amply embayed coasts, except in Arctic and +sub-Arctic regions inimical to all historical development, shows in its +highest stage the gradual elimination of minor ports, and the +concentration of maritime activity in a few favored ones, which have the +deepest and most capacious harbors and the best river, canal, or +railroad connection with the interior. The earlier stages are marked by +a multiplicity of ports, showing in general activity nearly similar in +amount and in kind. England's merchant marine in the fourteenth century +was distributed in a large group of small but important ports on the +southern coast, all which, owing to their favorable location, were +engaged in the French and Flemish trade; and in another group on the +east coast, reaching from Hull to Colchester, which participated in the +Flemish, Norwegian, and Baltic trade.[456] Most of these have now +declined before the overpowering competition of a few such seaboard +marts as London, Hull, and Southampton. The introduction of steam +trawlers into the fishing fleets has in like manner led to the +concentration of the fishermen in a few large ports with good railroad +facilities, such as Aberdeen and Grimsby, while the fishing villages +that fringed the whole eastern and southern coasts have been gradually +depopulated.[457] So in colonial days, when New England was little more +than a cordon of settlements along that rock-bound littoral, almost +every inlet had its port actively engaged in coastwise and foreign +commerce in the West Indies and the Guinea Coast, in cod and mackerel +fisheries, in whaling and shipbuilding, and this with only slight local +variations. This widespread homogeneity of maritime activity has been +succeeded by strict localization and differentiation, and reduction from +many to few ports. So, for the whole Atlantic seaboard of the United +States, evolution of seaports has been marked by increase of size +attended by decrease of numbers. + +[Sidenote: Offshore islands.] + +A well dissected coast, giving ample contact with the sea, often fails +nevertheless to achieve historical importance, unless outlying islands +are present to ease the transition from inshore to pelagic navigation, +and to tempt to wider maritime enterprise. The long sweep of the +European coast from northern Norway to Brittany has played out a +significant part of its history in that procession of islands formed by +Iceland, the Faroes, Shetland, Orkneys, Great Britain, Ireland and the +Channel Isles, whether it was the navigator of ancient Armorica steering +his leather-sailed boat to the shores of Cæsar's Britain, or the modern +Breton fisherman pulling in his nets off the coasts of distant Iceland. +The dim outline of mountainous Cyprus, seen against a far-away horizon +from the slopes of Lebanon, beckoned the Phoenician ship-master thither +to trade and to colonize, just as the early Etruscan merchants passed +from their busy ironworks on the island of Elba over the narrow strait +to visible Corsica.[458] It was on the eastern side of Greece, with its +deep embayments, its valleys opening out to the Aegean, with its 483 +islands scattered thickly as stars in the sky, and its Milky Way of the +Cyclades leading to the deep, rich soils of the Asia Minor coast, with +its sea-made contact with all the stimulating influences and dangers +emanating from the Asiatic littoral, that Hellenic history played its +impressive drama. Here was developed the spirit of enterprise that +carried colonies to far western Sicily and Italy, while the western or +rear side had a confined succession of local events, scarce worthy the +name of history. Neither mountain-walled Epirus nor Corcyra had an +Hellenic settlement in 735 B.C., at a date when the eastern Greeks had +reached the Ionian coast of the Aegean and had set up a lonely group of +colonies even on the Bay of Naples. Turning to America, we find that the +Antilles received their population from the only two tribes, first the +Arawaks and later the Caribs, who ever reached the indented northern +coast of South America between the Isthmus of Panama and the mouth of +the Orinoco. Here the small islands of the Venezuelan coast, often in +sight, lured these peoples of river and shore to open-sea navigation, +and drew them first to the Windward Isles, then northward step by step +or island by island, to Hayti and Cuba.[459] + +[Sidenote: Offshore islands as vestibules of the mainland.] + +In all these instances, offshore islands tempt to expansion and thereby +add to the historical importance of the nearby coast. Frequently, +however, they achieve the same result by offering advantageous footholds +to enterprising voyagers from remote lands, and become the medium for +infusing life into hitherto dead coasts. The long monotonous littoral of +East Africa from Cape Guadafui to the Cape of Good Hope, before the +planting here of Portuguese way-stations on the road to India in the +sixteenth century, was destitute of historical significance, except that +stretch opposite the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, which Arab merchants +in the tenth century appropriated as the basis for their slave and ivory +trade. The East Indies and Ceylon have been so many offshore stations +whence, first through the Portuguese, and later through the Dutch and +English, European influences percolated into southeastern Asia. Asia, +with its island-strewn shores, has diffused its influences over a broad +zone of the western Pacific, and through the agency of its active +restless Malays, even halfway across that ocean. In contrast, the +western coast of the Americas, a stretch nearly 10,000 miles from Tierra +del Fuego to the Aleutian chain, has seen its aboriginal inhabitants +barred from seaward expansion by the lack of offshore islands, and its +entrance upon the historical stage delayed till recent times. + +In general it can be said that islandless seas attain a later historical +development than those whose expanse is rendered less forbidding by +hospitable fragments of land. This factor, as well as its location +remote from the old and stimulating civilization of Syria and Asia +Minor, operated to retard the development of the western Mediterranean +long after the eastern basin had reached its zenith. + +[Sidenote: Previous habitat of coast-dwellers.] + +Coast-dwelling peoples exhibit every degree of intimacy with the water, +from the amphibian life of many Malay tribes who love the wash of the +waves beneath their pile-built villages, to the Nama Bushmen who inhabit +the dune-walled coast of Southwest Africa, and know nothing of the sea. +In the resulting nautical development the natural talents and habits of +the people are of immense influence; but these in turn have been largely +determined by the geographical environment of their previous habitat, +whether inland or coastal, and by the duration in time, as well as the +degree and necessity, of their contact with the sea. The Phoenicians, +who, according to their traditions as variously interpreted, came to the +coast of Lebanon either from the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea,[460] +brought to their favorable maritime location a different endowment from +that of the land-trading Philistines, who moved up from the south to +occupy the sand-choked shores of Palestine,[461] or from that of the +Jews, bred to the grasslands of Mesopotamia and the gardens of Judea, +who only at rare periods in their history forced their way to the +sea.[462] The unindented coast stretching from Cape Carmel south to the +Nile delta never produced a maritime people and never achieved maritime +importance, till a race of experienced mariners like the Greeks planted +their colonies and built their harbor moles on the shores of Sharon and +Philistia.[463] So on the west face of Africa, from the Senegal southward +along the whole Guinea Coast to Benguela, all evidences of kinship and +tradition among the local tribes point to an origin on the interior +plains and a recent migration seaward,[464] so that no previous schooling +enabled them to exploit the numerous harbors along this littoral, as did +later the sea-bred Portuguese and English. + +[Sidenote: Habitability of coasts as factor in maritime development.] + +Not only the accessibility of the coast from the sea, but also its +habitability enters as a factor into its historical importance. A sandy +desert coast, like that of Southwest Africa and much of the Peruvian +littoral, or a sterile mountain face, like that of Lower California, +excludes the people of the country from the sea. Saldanha Bay, the one +good natural harbor on the west coast of Cape Colony, is worthless even +to the enterprising English, because it has no supply of fresh +water.[465] The slowness of the ancient Egyptians to take the short step +forward from river to marine navigation can undoubtedly be traced to the +fact that the sour swamps, barren sand-dunes, and pestilential marshes +on the seaward side of the Nile delta must have always been sparsely +populated as they are to-day,[466] and that a broad stretch of sandy waste +formed their Red Sea littoral. + +On the other hand, where the hem of the continents is fertile enough to +support a dense population, a large number of people are brought into +contact with the sea, even where no elaborate articulation lengthens the +shoreline. When this teeming humanity of a garden littoral is barred +from landward expansion by desert or mountain, or by the already +overcrowded population of its own hinterland, it wells over the brim of +its home country, no matter how large, and overflows to other lands +across the seas. The congested population of the fertile and indented +coast of southern China, though not strictly speaking a sea-faring +people, found an outlet for their redundant humanity and their commerce +in the tropical Sunda Islands. By the sixth century their trading junks +were doing an active business in the harbors of Java, Sumatra, and +Malacca; they had even reached Ceylon and the Persian Gulf, and a little +later were visiting the great focal market of Aden at the entrance of +the Red Sea.[467] A strong infusion of Chinese blood improved the Malay +stock in the Sunda Islands, and later in North Borneo and certain of the +Philippines, whither their traders and emigrants turned in the +fourteenth century, when they found their opportunities curtailed in the +archipelago to the south by the spread of Islam.[468] Now the "yellow +peril" threatens the whole circle of these islands from Luzon to +Sumatra. + +Similarly India, first from its eastern, later from its western coast, +sent a stream of traders, Buddhist priests, and colonists to the Sunda +Islands, and especially to Java, as early as the fifth century of our +era, whence Indian civilization, religion, and elements of the Sanskrit +tongue spread to Borneo, Sumatra, Bali, Lombok, and even to some +smaller islands among the Molucca group.[469] The Hindus became the +dominant commercial nation of the Indian Ocean long before the great +development of Arabian sea power, and later shared the trade of the East +African coast with the merchants of Oman and Yemen.[470] To-day they form +a considerable mercantile class in the ports of Mascat, Aden, Zanzibar, +Pemba, and Natal. + +[Sidenote: Geographic conditions for brilliant maritime development.] + +On the coasts of large fertile areas like China and India, however, +maritime activity comes not as an early, but as an eventual development, +assumes not a dominant, but an incidental historical importance. The +coastlands appearing early on the maritime stage of history, and playing +a brilliant part in the drama of the sea, have been habitable, but their +tillable fields have been limited either in fertility, as in New +England, or in amount, as in Greece, or in both respects, as in Norway. +But if blessed with advantageous location for international trade and +many or even a few fairly good harbors, such coasts tend to develop wide +maritime dominion and colonial expansion.[471] + +Great fertility in a narrow coastal belt barred from the interior serves +to concentrate and energize the maritime activities of the nation. The +20-mile wide plain stretching along the foot of the Lebanon range from +Antioch to Cape Carmel is even now the garden of Syria.[472] In ancient +Phoenician days its abundant crops and vines supported luxuriant cities +and a teeming population, which sailed and traded and colonized to the +Atlantic outskirts of Europe and Africa. Moreover, their maritime +ventures had a wide sweep as early as 1100 B. C. Quite similar to the +Phoenician littoral and almost duplicating its history, is the Oman +seaboard of eastern Arabia. Here again a fertile coastal plain sprinkled +with its "hundred villages," edged with a few tolerable harbors, and +backed by a high mountain wall with an expanse of desert beyond, +produced a race of bold and skilful navigators,[473] who in the Middle +Ages used their location between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea to +make themselves the dominant maritime power of the Indian ocean. With +them maritime expansion was typically wide in its sweep and rapid in its +development. Even before Mohammed's time they had reached India; but +under the energizing influences of Islam, by 758 they had established a +flourishing trade with China, for which they set up way stations or +staple-points in Canton and the Sunda Islands.[474] First as voyagers and +merchants, then as colonists, they came, bringing their wares and their +religion to these distant shores. Marco Polo, visiting Sumatra in 1260, +tells us the coast population was "Saracen," but this was probably more +in religion than in blood.[475] Oman ventures, seconded by those of +Yemen, reached as far south as east. The trading stations of Madisha and +Barawa were established on the Somali coast of East Africa in 908, and +Kilwa 750 miles further south in 925. In the seventeenth century the +Oman Arabs dislodged the intruding Portuguese from all this coast belt +down to the present northern boundary of Portuguese East Africa. Even so +late as 1850 their capital, Mascat, sent out fine merchantmen that did +an extensive carrying trade, and might be seen loading in the ports of +British India, in Singapore, Java, and Mauritius. + +[Sidenote: Soil of coastlands as factor.] + +Brittany's active part in the maritime history of France is due not only +to its ragged contour, its inshore and offshore islands, its forward +location on the Atlantic which brought it near to the fisheries of +Newfoundland and the trade of the West Indies, but also to the fact that +the "Golden Belt," which, with but few interruptions, forms a band of +fertility along the coast, has supported a denser population than the +sterile granitic soils of the interior,[476] while the sea near by varied +and enriched the diet of the inhabitants by its abundance of fish, and +in its limy seaweed yielded a valuable fertilizer for their gardens.[477] +The small but countless alluvial deposits at the fiord heads in Norway, +aided by the products of the sea, are able to support a considerable +number of people. Hence the narrow coastal rim of that country shows +always a density of population double or quadruple that of the next +density belt toward the mountainous interior, and contains seventeen out +of Norway's nineteen towns having more than 5,000 inhabitants.[478] It is +this relative fertility of the coastal regions, as opposed to the +sterile interior, that has brought so large a part of Norway's people +in contact with the Atlantic and helped give them a prominent place in +maritime history. + +[Sidenote: Barren coast of fertile hinterland.] + +Occasionally an infertile and sparsely inhabited littoral bordering a +limited zone of singular productivity, especially if favorably located +for international trade, will develop marked maritime activity, both in +trade and commercial colonization. Such was Arabian Yemen, the home of +the ancient Sabæans on the Red Sea, stretching from the Straits of +Bab-el-Mandeb north-westward for 500 miles. Here a mountain range, +rising to 10,000 feet and bordering the plateau desert of central +Arabia, condenses the vapors of the summer monsoon and creates a +long-drawn oasis, where terraced coffee gardens and orchards blossom in +the irrigated soil; but the arid coastal strip at its feet, harboring a +sparse population only along its tricking streams, developed a series of +considerable ports as outlets for the abundant products and crowded +population of the highlands.[479] A location on the busy sea lane leading +from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, near the meeting place of +three continents, made the merchants of the Yemen coast, like the Oman +Arabs to the north, middlemen in the trade of Europe with eastern Africa +and India.[480] Therefore, even in the second century these Sabæans had +their trading stations scattered along the east coast of Africa as far +south as Zanzibar.[481] In 1502 Vasco da Gama found Arabs, either of +Oman or Yemen, yet farther south in Sofala, the port for the ivory and +gold trade. Some of them he employed as pilots to steer his course to +India.[482] + +History makes one fact very plain: a people who dwell by the sea, and +to whom nature applies some lash to drive them out upon the deep, +command opportunity for practically unlimited expansion. In this way +small and apparently ill-favored strips of the earth's surface have +become the seats of wide maritime supremacy and colonial empire. The +scattered but extensive seaboard possession of little Venice and Genoa +in the latter centuries of the Middle Ages are paralleled in modern +times by the large oversea dominions of the English and Dutch. + +Seaward expansions of peoples are always of great moment and generally +of vast extent, whether they are the coastward movements of inland +peoples to get a foothold upon the great oceanic highway of trade and +civilization, as has been the case with the Russians notably since the +early eighteenth century, and with numerous interior tribes of West +Africa since the opening of the slave trade; or whether they represent +the more rapid and extensive coastwise and oversea expansions of +maritime nations like the English, Dutch, and Portuguese. In either +event they give rise to widespread displacements of peoples and a +bizarre arrangement of race elements along the coast. When these two +contrary movements meet, the shock of battle follows, as the recent +history of the Russians and Japanese in Manchuria and Korea illustrates, +the wars of Swedes and Russians for the possession of the eastern Baltic +littoral, and the numerous minor conflicts that have occurred in Upper +Guinea between European commercial powers and the would-be trading +tribes of the bordering hinterland. + +[Sidenote: Ethnic contrast between coast and interior peoples.] + +A coast region is a peculiar habitat, inasmuch as it is more or less +dominated by the sea. It is exposed to inundation by tidal wave and to +occupation by immigrant fleets. It may be the base for out-going +maritime enterprise or the goal of some oversea movement, the dispenser +or the recipient of colonists. The contrast between coast-dwellers and +the nearby inland people which exists so widely can be traced not only +to a difference of environment, but often to a fundamental difference of +race or tribe caused by immigration to accessible shores. The Greeks, +crowded in their narrow peninsula of limited fertility, wove an Hellenic +border on the skirts of the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean lands, +just as the Carthaginians added a fringe of aliens to North Africa, +where the Punic people of the coast presented a marked contrast to the +Berbers of the interior. [See map page 251.] + +An ethnographical map of Russia to-day shows a narrow but almost +continuous rim of Germans stretching from the River Niemen north through +the Baltic coast of Courland, Livland, and Esthland, as far as Revel; +and again, a similar band of Swedes along the seaboard of Finland, from +a point east of Helsingfors on the south around to Uleaborg on the +north,[483] dating from the time when Finland was a political dependency +of Sweden, and influenced by the fact that the frozen Gulf of Bothnia +every winter makes a bridge of ice between the two shores. [See map page +225.] + +[Sidenote: Ethnic contrasts in the Pacific islands.] + +Everywhere in the Melanesian archipelago, where Papuans and Malays dwell +side by side, the latter as the new-comers are always found in +possession of the coast, while the darker aborigines have withdrawn into +the interior. So in the Philippines, the aboriginal Negritos, pure or +more often mixed with Malayan blood, as in the Mangyan tribe of central +Mindoro, are found crowded back into the interior by the successive +invasions of Malays who have encircled the coasts. [See map page 147.] +The Zamboanga peninsula of Mindanao has an inland pagan population of +primitive Malayan race called Subanon, who have been displaced from the +littoral by the seafaring Samal Moros, Mohammedanized Malays from the +east shores of Sumatra and the adjacent islands, who spread northward +about 1300 under the energizing impulse of their new religion.[484] Even +at so late a date as the arrival of Magellan, the Subanon seem to have +still occupied some points of the coast,[485] just as the savage Ainos of +the Island of Yezo touched the sea about Sapporo only forty years ago, +though they are now surrounded by a seaboard rim of Japanese.[486] + +[Sidenote: Ethnic contrasts in the Americas.] + +If we turn to South America, we find that warlike Tupi, at the time of +the discovery, occupied the whole Brazilian coast from the southern +tropic north to eastern Guiana, while the highlands of eastern Brazil +immediately in their rear were populated by tribes of Ges, who had been +displaced by the coastwise expansion of the Tupi canoemen.[487] [See map +page 101.] And to-day this same belt of coastland has been appropriated +by a foreign population of Europeans and Negroes, while the vast +interior of Brazil shows a predominance of native Indian stocks, only +broken here and there by a lonely _enclave_ of Portuguese settlement. +The early English and French territories in America presented this same +contrast of coast and inland people--the colonists planting themselves +on the hem of the continent to preserve maritime connection with the +home countries, the aborigines forced back beyond reach of the tide. + +Wherever an energetic seafaring people with marked commercial or +colonizing bent make a highway of the deep, they give rise to this +distinction of coast and inland people on whatever shores they touch. +The expanding Angles and Saxons did it in the North Sea and the Channel, +where they stretched their _litus Saxonicum_ faintly along the coast of +the continent to the apex of Brittany, and firmly along the hem of +England from Southampton Water to the Firth of Forth;[488] the sea-bred +Scandinavians did it farther north in the Teutonic fringe of settlements +which they placed on the shores of Celtic Scotland and Ireland.[489] + +[Sidenote: Older ethnic stock in coastlands.] + +As a rule it is the new-comers who hold the coast, but occasionally the +coast-dwellers represent the older ethnic stock. In the Balkan Peninsula +to-day the descendants of the ancient Hellenes are, with few exceptions, +confined to the coast. The reason is to be found in the fact that the +Slavs and other northern races who have intruded by successive invasions +from the plains of southern Russia are primarily inland peoples, and +therefore have occupied the core of the peninsula, forcing the original +Greek population before them to the edge of the sea.[490] This is the +same anthropo-geographical process which makes so many peninsulas the +last halting-place of a dislodged earlier race. But the Greeks who line +the northern and western shores of Asiatic Turkey are such only in +language and religion, because their prevailing broad head-form shows +them to be Turks and Armenians in race stock.[491] + +Sometimes the distinction of race between coast and interior is +obliterated so far as language and civilization are concerned, but +survives less conspicuously in head-form and pigmentation. The outermost +fringe of the Norwegian coast, from the extreme south to the latitude of +Trondhjem in the north, is occupied by a broad-headed, round-faced, +rather dark people of only medium height, who show decided affinities +with the Alpine race of Central Europe, and who present a marked +contrast to the tall narrow-headed blondes of pure Teutonic type, +constituting the prevailing population from the inner edge of the coast +eastward into Sweden. This brachycephalic, un-Germanic stock of the +Norwegian seaboard seems to represent the last stand made by that once +wide-spread Alpine race, which here has been shoved along to the rocky +capes and islands of the outer edge by a later Teutonic immigration +coming from Sweden.[492] So the largest continuous area of Negrito stock +in the Philippines is found in the Sierra Madre mountains defining the +eastern coast of northern Luzon.[493] Facing the neighborless wastes of +the Pacific, whence no new settler could come, turned away from the +sources of Malay immigration to the southwest, its location made it a +retreat, rather than a gateway to incoming races. [See map page 147.] + +[Sidenote: Ethnic amalgamations in coastlands.] + +Where an immigrant population from oversea lands occupies the coastal +hem of a country, rarely do they preserve the purity of their race. +Coming at first with marauding or trading intent, they bring no women +with them, but institute their trading stations or colonies by marriage +with the women of the country. The ethnic character of the resultant +population depends upon the proportion of the two constituent elements, +the nearness or remoteness of their previous kinship, and the degree of +innate race antagonism. The ancient Greek elements which crossed the +Aegean from different sections of the peninsula to colonize the Ionian +coast of Asia Minor mingled with the native Carian, Cretan, Lydian, +Pelasgian, and Phoenician populations which they found there.[494] On all +the barbarian shores where the Greeks established themselves, there +arose a mixed race--in Celtic Massilia, in Libyan Barca, and in Scythian +Crimea--but always a race Hellenized, born interpreters and mercantile +agents.[495] + +A maritime people, engrossed chiefly with the idea of trade, moves in +small groups and intermittently; hence it modifies the original coastal +population less than does a genuine colonizing nation, especially as it +prefers the smallest possible territorial base for its operations. The +Arab element in the coast population of East Africa is strongly +represented, but not so strongly as one might expect after a thousand +years of intercourse, because it was scattered in detached seaboard +points, only a few of which were really stable. The native population of +Zanzibar and Pemba and the fringe of coast tribes on the mainland +opposite are clearly tinged with Arab blood. These Swahili, as they are +called, are a highly mixed race, as their negro element has been derived +not only from the local coast peoples, but also from the slaves who for +centuries have been halting here on their seaward journey from the +interior of Africa.[496] [See map page 105.] + +[Sidenote: Multiplicity of race elements on coasts.] + +Coast peoples tend to show something more than the hybridism resulting +from the mingling of two stocks. So soon as the art of navigation +developed beyond its initial phase of mere coastwise travel, and began +to strike out across the deep, all coast peoples bordered upon each +other, and the sea became a common waste boundary between. Unlike a land +boundary, which is in general accessible from only two sides and tends +to show, therefore, only two constituent elements in its border +population, a sea boundary is accessible from many directions with +almost equal ease; it therefore draws from many lands, and gives its +population a variety of ethnic elements and a cosmopolitan stamp. This, +however, is most marked in great seaports, but from them it penetrates +into the surrounding country. The whole southern and eastern coast +population of England, from Cornwall to the Wash, received during +Elizabeth's reign valuable accessions of industrious Flemings and +Huguenots, refugees from Catholic persecution in the Netherlands and +France.[497] Our North Atlantic States, whose population is more than +half (50.9 per cent.) made up of aliens and natives born of foreign +parents,[498] have drawn these elements from almost the whole circle of +Atlantic shores, from Norway to Argentine and from Argentine to +Newfoundland. Even the Southern States, so long unattractive to +immigrants on account of the low status of labor, show a fringe of +various foreign elements along the Gulf coast, the deeper tint of which +on the census maps fades off rapidly toward the interior. The same +phenomenon appears with Asiatic and Australian elements in our Pacific +seaboard states.[499] The cosmopolitan population of New York, with its +"Chinatown," its "Little Italy," its Russian and Hungarian quarters, has +its counterpart in the mixed population of Mascat, peopled by Hindu, +Arabs, Persians, Kurds, Afghans, and Baluchis, settled here for purposes +of trade; or in the equally mongrel inhabitants of Aden and Zanzibar, of +Marseilles, Constantinople, Alexandria, Port Said, and other +Mediterranean ports. + +[Sidenote: Lingua franca of coasts.] + +The cosmopolitanism and the commercial activity that characterize so +many seaboards are reflected in the fact that, with rare exceptions, it +is the coast regions of the world that give rise to a _lingua franca_ or +_lingua geral_. The original _lingua franca_ arose on the coast of the +Levant during the period of Italian commercial supremacy there. It +consisted of an Italian stock, on which were grafted Greek, Arabic, and +Turkish words, and was the regular language of trade for French, +Spanish, and Italians.[500] It is still spoken in many Mediterranean +ports, especially in Smyrna, and in the early part of the nineteenth +century was in use from Madagascar to the Philippines.[501] From the +coastal strip of the Zanzibar Arabs, recently transferred to German East +Africa, the speech of the Swahili has become a means of communication +over a great part of East Africa, from the coast to the Congo and the +sources of the Nile. It is a Bantu dialect permeated with Arabic and +Hindu terms, and sparsely sprinkled even with English and German +words.[502] "Pidgin English" (business English) performs the function of +a _lingua franca_ in the ports of China and the Far East. It is a jargon +of corrupted English with a slight mixture of Chinese, Malay, and +Portuguese words, arranged according to the Chinese idiom. Another +mongrel English does service on the coast of New Guinea. The "Nigger +English" of the West African trade is a regular dialect among the +natives of the Sierra Leone coast. Farther east, along the Upper Guinea +littoral, the Eboe family of tribes who extend across the Niger delta +from Lagos to Old Calabar have furnished a language of trade in one of +their dialects.[503] The Tupi speech of the Brazilian coast Indians, with +whom the explorers first came into contact, became, in the mouth of +Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries, the _lingua geral_ or medium +of communication between the whites and the various Indian tribes +throughout Brazil.[504] The Chinook Indians, located on our Pacific coast +north and south of the Columbia River, have furnished a jargon of +Indian, French, and English words which serves as a language of trade +throughout a long stretch of the northwest Pacific coast, not only +between whites and Indians, but also between Indians of different +linguistic stocks.[505] + +[Sidenote: Coast-dwellers as middlemen.] + +The coast is the natural habitat of the middleman. One strip of seaboard +produces a middleman people, and then sends them out to appropriate +other littorals, if geographic conditions are favorable; otherwise it is +content with the transit trade of its own locality. It breeds +essentially a race of merchants, shunning varied production, nursing +monopoly by secrecy and every method to crush competition. The profits +of trade attract all the free citizens, and the laboring class is small +or slave. Expansion landward has no attraction in comparison with the +seaward expansion of commerce. The result is often a relative dearth of +local land-grown food stuffs. King Hiram of Tyre, in his letter to King +Solomon, promised to send him trees of cedar and cypress, made into +rafts and conveyed to the coast of Philistia, and asked in return for +grain, "which we stand in need of because we inhabit an island." The pay +came in the form of wheat, oil, and wine. But Solomon furnished a +considerable part of the laborers--30,000 of them--who were sent, 10,000 +at a time, to Mount Lebanon to cut the timber, apparently under the +direction of the more skilful Sidonian foresters.[506] A type of true +coast traders is found in the Duallas of the German Kamerun, at the +inner angle of the Gulf of Guinea. Located along the lower course and +delta of the Mungo River where it flows into the Kamerun estuary, they +command a good route through a mountainous country into the interior. +This they guard jealously, excluding all competition, monopolizing the +trade, and imposing a transit duty on all articles going to and from the +interior. They avoid agriculture so far as possible. Their women and +slaves produce an inadequate supply of bananas and yams, but crops +needing much labor are wholly neglected, so that their coasts have a +reputation for dearness of provisions.[507] + +Along the 4,500 miles of West African coast between the Senegal and the +Kunene rivers the negro's natural talent for trade has developed special +tribes, who act as intermediaries between the interior and the European +stations on the seaboard. Among these we find the Bihenos and Banda of +Portuguese Benguela, who fit out whole caravans for the back country; +the Portuguese of Loanda rely on the Ambaquistas and the Mbunda +middlemen. The slave trade particularly brought a sinister and abnormal +activity to these seaboard tribes,[508] just as it did to the East Coast +tribes, and stimulated both in the exploitation of their geographic +position as middlemen.[509] + +[Sidenote: Monopoly of trade with the hinterland.] + +The Alaskan coast shows the same development. The Kinik Indians at the +head of Cook's Inlet buy skins of land animals from the inland +Athapascans at the sources of the Copper River, and then make a good +profit by selling them to the American traders of the coast. These same +Athapascans for a long time found a similar body of middlemen in the +Ugalentz at the mouth of the Copper River, till the Americans there +encouraged the inland hunters to bring their skins to the fur station on +the coast.[510] The Chilcats at the head of Lynn Canal long monopolized +the fur trade with the Athapascan Indians about Chilkoot Pass; these +they would meet on the divide and buy their skins, which they would +carry to the Hudson Bay Company agents on the coast. They guarded their +monopoly jealously, and for fifty years were able to exclude all traders +and miners from the passes leading to the Yukon.[511] + +The same policy of monopoly and exclusion has been pursued by the Moro +coast dwellers of Mindanao in relation to the pagan tribes of the +interior. They buy at low prices the forest and agriculture products of +the inland Malays, whom they do not permit to approach either rivers or +seaboard, for fear they may come into contact with the Chinese merchants +along the coast. So fiercely is their monopoly guarded by this middleman +race, that the American Government in the Philippines will be able to +break it only by military interference.[512] + +[Sidenote: Differentiation of coast from inland people.] + +Differences of occupation, of food supply, and of climate often further +operate to differentiate the coast from the inland people near by, and +to emphasize the ethnic difference which is almost invariably present, +either inconspicuously from a slight infusion of alien blood, or +plainly as in an immigrant race. Sometimes the contrast is in physique. +In Finisterre province of western Brittany, the people along the more +fertile coastal strip are on the average an inch taller than the +inhabitants of the barren, granitic interior. Their more generous food +supply, further enriched by the abundant fisheries at their doors, would +account for this increased stature; but this must also be attributed in +part to intermixture of the local Celts with a tall Teutonic stock which +brushed along these shores, but did not penetrate into the unattractive +interior.[513] So the negroes of the Guinea Coast, though not immune +from fevers, are better nourished on the alluvial lowlands near the +abundant fish of the lagoons, and hence are often stronger and better +looking than the plateau interior tribes near by. But here, again, an +advantageous blending of races can not be excluded as a contributing +cause.[514] Sometimes the advantage in physique falls to the inland +people, especially in tropical countries when a highland interior is +contrasted with a low coast belt. The wild Igorotes, inhabiting the +mountainous interior of northern Luzon, enjoy a cooler climate than the +lowlands, and this has resulted in developing in them a decidedly better +physique and more industrious habits than are found in the civilized +people of the coasts encircling them.[515] + +[Sidenote: Early civilization of coasts.] + +Where a coast people is an immigrant stock from some remote oversea +point, it brings to its new home a surplus of energy which was perhaps +the basis of selection in the exodus from the mother country. Such a +people is therefore characterized by greater initiative, enterprise, and +endurance than the sedentary population which it left behind or that to +which it comes; and these qualities are often further stimulated by the +transfer to a new environment rich in opportunities. Sea-born in their +origin, sea-borne in their migration, they cling to the zone of +littoral, because here they find the conditions which they best know how +to exploit. Dwelling on the highway of the ocean, living in easy +intercourse with distant countries, which would have been far more +difficult of access by land-travel over territories inhabited by hostile +races, exchanging with these both commodities and ideas, food-stuffs and +religions, they become the children of civilization, and their +sun-burned seamen the sturdy apostles of progress. Therefore it may be +laid down as a general proposition, that the coasts of a country are +the first part of it to develop, not an indigenous or local +civilization, but a cosmopolitan culture, which later spreads inland +from the seaboard. + +[Sidenote: Retarded coastal peoples.] + +Exceptions to this rule are found in barren or inaccessible coasts like +the Pacific littoral of Peru and Mexico, and on shores like those of +California, western Africa and eastern Luzon, which occupy an adverse +geographic location facing a neighborless expanse of ocean and remote +from the world's earlier foci of civilization. Therefore the descent +from the equatorial plateau of Africa down to the Atlantic littoral +means a drop in culture also, because the various elements of +civilization which for ages have uninterruptedly filtered into Sudan +from the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, have rarely penetrated to the +western rim of the highland, and hence never reached the coast. +Moreover, this steaming lowland, from the Senegal River to the Kamerun +Mountains, has been a last asylum for dislodged tribes who have been +driven out by expanding peoples of the plateau. They have descended in +their flight upon the original coast dwellers, adding to the general +condition of political disruption, multiplying the number of small weak +tribes, increasing the occasions for intertribal wars, and furthering +the prevailing degradation. The seaboard lowlands of Sierra Leone, +Liberia and the Ivory Coast have all suffered thus In historic +times.[516] All this region was the original home of the low, typical +"Guinea Nigger" of the Southern plantation. The coasts of Oregon and +California showed a parallel to this in their fragmentary native tribes +of retarded development, whose level of culture, low at best, sank +rapidly from the interior toward the seaboard. They seem to have been +intruders from the central highlands, who further deteriorated in their +weakness and isolation after reaching the coast. They bore every mark of +degradation in their short stature, linguistic and tribal dismemberment, +their low morals and culture, which ranked them little above the brutes. +In contrast, all the large and superior Indian groups of North America +belonged to the interior of the continent.[517] + +[Sidenote: Cultural contrast of coast and interior.] + +The long, indented coast of the Mediterranean has in all ages up to +modern times presented the contrast of a littoral more advanced in +civilization than the inland districts. The only exception was ancient +Egypt before Psammeticus began to exploit his mud-choked seaboard. This +contrast was apparent, not only wherever Phoenicians or Greeks had +appropriated the remote coast of an alien and retarded people, but even +in near-by Thrace the savage habits of the interior tribes were softened +only where these dwelt in close proximity to the Ionian colonies along +the coast, a fact as noticeable in the time of Tacitus as in that of +Herodotus five hundred years before.[518] The ancient philosophers of +Greece were awake to the deep-rooted differences between an inland and a +maritime city, especially in respect to receptivity of ideas, activity +of intellect, and affinity for culture.[519] + +If we turn to the Philippines, we find that 65 per cent. of the +Christian or civilized population of the islands live on or near the +coast; and of the remaining 35 per cent. dwelling inland, by far the +greater part represents simply the landward extension of the area of +Christian civilization which had Manila Bay for a nucleus.[520] +Otherwise, all the interior districts are occupied by wild or pagan +tribes. Mohammedanism, too, a religion of civilization, rims the +southernmost islands which face the eastern distributing point of the +faith in Java; it is confined to the coasts, except for its one inland +area of expansion along the lake and river system of the Rio Grande of +Mindanao, which afforded an inland extension of sea navigation for the +small Moro boat. Even the Fiji Islands show different shades of savagery +between coasts and interior.[521] + +[Sidenote: Progress from thalassic to oceanic coasts.] + +Coasts are areas of out-going and in-coming maritime influences. The +nature and amount of these influences depend upon the sea or ocean whose +rim the coast in question helps to form, and the relations of that coast +to its other tide-washed shores. Our land-made point of view dominates +us so completely, that we are prone to consider a coast as margin of its +land, and not also as margin of its sea, whence, moreover, it receives +the most important contributions to its development. The geographic +location of a coast as part of a thalassic or of an oceanic rim is a +basic factor in its history; more potent than local conditions of +fertility, irregular contour, or accessibility from sea and hinterland. +Everything that can be said about the different degrees of historical +importance attaching to inland seas and open oceans in successive ages +applies equally to the countries and peoples along their shores; and +everything that enhances or diminishes the cultural possibilities of a +sea--its size, zonal location, its relation to the oceans and +continents--finds its expression in the life along its coasts. + +The anthropo-geographical evolution which has passed from small to large +states and from small to large seas as fields of maritime activity has +been attended by a continuous change in the value of coasts, according +as these were located on enclosed basins like the Mediterranean, Red, +and Baltic; on marginal ones like the China and North seas; or on the +open ocean. In the earlier periods of the world's history, a location on +a relatively small enclosed sea gave a maritime horizon wide enough to +lure, but not so wide as to intimidate; and by its seclusion led to a +concentration and intensification of historical development, which in +many of its phases left models for subsequent ages to wonder at and +imitate. This formative period and formative environment outgrown, +historical development was transferred to locations on the open oceans, +according to the law of human advance from small to large areas. The +historical importance of the Mediterranean and the Baltic shores was +transitory, a prelude to the larger importance of the Atlantic littoral +of Europe, just as this in turn was to attain its full significance only +when the circumnavigation of Africa and South America linked the +Atlantic to the World Ocean. Thus that gradual expansion of the +geographic horizon which has accompanied the progress of history has +seen a slow evolution in the value of seaboard locations, the transfer +of maritime leadership from small to large basins, from thalassic to +oceanic ports, from Lubeck to Hamburg, from Venice to Genoa, as earlier +from the Piræus to Ostia, and later from England's little _Cinque Ports_ +to Liverpool and the Clyde. + +[Sidenote: Geographic location of coasts.] + +Though the articulations of a coast determine the ease with which +maritime influences are communicated to the land, nevertheless history +shows repeated instances where an exceptional location, combined with +restricted area, has raised a poorly indented seaboard to maritime and +cultural preeminence. Phoenicia's brilliant history rose superior to the +limitation of indifferent harbors, owing to a position on the Arabian +isthmus between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean at the meeting +place of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Moreover, the advantages of this +particular location have in various times and in various degrees brought +into prominence all parts of the Syrian and Egyptian coasts from Antioch +to Alexandria. So the whole stretch of coast around the head of the +Adriatic, marking the conjunction of a busy sea-route with various +land-routes over the encircling mountains from Central Europe, has seen +during the ages a long succession of thriving maritime cities, in spite +of fast-silting harbors and impeded connection with the hinterland. Here +in turn have ruled with maritime sway Spina, Ravenna, Aquileia,[522] +Venice, and Trieste. On the other side of the Italian peninsula, the +location on the northernmost inlet of the western Mediterranean and at +the seaward base of the Ligurian Apennines, just where this range opens +two passes of only 1,800 feet elevation to the upper Po Valley, made an +active maritime town of Genoa from Strabo's day to the present. In its +incipiency it relied upon one mediocre harbor on an otherwise harborless +coast, a local supply of timber for its ships, and a road northward +across the mountains.[523] The maritime ascendency in the Middle Ages of +Genoa, Pisa, Venice, and Barcelona proves that no long indented coast is +necessary, but only one tolerable harbor coupled with an advantageous +location. + +[Sidenote: Intermediate location between contrasted coasts.] + +Owing to the ease and cheapness of water transportation, a seaboard +position between two other coasts of contrasted products due to a +difference either of zonal location or of economic development or of +both combined, insures commercial exchanges and the inevitable +activities of the middleman. The position of Carthage near the center of +the Mediterranean enabled her to fatten on the trade between the highly +developed eastern basin and the retarded western one. Midway between the +teeming industrial towns of medieval Flanders, Holland, and western +Germany, and the new unexploited districts of retarded Russia, Poland, +and Scandinavia, lay the long line of the German Hanseatic towns--Kiel, +Lubeck, Wiemar, Rostock, Stralsund, Greifswald, Anclam, Stettin, and +Colberg, the _civitates maritimæ_. For three centuries or more they made +themselves the dominant commercial and maritime power of the Baltic by +exchanging Flemish fabrics, German hardware, and Spanish wines for the +furs and wax of Russian forests, tallow and hides from Polish pastures, +and crude metals from Swedish mines.[524] So Portugal by its +geographical location became a staple place where the tropical products +from the East Indies were transferred to the vessels of Dutch merchants, +and by them distributed to northern Europe. Later New England, by a +parallel location, became the middleman in the exchanges of the tropical +products of the West Indies, the tobacco of Virginia, and the wheat of +Maryland for the manufactured wares of England and the fish of +Newfoundland. + +[Sidenote: Historical decline of certain coasts.] + +Primitive or early maritime commerce has always been characterized by +the short beat, a succession of middlemen coasts, and a close series of +staple-places, such as served the early Indian Ocean trade in Oman, +Malabar Coast, Ceylon, Coromandel Coast, Malacca, and Java. Therefore, +many a littoral admirably situated for middleman trade loses this +advantage so soon as commerce matures enough to extend the sweep of its +voyages, and to bring into direct contact the two nations for which that +coast was intermediary. This is only another aspect of the +anthropo-geographic evolution from small to large areas. The decline of +the Mediterranean coasts followed close upon the discovery of the +sea-route to India; nor was their local importance restored by the Suez +Canal. Portugal declined when the Dutch, excluded from the Tagus mouth +on the union of Portugal with Spain, found their way to the Spice Isles. +Ceylon, though still the chief port of call in the Indian Ocean, has +lost its preëminence as chief market for all the lands between Africa +and China, which it enjoyed in the sixth century, owing to the "long +haul" of modern oceanic commerce. + +[Sidenote: Political factors in this decline.] + +Not only that far-reaching readjustment of maritime ascendency which in +the sixteenth century followed the advance from thalassic to oceanic +fields of commerce, but also purely local political events may for a +time produce striking changes in the use or importance of coasts. The +Piræus, which had been the heart of ancient Athens, almost wholly lost +its value in the checkered political history of the country during the +Middle Ages, when naval power and merchant marine almost vanished; but +with the restoration of Grecian independence in 1832, much of its +pristine activity was restored. Up to the beginning of the seventeenth +century, Japan had exploited her advantageous location and her richly +indented coast to develop a maritime trade which extended from Kamchatka +to India; but in 1624 an imperial order withdrew every Japanese vessel +from the high seas, and for over two hundred years robbed her busy +littoral of all its historical significance. The real life of the +Pacific coast of the United States began only with its incorporation +into the territory of the Republic, but it failed to attain its full +importance until our acquisition of Alaska, Hawaii, and the Philippines. +So the coast of the Persian Gulf has had periods of activity alternating +with periods of deathlike quiet. Its conquest by the Saracens in the +seventh century inaugurated an era of intense maritime enterprise along +its drowsy shores. What new awakening may it experience, if it should +one day become a Russian littoral! + +[Sidenote: Physical causes of decline.] + +Sometimes the decline in historical importance is due to physical +modifications in the coast itself, especially when, the mud transported +by a great river to the sea is constantly pushing forward the outer +shoreline. The control of the Adriatic passed in turn from Spina to +Adria, Ravenna, Aquileia, Venice, and Trieste, owing to a steady silting +up of the coast.[525] Strabo records that Spina, originally a port, was +in his time 90 stadia, or 10 miles, from the sea.[526] Bruges, once the +great _entrepôt_ of the Hanseatic League, was originally on an arm of +the sea, with which it was later connected by canal, and which has been +silted up since 1432, so that its commerce, disturbed too by local wars, +was transferred to Antwerp on the Scheldt.[527] Many early English +ports on the coast of Kent and on the old solid rim of the Fenland +marshes now lie miles inland from the Channel and the Wash. + +A people never utilizes all parts of its coast with equal intensity, or +any part with equal intensity in all periods of its development; but, +according to the law of differentiation, it gradually concentrates its +energies in a few favored ports, whose maritime business tends to become +specialized. Then every extension of the subsidiary territory and +intensification of production with advancing civilization increases the +mass of men and wares passing through these ocean gateways. The shores +of New York, Delaware, and Chesapeake bays are more important to the +country now than they were in early colonial days, when their back +country extended only to the watershed of the Appalachian system. Our +Gulf coast has gained in activity with the South's economic advance from +slave to free labor, and from almost exclusive cotton planting to +diversified production combined with industries; and it will come into +its own, in a maritime sense, when the opening of the Panama Canal will +divert from the Atlantic outlets those products of the Mississippi basin +which will be seeking Trans-Pacific markets. + +[Sidenote: Interplay of geographic factors in coastlands.] + +A careful analysis of the life of coast peoples in relation to all the +factors of their land and sea environment shows that these are +multiform, and that none are negligible; it takes into consideration the +extent, fertility, and relief of the littoral, its accessibility from +the land as well as from the sea, and its location in regard to outlying +islands and to opposite shores, whether near or far; it holds in view +not only the small articulations that give the littoral ready contact +with the sea, but the relation of the seaboard to the larger continental +articulations, whether it lies on an outrunning spur of a continental +mass, like the Malacca, Yemen, or Peloponnesian coast, or upon a +retiring inlet that brings it far into the heart of a continent, and +provides it with an extensive hinterland; and, finally, it never ignores +the nature of the bordering sea, which furnishes the school of +seamanship and fixes the scope of maritime enterprise. + +All these various elements of coastal environment are further +differentiated in their use and their influence according to the +purposes of those who come to tenant such tide-washed rims of the land. +Pirates seek intricate channels and hidden inlets for their lairs; a +merchant people select populous harbors and navigable river mouths; +would-be colonists settle upon fertile valleys opening into quiet bays, +till their fields, and use their coasts for placid maritime trade with +the mother country; interior peoples, pushed or pushing out to the tidal +periphery of their continent, with no maritime history behind them, +build their fishing villages on protected lagoons, and, unless the +shadowy form of some outlying island lure them farther, there they +tarry, deaf to the siren song of the sea. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII + +[412] Rudolph Reinhard, _Die Wichtigsten Deutschen Seehandelstädte_, pp. +24, 25. Stuttgart, 1901. Joseph Partsch, Central Europe, p. 291. London, +1903. + +[413] _Ibid_, p. 301. + +[414] John Richard Green, The Making of England, Vol. I, pp. 51-54; +maps, pp. 36 and 54. London, 1904. + +[415] _Ibid_, Vol. I, pp. 12, 63; maps pp. xxii and 54. + +[416] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, pp. 98, 139. London, +1896-1898. + +[417] Joseph Partsch, Central Europe, pp. 284-288. London, 1903. + +[418] H.B. Mill, International Geography, p. 251. New York, 1902. + +[419] Rudolph Reinhard, _Die Wichtigsten Deutschen Seehandelstädte_, pp. +21-22. Stuttgart, 1901. + +[420] Fitz-Roy and Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle, Vol. II, pp. 140, 178; +Vol. III, pp. 231-236. London, 1839. + +[421] Eleventh Census, Population and Resources of Alaska, pp. 166-171. +Washington, 1893. + +[422] Nordenskiold, The Voyage of the Vega, pp. 327, 334, 335, 365, 366, +412, 416, 459, 467. New York, 1882. + +[423] G. Frederick Wright, Greenland Icefields, pp. 68-70, 100, 105. New +York, 1896. For Eskimo of Hudson Bay and Baffin Land, see F. Boas, The +Central Eskimo, pp. 419, 420, 460-462. _Sixth Annual Report of the +Bureau of Ethnology_. Washington, 1888. + +[424] _Bella Gallico_, Book III, chap. 12. + +[425] Ernst Curtius, History of Greece, Vol. I, p, 15. New York. + +[426] Strabo's Geography, Book II, chap. V, 4. Book III, chap. I, 4. + +[427] Grote, History of Greece, Vol. III, pp. 266-267. New York, 1857. + +[428] Thucydides, Book VI, 2. + +[429] Grote, History of Greece, Vol. III, p. 273. New York, 1857. + +[430] Strabo's Geography, Book XVII, chap. III, 13, 14. + +[431] Thucydides, Book I, 5, 7, 8. + +[432] Strabo, Book VIII, chap. VI, 2, 4, 13, 14, 22. + +[433] Grote, History of Greece, Vol. III, pp. 4, 191. New York, 1857. + +[434] J. Partsch, Central Europe, p. 291. London, 1903. + +[435] Rudolph Reinhard, _Die Wichtigsten Deutschen Seehandelstädte_, p. +23. Stuttgart, 1901. + +[436] Grote, History of Greece, Vol. III, p. 273. New York, 1857. + +[437] Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, Vol. II, pp. 452-454, 610. +London, 1883. Duarte Barbosa, East Africa and Malabar Coasts in the +Sixteenth Century, p. 3-16. Hakluyt Society, London, 1866. + +[438] Ernst Curtius, History of Greece, Vol. I, pp. 433-434. New York. + +[439] W.B. Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, Vol. I, +p. 93. Boston, 1899. + +[440] Norway, Official Publication, p. 1. Christiania, 1900. + +[441] Ratzel, _Deutschland_, pp. 150-151. Leipzig, 1898. + +[442] J. Partsch, Central Europe, pp. 227-230. London, 1903. + +[443] Elisée Reclus, The Earth and Its Inhabitants; Europe, Vol. 1, pp. +370-372. New York, 1886. + +[444] Ernst Curtius, History of Greece, Vol. I, pp. 15-20. New York. + +[445] Heinrich von Treitschke, _Politik_, Vol. 1, p. 215. Leipzig, 1897. + +[446] H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, pp. 35, 40. London, +1902. + +[447] William Morris Davis, Physical Geography, pp. 115-122. Boston, +1899. + +[448] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, p. 95. London, 1896-1898. + +[449] Strabo, Book XVII, chap. I, 18. Diodorus Siculus, Book I, chap. +III, p. 36. London, 1814. + +[450] J. Partsch, Central Europe, pp. 96-98. London, 1903. Ratzel, +_Deutschland_, pp. 143-144. Leipzig, 1898. + +[451] For geomorphology of coasts, see William Morris Davis, Physical +Geography, pp. 112-136, 347-383. Boston, 1899. + +[452] Elisée Reclus, Europe, Vol. II, p, 252. New York, 1886. + +[453] J. Partsch, Central Europe, p. 231. London, 1903. + +[454] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, pp. 44, 446. London, 1904. + +[455] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 1012. New York, 1902. +Hereford George, Historical Geography of the British Empire, pp. +278-279. London, 1904. + +[456] J.E. Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, pp. 123-124. +New York, 1884. + +[457] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 148. New York, 1902. + +[458] Diodorus Siculus, Book V, chap. I, p. 304. London, 1814. Strabo, +Book V, chap. VI, 6, 7. + +[459] Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. I, pp. 188-189, 193-195. New +York, 1902-1906. + +[460] Strabo, Book XVI, chap. III, 4, 27. Herodotus, Book I, chap. I; +Book VII, chap. 89. J.T. Brent, The Bahrein Islands of the Persian Gulf, +Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, Vol. XII, pp. 13-16. +London, 1890. + +[461] George Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, pp. +169-170. New York, 1897. + +[462] _Ibid._, pp. 179, 185, 286. + +[463] _Ibid._, pp. 127-131. + +[464] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, pp. 100-102, 132-145. +London, 1896-1898. + +[465] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 985. New York, 1902. + +[466] D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, pp. 84, 166. London, 1902. + +[467] J. Naken, _Die Provinz Kwangtung und ihre Bevölkerung, Petermanns +Geographische Mittheilungen_, Vol. 24, pp. 409, 420. 1878. Ferdinand von +Richthofen, _China_, Vol. I, pp. 568-569. Berlin, 1877. Cathay and the +Way Thither, Vol. I, p. lxxviii. Hakluyt Society, London, 1866. + +[468] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 397. London, 1896-1898. +Philippine Census, Vol. I, pp. 438, 481-491. Washington, 1905. + +[469] Stanford's Australasia, Vol. II, pp. 103, 121, 126-135, 196. +London, 1894. Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. II, p. 547. New York, +1902-1906. + +[470] _Ibid._, Vol. III, pp. 431, 434. Vol. II, p. 603. + +[471] Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Handels und Gewerbefleisses_, pp. +78-79, 99-100. Stuttgart, 1899. Capt. A.T. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power +upon History, pp. 26-28. Boston, 1902. + +[472] D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, pp. 111-112, 152. London, 1902. + +[473] _Ibid._, pp. 73-74, 139, 267. + +[474] Cathay and the Way Thither, Vol. I, p. LXXX. Hakluyt Society. +London, 1866. Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. II, p. 548. New York, +1902-1906. + +[475] The Book of Ser Marco Polo, edited by Sir Henry Yule, Vol. II, +Book III, pp. 284, 288, 303. New York, 1903. + +[476] P. Vidal de la Blache, _Géographie de la France_, pp. 335-337. +Paris, 1903. + +[477] Elisée Reclus, Europe, Vol. II, p. 252. New York, 1882. + +[478] Norway, Official Publication, pp. 89-91, map p. 4. Christiania, +1900. + +[479] D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, pp. 114, 140, 163-164, 202, 267. +London, 1902. + +[480] H.F. Tozer, History of Ancient Geography, pp. 276-280. Cambridge, +1897. Strabo, Book XVI, chap. IV, 2, 19. + +[481] Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. III, p. 433. New York, +1902-1906. + +[482] James Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, pp. 78-82, 99. New York, +1897. + +[483] Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, Vol. I, map p. +80. New York, 1893. + +[484] Census of the Philippine Islands, Vol. I, pp. 412-413, 481, 464, +562., Washington, 1905. + +[485] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 416. + +[486] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, p. 449. London, 1896-1898. + +[487] P. Ehrenreich, _Die Eintheilung und Verbreitung der Völkerstämme +Brasiliens, Petermanns Mittheilungen_, Vol. 37, pp. 88-89. Gotha, 1891. +Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. I, p. 185, map p. 189. New York, +1902-1906. + +[488] John Richard Green, The Making of England, Vol. I, chap. I. +London, 1904. + +[489] H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, p. 189. London, +1904. W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 312-315, map. New York, 1899. + +[490] D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, p. 152. London, 1902. W. Z. +Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 402, 404, map. New York, 1899. + +[491] _Ibid._, pp. 117, 404-405, 409-419. + +[492] _Ibid._, pp. 206-208, 210-212. Norway, Official Publication, pp. +80-81. Christiania, 1900. + +[493] Census of the Philippine Islands, Vol. II, p. 52, map p. 50. +Washington, 1905. + +[494] Grote, History of Greece, Vol. III, pp. 175-176, 186-189. New +York, 1857. + +[495] Ernst Curtius, History of Greece, Vol. I, pp. 492-493. New York. + +[496] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, pp. 530-533. London, +1896-1898. + +[497] H.D. Trail, Social England, Vol. III, pp. 367-368. London and New +York, 1895. + +[498] Twelfth Census, Bulletin No. 103, table 23. Washington, 1902. + +[499] E.C. Semple, American History and Its Geographic Conditions, pp. +314-328. Boston, 1903. + +[500] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, p. 58. London, 1904. + +[501] Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Handels und Gewerbefleisses_, p. +85, Note 18. Stuttgart, 1899. + +[502] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, p. 533. London, 1896-1898. + +[503] _Ibid._, Vol. III, pp. 139, 145. + +[504] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 869. New York, 1902. + +[505] D.G. Brinton, The American Race, p. 107. Philadelphia, 1901. H.H. +Bancroft, The Native Races, p. 239, footnote p. 274. San Francisco, +1886. + +[506] Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book VIII, chap. II, 6, 7, 9. + +[507] J. Scott Keltie, The Partition of Africa, p. 327. London, 1895. +Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, pp. 121-122. London, 1896-1898. + +[508] _Ibid._, Vol. III, pp. 121, 132-133. + +[509] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 239. + +[510] Eleventh Census, Report on Alaska, p. 70. Washington, 1893. + +[511] _Ibid._, p. 156. E.R. Scidmore, Guidebook to Alaska, p. 94. New; +York, 1897. + +[512] Census of the Philippine Islands, Vol. I, pp. 556-561, 575, +581-583. Washington, 1905. + +[513] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 85-86, 99-101, map pp. 151-152. +New York, 1899. + +[514] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, pp. 97, 106. New York, +1896-1898. + +[515] Henry Gannett, The Peoples of the Philippines, in Report of the +Eighth International Geographic Congress, p. 673. Washington, 1904. + +[516] A.H. Keane, Africa, Stanford's Compendium, pp. 372-376, 385-388. +London, 1895. Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. III, pp. 402, 456-457, +462. New York, 1902-1906. + +[517] H.H. Bancroft, The Native Races, Vol. I, pp. 440-441; Vol. III, +pp. 325, 362. San Francisco, 1886. McGee and Thomas, Prehistoric North +America, pp. 37-38, 78, 88-89, 95-98. Vol. XIX of History of North +America. Philadelphia, 1905. + +[518] Grote, History of Greece, Vol. IV, p. 22. New York, 1857. + +[519] _Ibid._, Vol. II, pp. 225, 226. + +[520] Census of the Philippine Islands, Vol. II, pp. 34, 35. Washington, +1905. + +[521] Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, pp. 81-82. New York, +1859. + +[522] Strabo, Book V, chap. I, 7, 8. + +[523] Strabo, Book IV, chap. VI, 1, 2; Book V, chap. I, 11. + +[524] Dietrich Schäfer, _Die Hansestädte und König Waldemar von +Dänemark_, pp. 184, 189. Jena, 1879. + +[525] W. Deecke, Italy, pp. 89-91. London, 1904. + +[526] Strabo, Book III, chap. I, 2. + +[527] Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Handels und Gewerbefleisses_, p. +93, Note 1. Stuttgart, 1899. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +OCEANS AND ENCLOSED SEAS + + +The water of the earth's surface, viewed from the standpoint of +anthropo-geography, is one, whether it appears as atmospheric moisture, +spring, river, lake, brackish lagoon, enclosed sea-basin or open ocean. +Its universal circulation, from the falling of the dews to the vast +sweep of ocean current, causes this inviolable unity. Variations in the +geographical forms of water are superficial and constantly changing; +they pass into one another by almost imperceptible gradations, shift +their unstable outlines at the bidding of the mobile, restless element. +In contrast to the land, which is marked by diversity of geologic +structure and geographic form, the world of water is everywhere +approximately the same, excepting only the difference in the mineral +composition of sea water as opposed to that of spring and stream. +Therefore, whenever man has touched it, it has moulded him in much the +same way, given the same direction to his activities, dictated the use +of the same implements and methods of navigation. As maritime trader or +colonist, he has sailed to remote, unknown, yet familiar coasts, and +found himself as much at home as on his native shores. He has built up +maritime empires, the centre of whose dominion, race and commerce, falls +somewhere in the dividing yet uniting sea. + +[Sidenote: The water a factor in man's mobility.] + +Man must be grouped with the air and water as part of the mobile +envelope of the earth's surface. The mobility which maintains the unity +of air and water has caused the unity of the human race. Abundant +facilities of dispersal often give animal forms a wide or cosmopolitan +distribution. Man, by appropriating the mobile forces in the air and +water to increase his own powers of locomotion, has become a +cosmopolitan being, and made the human race reflect the unity of +atmosphere and hydrosphere. + +Always the eternal unrest of the moving waters has knocked at the door +of human inertia to arouse the sleeper within; always the flow of stream +and the ebb of tide have sooner or later stirred the curiosity of the +land-born barbarian about the unseen destination of these marching +waters. Rivers by the mere force of gravity have carried him to the +shores of their common ocean, and placed him on this highway of the +world. Then from his sea-girt home, whether island or continent, he has +timidly or involuntarily followed the track which headland-dotted coast, +or ocean current, or monsoon, or trade wind marked out for him across +the pathless waters, so that at the gray dawn of history he appears as +a cosmopolite, occupying every part of the habitable earth. + +These sporadic oversea wanderings, with intervals of centuries or +milleniums between, opened to his occupancy strange and remote lands, in +whose isolation and new environment he developed fresh variations of +mind, body and cultural achievements, to arm him with new weapons in the +struggle for existence. The sea which brought him bars him for a few +ages from his old home, till the tradition of his coming even is lost. +Then with higher nautical development, the sea loses its barrier nature; +movements of people, and trade recross its surface to unite those who +have been long severed and much differentiated in their mutual +remoteness. The ensuing friction and mingling weed out the less fit +variations of each, and combine in the new race the qualities able to +fortify a higher type of man. Not only seas and oceans, but also +mountains and deserts serve to isolate the migrant people who once has +crossed them; but wastes of water raise up the most effective barriers. + +[Sidenote: Oceans and seas in universal history.] + +The transformation of the ocean into a highway by the development of +navigation is a late occurrence in the history of man and is perhaps the +highest phase of his adaptation to environment, because an adaptation +which has placed at his disposal that vast water area constituting +three-fourths of the earth's surface from which he had previously been +excluded. Moreover, it was adaptation to an alien and hostile element, +whose violent displays of power recurrently stimulated the human +adjustment between attack and defense. + +Because adaptation to the sea has been vastly more difficult than to the +land, commensurate with the harder struggle it has brought greater +intellectual and material rewards. This conquest of the sea is entitled +to a peculiarly high place in history, because it has contributed to the +union of the various peoples of the world, has formed a significant part +of the history of man, whether that history is economic, social, +political or intellectual. Hence history has always staged its most +dramatic acts upon the margin of seas and oceans; here always the plot +thickens and gives promise of striking development. Rome of the seven +hills pales before England of the "Seven Seas." + +[Sidenote: The sea in universal history.] + +Universal history loses half its import, remains an aggregate of parts, +fails to yield its significance as a whole, if it does not continually +take into account the unifying factor of the seas. Indeed, no history is +entitled to the name of universal unless it includes a record of human +movements and activities on the ocean, side by side with those on the +land. Our school text-books in geography present a deplorable hiatus, +because they fail to make a definite study of the oceans over which man +explores and colonizes and trades, as well as the land on which he +plants and builds and sleeps. + +The striking fact about the great World Ocean to-day is the manifold +relations which it has established between the dwellers on its various +coasts. Marine cables, steamer and sailing routes combine to form a +network of paths across the vast commons of the deep. Over these the +commercial, political, intellectual, or even purely migrant activities +of human life move from continent to continent. The distinctive value of +the sea is that it promotes many-sided relations as opposed to the +one-sided relation of the land. France on her eastern frontier comes +into contact with people of kindred stock, living under similar +conditions of climate and soil to her own; on her maritime border she is +open to intermittent intercourse with all continents and climes and +races of the world. To this sea border must be ascribed the share that +France has taken in the history of North and South America, the West +Indies, North and Equatorial Africa, India, China and the South Seas. So +we find the great maritime peoples of the world, from the Phoenicians to +the English, each figuring in the history of the world of its day, and +helping weave into a web of universal history the stories of its various +parts. + +[Sidenote: Origin of navigation.] + +Man's normal contact with the sea is registered in his nautical +achievements. The invention of the first primitive means of navigation, +suggested by a floating log or bloated body of a dead animal, must have +been an early achievement, of a great many peoples who lived near the +water, or who in the course of their wanderings found their progress +obstructed by rivers; it belongs to a large class of similar discoveries +which answer urgent and constantly recurring needs. It was, in all +probability, often made and as often lost again, until a growing habit +of venturing beyond shore or river bank in search of better fishing, or +of using the easy open waterways through the thick tangle of a primeval +forest to reach fresh hunting grounds, established it as a permanent +acquisition. + +[Sidenote: Primitive forms.] + +The first devices were simply floats or rafts, made of light wood, +reeds, or the hollow stems of plants woven together and often buoyed up +by the inflated skins of animals. Floats of this character still survive +among various peoples, especially in poorly timbered lands. The skin +rafts which for ages have been the chief means of downstream traffic on +the rivers of Mesopotamia, consist of a square frame-work of interwoven +reeds and branches, supported by the inflated skins of sheep and +goats;[528] they are guided by oars and poles down or across the current. +These were the primitive means by which Layard transported his winged +bull from the ruins of Nineveh down to the Persian Gulf, and they were +the same which he found on the bas-reliefs of the ancient capital, +showing the methods of navigation three thousand years ago.[529] Similar +skin rafts serve as ferry boats on the Sutlej, Shajok and other head +streams of the Indus.[530] They reappear in Africa as the only form of +ferry used by the Moors on the River Morbeya in Morocco; on the Nile, +where the inflated skins are supplanted by earthen pots;[531] and on the +Yo River of semi-arid Sudan, where the platform is made of reeds and is +buoyed up by calabashes fastened beneath.[532] + +[Sidenote: Primitive craft in arid lands.] + +In treeless lands, reeds growing on the margins of streams and lakes are +utilized for the construction of boats. The Buduma islanders of Lake +Chad use clumsy skiffs eighteen feet long, made of hollow reeds tied +into bundles and then lashed together in a way to form a slight cavity +on top.[533] In the earliest period of Egyptian history this type of boat +with slight variations was used in the papyrus marshes of the Nile,[534] +and it reappears as the ambatch boat which Schweinfurth observed on the +upper White Nile.[535] It is in use far away among the Sayads or Fowlers, +who inhabit the reed-grown rim of the Sistan Lake in arid Persia.[536] As +the Peruvian balsa, it has been the regular means of water travel on +Lake Titicaca since the time of the Incas, and in more primitive form it +appears among the Shoshone Indians of the Snake River Valley of Idaho, +who used this device in their treeless land to cross the streams, when +the water was too cold for swimming.[537] Still cruder rafts of reeds, +without approach to boat form, were the sole vehicles of navigation +among the backward Indians of San Francisco Bay, and were the prevailing +craft among the coast Indians farther south and about the Gulf of Lower +California.[538] Trees abounded; but these remnant tribes of low +intelligence, probably recent arrivals on the coast from the interior, +equipped only with instruments of bone and stone, found the difficulty +of working with wood prohibitive. + +The second step in the elaboration of water conveyance was made when +mere flotation was succeeded by various devices to secure displacement. +The evolution is obvious. The primitive raftsman of the Mesopotamian +rivers wove his willow boughs and osiers into a large, round basket +form, covered it with closely sewn skins to render it water-tight, and +in it floated with his merchandise down the swift current from Armenia +to Babylon. These were the boats which Herodotus saw on the +Euphrates,[539] and which survive to-day.[540] According to Pliny, the +ancient Britons used a similar craft, framed of wicker-work and covered +with hide, in which they crossed the English and Irish channels to visit +their kinsfolk on the opposite shores. This skin boat or coracle or +currach still survives on the rivers of Wales and the west coast of +Ireland, where it is used by the fishermen and considered the safest +craft for stormy weather.[541] It recalls the "bull-skin boat" used in +pioneer days on the rivers of our western plains, and the skiffs serving +as passenger ferries to-day on the rivers of eastern Tibet.[542] It +reappears among the Arikara Indians of the upper Missouri,[543] and the +South American tribes of the Gran Chaco.[544] The first wooden boat was +made of a tree trunk, hollowed out either by fire or axe. The wide +geographical distribution of the dug-out and its survival in isolated +regions of highly civilized lands point it out as one of those necessary +and obvious inventions that must have been made independently in +various parts of the world. + +[Sidenote: Relation of the river to marine navigation.] + +The quieter water of rivers and lakes offered the most favorable +conditions for the feeble beginnings of navigation, but the step from +inland to marine navigation was not always taken. The Egyptians, who had +well-constructed river and marine boats, resigned their maritime +commerce to Phoenicians and Greeks, probably, as has been shown, because +the silted channels and swamps of the outer Nile delta held them at +arm's length from the sea. Similarly the equatorial lakes of Central +Africa have proved fair schools of navigation, where the art has passed +the initial stages of development. The kingdom of Uganda on Victoria +Nyanza, at the time of Stanley's visit, could muster a war fleet of 325 +boats, a hundred of them measuring from fifty to seventy feet in length; +the largest were manned by a crew of sixty-four paddlers and could carry +as many more fighting men.[545] The long plateau course of the mighty +Congo has bred a race of river navigators, issuing from their riparian +villages to attack the traveler in big flotillas of canoes ranging from +fifty to eighty-five feet in length, the largest of them driven through +the water by eighty paddlers and steered by eight more paddles in the +stern.[546] But the Congo and lake boats are barred from the coast by a +series of cataracts, which mark the passage of the drainage streams down +the escarpment of the plateau. + +[Sidenote: Retarded navigation.] + +There are peoples without boats or rafts of any description. Among this +class are the Central Australians, Bushmen, navigation. Hottentots and +Kaffirs of arid South Africa,[547] and with few exceptions also the +Damaras. Even the coast members of these tribes only wade out into the +shallow water on the beach to spear fish. The traveler moving northward +from Cape Town through South Africa, across its few scant rivers, goes +all the way to Ngami Lake before he sees anything resembling a canoe, +and then only a rude dugout. Still greater is the number of people who, +though inhabiting well indented coasts, make little use of contact with +the sea. Navigation, unknown to many Australian coast tribes, is limited +to miserable rafts of mangrove branches on the northwest seaboard, and +to imperfect bark canoes with short paddles on the south; only in the +north where Malayan influences are apparent does the hollowed tree-stem +with outrigger appear.[548] This retardation is not due to fear, because +the South Australian native, like the Fuegian, ventures several miles +out to sea in his frail canoe; it is due to that deep-seated inertia +which characterizes all primitive races, and for which the remote, +outlying location of peninsular South America, Southern Africa and +Australia, before the arrival of the Europeans, afforded no antidote in +the form of stimulating contact with other peoples. But the Irish, who +started abreast of the other northern Celts in nautical efficiency, who +had advantages of proximity to other shores, and in the early centuries +of their history sailed to the far-away Faroes and even to Iceland, +peopled southern Scotland by an oversea emigration, made piratical +descents upon the English coast, and in turn received colonies of bold +Scandinavian mariners, suffered an arrested development in navigation, +and failed to become a sea-faring folk. + +[Sidenote: Regions of advanced navigation.] + +Turning from these regions of merely rudimentary navigation and +inquiring where the highest efficiency in the art was obtained before +the spread of Mediterranean and European civilization, we find that this +distinction belongs to the great island world of the Pacific and to the +neighboring lands of the Indian Ocean. Sailing vessels and outrigger +boats of native design and construction characterize the whole +sea-washed area of Indo-Malaysian civilization from Malacca to the +outermost isles of the Pacific. The eastern rim of Asia, also, belongs +to this wide domain of nautical efficiency, and the coast Indians of +southern Alaska and British Columbia may possibly represent an eastern +spur of the same,[549] thrown out in very remote times and maintained by +the advantageous geographic conditions of that indented, mountainous +coast. Adjoining this area on the north is the long-drawn Arctic +seaboard of the Eskimo, who unaided have developed in their sealskin +kayak and bidarka sea-going craft unsurpassed for the purposes of marine +hunting and fishing, and who display a fearlessness and endurance born +of long and enforced intimacy with the deep. Driven by the frozen +deserts of his home to seek his food chiefly in the water, the Eskimo, +nevertheless, finds his access to the sea barred for long months of +winter by the jagged ice-pack along the shore. + +[Sidenote: Geographic conditions in Polynesia.] + +The highest degree of intimacy is developed in that vast island-strewn +stretch of the Pacific constituting Oceanica.[550] Here where a mild +climate enables the boatman race to make a companion of the deep, where +every landscape is a seascape, where every diplomatic visit or war +campaign, every trading journey or search for new coco-palm plantation +means a voyage beyond the narrow confines of the home island, there +dwells a race whose splendid chest and arm muscles were developed in the +gymnasium of the sea; who, living on a paltry 515,000 square miles +(1,320,300 square kilometers) of scattered fragments of land, but +roaming over an ocean area of twenty-five million square miles, are not +more at home in their palm-wreathed islets than on the encompassing +deep. Migrations, voluntary and involuntary, make up their history. +Their trained sense of locality, enabling them to make voyages several +hundred miles from home, has been mentioned by various explorers in +Polynesia. The Marshall Islanders set down their geographical knowledge +in maps which are fairly correct as to bearings but not as to distances. +The Ralick Islanders of this group make charts which include islands, +routes and currents.[551] Captain Cook was impressed by the geographical +knowledge of the people of the South Seas. A native Tahitian made for +him a chart containing seventy-four islands, and gave an account of +nearly sixty more.[552] Information and directions supplied by natives +have aided white explorers to many discoveries in these waters. Quiros, +visiting the Duff Islands in 1606, learned the location of Ticopia, one +of the New Hebrides group, three hundred miles away. Not only the +excellent seamanship and the related pelagic fishing of the Polynesians +bear the stamp of their predominant water environment; their mythology, +their conception of a future state, the germs of their astronomical +science, are all born of the sea. + +Though the people living on the uttermost boundaries of this island +world are 6,000 miles (or 10,000 kilometers) apart, and might be +expected to be differentiated by the isolation of their island +habitats, nevertheless they all have the same fundamental +characteristics of physique, language and culture from Guam to Easter +Isle, reflecting in their unity the oneness of the encompassing ocean +over which they circulate.[553] + +[Sidenote: Mediterranean versus Atlantic seamanship.] + +Midway between these semi-aquatic Polynesians and those Arctic tribes +who are forced out upon the deep, to struggle with it rather than +associate with it, we find the inhabitants of the Mediterranean islands +and peninsulas, who are favored by the mild climate and the tideless, +fogless, stormless character of their sea. While such a body of water +invites intimacy, it does not breed a hardy or bold race of navigators; +it is a nursery, scarcely a training school. Therefore, except for the +far-famed Dalmatian sailors, who for centuries have faced the storms +sweeping down from the Dinaric Alps over the turbulent surface of the +Adriatic, Mediterranean seamanship does not command general confidence +on the high seas. Therefore it is the German, English and Dutch +steamship lines that are to-day the chief ocean carriers from Italian +ports to East Africa, Asia, Australia, North and South America, despite +the presence of native lines running from Genoa to Buenos Ayres. +Montevideo and New York; just as it was the Atlantic states of Europe, +and only these and all of these, except Germany, who, trained to venture +out into the fogs and storms and unmarked paths of the _mare +tenebrosum_, participated in the early voyages to the Americas. One +after the other they came--Norwegians, Spaniards, Portuguese, English, +French, Dutch, Swedes and Danes. The anthropo-geographical principle is +not invalidated by the fact that Spain and England were guided in their +initial trans-Atlantic voyages by Italian navigators, like Columbus, +Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci. The long maritime experience of Italy and +its commercial relations with the Orient, reaching back into ancient +times, furnished abundant material for the researches and speculations +of such practical theorists; but Italy's location fixed the shores of +the Mediterranean as her natural horizon, narrowed her vision to its +shorter radius. Her obvious interest in the preservation of the old +routes to the Orient made her turn a deaf ear to plans aiming to divert +European commerce to trans-Atlantic routes. Italy's entrance upon the +high seas was, therefore, reluctant and late, retarded by the necessity +of outgrowing the old circumscribed outlook of the enclosed basin before +adopting the wider vision of the open ocean. Venice and Genoa were +crippled not only by the discovery of the sea route to India, but also +by their adherence to old thalassic means and methods of navigation +inadequate for the high seas.[554] However, these Mediterranean sea folk +are being gradually drawn out of their seclusion, as is proved by the +increase of Italian oceanic lines and the recent installation of an +Hellenic steamship line between Piræus and New York. + +[Sidenote: Three geographic stages of maritime development.] + +The size of a sea or ocean is a definite factor in its power to attract +or repel maritime ventures, especially in the earlier stages of nautical +development. A broken, indented coast means not only a longer and +broader zone of contact between the inhabitants and the sea; it means +also the breaking up of the adjacent expanse of water into so many +alcoves, in which fisherman, trader and colonist may become at home, and +prepare for maritime ventures farther afield. The enclosed or marginal +sea tempts earlier because it can be compassed by coastwise navigation; +then by the proximity of its opposite shores and its usual generous +equipment with islands, the next step to crosswise navigation is +encouraged. For the earliest stages of maritime development, only the +smaller articulations of the coast and the inshore fringe of sea inlets +count. This is shown in the primitive voyages of the Greeks, before they +had ventured into the Euxine or west of the forbidding Cape Malia; and +in the "inside passage" navigation of the Indians of southern Alaska, +British Columbia, and Chile, who have never stretched their nautical +ventures beyond the outermost rocks of their skerry-walled coast. + +[Sidenote: Influence of enclosed seas upon navigation.] + +A second stage is reached when an enclosed basin is at, hand to widen +the maritime horizon, and when this larger field is exploited in all its +commercial, colonial and industrial possibilities, as was done by the +Phoenicians and Greeks in the Mediterranean, the Hanse Towns in the +Baltic, the Dutch and English in the North Sea. The third and final +stage is reached when the nursery of the inshore estuary or gulf and the +elementary school of the enclosed basin are in turn outgrown, and the +larger maritime spirit moves on to the open ocean for its field of +operation. It is a significant fact that the Norse, bred to the water in +their fiords and channels behind their protecting "skerry-wall," then +trained in the stormy basins of the North and Irish Seas, were naturally +the first people of Europe to cross the Atlantic, because the Atlantic +of their shores, narrowing like all oceans and seas toward the north, +assumes almost the character of an enclosed basin. The distance from +Norway to Greenland is only 1,800 miles, little more than that across +the Arabian Sea between Africa and India. We trace, therefore, a certain +analogy between the physical subdivisions of the world of water into +inlet, marginal sea and ocean, and the anthropo-geographical gradations +in maritime development. + +The enclosed or marginal sea seems a necessary condition for the advance +beyond coastwise navigation and the much later step to the open ocean. +Continents without them, like Africa, except for its frontage upon the +Mediterranean and the Red Sea, have shown no native initiative in +maritime enterprise. Africa was further cursed by the mockery of desert +coasts along most of her scant thalassic shores. In the Americas, we +find the native races compassing a wide maritime field only in the +Arctic, where the fragmentary character of the continent breaks up the +ocean into Hudson's Bay, Davis Strait, Baffin Bay, Gulf of Boothia, +Melville Sound and Bering Sea; and in the American Mediterranean of the +Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. The excellent seamanship developed in +the archipelagoes of southern Alaska and Chile remained abortive for +maritime expansion, despite a paucity of local resources and the spur of +hunger, owing to the lack of a marginal sea; but in the Caribbean basin, +the Arawaks and later the Caribs spread from the southern mainland as +far as Cuba.[555] [See map page 101.] + +[Sidenote: Enclosed seas as areas of ethnic and cultural assimilation.] + +Enclosed or marginal seas were historically the most important sections +of the ocean prior to 1492. Apart from the widening of the maritime +horizon which they give to their bordering people, each has the further +advantage of constituting an area of close vicinal grouping and constant +interchange of cultural achievements, by which the civilization of the +whole basin tends to become elevated and unified. This unification +frequently extends to race also, owing to the rapidity of maritime +expansion and the tendency to ethnic amalgamation characteristic of all +coast regions. We recognize an area of Mediterranean civilization from +the Isthmus of Suez to the Sacred Promontory of Portugal, and in this +area a long-headed, brunette Mediterranean race, clearly unified as to +stock, despite local differentiations of culture, languages and nations +in the various islands, peninsulas and other segregated coastal regions +of this sea.[556] The basin appears therefore as an historical whole; for +in it a certain group of peoples concentrated their common efforts, +which crossed and criss-crossed from shore to shore. Phoenicia's trade +ranged westward to the outer coasts of Spain, and later Barcelona's +maritime enterprises reached east to the Levant. Greece's commercial and +colonial relations embraced the Crimea and the mouth of the Rhone, and +Genoa's extended east to the Crimea again. The Saracens, on reaching the +Mediterranean edge of the Arabian peninsula, swept the southern coasts +and islands, swung up the western rim of the basin to the foot of the +Pyrenees, and taught the sluggish Spaniards the art of irrigation +practiced on the garden slopes of Yemen. The ships of the Crusaders from +Venice, Genoa and Marseilles anchored in the ports of Mohammedanized +Syria, brought the symbol of the cross back to its birthplace In +Jerusalem, but carried away with them countless suggestions from the +finished industries of the East. Here was give and take, expansion and +counter-expansion, conquest and expulsion, all together making up a +great sum of reciprocal relations embracing the whole basin, the outcome +of that close geographical connection which every sharply defined sea +establishes between the coasts which it washes. + +[Sidenote: North Sea and Baltic basins.] + +The same thing has come to pass in the North Sea. Originally Celtic on +its western or British side, as opposed to its eastern or Germanic +coast, it has been wholly Teutonized on that flank also from the Strait +of Dover to the Firth of Tay, and sprinkled with Scandinavian settlers +from the Firth of Tay northward to Caithness.[557] The eleventh century +saw this ethnic unification achieved, and the end of the Middle Ages +witnessed the diffusion of the elements of a common civilization through +the agency of commerce from Bruges to Bergen. The Baltic, originally +Teutonic only on its northern and western shores, has in historical +times become almost wholly Teutonic, including even the seaboard of +Finland and much of the coast provinces of Russia.[558] Unification of +civilization attended this unification of race. In its period of +greatest historical significance from the twelfth to the seventeenth +century, the Baltic played the rôle of a northern Mediterranean.[559] The +countless shuttles of the Hanse ships wove a web of commercial +intercourse between its remotest shores. Novgorod and Abö were in +constant communication with Lübeck and Stralsund;[560] and Wisby, on the +island of Gotland at the great crossroads of the Baltic,[561] had the +focal significance of the Piræus in ancient Aegean trade. + +[Sidenote: Bering Sea.] + +If we turn to Asia, we find that even the unfavorable Arctic location of +Bering Sea has been unable to rob it entirely of historical +significance. This is the one spot where a native American race has +transplanted itself by its natural expansion to Asiatic shores. The +circular rim and island-dotted surface have guided Eskimo emigrants to +the coast of the Chukchian Peninsula, where they have become partly +assimilated in dress and language to the local Chukches.[562] The same +conditions also facilitated the passage of a few Chukches across Bering +Strait to the Alaskan side. At Pak (or Peck) on East Cape and on Diomed +Island, situated in the narrowest part of Bering Strait, are the great +intercontinental markets of the polar tribes. Here American furs have +for many decades been exchanged for the reindeer skins of northern +Siberia and Russian goods from far-away Moscow.[563] Only the enclosed +character of the sea, reported by the Danish explorer Vitus Bering, +tempted the land-bred Russians, who reached the northeastern coast of +Siberia at the middle of the eighteenth century, to launch their leaky +boats of unseasoned timber, push across to the American continent, and +make this whole Bering basin a Russian sea;[564] just as a few decades +before, when land exploration of Kamchatka had revealed the enclosed +character of the Sea of Okhotsk, the Russian pioneers took a straight +course across the water to their Pacific outpost of Petropavlovsk near +the southern end of the peninsula. But even before the coming of the +Slavs to its shores, the Sea of Okhotsk seems to have been an area of +native commercial and ethnic intercourse from the Amur River in Siberia +in a half circle to the east, through Sakhalin, Yezo, the Kurile Islands +and southern Kamchatka,[565] noticeably where the rim of the basin +presented the scantiest supply of land and where, therefore, its meager +resources had to be eked out by fisheries and trade on the sea. + +[Sidenote: Red Sea basin.] + +On the southwest margin of Asia, the Red Sea, despite its desert shores, +has maintained the influence of its intercontinental location and linked +the neighboring elements of Africa and Asia. Identity of climatic +conditions on both sides of this long rift valley has facilitated ethnic +exchanges, and made it the center of what Ratzel calls the "Red Sea +group of peoples," related in race and culture.[566] The great ethnic +solvent here has been Semitic. Under the spur of Islam, the Arabs by +1514 had made the Red Sea an Arabian and Mohammedan sea. They had their +towns or trading stations at Zeila on the African side of the Strait of +Bab-el-Mandeb, at Dalaqua, the port of Abyssinia, at Massowa, Suakin, +and other towns, so that this coast too was called Arabia Felix.[567] + +[Sidenote: Assimilation facilitated by ethnic kinship.] + +Vicinal location about an enclosed basin produces more rapidly a +unification of race and culture, when some ethnic relationship and +affinity already exists among the peoples inhabiting its shores. As in +the ancient and medieval Mediterranean, so in the Yellow Sea of Asia, +the working of this principle is apparent. The presence along its coasts +of divergent but kindred peoples like the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese, +allowed these to be easily assimilated to a Yellow Sea race and to +absorb quickly any later infusion, like that of the Tatars and Manchus. +China, by reason of its larger area, long-drawn coast, massive +population, and early civilization, was the dominant factor in this +basin; Korea and Japan were its culture colonies-a fact that justifies +the phrase calling "China the Rome of the Far East." Historical Japan +began on the island of Kiu-sui, facing the Yellow Sea. Like Korea, it +derived its writing, its fantastic medical notions, its industrial +methods, some features of its government administration, its Buddhism +and its religion of Confucius from the people about the lower +Hoangho.[568] Three centuries ago Japan had its colony on Korean soil at +Fusan, the Calais of the East.[569] For purposes of piracy and smuggling +Japanese penetrated far up the rivers of China. Korea has kept in touch +with China by an active trade and diplomatic relations through the +centuries. + +But to-day China is going to school to Japan. Since Japan renounced +her policy of seclusion in 1868 along with her antiquated form of +government, and since Korea has been forced out of her hermit life, +the potency of vicinal location around this enclosed sea has been +suddenly restored. The enforced opening of the treaty ports of Japan, +Korea and China simply prepared the way for this basin to reassert its +power to unite, and to unite now more closely and effectively than +ever before, under the law of increasing territorial areas. The +stimulus was first communicated to the basin from without, from the +trading nations of the Occident and that new-born Orient rising from +the sea on the California shores. Japan has responded most promptly +and most actively to these over-sea stimuli, just as England has, of +all Europe, felt most strongly the reflex influences from +trans-Atlantic lands. The awakening of this basin has started, +therefore, from its seaward rim; its star has risen in the east. It is +in the small countries of the world that such stars rise. The +compressed energies of Japan, stirred by over-sea contact and an +improved government at home, have overleaped the old barriers and are +following the lines of slight resistance which this land-bound sea +affords. Helped by the bonds of geographical conditions and of race, +she has begun to convert China and Korea into her culture colonies. +The on-looking world feels that the ultimate welfare of China and +Korea can be best nurtured by Japan, which will thus pay its old debt +to the Middle Kingdom. + +[Sidenote: Chinese expansion seaward.] + +Despite the fact that China's history has always had a decidedly inland +character, that its political expansion has been landward, that it has +practiced most extensively and successively internal colonization, and +that its policy of exclusion has tended to deaden its outlook toward the +Pacific, nevertheless China's direct intercourse with the west and its +westward-directed influence have never, in point of significance, been +comparable with that toward the east and south. Here a succession of +marginal seas offered easy water-paths, dotted with way stations, to +their outermost rim in Japan, the Philippines and remote Australia. +About the South China Sea, the Gulf of Siam, the Sulu, Celebes, and Java +Seas, the coastal regions of the outlying islands have for centuries +received Chinese goods and culture, and a blend of that obstinately +assertive Chinese blood. + +The strength of these influences has decreased with every increase of +distance from the indented coasts and teeming, seafaring population of +South China, and with every decrease in race affinity. They have left +only faint traces on the alien shores of far-away Australia. The +divergent ethnic stock of the widespread Malay world has been little +susceptible to these influences, which are therefore weak in the remoter +islands, but clearly discernible on the coasts of the Philippines,[570] +Borneo, the nearer Sunda Islands, and the peninsula of Malacca, where +the Chinese have had trading colonies for centuries.[571] But in the +eastern half of Farther India, which is grouped with China by land as +well as by sea, and whose race stock is largely if not purely Mongolian, +these influences are very marked, so that the whole continental rim of +the South China Sea, from Formosa to the Isthmus of Malacca, is strongly +assimilated in race and culture. Tongking, exposed to those modifying +influences which characterize all land frontiers, as well as to +coastwise intercourse, is in its people and civilization merely a +transcript of China. The coast districts and islands of Annam are +occupied by Chinese as far as the hills of Cambodia, and the name of +Cochin China points to the origin of its predominant population. +One-sixth of the inhabitants of Siam are Chinese, some of whom have +filtered through the northern border; Bangkok, the capital, has a large +Chinese quarter. The whole economic life and no small part of the +intellectual life of the eastern face of Farther India south to +Singapore is centered in the activity of the Chinese.[572] + +[Sidenote: Importance of zonal and continental location.] + +The historical significance of an enclosed sea basin depends upon its +zonal location and its position in relation to the surrounding lands. We +observe a steady decrease of historical importance from south to north +through the connected series of the Yellow, Japan, Okhotsk, Bering Seas +and the Arctic basin, miscalled ocean. The far-northern location of the +Baltic, with its long winters of ice-bound ports and its glaciated +lands, retarded its inclusion in the field of history, curtailed its +important historical period, and reduced the intensity of its historical +life, despite the brave, eager activity of the Hanseatic League. The +Mediterranean had the advantage, not only of a more favorable zonal +situation, but of a location at the meeting place of three continents +and on the line of maritime traffic across the eastern hemisphere from +the Atlantic to the Pacific. + +[Sidenote: Thalassic character of the Indian Ocean.] + +These advantages it shares in some degree with the Indian Ocean, which, +as Ratzel justly argues, is not a true ocean, at best only half an +ocean. North of the equator, where it is narrowed and enclosed like an +inland sea, it loses the hydrospheric and atmospheric characteristics of +a genuine ocean. Currents and winds are disorganized by the +close-hugging lands. Here the steady northeast trade wind is replaced by +the alternating air currents of the northeast and southwest monsoons, +which at a very early date[573] enabled merchant vessels to break away +from their previous slow, coastwise path, and to strike a straight +course on their voyage between Arabia or the east coast of Africa and +India.[574] Moreover, this northern half of the Indian Ocean looks like a +larger Mediterranean with its southern coast removed. It has the same +east and west series of peninsulas harboring differentiated +nationalities, the same northward running recesses, but all on a larger +scale. It has linked together the history of Asia and Africa; and by the +Red Sea and Persian Gulf, it has drawn Europe and the Mediterranean +into its sphere of influence. At the western corner of the Indian Ocean +a Semitic people, the Arabs of Oman and Yemen, here first developed +brilliant maritime activity, like their Phoenician kinsmen of the +Lebanon seaboard. Similar geographic conditions in their home lands and +a nearly similar intercontinental location combined to make them the +middlemen of three continents. Just as the Phoenicians, by way of the +Mediterranean, reached and roused slumberous North Africa into +historical activity and became the medium for the distribution of +Egypt's culture, so these Semites of the Arabian shores knocked at the +long-closed doors of East Africa facing on the Indian basin, and drew +this region into the history of southern Asia. Thus the Africa of the +enclosed seas was awakened to some measure of historical life, while the +Africa of the wide Atlantic slept on. + +[Sidenote: The sea route to the Orient.] + +From the dawn of history the northern Indian Ocean was a thoroughfare. +Alexander the Great's rediscovery of the old sea route to the Orient +sounds like a modern event in relation to the gray ages behind it. Along +this thoroughfare Indian colonists, traders, and priests carried the +elements of Indian civilization to the easternmost Sunda Isles; and +Oriental wares, sciences and religions moved westward to the margin of +Europe and Africa. The Indian Ocean produced a civilization of its own, +with which it colored a vast semi-circle of land reaching from Java to +Abyssinia, and more faintly, owing to the wider divergence of race, the +further stretch from Abyssinia to Mozambique. + +Thus the northern Indian Ocean, owing to its form, its location in the +angle between Asia and Africa and the latitude where, round the whole +earth, "the zone of greatest historical density" begins, and especially +its location just southeast of the Mediterranean as the eastern +extension of that maritime track of ancient and modern times between +Europe and China, has been involved in a long series of historical +events. From the historical standpoint, prior to 1492 it takes a far +higher place than the Atlantic and Pacific, owing to its nature as an +enclosed sea.[575] But like all such basins, this northern Indian Ocean +attained its zenith of historical importance in early times. In the +sixteenth century it suffered a partial eclipse, which passed only with +the opening of the Suez Canal. During this interval, however, the +Portuguese. Dutch and English had rounded the Cape of Good Hope and +entered this basin on its open or oceanic side. By their trading +stations, which soon traced the outlines of its coasts from Sofala in +South Africa around to Java, they made this ocean an alcove of the +Atlantic, and embodied its events in the Atlantic period of history. It +is this open or oceanic side which differentiates the Indian Ocean +physically, and therefore historically, from a genuine enclosed sea. + +[Sidenote: Limitation of small area in enclosed seas.] + +The limitation of every enclosed or marginal sea lies in its small area +and in the relatively restricted circle of its bordering lands. Only +small peninsulas and islands can break its surface, and short stretches +of coast combine to form its shores. It affords, therefore, only limited +territories as goals for expansion, restricted resources and populations +to furnish the supply and demand of trade. What lands could the +Mediterranean present to the colonial outlook of the Greeks comparable +to the North America of the expanding English or the Brazil of the +Portuguese? Yet the Mediterranean as a colonial field had great +advantages in point of size over the Baltic, which is only one-sixth as +large (2,509,500 and 431,000 square kilometers respectively), and +especially over the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, whose effective areas were +greatly reduced by the aridity of their surrounding lands. But the +precocious development and early cessation of growth marking all +Mediterranean national life have given to this basin a variegated +history; and in every period and every geographical region of it, from +ancient Phoenicia to modern Spain and Italy, the early exhaustion of +resources and dwarfing of political ideals which characterize most small +areas become increasingly conspicuous. The history of Sweden, Denmark, +and the Hanse Towns in the Baltic tells the same story, the story of a +hothouse plant, forced in germination and growth, then stifled in the +close air. + +[Sidenote: Successive maritime periods in history.] + +Growth demands space. Therefore, the progress of history has been +attended by an advance from smaller to larger marine areas, with a +constant increase in those manifold relations between peoples and lands +which the water is able to establish. Every great epoch of history has +had its own sea, and every succeeding epoch has enlarged its maritime +field. The Greek had the Aegean, the Roman the whole Mediterranean, to +which the Middle Ages made an addition in the North Sea and Baltic. The +modern period has had the Atlantic, and the twentieth century is now +entering upon the final epoch of the World Ocean. The gradual inclusion +of this World Ocean in the widened scope of history has been due to the +expansion of European peoples, who, for the past twenty centuries, have +been the most far-reaching agents in the making of universal history. +Owing to the location and structure of their continent, they have always +found the larger outlet in a western sea. In the south the field widened +from the Phoenician Sea to the Aegean, then to the Mediterranean, on to +the Atlantic, and across it to its western shores; in the north it moved +from the quiet Baltic to the tide-swept North Sea and across the North +Atlantic. Only the South Atlantic brought European ships to the great +world highway of the South Seas, and gave them the choice of an eastern +or western route to the Pacific. Every new voyage in the age of +discovery expanded the historical horizon; and every improvement in the +technique of navigation has helped to eliminate distance and reduced +intercourse on the World Ocean to the time-scale of the ancient +Mediterranean. + +It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the larger oceanic +horizon has meant a corresponding increase in the relative content and +importance of history for the known world of each period. Such an +intense, concentrated national life as occurred in those little +Mediterranean countries in ancient times is not duplicated now, unless +we find a parallel in Japan's recent career in the Yellow Sea basin. +There was something as cosmic in the colonial ventures of the Greeks to +the wind-swept shores of the Crimea or barbarous wilds of Massilia, as +in the establishment of English settlements on the brimming rivers of +Virginia or the torrid coast of Malacca. Alexander's conquest of the +Asiatic rim of the Mediterranean and Rome's political unification of the +basin had a significance for ancient times comparable with the +Russification of northern Asia and the establishment of the British +Empire for our day. + +The ocean has always performed one function in the evolution of history; +it has provided the outlet for the exercise of redundant national +powers. The abundance of opportunity which it presents to these +disengaged energies depends upon the size, location and other geographic +conditions of the bordering lands. These opportunities are limited in an +enclosed basin, larger in the oceans, and largest in the northern halves +of the oceans, owing to the widening of all land-masses towards the +north and the consequent contraction of the oceans and seas in the same +latitudes. + +[Sidenote: Contrasted historical rôles of northern and southern +hemispheres.] + +A result of this grouping is the abundance of land in the northern +hemisphere, and the vast predominance of water in the southern, by +reason of which these two hemispheres have each assumed a distinct rôle +in history. The northern hemisphere offers the largest advantages for +the habitation of man, and significantly enough, contains a population +five times that of the southern hemisphere. The latter, on the other +hand, with its vast, unbroken water areas, has been the great oceanic +highway for circum-mundane exploration and trade. This great water +girdle of the South Seas had to be discovered before the spherical form +of the earth could be proven. In the wide territory of the northern +hemisphere civilization has experienced an uninterrupted development, +first in the Old World, because this offered in its large area north of +the equator the fundamental conditions for rapid evolution; then it was +transplanted with greatest success to North America. The northern +hemisphere contains, therefore, "the zone of greatest historical +density," from which the track of the South Seas is inconveniently +remote. Hence we find in recent decades a reversion to the old east-west +path along the southern rim of Eurasia, now perfected by the Suez Canal, +and to be extended in the near future around the world by the union of +the Pacific with the Caribbean Sea at Panama; so that finally the +northern hemisphere will have its own circum-mundane waterway, along the +line of greatest intercontinental intercourse. + +[Sidenote: Size of the oceans] + +The size of the ocean as a whole is so enormous, and yet its various +subdivisions are so uniform in their physical aspect, that their +differences of size produce less conspicuous historical effects than +their diversity of area would lead one to expect. A voyage across the +177,000 square miles (453,500 square kilometers) of the Black Sea does +not differ materially from one across the 979,000 square miles +(2,509,500 square kilometers) of the Mediterranean; or a voyage across +the 213,000 square miles (547,600 square kilometers) of the North Sea, +from one across the three-hundredfold larger area of the Pacific. The +ocean does not, like the land, wear upon its surface the evidences and +effects of its size; it wraps itself in the same garment of blue waves +or sullen swell, wherever it appears; but the outward cloak of the land +varies from zone to zone. The significant anthropo-geographical +influence of the size of the oceans, as opposed to that of the smaller +seas, comes from the larger circle of lands which the former open to +maritime enterprise. For primitive navigation, when the sailor crept +from headland to headland and from island to island, the small enclosed +basin with its close-hugging shores did indeed offer the best +conditions. To-day, only the great tonnage of ocean-going vessels may +reflect in some degree the vast areas they traverse between continent +and continent. Coasting craft and ships designed for local traffic in +enclosed seas are in general smaller, as in the Baltic, though the +enormous commerce of the Great Lakes, which constitute in effect an +inland sea, demands immense vessels. + +[Sidenote: Neutrality of the seas, its evolution.] + +The vast size of the oceans has been the basis of their neutrality. The +neutrality of the seas is a recent idea in political history. The +principle arose in connection with the oceans, and from them was +extended to the smaller basins, which previously tended to be regarded +as private political domains. Their limited area, which enabled them to +be compassed, enabled them also to be appropriated, controlled and +policed. The Greek excluded the Phoenician from the Aegean and made it +an Hellenic sea. Carthage and Tarentum tried to draw the dead line for +Roman merchantmen at the Lacinian Cape, the doorway into the Ionian +Sea, and thereby involved themselves in the famous Punic Wars. The whole +Mediterranean became a Roman sea, the _mare nostrum_. Pompey's fleet was +able to police it effectively and to exterminate the pirates in a few +months, as Cicero tells us in his oration for the Manilian Law. Venice, +by the conquest of the Dalmatian pirates in 991 prepared to make herself +_dominatrix Adriatici maris_, as she was later called. By the thirteenth +century she had secured full command of the sea, spoke of it as "the +Gulf," in her desire to stamp it as a _mare clausum_, maintained in it a +powerful patrol fleet under a _Capitan in Golfo_, whose duty it was to +police the sea for pirates and to seize all ships laden with contraband +goods. She claimed and enforced the right of search of foreign vessels, +and compelled them to discharge two-thirds of their cargo at Venice, +which thus became the clearing house of the whole Adriatic. She even +appealed to the Pope for confirmation of her dominion over the sea.[576] +Sweden and Denmark strove for a _dominum maris Baltici_; but the Hanse +Towns of northern Germany secured the maritime supremacy in the basin, +kept a toll-gate at its entrance, and levied toll or excluded merchant +ships at their pleasure, a right which after the fall of the Hanseatic +power was assumed by Denmark and maintained till 1857. "The Narrow Seas" +over which England claimed sovereignty from 1299 to 1805, and on which +she exacted a salute from every foreign vessel, included the North Sea +as far as Stadland Cape in Norway, the English Channel, and the Bay of +Biscay down to Cape Finisterre in northern Spain.[577] + +At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Indian Ocean was a +Portuguese sea. Spain was trying to monopolize the Caribbean and even +the Pacific Ocean. But the immense areas of these pelagic fields of +enterprise, and the rapid intrusion into them of other colonial powers +soon rendered obsolete in practice the principle of the _mare clausum_, +and introduced that of the _mare liberum_. The political theory of the +freedom of the seas seems to have needed vigorous support even toward +the end of the seventeenth century. At this time we find writers like +Salmasius and Hugo Grotius invoking it to combat Portuguese monopoly of +the Indian Ocean as a _mare clausum_. Grotius in a lengthy dissertation +upholds the thesis that "_Jure gentium quibusvis ad quosvis liberam +esse navigationem_," and supports it by an elaborate argument and +quotations from the ancient poets, philosophers, orators and +historians.[578] This principle was not finally acknowledged by England +as applicable to "The Narrow Seas" till 1805. Now, by international +agreement, political domain extends only to one marine league from shore +or within cannon range. The rest of the vast water area remains the +unobstructed highway of the world. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER IX + +[528] S.M. Zwemer, Arabia the Cradle of Islam, p. 135. New York, 1900. + +[529] A.H. Layard, Nineveh and Its Remains, Vol. I, p. 277; Vol. II, +79-81. New York, 1849. + +[530] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, pp. 257, 261. London, 1897. + +[531] Col. Lane Fox, Early Modes of Navigation, _Journal of +Anthropological Institute_, Vol. IV, p. 423. + +[532] Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, Vol. I, p. 167. +London; 1907. + +[533] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 324. + +[534] James H. Breasted, History of Egypt, pp. 89, 91, 97. New York, +1905. Col. Lane Fox, Early Modes of Navigation, _Journal of +Anthropological Institute_, Vol. IV, pp. 414-417. + +[535] G. Schweinfurth, The Heart of Africa, Vol. I, p. 77. London, 1873. + +[536] E. Huntington, The Depression of Sistan in Eastern Persia, +_Bulletin of the American Geographical Society_, Vol. 37, No. 5. 1905. + +[537] Schoolcraft, The Indian Tribes of the United States, Vol. I, p. +214. Philadelphia, 1853. + +[538] H.H. Bancroft, The Native Races, Vol. I, pp. 382-383, 408, 564. +San Francisco, 1886. D. G. Brinton, The American Race, pp. 110, 112. +Philadelphia, 1901. + +[539] Herodotus, Book 1, Chap. 194. + +[540] S.M. Zwemer, Arabia the Cradle of Islam, p. 135. New York, 1900. + +[541] Cotterill and Little, Ships and Sailors, pp. ix-x, 38, London, +1868. + +[542] M. Hue, Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China in 1846, Vol. II, p. +251. Chicago, 1898. + +[543] Elliott Coues, History of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Vol. I, +p. 159. New York, 1893. + +[544] Col. Lane Fox, Early Modes of Navigation, _Journal of +Anthropological Institute_, Vol. IV, pp. 423-425. + +[545] H.M. Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, Vol. I, pp. 313-314. New +York, 1879. + +[546] _Ibid._, Vol. II, pp. 184, 219-220, 270-272, 300. + +[547] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, p. 288. London, 1896-1898. + +[548] _Ibid._, Vol I, pp. 358-359. Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes +of Central Australia, pp. 679-680. London, 1904. + +[549] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, pp. 153-154; Vol. II, pp. 91, +100. London, 1896-1898. + +[550] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 166-170. + +[551] Captain Winkler, Sea Charts Formerly Used in the Marshall Islands, +Smithsonian Report for 1899, translated from the _Marine Rundschau_. +Berlin, 1898. + +[552] Captain James Cook, Journal of First Voyage Round the World, pp. +70, 105, 119, 221, 230. Edited by W.J.L. Wharton. London, 1893. + +[553] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, pp. 161, 174. London, +1896-1898. + +[554] The Commercial and Fiscal Policy of the Venetian Republic, +_Edinburgh Review_, Vol. 200, pp. 352-353. 1904. + +[555] H. Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. I, pp. 188-189, 193-195. +New York, 1902-1906. + +[556] G. Sergi, The Mediterranean Race, pp. 29-37. New York, 1901. W.Z. +Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 128-130, 270-273, 387-390, 407, 444, 448. +New York, 1899. + +[557] H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, pp. 189-190. London, +1904. + +[558] Sydow-Wagner _Schul-Atlas, Völker und Sprachenkarten_, No. 13. +Gotha, 1905. A. Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, map p. 80. New +York, 1897. + +[559] Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. VI, pp. 5-17. New York, +1902-1906. + +[560] E.C. Semple, The Development of the Hanse Towns in Relation to +their Geographical Environment, _Bulletin American Geographical +Society_, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, 1899. + +[561] Helen Zimmern, The Hansa Towns, pp. 24-25, 54-55. New York, 1895. + +[562] Nordenskiold, The Voyage of the Vega, pp. 365, 588, 591. New York, +1882. + +[563] _Ibid._, pp. 375, 403, 405, 487, 563. + +[564] Agnes Laut, The Vikings of the Pacific, pp. 62-105. New York, +1905. + +[565] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, pp. 446, 449-450. London, +1896-1898. + +[566] _Ibid._, Vol. III, pp. 180-195. + +[567] Duarte Barbosa, The Coasts of East Africa and Malabar, pp. 17-18. +Hakluyt Society Publications. London, 1866. + +[568] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, pp. 443-444. London, +1896-1898. + +[569] Angus Hamilton, Korea, pp. 130-135. New York, 1904. + +[570] Census of the Philippine Islands, Vol. I, pp. 318-320, 478, +481-495. Washington, 1903. + +[571] Hans Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. II, pp. 544-545. New +York, 1902-1906. + +[572] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, pp. 407-412. London, +1896-1898. + +[573] Pliny, Natural History, Book VI, chap. 26. + +[574] Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, Vol. II, pp. 351, 417-418, +470, 471. London, 1883. + +[575] For full discussion of Indian Ocean, see Helmolt, History of the +World, Vol. II, pp. 580-584, 602-610. New York, 1902-1906. Duarte +Barbosa, The Coasts of East Africa and Malabar, pp. 26-28, 41-42, 59-60, +67, 75, 79-80, 83, 166, 170, 174, 179, 184, 191-194, Hakluyt Society. +London, 1866. + +[576] Pompeo Molmenti, Venice in the Middle Ages, Vol. I, pp. 117, +121-123, 130. Chicago, 1906. The Commercial and Fiscal Policy of the +Venetian Republic, _Edinburgh Review_, Vol. 200, pp. 341-344, 347. 1904. + +[577] H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, p. 24, note. London, +1904. + +[578] Hugonis Grotii, _Mare Liberum sive de jure quod Batavis competit +ad Indicana commercia dissertatio_, contained in his _De Jure Belli et +Pacis. Hagae Comitis_, 1680. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +MAN'S RELATION TO THE WATER + + +Despite the extensive use which man makes of the water highways of the +world, they remain to him highways, places for his passing and +repassing, not for his abiding. Essentially a terrestrial animal, he +makes his sojourn upon the deep only temporary, even when as a fisherman +he is kept upon the sea for months during the long season of the catch, +or when, as whaler, year-long voyages are necessitated by the +remoteness and expanse of his field of operations. Yet even this rule +has its exceptions. The Moro Bajan are sea gypsies of the southern +Philippines and the Sulu archipelago, of whom Gannett says "their home +is in their boats from the cradle to the grave, and they know no art but +that of fishing." Subsisting almost exclusively on sea food, they wander +about from shore to shore, one family to a boat, in little fleets of +half a dozen sail; every floating community has its own headman called +the Captain Bajan, who embodies all their slender political +organization. When occasionally they abandon their rude boats for a +time, they do not abandon the sea, but raise their huts on piles above +the water on some shelving beach. Like the ancient lake-dwellers of +Switzerland and Italy, only in death do they acknowledge their ultimate +connection with the solid land. They never bury their dead at sea, but +always on a particular island, to which the funeral cortege of rude +outrigged boats moves to the music of the paddle's dip.[579] + +[Sidenote: Protection of a water frontier.] + +The margin of river, lake and sea has always attracted the first +settlements of man because it offered a ready food supply in its animal +life and an easy highway for communication. Moreover, a water front made +a comparatively safe frontier for the small, isolated communities which +constituted primitive societies. The motive of protection, dominant in +the savage when selecting sites for his villages, led him to place them +on the pear-shaped peninsula formed by a river loop, or on an island in +the stream or off the coast; or to sever his connection with the solid +land, whence attack might come, and provide himself with a boundary +waste of water by raising his hut on piles above the surface of lake, +river or sheltered seacoast, within easy reach of the shore. In this +location the occupant of the pile dwelling has found all his needs +answered--fishing grounds beneath and about his hut, fields a few +hundred feet away on shore, easily reached by his dug-out canoe, and a +place of retreat from a land enemy, whether man or wild beast. + +[Sidenote: Ancient pile villages.] + +Such pile dwellings, answering the primary need of protection, have had +wide distribution, especially in the Tropics, and persist into our own +times among retarded peoples living in small, isolated groups too weak +for effective defence. They were numerous in the lakes of Switzerland[580] +and northern Italy down to the first century of our era, and existed +later in slightly modified form in Ireland, Scotland, England and +southern Wales.[581] In ancient Ireland they were constructed on +artificial islands, raised in shallow spots of lakes or morasses by +means of fascines weighted down with gravel and clay, and moored to the +bottom by stakes driven through the mass. Such groups of dwellings were +called _Crannogs_; they existed in Ireland from the earliest historical +period and continued in use down to the time of Queen Elizabeth. In the +turbulent twelfth century, the warring lords of the soil adopted them as +places of refuge and residence.[582] Herodotus describes a pile village of +the ancient Thracians in Lake Prasias near the Hellespont, built quite +after the Swiss type, with trap doors in the floor for fishing or +throwing out refuse. Its inhabitants escaped conquest by the Persians +under King Darius, and avoided the fate of their fellow tribesmen on +land, who were subdued and removed as colonists to Asia.[583] + +[Sidenote: Present distribution.] + +Among Europeans such pile villages belong to primitive stages of +development, chiefly to the Stone, Bronze, and early Iron Ages. They are +widely distributed in modern times among retarded peoples, who in this +way seek compensation for their social and economic weakness. In South +America, the small timid tribe of the native Warraus till quite recently +built their dwellings on platforms over the water in the river network +of the Orinoco delta and along the swamp coast as far as the Essequibo. +These pile villages, "_fondata sopra l'acqua come Venezia_," as +Vespuccius says, suggested to him the name of Venezuela or little Venice +for this coast.[584] A pile village in Jull Lake, a lacustrine expansion +in a tributary of the upper Salwin River, is inhabited by the Inthas, +apparently an alien colony in Burma. They have added a detail in their +floating gardens, rafts covered with soil, on which they raise tomatoes, +watermelons and gourds.[585] + +In little Lake Mohrya, located near the upper Lualaba River, a southern +headstream of the Congo, Cameron found numerous pile dwellings, whose +owners moved about in dug-out canoes and cultivated fields on land,[586] +as did their Swiss confrères of twenty centuries ago. Livingstone, in +descending from Lake Nyassa by the Shire River, found in the lakelet of +Pamalombe, into which the stream widened, similar water huts inhabited +by a number of Manganja families, who had been driven from their homes +by slave raiders. The slender reeds of the papyrus thicket, lining the +shore in a broad band, served as piles, number compensating for the lack +of strength; the reeds, bent downward and fastened together into a mat, +did indeed support their light dwellings, but heaved like thin ice when +the savages moved from hut to hut. The dense forest of papyrus left +standing between village and shore effectually screened their retreat, +and the abundant fish in the lake provided them with food.[587] + +[Sidenote: Malayan pile dwellings.] + +In the vast island world of Indonesia, where constant contact with the +sea has bred the amphibian Malay race, we are not surprised to find that +the typical Malay house is built on piles above the water; and that when +the coast Malay is driven inland by new-comers of his own stock and +forced to abandon his favorite occupations of trade, piracy and fishing, +he takes to agriculture but still retains his sea-born architecture and +raises his hut on poles above the ground, beyond the reach of an enemy's +spear-thrust. The Moro Samal Laut of the southern Sulu Archipelago avoid +the large volcanic islands of the group, and place their big villages +over the sea on low coral reefs. The sandy beaches of the shore hold +their coco-palms, whose nuts by their milk eke out the scanty supply of +drinking water, and whose fronds shade the tombs of the dead.[588] The +sea-faring Malays of the Sunda Islands, in thickly populated points of +the coast, often dwell in permanently inhabited rafts moored near the +pile dwellings. Palembang on the lower swampy course of the River Musi +has a floating suburb of this sort. It is called the "Venice of +Sumatra," just as Banjarmasin, a vast complex of pile and raft +dwellings, is called the "Venice of Borneo," and Brunei to the north is +the "Venice of the East."[589] Both these towns are the chief commercial +centers of their respective islands. The little town of Kilwaru, +situated on a sandbank off the eastern end of Ceram, seems to float on +the sea, so completely has it surrounded and enveloped with pile-built +houses the few acres of dry land which form its nucleus. It is a place +of busy traffic, the emporium for commerce between the Malay Archipelago +and New Guinea.[590] + +[Sidenote: In Melanesia.] + +Farther east in Melanesia, whose coast regions are more or less +permeated by Malayan stock and influences, pile dwellings, both over +water and on land form a characteristic feature of the scenery. The +village of Sowek in Geelvink Bay, on the northern coast of Dutch New +Guinea, consists of thirty houses raised on piles above the water, +connected with each other by tree trunks but having only boat connection +with the shore. Similar villages are found hovering over the lapping +waves of Humboldt Bay, all of them recalling with surprising fidelity +the prehistoric lake-dwellings of Switzerland.[591] The Papuan part of +Port Moresby, on the southern coast of British New Guinea, covers the +whole water-front of the town with pile dwellings. In the vicinity are +similar native pile villages, such as Tanobada, Hanuabada, Elevara and +Hula, the latter consisting of pile dwellings scattered about over the +water in a circuit of several miles and containing about a thousand +inhabitants. Here, too, the motive is protection against the attacks of +inland mountain tribes, with whom the coast people are in constant +war.[592] + +The Malay fisherman, trader and pirate, with the love of the sea in his +blood, by these pile dwellings combines security from his foe and +proximity to his familiar field of activity. The same objects are +achieved by white traders on the west coast of Africa by setting up +their dwellings and warehouses on the old hulks of dismasted vessels, +which are anchored for this purpose in the river mouths. They afford +some protection against both fever and hostile native, and at the same +time occupy the natural focus of local trade seeking foreign exchanges. + +[Sidenote: River dwellers in populous lands.] + +When advancing civilization has eliminated the need for this form of +protection, water-dwellers may survive or reappear in old and +relatively over-populated countries, as we find them universally on the +rivers of China and less often in Farther India. Here they present the +phenomenon of human life overflowing from the land to the streams of the +country; because these, as highways of commerce, afford a means of +livelihood, even apart from the food supply in their fish, and offer an +unclaimed bit of the earth's surface for a floating home. Canton has +250,000 inhabitants living on boats and rafts moored in the river, and +finding occupation in the vast inland navigation of the Empire, or in +the trade which it brings to this port of the Si-kiang. Some of the +boats accommodate large families, together with modest poultry farms, +crowded together under their low bamboo sheds. Others are handsome +wooden residences ornamented with plants, and yet others are pleasure +resorts with their professional singing girls.[593] In the lakes and +swamp-bordered rivers of southern Shantung, a considerable fishing +population is found living in boats, while the land shows few +inhabitants. This population enjoys freedom from taxation and +unrestricted use of the rivers and fisheries. To vary their scant and +monotonous diet, they construct floating gardens on rafts of bamboo +covered with earth, on which they plant onions and garlic and which they +tow behind their boats. They also raise hundreds of ducks, which are +trained to go into the water to feed and return at a signal,[594] thus +expanding the resources of their river life. Bangkok has all its +business district afloat on the Menam River--shops, lumber yards, +eating-houses and merchants' dwellings. Even the street vendor's cart is +a small boat, paddled in and out among the larger junks.[595] + +A far more modern type of river-dwellers is found in the "shanty-boat" +people of the western rivers of the United States. They are the gypsies +of our streams, nomads who float downstream with the current, tying up +at intervals along the bank of some wooded island or city waterfront, +then paying a tug to draw their house-boat upstream. The river furnishes +them with fish for their table and driftwood for their cooking-stove, +and above all is the highway for the gratification of their nomad +instincts. There is no question here of trade and overpopulation. + +[Sidenote: Reclamation of land from the sea.] + +Pile dwellings and house-boats are a paltry form of encroachment upon +the water in comparison with that extensive reclamation of river swamps +and coastal marshes which in certain parts of the world has so increased +the area available for human habitation. The water which is a necessity +to man may become his enemy unless it is controlled. The alluvium which +a river deposits in its flood-plain, whether in some flat stretch of its +middle course or near the retarding level of the sea, attracts +settlement because of its fertility and proximity to a natural highway; +but it must be protected by dikes against the very element which created +it. Such deposits are most extensive on low coasts at or near the +river's mouth, just where the junction of an inland and oceanic waterway +offers the best conditions for commerce. Here then is a location +destined to attract and support a large population, for which place can +be made only by steady encroachment upon the water of both river and +sea. Diking is necessitated not only by the demand for more land for the +growing population, but also by the constant silting up of the drainage +outfalls, which increases the danger of inundation while at the same +time contributing to the upbuilding of the land. Conditions here +institute an incessant struggle between man and nature;[596] but the +rewards of victory are too great to count the cost. The construction of +sea-walls, embankment of rivers, reclamation of marshes, the cutting of +canals for drains and passways in a water-soaked land, the conversion of +lakes into meadow, the rectification of tortuous streams for the greater +economy of this silt-made soil, all together constitute the greatest +geographical transformation that man has brought about on the earth's +surface.[597] + +[Sidenote: The struggle with the water.] + +Though the North Sea lowland of Europe has suffered from the serious +encroachment of the sea from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, +when the Zuyder Zee, the Dollart and Jade Bay were formed, nevertheless +the counter encroachment of the land upon the water, accomplished +through the energy and intelligence of the inhabitants, has more than +made good the loss. Between the Elbe and Scheldt more than 2,000 square +miles (5,000 square kilometers) have been reclaimed from river and sea +in the past three hundred years. Holland's success in draining her large +inland waters, like the Haarlem Meer (70 square miles or 180 square +kilometers) and the Lake of Ij, has inspired an attempt to recover 800 +square miles (2,050 square kilometers) of fertile soil from the borders +of the Zuyder Zee and reduce that basin to nearly one-third of its +present size.[598] One-fourth of the Netherlands lies below the average +of high tides, and in 1844 necessitated 9,000 windmills to pump the +waste water into the drainage canals.[599] + +The Netherlands, with all its external features of man's war against the +water, has its smaller counterpart in the 1,200 square miles of +reclaimed soil about the head of the Wash, which constitute the Fenland +of England. Here too are successive lines of sea-wall, the earliest of +them attributed to the Romans, straightened and embanked rivers, +drainage canals, windmills and steam pumps, dikes serving as roads, +lines of willows and low moist pastures dotted with grazing cattle. No +feature of the Netherlands is omitted. The low southern part of +Lincolnshire is even called Holland, and Dutch prisoners from a naval +battle of 1652 were employed there on the work of reclamation, which was +begun on a large scale about this time.[600] In the medieval period, the +increase of population necessitated measures to improve the drainage and +extend the acreage; but there was little co-operation among the land +owners, and the maintenance of river dikes and sea-walls was neglected, +till a succession of disasters from flooding streams and invading tides +in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries led to severe measures +against defaulters. One culprit was placed alive in a breach which his +own neglect or criminal cutting had caused, and was built in, by way of +educating the Fenlanders to a sense of common responsibility.[601] + +The fight against the water on the coast begins later than that against +rivers and swamps in the interior of the land; it demands greater +enterprise and courage, because it combats two enemies instead of one; +but its rewards are correspondingly greater. The Netherlands by their +struggle have acquired not only territory for an additional half +million population, but have secured to themselves a strategic position +in the maritime trade of the world. + +[Sidenote: Mound villages in river flood-plains.] + +The abundant fertility of river flood-plains inevitably attracts +population and necessitates some kind of artificial protection against +inundation. The most primitive form of this protection is obvious and +widespread, restricted in neither locality nor race. When the flood +season converts the flat plain of the White Nile below Gondokora (7° N. +Lat.) into an extensive marsh, countless hills of the white ant emerge +over the waters. During the dry season, the ants build up their hills to +about ten feet, and then live in safety in the upper section during the +flood. They greatly surpass in intelligence and constructive ability the +human occupants of the valley, the low and wretched Kytch tribe of the +Dinka Negroes, who like the ants are attracted by the natural vegetation +of the flood-plain, and who use the ant-hills as refuge stations for +themselves and their cattle during the flood.[602] Elsewhere in Africa +the natives are more intelligent, for flood-plain villages built on +artificial mounds have existed from the earliest times. Diodorus Siculus +tells us that those of ancient Egypt, when the Nile was high, looked +like the Cyclades Islands.[603] Similar ones are constructed by the +Barotse tribe on the upper Zambesi.[604] The Niger River, rising in the +Foota Jallon and Kong Mountains which form a region of heavy rainfall +from February to July, inundates a plain of several thousand square +miles for a distance of 250 miles above Timbuctoo. Here again the +villages of the agricultural Song-hoi duplicate those of Egypt, built on +the same clay mounds, wreathed in the same feathery palms, and +communicating with one another only by small boats.[605] The same picture +is presented by the Yangtze Kiang plain during the summer overflow--low +artificial hills rising from the expanse of muddy water and topped with +trees and villages, while sampans moored to their base show the means of +communication.[606] In the broad flood-plain of the lower Mississippi +River, the chronicles of the De Soto expedition state that the Indian +villages visited stood "on mounds made by art." The Yazoo River Indians, +at the commencement of the eighteenth century, had their cabins +dispersed over the low deltaic land on earthen mounds made by their own +hands. There is also strong evidence that some of the works of the +Mound-builders in the "bottoms" of the middle and lower Mississippi +served as protected sites for the dwellings of their chiefs.[607] + +[Sidenote: Diking of rivers.] + +Such meager provisions against inundation suffice for the sparse +population characterizing the lower stages of civilization, but they +must be supplemented for the increasing density of higher stages by the +embankment of the stream, to protect also the adjacent fields. Hence the +process of confining rivers within dikes goes back into gray antiquity. +Those of the Po and its tributaries were begun before the political +history of the Lombardy plains commenced. Strabo mentions the canals and +dikes of Venetia, whereby a part of the country was drained and rendered +tillable.[608] The main Po has been embanked for centuries as far up as +Cremona, a distance of 600 miles, and the Adige to Verona.[609] But the +most gigantic dike system in the world is that of the Hoangho, by which +a territory the size of England is won from the water for +cultivation.[610] The cost of protecting the far spread crops against the +autumn floods has been a large annual expenditure and unceasing +watchfulness; and this the Chinese have paid for two thousand years, but +have not always purchased immunity. Year by year the Yellow River mounts +higher and higher on its silted bed above the surrounding lowlands, +increasing the strain on the banks and the area of destruction, when its +fury is uncaged. The flood of 1887 covered an area estimated at 50,000 +square miles, wiped out of existence a million people, and left a +greater number a prey to famine.[611] So the fertile Chengtu plain of the +Min River, supporting four millions of people on its 2,500 square miles +of area, owes its prosperity to the embanking and irrigating works of +the engineer heroes, Li Ping and his son, who lived before the Christian +era. On the temple in their honor in the city of Kuan Hsien is Li Ping's +motto, incised in gold: "Dig the bed deep, keep the banks low." For +twenty-one centuries these instructions have been carried out. The stone +dikes are kept low to permit a judicious amount of flooding for +fertilization, and every year five to six feet of silt are removed from +the artificial channel of the Min. To this work the whole population of +the Chengtu plain contributes.[612] [See map page 8.] + +[Sidenote: Social gain by control of the water.] + +In such organized struggles to reduce the domain of the water and extend +that of the dry land, the material gain is not all: more significant by +far is the power to co-operate that is developed in a people by a +prolonged war against overwhelming sea or river. A common natural +danger, constantly and even regularly recurring, necessitates for its +resistance a strong and sustained union, that draws men out of the +barren individualism of a primitive people, and forces them without halt +along the path of civilization. It brings a realizing sense of the +superiority of common interests over individual preferences, strengthens +the national bond, and encourages voluntary subservience to law. + +This is the social or political gain; but this is not all. The danger +emanating from natural phenomena has its discoverable laws, and +therefore leads to a first empirical study of winds, currents, seasonal +rainfall and the whole science of hydraulics. With deep national +insight, the Greeks embodied in their mythology the story of Perseus and +his destruction of the sea monster who ravaged the coast, and Hercules' +killing of the many-headed serpent who issued from the Lernean Marshes +to lay waste the country of Argos. Even so early a writer as Strabo +states that yet earlier authorities interpreted Hercules' victory over +the river god of the Achelous as the embankment of that stream and the +draining of its inundated delta tract by the national benefactor.[613] So +the Chinese, whose land abounds in swamps and devastating rivers, have a +long list of engineer heroes who embanked and drained for the salvation +and benefit of mankind. It is highly probable that the communal work +involved in the construction of dikes and canals for the control of the +Hoangho floods cemented the Chinese nationality of that vast lowland +plain, and supplied the cohesive force that developed here at a very +remote period a regularly organized state and an advancing civilization. + +[Sidenote: Control of water as factor in early civilizations of arid +lands.] + +The history of Egypt shows a similar effect of the yearly inundation of +the Nile Valley. Here, as in all rainless countries where irrigation +must be practiced, the water becomes a potent factor of political union +and civilization. Its scarcity necessitates common effort in the +construction and maintenance of irrigation works, and a central control +to secure fair distribution of the water to the fields of the +inhabitants. A stimulus to progress is found in the presence of a +problem, perennial as the yearly threatenings of the Hoangho, which +demands the application of human intelligence and concerted labor for +its solution. Additional arable land for the growing population can be +secured only by the wider distribution of the fructifying water; this in +turn depends upon corporate effort wisely directed and ably controlled. +Every lapse in governmental efficiency means an encroachment of the +desert upon the alluvial fields and finally to the river bank, as to-day +in Mesopotamia. + +The fact that the earliest civilizations have originated in the +sub-tropical rainless districts of the world has been ascribed solely to +the regular and abundant returns to tillage under irrigation, as opposed +to the uncertain crops under variable meteorological conditions; to the +consequent accumulation of wealth, and the emancipation of man for other +and higher activities, which follows his escape from the agricultural +vicissitudes of an uncertain climate. When Draper says: "Civilization +depends on climate and agriculture," and "the civilization of Egypt +depended for its commencement on the sameness and stability of the +African climate," and again, "agriculture is certain in Egypt and there +man first became civilized,"[614] he seizes upon the conspicuous fact of +a stable food supply as the basis of progress, failing to detect those +potent underlying social effects of the inundations--social and +political union to secure the most effective distribution of the Nile's +blessings and to augment by human devices the area accessible to them, +the development of an intelligent water economy, which ultimately +produced a long series of intellectual achievements.[615] + +[Sidenote: Cultural areas in primitive America.] + +This unifying and stimulating national task of utilizing and +controlling the water was the same task which in various forms prompted +the early civilization of the Hoangho and Yangtze basins, India, +Mesopotamia, Persia, Peru, Mexico, and that impressive region of +prehistoric irrigation canals found in the Salt, Gila River, and upper +Rio Grande valleys.[616] Here the arid plateaus of the Cordilleras +between the Pueblo district and Central America had no forests in which +game might be found; so that the Indian hunter had to turn to +agriculture and a sedentary life beside his narrow irrigated fields. +Here native civilization reached its highest grade in North America. +Here desert agriculture achieved something more than a reliable food +supply. It laid the foundation of the first steady integration of +wandering Indian hordes into a stable, permanently organized society. +Elsewhere throughout the North American continent, we see only shifting +groups of hunter and fisher folk, practising here and there a half +nomadic agriculture to supplement the chase. + +The primitive American civilization that arose among the Pueblo Indians +of New Mexico and Arizona, the only strictly sedentary tribes relying +exclusively on agriculture north of the Mexican plateau, was primarily a +result of the pressure put upon these people by a restricted water +supply.[617] Though chiefly offshoots of the wild Indians of the northern +plains, they have been markedly differentiated from their wandering +Shoshone and Kiowa kindred by local environment.[618] Scarcity of water +in those arid highlands and paucity of arable land forced them to a +carefully organized community life, made them invest their labor in +irrigation ditches, terraced gardens and walled orchards, whereby they +were as firmly rooted in their scant but fertile fields as were their +cotton plants and melon vines;[619] while the towering mesas protected +their homes against marauding Ute, Navajo and Apache.[620] This thread of +a deep underlying connection between civilization and the control of +water can be traced through all prehistoric America, as well as through +the earliest cultural achievements in North Africa and Asia. + +[Sidenote: Economy of the water: fisheries.] + +The economy of the water is not confined to its artificial distribution +over arid fields, but includes also the exploitation of the mineral and +animal resources of the vast world of waters, whether the production of +salt from the sea, salt lakes and brine springs, the cultivation of +oyster beds, or the whole range of pelagic fisheries. The animal life of +the water is important to man owing not only to its great abundance, but +also to its distribution over the coldest regions of the globe. It +furnishes the chief food supply of polar and sub-polar peoples, and +therefore is accountable for the far-northern expansion of the habitable +world. Even the reindeer tribes of Arctic Eurasia could hardly subsist +without the sea food they get by barter from the fishermen of the coast. +Norway, where civilization has achieved its utmost in exploiting the +limited means of subsistence, shows a steady increase from south to +north in the proportion of the population dependent upon the harvest of +the deep. Thus the fisheries engross 44 per cent. of the rural +population in Nordland province, which is bisected by the Arctic Circle; +over 50 per cent. in Tromso, and about 70 per cent. in Finmarken. If the +towns also be included, the percentages rise, because here fishing +interests are especially prominent.[621] Proximity to the generous larder +of the ocean has determined the selection of village sites, as we have +seen among the coast Indians of British Columbia and southern Alaska, +among all the Eskimo, and numerous other peoples of Arctic lands. [See +map page 153.] + +[Sidenote: Fisheries as factors in maritime expansion.] + +Not only in polar but also in temperate regions, the presence of +abundant fishing grounds draws the people of the nearest coast to their +wholesale exploitation, especially if the land resources are scant. +Fisheries then become the starting point or permanent basis of a +subsequent wide maritime development, by expanding the geographical +horizon. It was the search for the purple-yielding _murex_ that first +familiarized the Phoenicians with the commercial and colonial +possibilities of the eastern Mediterranean coasts.[622] The royal dye of +this marine product has through all the ages seemed to color with +sumptuous magnificence the sordid dealings of those Tyrian traders, and +constituted them an aristocracy of merchants. The shoals of tunny fish, +arriving every spring in the Bosporus, from the north, drew the early +Greeks and Phoenicians after them into the cold and misty Euxine, and +furnished the original impulse to both these peoples for the +establishment of fishing and trading stations on its uncongenial +shores.[623] To the fisheries of the Baltic and especially to the summer +catch of the migratory herring, which in vast numbers visited the shores +of Pomerania and southern Sweden to spawn, the Hanse Towns of Germany +owed much of their prosperity. Salt herring, even in the twelfth +century, was the chief single article of their exchanges with Catholic +Europe, which made a strong demand for the fish, owing to the numerous +fast days. When, in 1425, by one of those unexplained vagaries of animal +life, the herring abandoned the Baltic and selected the North Sea for +its summer destination, a new support was given to the wealth of the +Netherlands.[624] There is a considerable amount of truth in the saying +that Amsterdam was built on herrings. New England, with an unproductive +soil at home, but near by in the sea a long line of piscine feeding +grounds in the submarine banks stretching from Cape Cod to Cape Race and +beyond, found her fisheries the starting point and base of her long +round of exchanges, a constant factor in her commercial and industrial +evolution.[625] + +[Sidenote: Fisheries as nurseries of seamen.] + +Fisheries have always been the nurseries of seamen, and hence have been +encouraged and protected by governments as providing an important +element of national strength. The Newfoundland Banks were the training +school which supplied the merchant marine and later the Revolutionary +navy of colonial New England;[626] ever since the establishment of the +Republic, they have been forced into prominence in our international +negotiations with the United Kingdom, with the object of securing +special privileges, because the government has recognized them as a +factor in the American navy. The causal connection between fisheries and +naval efficiency was recognized in England in the early years of +Elizabeth's reign, by an act aiming to encourage fisheries by the +remission of custom duties to native fishermen, by the imposition of a +high tariff on the importation of foreign fish in foreign vessels, and +finally by a legislative enforcement of fasts to increase the demand for +fish, although any belief in the religious efficacy of fasts was frankly +disclaimed. Thus an artificial demand for fish was created, with the +result that a report on the success of the Fishery Acts stated that a +thousand additional men had been attracted to the fishing trade, and +were consequently "ready to serve in Her Majesty's ships."[627] + +The fishing of the North Sea, especially on the Dogger Bank, is +participated in by all the bordering countries, England, the +Netherlands, Germany and Belgium; and is valued equally on account of +the food supply which it yields and as a school of seamen.[628] The +Pomors or "coasters" of Arctic Russia, who dwell along the shores of the +White Sea and live wholly by fisheries, have all their taxes remitted +and receive free wood from the crown forests for the construction of +their ships, on the condition that they serve on call in the imperial +navy.[629] The history of Japan affords the most striking illustration of +the power of fisheries alone to maintain maritime efficiency; for when +by the seclusion act of 1624 all merchant vessels were destroyed, the +marine restricted to small fishing and coasting vessels, and intercourse +confined to Japan's narrow island world, the fisheries nevertheless kept +alive that intimacy with the sea and preserved the nautical efficiency +that was destined to be a decisive factor in the development of awakened +Japan. + +[Sidenote: Anthropo-geographic importance of navigation.] + +The resources of the sea first tempted man to trust himself to its +dangerous surface; but their rewards were slight in comparison with the +wealth of experiences and influences to which he fell heir, after he +learned to convert the barrier of the untrod waste into a highway for +his sail-borne keel. It is therefore true, as many anthropologists +maintain, that after the discovery of fire the next most important step +in the progress of the human race was the invention of the boat. No +other has had such far-reaching results. Since water covers +three-fourths of the earth's surface and permits the land-masses to rise +only as islands here and there, it presents to man for his nautical +ventures three times the area that he commands for his terrestrial +habitat. On every side, the break of the waves and the swell of the +tides block his wanderings, unless he has learned to make the water +carry him to his distant goal. Spacially, therefore, the problem and the +task of navigation is the most widespread and persistent in the history +of mankind. The numerous coaling-stations which England has scattered +over the world are mute witnesses to this spacial supremacy of the +water, to the length of ocean voyages, and the power of the ocean to +divide and unite. But had the proportion of land and water been +reversed, the world would have been poorer, deprived of all these +possibilities of segregation and differentiation, of stimulus to +exchange and far-reaching intercourse, and of ingenious inventions which +the isolating ocean has caused. Without this ramifying barrier between +the different branches of the human family, these would have resembled +each other more closely, but at the cost of development. The mere +multiplicity of races and sub-races has sharpened the struggle for +existence and endowed the survivors with higher qualities. But it was +navigation that released primitive man from the seclusion of his own +island or continent, stimulated and facilitated the intercourse of +peoples, and enabled the human race to establish itself in every +habitable part of the world. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER X + +[579] Census of the Philippine Islands, Vol. I, pp. 465, 563-567, 573. +Washington, 1905. + +[580] Sir John Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, pp. 173-223. New York, 1872. + +[581] Ferdinand Keller, Lake Dwellings, Vol. I, pp. 2-7, 576. London, +1876. English Lake Dwellings, _Westminster Review_, pp. 337-347. 1887. + +[582] P.W. Joyce, A Social History of Ancient Ireland, Vol. II, pp. +65-66. London, 1903. + +[583] Herodotus, V. 16. + +[584] Alexander von Humboldt, Aspects of Nature, pp. 148-149. Translated +by Mrs. Sabine, Philadelphia, 1849. E.F. im Thurn, Among the Indians of +Guiana, p. 203. London, 1883. + +[585] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, p. 184. London, 1905. + +[586] Verney L. Cameron, Across Africa, pp. 332-334. London, 1885. + +[587] David and Charles Livingstone, Narrative of Expedition to the +Zambezi, p. 414. New York, 1866. + +[588] Census of the Philippine Islands, Vol. I, pp. 464-466, 565. +Washington, 1905. + +[589] Stanford's Australasia, Vol. II, pp. 256-257. London, 1894. + +[590] A.R. Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, pp. 368, 381. New York, 1869. + +[591] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, pp. 262-263, 344. London, +1896-1898. + +[592] Richard Semon, In the Australian Bush, pp. 340-342, 347. London, +1899. + +[593] John L. Stoddard, Lectures, Vol. III, p. 311. Boston, 1903. + +[594] John Barrows, Travels in China, pp. 377-379. Philadelphia, 1805. + +[595] William M. Wood, Fankwei, pp. 169-174. New York, 1859. + +[596] Edmondo de Amicis, Holland and Its People, pp. 4-13. New York, +1890. + +[597] G.P. Marsh, The Earth as Modified by Human Action, chap. IV, pp. +330-352. New York, 1871. + +[598] J. Partsch, Central Europe, pp. 106-108. London, 1903. + +[599] Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Ackerbaues_, p. 127, Note 1. +Stuttgart, 1888. + +[600] Elisée Reclus, Europe, Vol. IV, pp. 222-223. New York, 1886. +Miller and Skertchley, The Fenland, Past and Present, pp. 7-9. London, +1878. + +[601] _Ibid._, pp. 145-147. + +[602] Sir Samuel W. Baker, The Albert Nyanza, Great Basin of the Nile, +pp. 49-50. London and Philadelphia, 1866. + +[603] Diodorus Siculus, Book I, chap. III, p. 41. Translated by G. +Booth. London, 1814. + +[604] David Livingstone, Missionary Travels in Africa, pp. 234-236, 239, +272. New York, 1858. + +[605] Felix Dubois, Timbuctoo, pp. 51-55, 145. New York, 1896. + +[606] Isabella B. Bishop, The Yangtze Valley and Beyond., Vol. I, pp. 8, +10, 97. London and New York, 1900. + +[607] Cyrus Thomas, Mound Explorations, pp. 626, 650-653. Twelfth Annual +Report Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1894. + +[608] Strabo, Book V, chap. I, 4. + +[609] W. Deecke, Italy, pp. 88-89. London, 1904. + +[610] John Barrows, Travels in China, p. 349. Philadelphia, 1805. + +[611] Meredith Townsend, Asia and Europe, pp. 278-284. New York, 1904. + +[612] Isabella B. Bishop, The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, Vol. II, pp. +72-73 76-81. New York and London, 1900. For the future of land +reclamation, see N.S. Shaler, Man and the Earth, chap. V. New York, 1906. + +[613] Strabo, Book X, chap. II, 19. + +[614] John W. Draper, Intellectual Development of Europe, Vol. I, pp. +84-86. New York, 1876. + +[615] Winwood Reade, The Martyrdom of Man, pp. 9-17. Eighth Edition, New +York. + +[616] Irrigation, Thirteenth Report of the U.S. Geological Survey, Part +III, pp. 133-135. Washington, 1895. J.W. Powell, Twenty-third Annual +Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pp. XII, XIII. Washington, 1904. +Cosmos Mindeleff, Aboriginal Remains in the Verde Valley, Arizona, pp. +187, 192-194, 238-245. Thirteenth Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology. +Washington, 1896. V. Mindeleff, Pueblo Architecture, pp. 80, 216-217. +Eighth Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology. Washington, 1891. F. W. +Hodge, Prehistoric Irrigation in Arizona, _American Anthropologist_, +July, 1893. + +[617] McGee and Thomas, Prehistoric North America, pp. 105-106, 113, +118, 120-144, 478. Philadelphia, 1905. + +[618] Eleventh Census, Report on the Indians, pp. 49, 161, 415. +Washington, 1894. D.G. Brinton, The American Race, pp. 116-117. +Philadelphia, 1901. + +[619] _Ibid._, pp. 161, 181, 182, 188, 191, 193, 198, 410, 441-445. M.C. +Stevenson, The Zuni Indians, pp. 351-354. Twenty-third Annual Report of +Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1904. + +[620] _Ibid._, pp. 13-14. H.H. Bancroft, The Native Races, Vol. I, pp. +539-547. San Francisco, 1886. + +[621] Norway, Official Publication, pp. 99-100. Christiania, 1900. + +[622] Ernst Curtius, History of Greece, Vol. I, pp. 49-50. New York. + +[623] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 440. + +[624] Dietrich Schaefer, _Die Hansestädte und König Waldemar von +Dänemark_, pp. 255-257. Jena, 1879. Helen Zimmern, Story of the Hansa +Towns, pp. 26-27. New York, 1895. + +[625] W.B. Weeden, Social and Economic History of New England, Vol. I, +pp. 17, 18, 90, 91, 128-135, 139. Boston, 1899. + +[626] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 245. + +[627] H.D. Traill, Social England, Vol. III, pp. 363-364, 540. London +and New York, 1895. + +[628] J. Partsch, Central Europe, p. 311. London, 1903. + +[629] Alexander P. Engelhardt, A Russian Province of the North, pp. +54-71. From the Russian. London, 1899. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE ANTHROPO-GEOGRAPHY OF RIVERS + + +[Sidenote: Rivers as intermediaries between land and sea.] + +To a large view, rivers appear in two aspects. They are either part of +the general water envelope of the earth, extensions of seas and +estuaries back into the up-hill reaches of the land, feeders of the +ocean, roots which it spreads out over the surface of the continents, +not only to gather its nourishment from ultimate sources in spring and +glacier, but also to bring down to the coast the land-born products of +the interior to feed a sea-born commerce; or rivers are one of the land +forms, merely water filling valley channels, serving to drain the fields +and turn the mills of men. In the first aspect their historical +importance has been both akin and linked to that of the ocean, despite +the freshness and smaller volume of their waters and the unvarying +direction of their currents. The ocean draws them and their trade to its +vast basin by the force of gravity. It unites with its own the history +of every log-stream in Laurentian or Himalayan forest, as it formerly +linked the beaver-dammed brooks of wintry Canada with the current of +trade following the Gulf Stream to Europe. + +Where sea and river meet, Nature draws no sharp dividing line. Here the +indeterminate boundary zone is conspicuous. The fresh water stream +merges into brackish estuary, estuary into saltier inlet and inlet into +briny ocean. Closely confined sea basins like the Black and Baltic, +located in cool regions of slight evaporation and fed from a large +catchment basin, approach in their reduced salinity the fresh water +lakes and coastal lagoons in which rivers stretch out to rest on their +way to the ocean. The muddy current of the Yangtze Kiang colors the +Yellow Sea, and warns incoming Chinese junks of the proximity of land +many hours before the low-lying shores can be discerned.[630] Columbus, +sailing along the Caribbean coast of South America off the Orinoco +mouth, found the ocean waters brackish and surmised the presence of a +large river and therefore a large continent on his left.[631] + +The transitional form between stream and pelagic inlet found in every +river mouth is emphasized where strong tidal currents carry the sea far +into these channels of the land. The tides move up the St. Lawrence +River 430 miles (700 kilometers) or half way between Montreal and +Quebec, and up the Amazon 600 miles (1,000 kilometers). Owing to their +resemblance to pelagic channels, the estuaries of the American rivers +with their salty tide were repeatedly mistaken, in the period of +discoveries, for the Northwest Passage to the Pacific. Newport in 1608 +explored the broad sluggish course of the James River in his search for +a western ocean. Henry Hudson ascended the Hudson River almost as far as +Albany, before he discovered that this was no maritime pathway, like the +Bosporus or Dardanelles, leading to an ulterior sea. The long tidal +course of the St. Lawrence westward into the heart of the continent fed +La Salle's dream of finding here a water route to the Pacific, and fixed +his village of "La Chine" above the rapids at Montreal as a signpost +pointing the way to the Indies and Cathay. In the same way a tidal river +at the head of Cook's Inlet on the Alaskan coast was mistaken for a +Northeast Passage, not by Captain Cook but by his fellow officers, on +his Pacific voyage of 1776-1780; and it was followed for several days +before its character as a river was established.[632] + +[Sidenote: Sea navigation merges into river navigation.] + +Rivers have always been the great intermediaries between land and sea, +for in the ocean all find their common destination. Until the +construction of giant steamers in recent years, sea navigation has +always passed without break into river navigation. Sailing vessels are +carried by the trade wind 600 miles up the Orinoco to San Fernando. +Alexander's discovery of the Indus River led by almost inevitable +sequence to the rediscovery of the Eastern sea route, which in turn ran +from India through the Strait of Oman and the Persian Gulf up the +navigable course of the Euphrates to the elbow of the river at +Thapsacus. Enterprising sea folk have always used rivers as natural +continuations of the marine highway into the land. The Humber estuary +and its radiating group of streams led the invading Angles in the sixth +century into the heart of Britain.[633] The long navigable courses of the +rivers of France exposed that whole country to the depredations of the +piratical Northmen in the ninth and tenth centuries. Up every river they +came, up the Scheldt into Flanders, the Seine to Paris and the Marne to +Meaux; up the Loire to Orleans, the Garonne to Toulouse and the Rhone to +Valence.[634] So the Atlantic rivers of North America formed the lines of +European exploration and settlement. The St. Lawrence brought the French +from the ocean into the Great Lakes basin, whose low, swampy watershed +they readily crossed in their light canoes to the tributaries of the +Mississippi; and scarcely had they reached the "Father of Waters" before +they were planting the flag of France on the Gulf of Mexico at its +mouth. The Tupi Indians of South America, a genuine water-race, moved +from their original home on the Paraguay headstream of the La Plata down +to its mouth, then expanded northward along the coast of Brazil in their +small canoes to the estuary of the Amazon, thence up its southern +tributary, the Tapajos, and in smaller numbers up the main stream to the +foot of the Andes, where detached groups of the race are still found.[635] +So the migrations of the Carib river tribes led them from their native +seats in eastern Brazil down the Xingu to the Amazon, thence out to sea +and along the northern coast of South America, thence inland once more, +up the Orinoco to the foot of the Andes, into the lagoon of Maracaibo +and up the Magdalena. Meanwhile their settlements at the mouth of the +Orinoco threw off spores of pirate colonies to the adjacent islands and +finally, in the time of Columbus, to Porto Rico and Haiti.[636] [See map +page 101.] + +[Sidenote: Historical importance of seas and oceans influenced by their +debouching streams.] + +So intimate is this connection between marine and inland waterways, that +the historical and economic importance of seas and oceans is noticeably +influenced by the size of their drainage basins and the navigability of +their debouching rivers. This is especially true of enclosed seas. The +only historical importance attached to the Caspian's inland basin is +that inherent in the Volga's mighty stream. The Mediterranean has always +suffered from its paucity of long river highways to open for it a wide +hinterland. This lack checked the spread of its cultural influences and +finally helped to arrest its historical development. If we compare the +record of the Adriatic and the Black seas, the first a sharply walled +_cul de sac_, the second a center of long radiating streams, sending out +the Danube to tap the back country of the Adriatic and the Dnieper to +draw on that of the Baltic, we find that the smaller sea has had a +limited range of influence, a concentrated brilliant history, precocious +and short-lived as is that of all limited areas; that the Euxine has +exercised more far-reaching influences, despite a slow and still +unfinished development. The Black Sea rivers in ancient times opened +their countries to such elements of Hellenic culture as might penetrate +from the Greek trading colonies at their mouths, especially the Greek +forms of Christianity. It was the Danube that in the fourth century +carried Arianism, born of the philosophic niceties of Greek thought, to +the barbarians of southern Germany, and made Unitarians of the +Burgundians and Visigoths of southern Gaul.[637] The Dnieper carried the +religion of the Greek Church to the Russian princes at Kief, Smolensk, +and Moscow. Owing to the southward course of its great rivers, Russia +has found the crux of her politics in the Black Sea, ever since the +tenth century when the barbarians from Kiev first appeared before +Constantinople. This sea has had for her a higher economic importance +than the Baltic, despite the latter's location near the cultural center +of western Europe. + +[Sidenote: Baltic and White Sea rivers.] + +In other seas, too, rivers play the same part of extending their +tributary areas and therefore enhancing their historical significance. +The disadvantages of the Baltic's smaller size and far-northern +location, as compared with the Mediterranean, were largely compensated +for by the series of big streams draining into it from the south, and +bringing out from a vast hinterland the bulky necessaries of life. Hence +the Hanseatic League of the Middle Ages, which had its origin among the +southern coast towns of the Baltic from Lubeck to Riga, throve on the +combined trade of sea and river.[638] The mouths of the Scheldt, Rhine, +Weser, Elbe and Thames long concentrated in themselves the economic, +cultural and historical development of the North Sea basin. So the White +Sea, despite its sub-polar location, is valuable to Russia for two +reasons; it affords a politically open port, and it receives the +Northern Dwina, which is navigable for river steamers from Archangel +south to Vologda, a distance of six hundred miles, and carries the +export trade of a large territory.[639] Similarly in recent years, Bering +Sea has gained unwonted commercial activity because the Yukon River +serves as a waterway 1,370 miles long to the Klondike gold fields. + +[Sidenote: Atlantic and Pacific rivers.] + +If we compare the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in respect to their +rivers, we find that the narrow Atlantic has a drainage basin of over +19,000,000 square miles as opposed to the 8,660,000 square miles of +drainage area commanded by the vastly larger Pacific. The Pacific is for +the most part rimmed by mountains, discharging into the ocean only mad +torrents or rapid-broken streams. The Atlantic, bordered by gently +sloping plains of wide extent, receives rivers that for the most part +pursue a long and leisurely course to the sea. Therefore, the commercial +and cultural influences of the Atlantic extend from the Rockies and +Andes almost to the heart of Russia, and by the Nile highway they even +invade the seclusion of Africa. Through the long reach of its rivers, +therefore, the Atlantic commands a land area twice as great as that of +the Pacific; and by reason of this fundamental geographic advantage, it +will retain the historical preëminence that it so early secured. The +development of the World Ocean will mean the exploitation of the Pacific +trade from the basis of the Atlantic, the domination of the larger ocean +by the historic peoples of the smaller, because these peoples have wider +and more accessible lands as the base of their maritime operations. + +[Sidenote: Lack of coast articulations supplied by rivers.] + +The geographic influence of abundant rivers navigable from the sea is +closely akin to that of highly articulated coasts. The effect of the +Hardanger or Sogne Fiord, admitting ocean steamers a hundred miles into +the interior of Norway, is similar to that of the Elbe and Weser +estuaries, which admit the largest vessels sixty miles upstream to +Hamburg and Bremen. Since river inlets can, to a certain extent, supply +the place of marine inlets, from the standpoint of anthropo-geographic +theory and of human practice, a land dissected by navigable rivers can +be grouped with one dissected by arms of the sea. South America and +Africa are alike in the unbroken contour of their coasts, but strongly +contrasted in the character of their rivers. Hence the two continents +present the extremes of accessibility and inaccessibility. South +America, most richly endowed of all the continents with navigable +streams, receiving ocean vessels three thousand miles up the Amazon as +far as Tabatinga in Peru, and smaller steamers up the Orinoco to the +spurs of the Andes, was known in its main features to explorers fifty +years after its discovery. Africa, historically the oldest of +continents, but cursed with a mesa form which converts nearly every +river into a plunging torrent on its approach to the sea, kept its vast +interior till the last century wrapped in utmost gloom. China, amply +supplied with smaller littoral indentations but characterized by a +paucity of larger inlets, finds compensation in the long navigable +course of the Yangtze Kiang. This river extends the landward reach of +the Yellow Sea 630 miles inland to Hanchow, where ocean-going vessels +take on cargoes of tea and silk for Europe and America,[640] and pay for +them in Mexican dollars, the coin of the coast. Hence it is lined with +free ports all the way from Shanghai at its mouth to Ichang, a thousand +miles up its course.[641] + +[Sidenote: River highways as basis of commercial preeminence.] + +Navigable rivers opening passages directly from the sea are obviously +nature-made gates and paths into wholly new countries; but the +accessibility with which they endow a land becomes later a permanent +factor in its cultural and economic development, a factor that remains +constantly though less conspicuously operative when railroads have done +their utmost to supplant water transportation. The importance of inland +waterways for local and foreign trade and intercourse has everywhere +been recognized. The peoples who have long maintained preëminence among +the commercial and maritime nations of the world have owed this in no +small part to the command of these natural highways, which have served +to give the broad land basis necessary for permanent commercial +ascendency. This has been the history of England, Holland, France and +the recent record of Germany. The medieval League of the Rhine Cities +flourished by reason of the Rhone-Rhine highway across western Europe. +The Hanseatic League, from Bruges all the way east to Russian Novgorod, +owed their brilliant commercial career, not only to the favorable +maritime field in the enclosed sea basins in front of them, but also to +the series of long navigable rivers behind them from the Scheldt to the +Neva and Volchov. Wherefore we find the League, originally confined to +coast towns, drawing into the federation numerous cities located far up +these rivers, such as Ghent, Cologne, Magdeburg, Breslau, Cracow, Pskof +and Novgorod.[642] + +[Sidenote: Importance of rivers in large countries.] + +In countries of large area, where commerce and intercourse must cover +great distances, these natural and therefore cheap highways assume +paramount importance, especially in the forest and agricultural stages +of development, when the products of the land are bulky in proportion to +their value. Small countries with deeply indented coasts, like Greece, +Norway, Scotland, New England, Chile, and Japan, can forego the +advantage of big river systems; but in Russia, Siberia, China, India, +Canada, the United States, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentine, the history +of the country, economic and political, is indissolubly connected with +that of its great rivers. The storm center of the French and English +wars in America was located on the upper Hudson, because this stream +enabled the English colonies to tap the fur trade of the Great Lakes, +and because it commanded the Mohawk Valley, the easiest and most obvious +path for expansion into the interior of the continent. The Spanish, +otherwise confining their activities in South America to the Caribbean +district and the civilized regions of the Andean highlands, established +settlements at the mouth of the La Plata River, because this stream +afforded an approach from the Atlantic side toward the Potosi mines on +the Bolivian Plateau. The Yangtze Kiang, that great waterway leading +from the sea across the breadth of China and the one valuable river +adjunct of maritime trade in the whole Orient, was early appropriated by +the discerning English as the British "sphere of influence." + +[Sidenote: Rivers as highways of expansion.] + +No other equally large area of the earth is so generously equipped by +nature for the production and distribution of the articles of commerce +as southern Canada and that part of the United States lying east of the +Rocky Mountains. The simple build of the North American continent, +consisting of a broad central trough between distant mountain ranges, +and characterized by gentle slopes to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of +Mexico, has generated great and small rivers with easy-going currents, +that everywhere opened up the land to explorer, trader and settler. The +rate of expansion from the "Europe-fronting shore" of the continent was +everywhere in direct proportion to the length of the rivers first +appropriated by the colonists. North of Chesapeake Bay the lure to +landward advance was the fur trade. The Atlantic rivers of the coast +pre-empted by the English were cut short by the Appalachian wall. They +opened up only restricted fur fields which were soon exhausted, so that +the migrant trapper was here early converted into the agricultural +settler, his shifting camp fire into the hearthstone of the farmhouse. +Expansion was slow but solid. The relatively small area rendered +accessible by their streams became compactly filled by the swelling tide +of immigrants and the rapid natural increase of population. In sharp +contrast to this development, the long waterway of the St. Lawrence and +the Great Lakes leading to the still vaster river system of the +Mississippi betrayed the fur-trading French into excessive expansion, +and enabled them to appropriate but not to hold a vast extent of +territory. A hundred years after the arrival of Champlain at Montreal, +they were planting their fur stations on Lake Superior and the +Mississippi, 1,400 miles (2,300 kilometers) back from the coast, at a +time when the English settlements had advanced little beyond tide-water. +And when after 1770 the westward movement swept the backwoodsmen of the +English colonies over the Appalachian barrier to the Ohio, Cumberland +and Tennessee, these long westward flowing streams carried them rapidly +on to the Mississippi, communicated the mobility and restlessness of +their own currents to the eager pioneer, and their capacity to master +great distances; so that in forty short years, by 1810, settlements were +creeping up the western tributaries of the Mississippi. The abundant +water communication in the Mississippi Valley, which even for present +large river craft contains 15,410 miles of navigable streams and which +had therefore a far greater mileage in the day of canoe and flatboat, +afforded outlet for bulky, backwoods produce to the sea at New Orleans. +When the English acquired Canada in 1763, they straightway fell under +the sway of its harsh climate and long river systems, taking up the +life of the fur trader; they followed the now scarcer pelts from the +streams of Superior westward by Lake Winnipeg and along the path of the +Saskatchewan River straight to the foot of the Rockies. + +[Sidenote: Siberian rivers and Russian expansion.] + +Rivers have played the same part in expediting Russian expansion across +the wide extent of Siberia. Here again a severe climate necessitated +reliance on furs, the chief natural product of the country, as the basis +of trade. These, as the outcome of savage economy, were gathered in from +wide areas which only rivers could open up. Therefore, where the +Siberian streams flatten out their upper courses east and west against +the northern face of the Asiatic plateau, with low watersheds between, +the Russian explorer and sable hunter struck their eastward water trail +toward the Pacific. The advance, which under Yermak crossed the Ural +Mountains in 1579, reached the Yenisei River in 1610 and planted there +the town of Turuchansk as a sort of milestone, almost on the Arctic +Circle opposite the mouth of the Lower Tunguska, a long eastern +tributary. Up this they passed to the Lena in 1627, thence to Bering Sea +by the Kolima and Anadyr rivers, because these arctic fields yielded +sable, beaver and fox skins in greatest quantity.[643] The Lena +especially, from its source down to its eastern elbow at Yakutsk, that +great rendezvous of Siberian fur traders, was a highway for trapper and +Cossack tribute-gatherer.[644] From the sources of the Yenisei in Lake +Baikal to the navigable course of the Amur was a short step, taken in +1658, though the control of the river, which was claimed by China, was +not secured till two hundred years later.[645] [See map page 103.] + +As the only highways in new countries, rivers constitute lines of least +resistance for colonial peoples encroaching upon the territory of +inferior races. They are therefore the geographic basis of those +streamers of settlement which we found making a fringe of civilization +across the boundary zone of savagery or barbarism on the typical +colonial frontier. Ethnic islands of the expanding people cluster along +them like iron filings on a magnetized wire. Therefore in all countries +where navigable rivers have fixed the lines of expansion, as in the +United States, the northern part of the Russian Empire, and the eastern +or colonial border of Germany and Austria, there is a strong +anthropo-geographic resemblance in the frontiers of successive decades +or centuries. But in arid or semi-arid regions like South Africa, the +western plains of North America, the steppes of Russian and Chinese +Turkestan, the river highway _motif_ in expansion is lost in a variety +of other geographic and geologic factors, though the water of the +streams still attracts trail and settlement. + +[Sidenote: Determinants of routes in arid or semi-arid lands.] + +A river like the Nile, lower Volga, Irtysh or Indus, rising in highlands +of abundant rainfall but traversing an arid or desert land, acquires +added importance because it furnishes the sole means of water travel and +of irrigation. The Nile has for ages constituted the main line of +intercourse between the Mediterranean and Equatorial Africa. The Tigris, +Euphrates, Indus, and the Niger where it makes its great northern bend +into the Sahara near Timbuctoo,[646] attest the value to local fertility +and commerce inherent in these rivers of the deserts and steppes. Such +rivers are always oasis-makers, whether on their way to the sea they +periodically cover a narrow flood-plain like that of the Nile, or one +ninety miles wide, like that of the Niger's inland delta above +Timbuctoo;[647] or whether they emerge into a silent sea of sand, like +the Murghab of Russian Turkestan, which spreads itself out to water the +gardens of Merv. + +Even where such rivers have a volume too scanty to float a raft, they +yet point the highway, because they alone supply water for man and beast +across the desert tract. The Oxus and Sir Daria have from time +immemorial determined the great trade routes through Turkestan to +Central Asia. The Platte, Arkansas, Cimarron and Canadian rivers fixed +the course of our early western trails across the arid plains to the +foot of the Rockies; and beyond this barrier the California Trail +followed the long-drawn oasis formed by the Humboldt River across the +Nevada Desert, the Gila River guided the first American fur-trapping +explorers across the burning deserts of Arizona to the Pacific, and the +succession of water-holes in the dry bed of the Mohave River gave +direction to the Spanish Trail across the Mohave Desert towards Los +Angeles. In the same way, Livingstone's route from the Orange River in +South Africa to Lake Ngami, under the direction of native guides, ran +along the margin of the Kalahari Desert up the dry bed of the Mokoko +River, which still retained an irregular succession of permanent +wells.[648] + +[Sidenote: Wadi routes in arid lands.] + +In the trade-wind regions of the world, which are characterized by +seasons of intense drought, we find rivers carrying a scant and variable +amount of water but an abundance of gravel and sand; they are known in +different localities as wadis, fiumares and arroyos. Their beds, dry for +long periods of the year, become natural roads, paved with the gravel +which the stream regularly deposits in the wet season. Local travel in +Sicily, Italy[649] and other Mediterranean countries uses such natural +roads extensively. Trade routes across the plateau of Judea and Samaria +follow the wadis, because these give the best gradient and the best +footing for the ascent.[650] Wadis also determine the line of caravan +routes across the highlands of the Sahara. In the desert of Southwest +Africa, the Khiuseb Is the first river north of the Orange to reach the +Atlantic through the barrier dunes of the coast. Hence it has drawn to +its valley the trade routes from a wide circle of inland points from +Ottawe to Windhoek and Rehobeth, and given added importance to the +British coast of Walfish Bay, into which it debouches.[651] But just to the +north, the broad dry bed of the Swakop offered a natural wagon route +into the interior, and has been utilized for the railroad of German +Southwest Africa. + +[Sidenote: Increasing historical importance from source to mouth.] + +The historical importance of a river increases from its source toward +its mouth. Its head springs, gushing from the ground, and the ramifying +brooks of its highland course yield a widely distributed water supply +and thereby exercise a strong influence in locating the dwellings of +men; but they play no part in the great movements and larger activities +of peoples. Only when minor affluents unite to form the main stream, +enlarge it in its lower course by an increasing tribute of water, and +extend constantly its tributary area, does a river assume real +historical importance. It reaches its fullest significance at its mouth, +where it joins the world's highway of the ocean. Here are combined the +best geographical advantages--participation in the cosmopolitan +civilization characteristic of coastal regions, opportunity for inland +and maritime commerce, and a fertile alluvial soil yielding support for +dense populations. The predominant importance of the debouchment stretch +of a river is indicated by the presence of such cities as London, +Rotterdam, Hamburg, Bremen, Bordeaux, Odessa, Alexandria, Calcutta, +Rangoon, Bangkok, Hongkong, Canton, Nanking and Shanghai, Montreal and +Quebec, New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Buenos Ayres and +Montevideo. This debouchment stretch gains in practical value and hence +in permanent historical importance if it is swept by a scouring tide, +which enables the junction of inland and maritime routes to penetrate +into the land. Even Strabo recognized this value of tidal reaches.[652] +Hence in tideless basins like the Baltic and Caribbean, the great river +ports have to advance coastward to meet the sea; and the lower course of +even mighty streams like the Volga and Nile achieve a restricted +importance.[653] + +The control of a river mouth becomes a desideratum or necessity to the +upstream people. Otherwise they may be bottled up. Though history shows +us countless instances of upstream expansion, nevertheless owing to the +ease of downstream navigation and this increasing historical importance +from source to mouth, the direction of a river's flow has often +determined the course of commerce and of political expansion. + +[Sidenote: Location at hydrographic centers.] + +The possibility of radial expansion, which we have found to be the chief +advantage of a central location, is greatly enhanced if that central +location coincides with a hydrographic center of low relief. The tenth +century nucleus of the Russian Empire was found about the low nodal +watershed formed by the Valdai Hills, whence radiated the rivers later +embodied in the Muscovite domain. Here In Novgorod at the head of the +Volchov-Ladoga-Neva system, Pskof on the Velikaya, Tver at the head of +the navigable Volga, Moscow on the Oka, Smolensk on the Dnieper, and +Vitebsk on the Duna, were gathered the Russians destined to displace the +primitive Finnish population and appropriate the wide plains of eastern +Europe. Everywhere their conquests, colonization, and commercial +relations have followed the downstream course of their rivers. The +Dnieper carried the Rus of Smolensk and Kief to the Euxine, into contact +with the Byzantine world, and brought thence religion, art, and +architecture for the untutored empire of the north. The influence of the +Volga has been irresistible. Down its current Novgorod traders in the +twelfth century sought the commerce of the Caspian and the Orient; and +later the Muscovite princes pushed their conquest of the Tartar hordes +from Asia. The Northern Dwina, Onega, Mesen and Petchora have carried +long narrow bands of Slav settlement northward to the Arctic Ocean. [See +map page 225.] Medieval Russian trade from Hanseatic Pskof and Novgorod, +and later Russian dominion followed the Narva and Neva to the Baltic. +"The Dnieper made Russia Byzantine, the Volga made It Asiatic. It was +for the Neva to make it European."[654] + +In the same way, when the early French explorers and traders of Canada +reached the hydrographic center of the continent about Lakes Superior +and Michigan, they quickly crossed the low rim of these basins southward +to the Mississippi, and northward to the Rainy Lake and Winnipeg system +draining to Hudson Bay.[655] While it took them from 1608 to 1659 and +1662 to penetrate upstream from Quebec to this central watershed, only +nine years elapsed from the time (1673) Marquette reached the westward +flowing Wisconsin River to 1682, when La Salle reached the mouth of the +Mississippi. + +[Sidenote: Effect of current upon trade and expansion.] + +The effect of mere current upon the course of trade and political +expansion was conspicuous in the early history of the Mississippi +Valley, before steam navigation began to modify the geographic +influence of a river's flow. The wide forest-grown barrier of the +Appalachian Mountains placed the western pioneers under the geographic +control of the western waters. The bulkiness of their field and forest +products, fitted only for water transportation, and the immense mass of +downstream commerce called loudly for a maritime outlet and the +acquisition from Spain of some port at the Mississippi mouth. For twenty +years the politics of this transmontane country centered about the +"Island of New Orleans," and in 1803 saw its dream realized by the +Louisiana Purchase. + +For the western trader, the Mississippi and Ohio were preeminently +downstream paths. Gravity did the work. Only small boats, laden with +fine commodities of small bulk and large value, occasionally made the +forty day upstream voyage from New Orleans to Louisville. Flat boats and +barges that were constructed at Pittsburg for the river traffic were +regularly broken up for lumber at downstream points like Louisville and +New Orleans; for the traders returned overland by the old Chickasaw +Trail to the Cumberland and Ohio River settlements, carrying their +profits in the form of gold. The same thing happens today, as it also +happened two thousand years ago, on the Tigris and Euphrates. The +highlander of Armenia or northern Mesopotamia floats down the current in +his skin boat or on his brushwood raft, to sell his goods and the wood +forming the frame-work of his primitive craft in timberless Bagdad and +Busra, as formerly in treeless Babylon. He dries out his skins, loads +them on his shoulders or on a mule brought down for the purpose, and +returns on foot to his highland village.[656] The same preponderance of +downstream traffic appears to-day in eastern Siberia. Pedlers on the +Amur start in the spring from Stretensk, 2025 miles up the river, with +their wares in barges, and drift down with the current, selling at the +villages _en route_, to the river's mouth at Nikolaievsk. Here they +dispose of their remaining stock and also of their barges, the lumber of +which is utilized for sidewalks, and they themselves return upstream by +steamer. The grain barges of western Siberia, like the coal barges of +the Mississippi, even within recent decades, are similarly disposed of +at the journey's end.[657] The tonnage of downstream traffic on the Ohio +and Mississippi to-day greatly exceeds that upstream. The fleet of 56 +coal boats, carrying about 70,000 tons, which the great towboat Sprague +takes in a single trip from Louisville down to New Orleans, all return +empty. Of the 15,226,805 net tons of freight shipped in 1906 on the Ohio +system, 13,980,368 tons of coal, stone, sand and lumber were carried in +unrigged craft, fitted chiefly for downstream traffic.[658] + +[Sidenote: Importance of mouth to upstream people.] + +Owing to the strong pull exerted by a river's mouth upon all its basin, +current, commerce and people alike tend to reach the ocean. For a nation +holding the terrestrial course of a stream, the political fate of its +tidal course or mouth must always be a matter of great concern. To the +early westerner of the United States, before the acquisition of the +Louisiana country, it was of vital importance whether belligerent France +or more amenable Spain or the Republic itself should own the mouth of +the Mississippi. Germany, which holds 240 miles (400 kilometers) of the +navigable Danube,[659] can never be indifferent to the political +ownership of its mouth, or to the fact that a great power like Russia +has edged forward, by the acquisition of Bessarabia in 1878, to the +northern or Kilia debouchment channel.[660] Such interest shows itself in +sustained efforts either to gain political control of the mouth, or to +secure the neutrality of the stream by having it declared an +international waterway, and thus partially to deprive the state holding +its mouth of the advantages of its transit location. + +The only satisfactory solution is undivided political ownership. After +France pushed eastward to the Rhine in 1648, she warred for three +centuries to acquire its mouth. Napoleon laid claim to Belgium and +Holland on the ground that their soil had been built up by the alluvium +of French rivers. Germany's conquest of Schleswig-Holstein in 1864 was +significant chiefly because it dislodged Denmark from the right bank of +the lower Elbe, and secured undivided control of this important estuary. +The Rhine, which traverses the Empire from north to south and +constitutes its greatest single trade route, gives to Germany a more +vital interest in Holland than ever France had. Her most important iron +and coal mines and manufacturing industries are located on this +waterway or its tributaries, the Ruhr, Mosel, Saar and Main. Hence the +Rhine is the great artery of German trade and outlet for her enormous +exports, which chiefly reach the sea through the ports of Belgium and +Holland. These two countries therefore fatten on German commerce and +reduce German profits. Hence the Empire, by the construction of the +Emden-Dortmund canal, aims to divert its trade from Rotterdam and +Antwerp to a German port, and possibly thereby put the screw on Holland +to draw her into some kind of a commercial union with Germany.[661] +Heinrich von Treitschke, in his "_Politik_," deplores the fact that the +most valuable part of the great German river has fallen into alien +hands, and he declares it to be an imperative task of German policy to +recover the mouth of that stream, "either by a commercial or political +union." "We need the entrance of Holland into our customs union as we +need our daily bread."[662] + +[Sidenote: Prevention of monopoly of river mouth.] + +When the middle and upper course of a river system are shared by several +nations, their common interest demands that the control of the mouth be +divided, as in the case of the La Plata between Argentine and Uruguay; +or held by a small state, like Holland, too weak to force the monopoly +of the tidal course. The Treaty of Paris in 1856 extended the territory +of Moldavia at the cost of Russia, to keep the Russian frontier away +from the Danube.[663] Her very presence was ominous. The temptation to +giant powers to gobble up these exquisite morsels of territory is +irresistible. Hence the advisability of neutralizing small states +holding such locations, as in the case of Roumania; and making their +rivers international waterways, as in the case of the Orinoco,[664] +Scheldt, Waal, Rhine and Danube.[665] The Yangtze Kiang mouth, where +already the treaty ports cluster thick, will probably be the first part +of China to be declared neutral ground, and as such to be placed under +the protection of the combined commercial powers,[666] as is even now +foreshadowed by the International Conservancy Board of 1910.[667] The +United States, by her treaty with Mexico in 1848, secured the right of +free navigation on the lower or Mexican course of the Colorado River and +the Gulf of California. The Franco-British convention, which in 1898 +confirmed the western Sudan to France, also conceded the principle of +making the Niger, the sole outlet of this vast and isolated territory, +an international waterway, and created two French _enclaves_ in British +Nigeria to serve as river ports.[668] + +[Sidenote: Motive for canals in lower course.] + +The mouth of a large river system is the converging point of many lines +of inland and maritime navigation. The interests of commerce, especially +in its earlier periods of development, demand that the contact here of +river and sea be extensive as possible. Nature suggests the way to +fulfill this requirement. The sluggish lowland current of a river, on +approaching sea level, throws out distributaries that reach the coast at +various points and form a network of channels, which can be deepened and +rendered permanent by canalization. In such regions the opportunity for +the improvement and extension of waterways has been utilized from the +earliest times. The ancient Egyptians, Chaldeans, East Indians, and the +Gauls of the lower Po for thousands of years canaled the waters of their +deltas and coastal lowlands for the combined purpose of irrigation, +drainage, and navigation. The great canal system of China, constructed +in the seventh century primarily to facilitate Inland intercourse +between the northern and central sections of the Empire, extends from +the sea at Hangchow 700 miles northward through the coastal alluvium of +the Yangtze Kiang, Hoang-ho and Pie-ho to Tientsin, the port of Peking. +Only the canal system of the center, important both for the irrigation +of the fertile but porous loess and for the transportation of crops, is +still in repair. Here the meshes of the canal network are little more +than half a mile wide; farmers dig canals to their barns and bring in +their produce in barges instead of hay wagons.[669] Holland, where the +ancient Romans constructed channels in the Rhine delta and where the +debouchment courses of the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt present a labyrinth +of waterways, has to-day 1903 miles (3069 kilometers) of canals, which +together with the navigable rivers, have been important geographic +factors in the historical preëminence of Dutch foreign commerce. So on +the lower Mississippi, in the greatest alluvial area of the United +States, the government has expended large sums for the improvement of +the passes and bayous of the river. The Barataria, Atchafalaya, +Terrebonne, Black, Teche and Lafourche bayous have been rendered +navigable, and New Orleans has been given canal outlets to the sea +through Lakes Salvador, Pontchartrain and Borgne. + +[Sidenote: Watershed canals.] + +As the dividing channels of the lower course point to the feasibility of +amplifying the connection with the ocean highway, so the spreading +branches of a river's source, which approach other head waters on a low +divide, suggest the extension of inland navigation by the union of two +such drainage systems through canals. Where the rivers of a country +radiate from a relatively low central watershed, as from the Central +Plateau of France and the Valdai Hills of Russia, nature offers +conditions for extensive linking of inland waterways. Hence we find a +continuous passway through Russia from the Caspian Sea to the Baltic by +the canal uniting the Volga and Neva rivers; another from the Black Sea +up the Dnieper, which by canals finds three different outlets to the +Baltic through the Vistula, Niemen and Duna.[670] The Northern Dwina, +linked, by canals, with the Neva through Lakes Onega and Ladoga, unites +the White Sea with the Baltic.[671] Sully, the great minister of Henry +IV. of France, saw that the relief of the country would permit the +linking of the Loire, Seine, Meuse, Saône and Rhine, and the +Mediterranean with the Garonne. All his plans were carried out by his +successors, but he himself, at the end of the sixteenth century, began +the construction of the Briare Canal between the Loire near Orleans and +the Seine at Fontainebleau.[672] Similarly in the eastern half of the +United States, the long, low watershed separating the drainage basin of +the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes from that of the Mississippi and the +Hudson made feasible the succession of canals completing the "Great +Belt" of inland navigation from St. Lawrence and New York bays to the +Gulf. Albert Gallatin's famous report of 1808[673] pointed out the +adaptation of the three low divides to canal communication; but long +before this, every line of possible canoe travel by river and portage +over swamp or lake-dotted watershed had been used by savages, white +explorers and French voyageurs, from Lake Champlain to Lake Winnebago, +so that the canal engineer had only to select from the numerous portage +paths already beaten out by the moccasined feet of Indian or fur-trader. + +[Sidenote: Rivers and railroads.] + +The cheapness and ease of river travel have tended to check or delay the +construction of highroads and railways, where facilities for inland +navigation have been abundant, and later to regulate railway freight +charges. Conversely, riverless lands have everywhere experienced an +exaggerated and precocious railroad development, and have suffered from +its monopoly of transportation. Even canals have in most lands had a far +earlier date than paved highroads. This has been true of Spain, France, +Holland, and England.[674] In the Hoang-ho Valley of northern China where +waterways are restricted, owing to the rapid current and shallowness of +this river, highroads are comparatively common; but they are very rare +in central and southern China where navigable rivers and canals +abound.[675] New England, owing to its lack of inland navigation, was the +first part of the United States to develop a complete system of +turnpikes and later of railroads. On the other hand, the great river +valleys of America have generally slighted the highroad phase of +communication, and slowly passed to that of railroads. The abundance of +natural waterways in Russia--51,800 miles including canals--has +contributed to the retardation of railroad construction.[676] The same +thing is true in the Netherlands, where 4875 miles (7863 kilometers) of +navigable waterways[677] in an area of only 12,870 square miles (33,000 +square kilometers) have kept the railroads down to a paltry 1818 miles +(2931 kilometers); but smaller Belgium, commanding only 1375 miles (3314 +kilometers) of waterway and stimulated further by a remarkable +industrial and commercial development, has constructed 4228 miles (6819 +kilometers) of railroad. + +[Sidenote: Relation of rivers to railroads in recent colonial lands.] + +If we compare the countries of Central and South America, where +railroads are still mere adjuncts of river and coastwise routes, a stage +of development prevalent in the United States till 1858, we find an +unmistakable relation between navigable waterways and railroad mileage. +The countries with ample or considerable river communication, like +Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia and Paraguay, are all relatively slow in +laying railroads as compared with Mexico and Argentine, even when +allowance is made for differences of zonal location, economic +development, and degree of European elements in their respective +populations. Mexico and Argentine, having each an area only about +one-fourth that of Brazil but a railroad mileage nearly one-fourth +greater, have been pushed to this development primarily by a common lack +of inland navigation. Similarly South Africa, stricken with poverty of +water communication south of the Zambesi, has constructed 7500 miles of +railroads[678] in spite of the youth of the country and the sparsity of +its white population. Similar geographic conditions have forced the +mileage of Australian railways up to twice that of South Africa, in a +country which is still in the pastoral and agricultural stage of +development, and whose most densely populated province Victoria has only +fourteen inhabitants to the square mile. In the almost unpeopled wastes +of Trans-Caspia, where two decades ago the camel was the only carrier, +the Russian railroad has worked a commercial revolution by stimulating +production and affording an outlet for the irrigated districts of the +encircling mountains.[679] In our own Trans-Missouri country, where the +scanty volume of the streams eliminated all but the Missouri itself as a +dependable waterway, even for the canoe travel of the early western +trappers, railroads have developed unchecked by the competition of river +transportation.[680] With no rival nearer than the Straits of Magellan +and the Isthmus of Panama for transportation between the Mississippi and +the Pacific coast, they have fixed their own charges on a monopoly +basis, and have fought the construction of the Isthmian Canal. + +[Sidenote: Unity of a river system.] + +A river system is a system of communication. It therefore makes a bond +of union between the people living among its remoter sources and those +settled at its mouth. Every such river system forms geographically an +unbroken whole. Only where a wild, torrent-filled gorge, like the +Brahmaputra's path through the Himalayas, interrupts communication +between the upper and lower course, is human life in the two sections +divorced. But such cases are rare. Even the River Jhelam, which springs +with mad bounds from the lofty Vale of Kashmir through the outer range +of the Himalayas down to its junction with the Indus, carries quantities +of small logs to be used as railway sleepers; and though it shatters a +large per cent. of them, it makes a link between the lumber men of the +Kashmir forests and British railroad engineers in the treeless plains of +the Indus.[681] + +[Sidenote: The effect of common water supply in arid lands.] + +In arid lands, where the scant and variable streams are useless for +navigation, but invaluable for irrigation, a rival interest in the +limited water supply leads almost inevitably to conflict, and often to +the political union of the peoples holding the upper and lower courses, +in order to secure adjustment of their respective claims. The ancient +Salassi of the upper Doria Baltea Valley in the Alps drew off all the +water of the stream for washing gold, and thus deprived the agricultural +people lower down the valley of the water necessary for irrigation. The +result was frequent wars between the two tribes.[682] The offensive is +taken by the downstream people, whose fields and gardens suffer from +every extension of tillage or increase of population in the settlements +above them. Occasionally a formal agreement is a temporary expedient. +The River Firenze and other streams watering southern Trans-Caspia have +their sources in the mountains of northern Persia; hence the Russians, +in the boundary convention with Persia of 1881, stipulated that no new +settlement be established along these streams within Persian territory, +no extension of land under cultivation beyond the present amount, and no +eduction of the water beyond that necessary to irrigate the existing +fields.[683] Russia's designs upon Afghanistan aim not only at access to +India, but also at the control of the upper Murghab River, on whose +water depends the prosperity of the Pendjeh and Merv oases.[684] In such +regions the only logical course is the extension of the political +frontier to the watershed, a principle which Russia is applying in +western Asia, and which California applied in drawing her eastern +boundary to include even Goose Lake. + +[Sidenote: Union of opposite river banks.] + +Rivers unite. Ancient Rome grew up on both banks of the Tiber, and +extended her commercial and political supremacy up and down stream. Both +sides of the Rhine were originally occupied by the Gallic tribes, whose +villages were in some instances bisected by the river. Cæsar found the +Menapii, a Belgian people on the lower Rhine, with their fields, +farmhouses and villages on both banks.[685] Then the westward advance of +the Teutonic tribes gradually transformed the Rhine into a German river, +from the island of Batavia at its mouth up to the great elbow at the +foot of the Jura Mountains.[686] To the American Indians even the widest +rivers were no barriers. Christopher Gist, exploring the Ohio in 1751, +found a Shawnee village situated on both sides of the river below the +mouth of the Scioto, with about a hundred houses on the north bank and +forty on the south.[687] The small and unique nation of the Mandan +Indians were found by Lewis and Clark near the northern bend of the +Missouri in 1804, in two groups of villages on opposite sides of the +river. They had previously in 1772 occupied nine villages lower down the +stream, two on the east bank and seven on the west.[688] The Connecticut +River settlers of early colonial days laid out all their towns straight +across the valley, utilizing the alluvial meadows on both banks for +tillage, the terraces for residence sites, and the common river for +intercourse.[689] + +[Sidenote: Tendency toward ethnic and cultural unity in a river valley.] + +Every river tends to become a common artery feeding all the life of its +basin, and gradually obliterating ethnic and cultural differences among +the peoples of its valley. The Nile, with its narrow hem of flood-plain +on either bank and barrier sands beyond, has so linked race and history +in Egypt and Nubia, that the two countries cannot be separated. A common +highway from mountains to sea, a common frontier of trackless desert +have developed here a blended similarity of race, language and culture +from the delta to Kordofan. The Hamitic race seems to have originated in +the south and migrated northward down the Nile towards the delta. Later +the whole valley, north and south, received the same Semitic or Arab +immigration, which spread from Cairo to the old Sudanese capital of +Sennar, while a strain of negro blood has filtered in from the +equatorial black belt and followed the current down to the sea.[690] The +culture of the valley originated in Lower Egypt, and, with that easy +transmissibility which characterizes ideas, it moved upstream into +Ethiopia, which never evolved a culture of its own. Just as noticeable +is the political interplay. The rule of the Pharaohs extended far up the +Nile, at times to the Third Cataract at 20° N.L.; and at one period +Ethiopian kings extended their sway over Egypt. At another, a large body +of mutinous Egyptian soldiers abandoned their country and their wives, +and emigrated along the one line of slight resistance open to them into +Ethiopia, to found there a new state and new families by marriage with +native women, thus contributing to the amalgamation of races in the +valley. + +[Sidenote: Identity of country with river valley.] + +The most pronounced types of the identity of a country with a river +valley are found where strongly marked geographical boundaries, like +deserts and mountains, emphasize the inner unity of the basins by +accentuating their isolation from without. This is especially the case +in high mountain regions; here canton or commune or county coincides +with the river valley. Population hugs the margins of the streams where +alone is soil fit for cultivation, and fairly level land suitable for +dwellings. Above are the unoccupied heights, at once barrier and +boundary. In the Alps, Salzburg is approximately identical with the +valley of the Salzach, Uri with that of the Reuss, the Valais with the +upper Rhone, the Engadine with the upper Inn, Glarus with the Linth, +Graubünden or Grisons with the upper Rhine, Valtellina with the Adda. So +in the great upheaved area of the Himalayas, the state of Kashmir was +originally the valley of the upper Jhelam River, while Assam, in its +correct delimitation, is the valley of the Brahmaputra between the +Himalayan gorge and the swamps of Bengal.[691] + +In mountain regions which are also arid, the identity of a district with +a stream basin becomes yet more pronounced, because here population must +gather about the common water supply, must organize to secure its fair +distribution, and cooperate in the construction of irrigation channels +to make the distribution as economical and effective as possible. Thus +in Chinese Turkestan, the districts of Yarkand, Kashgar, Aksu and +Kut-sha are identical with as many mountain tributaries of the Tarim, +whose basin in turn comprises almost the whole of Chinese Turkestan. + +[Sidenote: Enclosed river valleys.] + +In all such desert and mountain-rimmed valleys, the central stream +attracts to its narrow hem of alluvial soil the majority of the +population, determines the course of the main highroad, and is itself +often the only route through the encompassing barriers. Hence the +importance attached to the river by the inhabitants, an importance +reflected in the fact that the river often gives its name to the whole +district. To the most ancient Greeks _Aigiptos_ meant the river, whose +name was later transferred to the whole land; for the narrow arable +strip which constituted Egypt was "the gift of the Nile." The Aryans, +descending into India through the mountains on its northwest border, +gave the name of _Sindhu_, "the flood" or "the ocean," to the first +great river they met. In the mouth of Persians and Greeks the name was +corrupted into Indus, and then applied to the whole country; but it +still survives in its original form in the local designation of the Sind +province, which comprises the valley of the Indus below the confluence +of the five rivers, which again formed and named the original Punjab. +Significantly enough the western political boundary of the Sind extends +into the barren foothills of Baluchistan only so far as the affluents of +the Indus render the land arable by irrigation; for the Indus performs +for the great province of the Sind, by annual inundation and perennial +irrigation, the same service that the Nile does for Egypt. + +The segregation of such districts, and the concentration of their +interests and activities along the central streams have tended to +develop in the population an intense but contracted national +consciousness, and to lend them a distinctive history. Their rivers +become interwoven with their mythology and religion, are gods to be +worshipped or appeased, become goals of pilgrimages, or acquire a +peculiar sanctity. The Nile, Ganges, Jamna, Jordan, Tiber and Po are +such sacred streams, while the Rhine figures in German mythology. + +[Sidenote: Rivers as boundaries of races and peoples.] + +From the uniting power of rivers it follows that they are poor +boundaries. Only mountains and seas divide sharply enough to form +scientific frontiers. Rivers may serve as political lines of demarcation +and therefore fix political frontiers; but they can never take the place +of natural boundaries. A migrating or expanding people tend always to +occupy both slopes of a river valley. They run their boundary of race or +language across the axis of their river basin, only under exceptional +circumstances along the stream itself. The English-French boundary in +the St. Lawrence Valley crosses the river in a broad transitional zone +of mingled people and speech in and above the city of Montreal. The +French-German linguistic frontier in Switzerland crosses the upper Rhone +Valley just above Sierre, but the whole canton of Valais above the elbow +of the river at Martigny shows fundamental ethnic unity, indicated by +identity of head form, stature and coloring.[692] Where the Elbe flows +through the low plains of North Germany, its whole broad valley is +occupied by a pure Teutonic population--fair, tall, long-headed; a more +brunette type occupies its middle course across the uplands of Saxony, +and speaks German like the downstream folk; but its upper course, hemmed +in by the Erz and Riesen Mountains, shows the short, dark and +broad-headed people of the Bohemian basin, speaking the Czech +language.[693] On the Danube, too, the same thing is true. The upper +stream is German in language and predominantly Alpine in race stock down +to the Austro-Hungarian boundary; from this point to the Drave mouth it +is Hungarian; and from the Drave to the Iron Gate it is Serbo-Croatian +on both banks.[694] Lines of ethnic demarcation, therefore, cut the Elbe +and Danube transversely, not longitudinally. [See map page 223.] + +The statements of Cæsar and Pliny that the Seine and Marne formed the +boundary between the Gauls and Belgians, and the Garonne that between +the Gauls and Aquitanians, must be accepted merely as general and +preliminary; for exceptions are noted later in the text. Parisii, for +instance, were represented as holding both banks of the Seine and Marne +at their confluence, and the Gallic Bituriges were found on the +Aquitanian side of the Garonne estuary. + +[Sidenote: Scientific river boundaries.] + +Only under peculiar conditions do rivers become effective as ethnic, +tribal or political boundaries. Most often it is some physiographic +feature which makes the stream an obstacle to communication, and lends +it the character of a scientific boundary. The division of the Alpine +foreland of southern Germany first into tribal and later into political +provinces by the Iller, Lech, Inn, and Salzach can be ascribed in part +to the tumultuous course of these streams from the mountains to the +Danube, which renders them useless for communication.[695] The lower +Danube forms a well maintained linguistic boundary between the +Bulgarians and Roumanians, except in the northwest corner of Bulgaria, +where the hill country between the Timok River and the Danube has +enticed a small group of Roumanians across to the southern side. From +this point down the stream, a long stretch of low marshy bank on the +northern side, offering village sites only at the few places where the +loess terrace of Roumania comes close to the river, exposed to +overflows, strewn with swamps and lakes, and generally unfit for +settlement, has made the Danube an effective barrier.[696] Similarly, the +broad, sluggish Shannon River, which spreads out to lake breadth at +close intervals in its course across the boggy central plain of Ireland, +has from the earliest times proved a sufficient barrier to divide the +plain into two portions, Connaught and Meath,[697] contrasted in history, +in speech and to some extent even in race elements.[698] A different +cause gave the Thames its unique rôle among the larger English rivers as +a boundary between counties from source to mouth. London's fortified +position at the head of the Thames estuary closed this stream as a line +of invasion to the early Saxons, and forced them to make detours to the +north and south of the river, which therefore became a tribal +boundary.[699] + +Where navigation is peculiarly backward, a river may present a barrier. +An instructive instance is afforded by the River Yo, which flows +eastward through northern Bornu into Lake Chad, and serves at once as +boundary and protection to the agricultural tribes of the Kanuri +against the depredations of the Tibbu robbers living in the Sahara or +the northern grassland. But during the dry season from April to August, +when the trickling stream is sucked up by the thirsty land and thirstier +air, the Tibbu horsemen sweep down on the unprotected Kanuri and retreat +with their booty across the vanished barrier. The primitive navigation +by reed or brushwood rafts, practiced in this almost streamless +district, affords no means of retreat for mounted robbers; so the +raiding season opens with the fall of the river.[700] + +[Sidenote: Rivers as political boundaries.] + +For political boundaries, which are often adopted with little reference +to race distribution, rivers serve fairly well. They are convenient +lines of demarcation and strategic lines of defense, as is proved by the +military history of the Rhine, Danube, Ebro, Po, and countless other +streams. On the lower Zambesi Livingstone found the territories of the +lesser chiefs defined by the rivulets draining into the main river. The +leader of the Makololo formally adopted the Zambesi as his political and +military frontier, though his people spread and settled beyond the +river.[701] Long established political frontiers may become ethnic +boundaries, more or less distinct, because of protracted political +exclusion. To the Romans, the Danube and Rhine as a northeastern +frontier had the value chiefly of established lines in an imperfectly +explored wilderness, and of strategic positions for the defense of an +oft assailed border; but the long maintenance of this political frontier +resulted in the partial segregation and hence differentiation of the +people dwelling on the opposite banks. + +Poor as a scientific boundary, a river is not satisfactory even as a +line of demarcation, because of its tendency to shift its bed in every +level stretch of its course. A political boundary that follows a river, +therefore, is often doomed to frequent surveys. The plantations on the +meanders of the lower Mississippi are connected now with one, now with +the other of the contiguous states, as the great stream straightens its +course after the almost annual overflow.[702] The Rio Grande has proved a +troublesome and expensive boundary between the United States and +Mexico. Almost every rise sees it cutting a new channel for itself, now +through Texas, now through Mexican territory, occasioning endless +controversies as to the ownership of the detached land, and demanding +fresh surveys. Recent changes in the lower course of the Helmund between +Nasralabad and the Sistan Swamp, which was adopted in 1872 as the +boundary between Afghanistan and Persia, have necessitated a new +demarcation of the frontier; and on this task a commission is at present +engaged.[703] In a like manner Strabo tells us that the River Achelous, +forming the boundary between ancient Acarnania and Aetolia in western +Hellas, by overflowing its delta region, constantly obliterated the +boundaries agreed upon by the two neighbors, and thereby gave rise to +disputes that were only settled by force of arms.[704] + +[Sidenote: Fluvial settlements and peoples.] + +Rivers tend always to be centers of population, not outskirts or +perimeters. They offer advantages that have always attracted +settlement--fertile alluvial soil, a nearby water supply, command of a +natural highway for intercourse with neighbors and access to markets. +Among civilized peoples fluvial settlements have been the nuclei of +broad states, passing rapidly through an embryonic development to a +maturity in which the old center can still be distinguished by a greater +density of population. Only among savages or among civilized people who +have temporarily reverted to primitive conditions in virgin colonial +lands, do we find genuine riverine folk, whose existence is closely +restricted to their bordering streams. The river tribes of the Congo +occupy the banks or the larger islands, while the land only three or +four miles back from the stream is held by different tribes with whom +the riverine people trade their fish. The latter are expert fishermen +and navigators, and good agriculturists, raising a variety of fruits and +vegetables. On the river banks at regular intervals are market greens, +neutral ground, whither people come from up and down stream and from the +interior to trade. Their long riparian villages consist of a single +street, thirty feet wide and often two miles long, on which face perhaps +three hundred long houses,[705] Fisher and canoe people line the Welle, +the great northern tributary of the Congo.[706] The same type appeared +in South America in the aboriginal Caribs and Tupis dwelling along the +southern tributaries of the Amazon and the affluents of the Paraguay. +These were distinctly a water race, having achieved a meager development +only in navigation, fishing and the cultivation of their alluvial +soil.[707] The ancient mound-builders of America located their villages +chiefly, though not exclusively, along the principal watercourses, like +the Mississippi, Illinois, Miami, Wabash, Wisconsin, and Fox,[708] on the +very streams later dotted by the trading posts of the French voyageurs. + +[Sidenote: Riparian villages of French Canada.] + +The presence of the great waterways of Canada and the demand of the fur +trade for extensive and easy communication made the early French +colonists as distinctly a riverine people as the savage Congo tribes. +Like these, they stretched out their villages in a single line of cabins +and clearings, three or four miles long, facing the river, which was the +King's highway. Such a village was called a _côte_. One côte ran into +the next, for their expansion was always longitudinal, never lateral. +These riparian settlements lined the main watercourses of French Canada, +especially the St. Lawrence, whose shores from Beaupre, fifteen miles +below Quebec, up to Montreal at an early date presented the appearance +of a single street. Along the river passed the stately trading ship from +France with its cargo of wives and merchandise for the colonists, the +pirogue of the _habitant_ farmer carrying his onions and grain to the +Quebec market, the birchbark canoe of the adventurous voyageur bringing +down his winter's hunt of furs from the snow-bound forests of the +interior, and the fleet of Jesuit priests bound to some remote inland +mission. + +[Illustration: THE RIPARIAN VILLAGES OF THE LOWER ST. LAWRENCE.] + +On this water thoroughfare every dwelling faced. Hence land on the river +was at a premium, while that two miles back was to be had for the +taking. The original grants measured generally 766 feet in width and +7,660 in depth inland; but when bequeathed from generation to +generation, they were divided up along lines running back at right +angles to the all important waterway. Hence each _habitant_ farm +measured its precious river-front by the foot and its depth by the mile, +while the cabins were ranged side by side in cosy neighborliness. The +_côte_ type of village, though eminently convenient for the Indian +trade, was ill adapted for government and defense against the savages; +but the need for the communication supplied by the river was so +fundamental, that it nullified all efforts of the authorities to +concentrate the colonists in more compact settlements. Parkman says: +"One could have seen almost every house in Canada by paddling a canoe up +the St. Lawrence and Richelieu."[709] The same type of land-holding can +be traced to-day on the Chaudiere River, where the fences run back from +the stream like the teeth of a comb. It is reproduced on a larger scale +in the long, narrow counties ranged along the lower St. Lawrence, whose +shape points to the old fluvial nuclei of settlement. Similarly the +early Dutch grants on the Hudson gave to the patroons four miles along +the river and an indefinite extension back from the stream. In the early +Connecticut River settlements, the same consideration of a share in the +river and its alluvial bottoms distributed the town lots among the +inhabitants in long narrow strips running back from the banks.[710] + +[Sidenote: Boatmen tribes or castes.] + +In undeveloped countries, where rivers are the chief highways, we +occasionally see the survival of a distinct race of boatmen amid an +intruding people of different stock, preserved in their purity by their +peculiar occupation, which has given them the aloofness of a caste. In +the Kwang-tung province of southern China are 40,000 Tanka boat people, +who live in boats and pile-dwellings in the Canton River. The Chinese, +from whom they are quite distinct, regard them as a remnant of the +original population, which was dislodged by their invasion and forced to +take refuge on the water. They gradually established intercourse with +the conquerors of the land, but held themselves aloof. They marry only +among themselves, have their own customs, and enjoy a practical monopoly +of carrying passengers and messages between the steamers and the shore +at Macao, Hongkong and Canton.[711] In the same way, the middle Niger +above Gao possesses a distinct aquatic people, the Somnos or Bosos, who +earn their living as fishermen and boatmen on the river. They spread +their villages along the Niger and its tributaries, and occupy separate +quarters in the large towns like Gao and Timbuctoo. They are creatures +of the river rather than of the land, and show great skill and endurance +in paddling and poling their narrow dugouts on their long Niger +voyages.[712] + +Reference has been made before to the large river population of China +who live on boats and rafts, and forward the trade of the vast inland +waterways. These are people, differentiated not in race, but in +occupation and mode of life, constantly recruited from the congested +population of the land. Allied to them are the trackers or towing crews +whose villages form a distinctive feature of the turbulent upper +Yangtze, and who are employed, sometimes three hundred at a time, to +drag junks up the succession of rapids above Ichang.[713] Similarly the +complex of navigable waterways centering about Paris, as far back as the +reign of Tiberius Cæsar, gave rise to the _Nautae Parisii_ or guild of +mariners, from whom the city of Paris derived its present coat of +arms--a vessel under full sail. These Lutetian boatmen handled the river +traffic in all the territory drained by the Seine, Marne, and Oise. +Later, in the reign of Louis the Fat, they were succeeded by the +_Mercatores aquae Parisiaci_, and from them sprang the municipal body +appointed to regulate the river navigation and commerce.[714] + +[Sidenote: River islands as protected sites.] + +The location of the ancient tribe of the Parisii is typical of many +other weak riverine folk who seek in the islands of a river a protected +position to compensate for their paucity of number. The Parisii, one of +the smallest of the Gallic tribes, ill-matched against their populous +neighbors, took refuge on ten islands and sandbars of the Seine and +there established themselves.[715] Stanley found an island in the Congo +near the second cataract of Stanley Falls occupied by five villages of +the Baswa, who had taken refuge there from the attacks of the +bloodthirsty Bakuma.[716] During the Tartar invasions of Russia in the +thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, bands of refugees from the +surrounding country gathered for mutual defense on the islands of the +Dnieper River, and became the nucleus of the Dnieper Cossacks.[717] The +Huron tribe of American Indians, reduced to a mere fragment by repeated +Iroquois attacks, fled first to the islands of St. Joseph and +Michilimackinac in Lake Huron, and in 1856 to the Isle of Orleans in the +St. Lawrence. But even this location under the guns of their French +allies in Quebec failed to protect them, for the St. Lawrence was a +highway for the war fleets of their implacable foe.[718] + +[Sidenote: River and lake islands as robber strongholds.] + +A river island not only confers the negative benefit of protection, but +affords a coign of vantage for raids on the surrounding country, being +to some extent proof against punitive attacks. It offers special +facilities for depredations on parties crossing the river; here the +divided current, losing something of its force, is less of an obstacle, +and the island serves as a resting place on the passage. Immunity from +punishment breeds lawlessness. The Ba Toka who, fifty years ago, +inhabited the islands in the great southern bend of the Zambesi, +utilized their location to lure wandering tribes on to their islands, +under the pretext of ferrying them across, and then to rob them, till +Sebituane, the great Makololo chief, cleaned out their fastnesses and +opened the river for trade.[719] The islands in the wide stretches of the +Lualaba River in the Babemba country were described to Livingstone as +harboring a population of marauders and robbers, who felt themselves +safe from attack.[720] The same unenviable reputation attaches to the +Budumas of the Lake Chad islands. A weak, timid, displaced people, they +nevertheless lose no chance of raiding the herds of the Sudanese tribes +inhabiting the shores of the Lake, and carrying off the stolen cattle on +their wretched rafts to their island retreats.[721] + +[Sidenote: River peninsulas as protected sites.] + +The protection of an island location is almost equalled in the +peninsulas formed by the serpentines or meanders of a river. Hence these +are choice sites for fortress or settlement in primitive communities, +where hostilities are always imminent and rivers the sole means of +communication. The defensive works of the mound-builders in great +numbers occupied such river peninsulas. The neck of the loop was +fortified by a single or double line of ditch and earthen wall, +constructed from bank to bank of the encircling stream.[722] This was +exactly the location of Vesontio, now Besançon, once the ancient +stronghold of the Sequani in eastern Gaul. It was situated in a loop of +the Dubis, so nearly a circle that its course seems to have been +"described by a compass," Cæsar says, while fortifications across the +isthmus made the position of the town almost impregnable.[723] Verona, +lying at the exit of the great martial highway of the Brenner Pass, +occupies just such a loop of the Adige, as does Capua on the Volturno, +and Berne on the Aare. Shrewsbury, in the Middle Ages an important +military point for the preservation of order on the marches of Wales, is +almost encircled by the River Severn, while a castle on the neck of the +peninsula completes the defense on the land side.[724] Graaf Reinett, at +one time an exposed frontier settlement of the Dutch in Cape Colony, had +a natural moat around it in the Sunday River, which here describes +three-fourths of a circle. + +[Sidenote: River islands as sites of trading posts and colonies.] + +The need of protection felt by all colonists in new countries amid +savage or barbarous people whom encroachment sooner or later makes +hostile, leads them if possible to place their first trading posts and +settlements on river islands, especially at the mouth of the streams, +where a delta often affords the site required, and where the junction of +ocean and river highway offers the best facilities for trade. A river +island fixed the location of the English settlement at Jamestown in +Virginia, the French at Montreal and New Orleans, the Dutch at Manhattan +and Van Renssellær Island in the Hudson, the Swedes at Tinicum Island +in the Delaware River a few miles below the mouth of the Schuylkill.[725] +St. Louis, located on a delta island of the Senegal River, is one of the +oldest European towns in West Africa;[726] and Bathurst, founded in 1618 +on a similar site at the mouth of the Gambia, has for centuries now been +the safe outlet for the trade of this stream.[727] Such island +settlements at river mouths are a phenomenon of the outer edge of every +coastal region; but inland stations for trade or military control also +seek the protection of an island site. The Russians in the seventeenth +century secured their downstream conquest of the Amur by a succession of +river island forts,[728] which recall Colonel Byrd's early frontier post +on an island in the Holston River, and George Rogers Clark's military +stockade on Corn Island in the Ohio, which became the nucleus of the +later city of Louisville. + +[Sidenote: Swamps as barriers and boundaries.] + +More effective than rivers in the protection which they afford are +swamps. Neither solid land nor navigable water, their sluggish, passive +surface raises an obstacle of pure inertia to the movements of mankind. +Hence they form one of those natural boundaries that segregate. In +southern England, Ronmey Marsh, reinforced by the Wealden Forest, fixed +the western boundary of the ancient Saxon kingdom of Kent by blocking +expansion in that direction, just as the bordering swamps of the Lea and +Colne rivers formed the eastern and western boundaries of +Middlesex.[729] The Fenland of the Wash, which extended in Saxon days +from the highland about Lincoln south to Cambridge and Newmarket, served +to hem in the Angles of Norfolk and Suffolk on the west, so that the +occupation of the interior was left to later bands who entered by the +estuaries of the Humber and Forth.[730] In northern Germany, the low +cross valleys of the Spree, Havel and Netze rivers, bordered by alder +swamps, were long a serious obstacle to communication, and therefore +became boundaries of districts,[731] just as the Bourtanger Moor drew +the dividing line between Holland and Hanover. + +[Sidenote: Swamps as regions of survival.] + +Swamp-bordered regions, as areas of natural isolation, guard and keep +intact the people which they hold. Therefore they are regions of +survival of race and language. The scattered islets of the Fens of +England furnished an asylum to the early British Celts from Teutonic +attacks,[732] and later protected them against dominant infusion of +Teutonic blood. Hence to-day in the Fenland and in the district just to +the south we find a darker, shorter people than in the country to the +east or west.[733] Similarly the White Russians, occupying the poor, +marshy region of uncertain watershed between the sources of the Duna, +Dnieper and Volga, have the purest blood of all the eastern Slavs, +though this distinction is coupled with poverty and retarded +culture,[734] a combination that anthropo-geography often reveals. +Wholly distinct from the Russians and segregated from them by a barrier +of swampy forests, we find the Letto-Lithuanians in the Baltic province +of Courland, speaking the most primitive form of flectional languages +classed as Aryan. The isolation which preserved their archaic speech, of +all European tongues the nearest to the Sanskrit, made them the last +European people to accept Christianity.[735] The great race of the +Slavic Wends, who once occupied all northern Germany between the Vistula +and Elbe, has left only a small and declining remnant of its language in +the swampy forests about the sources of the Spree.[736] [See +ethnographical map, p. 223.] The band of marshlands stretching through +Holland from the shallow Zuyder Zee east to the German frontier, has +given to Friesland and the coast islands of Holland a peculiar +isolation, which has favored the development and survival of the +peculiar Friesian dialect, that speech so nearly allied to Saxon +English, and has preserved here the purest type of the tall, blond +Teuton among the otherwise mixed stock of the Netherlands.[737] + +[Sidenote: Swamps as places of refuge.] + +Inaccessible to all except those familiar with their treacherous paths +and labyrinthine channels, swamps have always afforded a refuge for +individuals and peoples; and therefore as places of defense they have +played no inconspicuous part in history. What the Dismal Swamp of North +Carolina and the cypress swamps of Louisiana were to the run-away +slaves, that the Everglades of Florida have been to the defeated +Seminoles. In that half-solid, half-fluid area, penetrable only to the +native Indian who poles his canoe along its tortuous channels of liquid +mud, the Seminoles have set up their villages on the scattered hummocks +of solid land, and there maintained themselves, a tribe of 350 souls, +despite all efforts of the United States government to remove them to +the Indian Territory. The swamps of the Nile delta have been the asylum +of Egyptian independence from the time King Amysis took refuge there for +fifty years during an invasion of the Ethiopians,[738] to the retreat +thither of Amyrtaeus, a prince of Sais, after his unsuccessful revolt +against the Persian conqueror Artaxerxes I.[739] The Isle of Athelney +among the marshes of the Parret River afforded a refuge to Alfred the +Great and a band of his followers during the Danish invasion of Wessex +in 878,[740] while the Isle of Ely in the Fenland was another point of +sustained resistance to the invaders. It was the Fenland that two +hundred years later was the last stronghold of Saxon resistance to +William of Normandy. Here on the Isle of Ely the outlawed leader +Hereward maintained Saxon independence, till the Conqueror at last +constructed a long causeway across the marshes to the "Camp of +Refuge."[741] + +[Sidenote: The spirit of the marshes.] + +The spirit of the marshlands is the spirit of freedom. Therefore these +small and scarcely habitable portions of the land assume an historical +dignity and generate stirring historical events out of all proportion to +their size and population. Their content is ethical rather than +economic. They attract to their fastnesses the vigorous souls protesting +against conquest or oppression, and then by their natural protection +sustain and nourish the spirit of liberty. It was the water-soaked +lowlands of the Rhine that enabled the early Batavians,[742] Ditmarscher +and Frieslanders to assert and to maintain their independence, generated +the love of Independence among the Dutch and helped them defend their +liberty against the Spanish[743] and French. So the Fenland of England +was the center of resistance to the despotism of King John, who +therefore fixed his headquarters for the suppression of the revolt at +Lincoln and his military depôt at Lynn. Later in the conflict of the +barons with Henry III, Simon de Montfort and other disaffected nobles +entrenched themselves in the islands of Ely and Axholm, till the +Provisions of Oxford in 1267 secured them some degree of constitutional +rights.[744] Four centuries later the same spirit sent many Fenlanders +to the support of Cromwell. + +[Sidenote: Economic and political importance of lakes.] + +A river that spreads out into the indeterminate earthform of a marsh is +an effective barrier; but one that gathers waters into a natural basin +and forms a lake retains the uniting power of a navigable stream and +also, by the extension of its area and elimination of its current, +approaches the nature of an enclosed sea. Mountain rivers, characterized +by small volume and turbulent flow, first become navigable when they +check their impetuosity and gather their store of water in some lake +basin. The whole course of the upper Rhone, from its glacier source on +the slope of Mount Furca to its confluence with the Saône at Lyon, is +unfit for navigation, except where it lingers in Lake Geneva. The same +thing is true of the Reuss in Lake Lucerne, the upper Rhine in Lake +Constance, the Aare in Thun and Brienze, and the Linth in Lake Zurich. +Hence such torrent-fed lakes assume economic and political importance in +mountainous regions, owing to the paucity of navigable waterways. The +lakes of Alpine Switzerland and Italy and of Highland Scotland form so +many centers of intercourse and exchange. Even such small bodies of +water as the Alpine lakes have therefore become goals of expansion, so +that we find the shores of Geneva, Maggiore, Lugano, and Garda, each +shared by two countries. Switzerland, the Austrian Tyrol, and the three +German states of Baden, Wurtemberg and Bavaria, have all managed to +secure a frontage upon Lake Constance. Lake Titicaca, lying 12,661 feet +(3854 meters) above sea level but affording a navigable course 136 miles +(220 kilometers) long, is an important waterway for Peru and Bolivia. In +the central Sudan, where aridity reduces the volume of all streams, even +the variable and indeterminate Lake Chad has been an eagerly sought +objective for expanding boundaries. Twenty years ago it was divided +among the native states of Bornu, Bagirmi and Kanem; today it is shared +by British Nigeria, French Sudan, and German Kamerun. The erratic +northern extension of the German boundary betrays the effort to reach +this goal. + +[Sidenote: Lakes as nuclei of states.] + +The uniting power of lakes manifests itself in the tendency of such +basins to become the nuclei of states. Attractive to settlement in +primitive times, because of the protected frontier they afford--a motive +finding its most emphatic expression in the pile villages of the early +lake-dwellers--later because of the fertility of their bordering soil +and the opportunity for friendly intercourse, they gradually unite their +shores in a mesh of reciprocal relations, which finds its ultimate +expression in political union. It is a significant fact that the Swiss +Confederation originated in the four forest cantons of Lucerne, Schwyz, +Uri and Unterwalden, which are linked together by the jagged basin of +Lake Lucerne or the Lake of the Four Forest Cantons, as the Swiss +significantly call it, but are otherwise divided by mountain barriers. +So we find that Lake Titicaca was the cradle of the Inca Empire, just as +Lake Tezcoco was that of the Toltecs in Mexico and an island in Lake +Chalco later that of the Aztec domain.[745] The most stable of the +short-lived native states of Africa have apparently found an element of +strength and permanence in a protected lake frontier. Such are the petty +kingdoms of Bornu, Bagirmi and Kanem on Lake Chad, and Uganda on +Victoria Nyanza. + +Large lakes, which include in their area islands, peninsulas, tides, +currents, fiords, inlets, deltas, and dunes, and present every +geographical feature of an enclosed sea, approach the latter too in +historical importance. Some of the largest, however, have long borne the +name of seas. The Caspian, which exceeds the Baltic in area, and the +Aral, which outranks Lake Michigan, show the closest physical +resemblance to thalassic basins, because of their size, salinity and +enclosed drainage systems; but their anthropo-geographical significance +is slight. The very salinity which groups them with the sea points to an +arid climate that forever deprives them of the densely populated coasts +characteristic of most enclosed seas, and hence reduces their historical +importance. Their tributary streams, robbed of their water by irrigation +canals, like "the shorn and parcelled Oxus", renounce their function of +highways into the interior. To this rule the Volga is a unique +exception. Finally, cut off from union with the ocean, these salt lakes +lose the supreme historical advantage which is maintained by freshwater +lakes, like Ladoga, Nyassa, Maracaibo and the Great Lakes of North +America, all lying near sea level. + +[Sidenote: Lakes as fresh water seas.] + +Lakes as part of a system of inland waterways may possess commercial +importance surpassing that of many seas. This depends upon the +productivity, accessibility and extent of their hinterland, and this in +turn depends upon the size and shape of the inland basin. The chain of +the five Great Lakes, which together present a coastline of four +thousand miles and a navigable course as long as the Baltic between the +Skager Rack and the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, constitutes a +freshwater Mediterranean. It has played the part of an enclosed sea in +American history and has enabled the Atlantic trade to penetrate 1400 +miles inland to Chicago and Duluth. Its shores have therefore been a +coveted object of territorial expansion. The early Dutch trading posts +headed up the Hudson and Mohawk toward Lake Ontario, as did the English +settlements which succeeded them. The French, from their vantage point +at Montreal, threw out a frail casting-net of fur stations and missions, +which caught and held all the Lakes for a time. Later the American +shores were divided among eight of our states. The northern boundaries +of Indiana and Illinois were fixed by Congress for the express purpose +of giving these commonwealths access to Lake Michigan. Pennsylvania with +great difficulty succeeded in protruding her northwestern frontier to +cover a meager strip of Erie coast, while New York's frontage on the +same lake became during the period of canal and early railroad +construction, a great factor in her development. + +In 1901, the tonnage of our merchant vessels on the Great Lakes was half +that of our Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts combined,[746] +constituting a freshwater fleet greater than the merchant marine of +either France or sea-bred Norway. A remote but by no means faint echo of +this fact is found in the five hundred or more boats, equally available +for trade or war, which Henry M. Stanley saw the Uganda prince muster on +the shore of Victoria Nyanza Lake. Ocean, sea, bay, estuary, river, +swamp, lake: here is Nature's great circle returning upon itself, a +circle faintly notched into arcs, but one in itself and one in man's +uses. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER XI + +[630] Isabella B. Bishop, The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, Vol. I, pp. +26-27. New York and London, 1900. + +[631] Fiske, Discovery of America, Vol. I, p. 492. Boston, 1892. + +[632] Capt. James Cook, Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, 1776-1780, Vol. II, +pp. 321-332. New York, 1796. + +[633] John Richard Green, The Making of England, Vol. I, pp. 63-66, +84-86, 95, 96. London, 1904. + +[634] E. Lavisse, _Histoire de France_, Vol. II, Part I, pp. 374-375, +378-379, 381-382, 385-386. Paris, 1903. + +[635] Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. I, pp. 189-191, map. New York, +1902-1906. + +[636] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 192-194. + +[637] G.W. Kitchen, History of France, Vol. I, pp. 59-60. Oxford, 1892. + +[638] Dietrich Schaeffer, _Die Hansestädte und König Waldemar von +Dänemark_, p. 36. Jena, 1879. + +[639] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, p. 311. London, 1904. + +[640] Capt. A.T. Mahan, The Problem of Asia, pp. 41, 60, 120. New York, +1900. + +[641] Isabella B. Bishop, The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, Vol. I, pp. +97-98. New York and London, 1900. + +[642] E.C. Semple, Development of the Hanse Towns in Relation to their +Geographic Environment, Bulletin Amer. Geog. Soc., Vol. 31. No. 3. 1899. + +[643] Nordenskiold, Voyage of the Vega, pp. 519-530, 552. New York, +1882. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, Vol. I, Note pp. +278-281. New York, 1902. + +[644] Agnes Laut, Voyagers of the Northern Ocean, _Harper's Magazine_, +January, 1906. + +[645] Alexis Krausse, Russia in Asia, pp. 21-54. New York, 1899. + +[646] Felix Dubois, Timbuctoo, pp. 198-190, 251-257. New York, 1896. + +[647] _Ibid._, p. 38. + +[648] D. Livingstone, Missionary Travels, pp. 71, 177. New York, 1858. + +[649] W. Deecke, Italy, p. 87. London, 1904. + +[650] G. Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, map facing +p. 167; also pp. 287, 327-328. New York, 1897. + +[651] F.M. Stapff, _Karte des unteren Khiusebthal, Petermanns +Mitteilungen_, p. 202. July, 1885. + +[652] Strabo, Book III, chap. II, 4. + +[653] For full discussion, see Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Handels +und Gewerbefleisses_. Stuttgart, 1889. + +[654] Rambaud, History of Russia, Vol. I, pp. 24-28. Boston, 1886. + +[655] A.B. Hulbert, Historic Highways of America, Vol. VII, Portage +Paths, pp. 182-183, 187-188. Cleveland, 1903. + +[656] Herodotus, Book I, 194. A.H. Layard, Nineveh and Its Remains, Vol. +II, pp. 79-81. New York, 1849. + +[657] Charles W. Hawes, The Uttermost East, p. 60. New York, 1904. + +[658] Transportation by Water in 1906, Table 30, p. 181. Report of +Department of Commerce and Labor, Washington, 1908. + +[659] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, p. 277. London, 1904. + +[660] E.A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, p. 466. London. +1882. + +[661] J. Ellis Barker, Modern Germany, pp. 68-85. London, 1907. + +[662] Heinrich von Treitschke, _Politik_, Vol. I, p. 218. Leipzig, 1897. + +[663] E.A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, p. 466. London, +1882. + +[664] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, p. 511. London, 1904. + +[665] J. Partsch, Central Europe, p. 318. London, 1903. + +[666] Ratzel, _Politische Geographie_, pp. 739-740. Munich, 1903. + +[667] Annual Register for 1901, p. 358. New Series, London and New York, +1902. + +[668] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 958. New York, 1902. + +[669] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, p. 473. London, 1896-1898. + +[670] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 406. New York, 1902. + +[671] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, map p. 312. London, 1904. + +[672] Blanqui, History of Political Economy, pp. 273, 277, 296. New +York, 1880. + +[673] Albert Gallatin, American State Papers, Misc. Doc., Vol. I, No. +250. Washington, 1834. + +[674] Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Handels und Gewerbefleisses_, pp. +449, 453-454. Stuttgart, 1889. + +[675] H.R. Mill, International Geography, pp. 530-531. New York, 1902. + +[676] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, pp. 310, 312. London, 1904. + +[677] J. Partsch, Central Europe, p. 314. London, 1903. + +[678] Statesman's Yearbook for 1907. + +[679] Henry Norman, All the Russias, pp. 254-255, 285-292. New York, +1902. + +[680] E.C. Semple, American History and Its Geographic Conditions, pp. +251-255. Boston, 1903. + +[681] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, p. 6. London, 1897. + +[682] Strabo, Book IV, chap. VI, 7. + +[683] Alexis Krausse, Russia in Asia, pp. 361-362. New York, 1899. + +[684] Angus Hamilton, Afghanistan, pp. 137-141. New York and London, +1906. Henry Norman, All the Russias, pp. 276-277. New York, 1902. + +[685] _Bella Gallico_, Book IV, chap. IV. + +[686] _Ibid._, Book I, chap. XXXI; Book II, chap. III; Book IV, chap. I. + +[687] Journals of Dr. Thomas Walker and Christopher Gist, p. 129. Filson +Club Publications, Louisville, 1898. + +[688] H.R. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the United States, Vol. III, +pp. 248-249. Philadelphia, 1853. + +[689] Martha K. Genthe, The Valley Towns of Connecticut, Bull. of Amer. +Geog. Society, Vol. 39, pp. 1-7. New York, 1907. + +[690] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, pp. 181-182, 192. London, +1898. + +[691] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 495. New York, 1902. + +[692] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 284-285. New York, 1899. + +[693] _Ibid._, Maps pp. 222, 340, 350. + +[694] _Ibid._, Maps pp. 402, 429. + +[695] J. Partsch, Central Europe, pp. 43, 241. London, 1903. + +[696] _Ibid._, p. 69. Sydow-Wagner, _Methodischer Schul-Atlas_, compare +maps No. 13 and No. 25. + +[697] Elisée Reclus, Europe, Vol. IV, pp. 380, 389-390. New York, 1882. + +[698] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, p. 318, map. New York, 1899. + +[699] H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, pp. 202-203. London, +1904. + +[700] Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, Vol. I, pp. 168, 169, +232, 306-307. London, 1907. + +[701] Livingstone, Missionary Travels, pp. 102, 642. New York, 1858. + +[702] See Century Atlas, maps of Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas for +boundary line of 1850. + +[703] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, p. 57. London, 1905. + +[704] Strabo, Book X, chap. II, 19. + +[705] Henry M. Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, Vol. II, pp. +120-124, 155-158, 168, 169, 173, 176, 177, 182, 266-274, 327. New York, +1879. + +[706] Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, Vol. II, pp. 252, +269-270. London, 1907. + +[707] Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. I, pp. 189, 192-194. New York, +1902-1906. + +[708] Cyrus Thomas, Mound Explorations, pp. 526-527, 531, 551. Twelfth +Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1894. + +[709] Parkman, The Old Regime in Canada, pp. 292-303. Boston, 1904. E.C. +Semple, The Influences of Geographic Environment on the Lower St. +Lawrence, Bull. of Amer. Geog. Society, Vol. 36, pp. 449-466. 1904. + +[710] Martha Krug Genthe, Valley Towns of Connecticut, pp. 10-12, +figures V. and VI, Bull. of Amer. Geog. Society, Vol. 39, 1907. + +[711] J. Nacken, _Die Provinz Kwantung und ihre Bevölkerung, Petermanns +Mitteilungen_, Vol. 24, p. 421, 1878. W.M. Wood, Fankwei, pp. 276-277. +New York, 1859. + +[712] Felix Dubois, Timbuctoo, pp. 19-22, 38. New York, 1896. + +[713] Isabella B. Bishop, The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, Vol. I, pp. +164, 174-175, 179, 182, 189, 215. London and New York, 1900. + +[714] William Walton, Paris, Vol. I, pp. 31-32, 35. Philadelphia, 1899. + +[715] Cæsar, _Bella Gallico_, Book VIII, chaps, 57, 58. + +[716] Henry M. Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, Vol. II, pp. +227-228. New York, 1879. + +[717] Article, Cossack, Encyclopedia Britannica. + +[718] Parkman, The Jesuits in North. America, pp. 292-303, 498-505, 534, +535. Boston, 1904. + +[719] Livingstone, Missionary Travels, pp. 100, 102. New York, 1858. + +[720] Livingstone, Last Journals, Vol. I, p. 359. London, 1874. + +[721] Heinrich Barth, Travels in North and Central Africa, Vol. II, pp. +64, 66, 233. New York, 1857. Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, +Vol. I, pp. 237, 303-304, 320, 331-336; Vol. II, pp. 54, 56-58, 67-68, +96-99, 104-105. London, 1907. + +[722] J.P. McLean, The Mound Builders, p. 20. Cincinnati, 1904. Squier +and Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, pp. 6, 9, 10. +New York, 1848. + +[723] Cæsar, _Bello Gallico_, Book I, chaps. 38, 39. + +[724] Elisée Reclus, Europe, Vol. IV, pp. 101-102. New York, 1882. + +[725] John Fiske, Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, Vol. I, p. 241. +Boston. + +[726] H.E. Mill, International Geography, p. 956. New York, 1902. + +[727] H.B. George, Historical Geography of the British Empire, pp. +259-260. London, 1904. + +[728] Alexis Krausse, Russia in Asia, pp. 30-33, 50. New York, 1899. + +[729] H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, pp. 198-199. London, +1904. + +[730] John Richard Green, The Making of England, Vol. I, pp. 63, 66. +London, 1904. + +[731] J. Partsch, Central Europe, p. 102. London, 1903. + +[732] Miller and Skertchley, The Fenland Past and Present, pp. 10, 11, +27-30. London, 1878. + +[733] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 322-323. Map p. 327. New York, +1899. + +[734] Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, Vol. I, p. 108. +New York, 1893. + +[735] _Ibid._, pp. 104-106. W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 340-342, +352, 365. New York, 1899. + +[736] J. Partsch, Central Europe, p. 135. London, 1903. + +[737] _Ibid._, p. 133. W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 294-295. New +York, 1899. + +[738] Herodotus, II, 137, 140. + +[739] Thucydides, I, 110. Brugsch-Bey, History of Egypt, Vol. II, p. +333. London, 1881. + +[740] John Richard Green, History of the English People, Vol. I, chap. +III, p. 71. + +[741] Miller and Skertchley, The Fenland Past and Present, pp. 83, 101, +104, 107, 108. London, 1878. + +[742] Tacitus, History of the Germans, Book VI, chap. VI. Motley, Rise +of the Dutch Republic, Vol. I, pp. 2-5, 13. New York, 1885. + +[743] J. Partsch, Central Europe, p. 299. London, 1903. + +[744] Miller and Skertchley, The Fenland Past and Present, pp. 113-114. +London, 1878. + +[745] Edward John Payne, History of the New World Called America, Vol. +I, pp. 327-328, 502-503. Oxford, 1892. Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. +II, p. 163. London, 1896-1898. + +[746] U.S. Report of Commission of Navigation, p. 10. Washington, 1901. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +CONTINENTS AND THEIR PENINSULAS + + +[Sidenote: Insularity of the land-masses.] + +The division of the earth's surface into 28 per cent. land and 72 per +cent. water is an all important fact of physical geography and +anthropo-geography. Owing to this proportion, the land-masses, which +alone provide habitats for man, rise as islands out of the three-fold +larger surface of the uninhabitable ocean. Consequently, the human +species, like the other forms of terrestrial life, bears a deeply +ingrained insular character. Moreover, the water causes different +degrees of separation between the land-masses, according as it appears +as inlet, strait, sea, an island-strewn or islandless ocean; it +determines the grouping of the habitable areas and consequently the +geographic basis of the various degrees of ethnic and cultural kinship +between the divisions of land. Finally, since the sea is for man only a +highway to some ulterior shore, this geography of the land-masses in +relation to the encompassing waters points the routes and goals of human +wanderings. + +Each fragment of habitable land, large or small, continent or islet, +means a corresponding group or detachment of the vast human family. Its +size fixes the area at the service of the group which occupies it. Its +location, however, may either endow it with a neighborliness like that +subsisting between Africa and Europe and involving an interwoven +history; or remoteness like that of South America from Australia, so +complete that even the close net of intercourse thrown by modern +commerce over the whole world has scarcely sufficed to bring them into +touch. Therefore the highly irregular distribution of the land areas, +here compactly grouped, there remote, deserves especial attention, since +it produces far-reaching results. Finally, continents and islands, by +their zonal situation, their land forms, rainfall, river systems, flora +and fauna, produce for man varied life conditions, which in their turn +are partially dependent upon the size and grouping of the land-masses. + +[Sidenote: Classification of land-masses according to size and +location.] + +A comparison of the large and small land-masses of the from the +standpoint of both physical and anthropological geography yields a +classification based upon size and location on the one hand, and +historical influences on the other. The following table indicates the +relation between the two. + + I. Independent Land-masses. + + A. _Continents_. Independent by reason of size, which enables them + to support a large number of people and afford the conditions for + civilization. + + (a) Insular continents, whose primitive and modern development are + marked by remoteness. Australia. + + (b) Neighboring continents, separated by narrow seas and showing + community of historical events. Europe and Africa. Asia and North + America around Bering Sea. + + B. _Islands_. Independent by reason of location. + + (a) Oceanic islands, characterized by greatest remoteness from + continents and other islands, and also by independent or detached + history. St. Helena and Iceland. + + (b) Member of a group of oceanic islands, therefore less + independent. Hawaii, Fayal in the Azores, Tongatabu. + + (c) Large islands, approaching by reason of size the independence + of continents and thereby finding compensation for a less + independent location. New Guinea, Borneo, Madagascar; in a cultural + sense, Great Britain and Japan. + + II. Dependent Land-masses. + + (a) Inshore or coast islands, whose history is intimately connected + with that of the nearby mainland. Euboea, Long Island, Vancouver, + Sakhalin, Ceylon. + + (b) Neighboring islands, showing less intimate historical + relations. Formosa, the Canaries, Ireland in contrast to Great + Britain. + + (c) Islands of enclosed or marginal seas, contained in a circle of + lands and exposed to constant intercourse from all sides. Jamaica, + Java, Crete, Sicily, Zealand, Gotland, St. Lawrence in Bering Sea. + + (d) Island groups not to be considered apart from other groups. + Samoa, Fiji and Friendly Isles; Philippine, Sulu and Sunda Islands; + Greater and Lesser Antilles. + +[Sidenote: Effect of size of land-masses.] + +As the homes of man, these land-masses vary greatly owing to difference +of size. Only the six continents have been large enough to generate +great bodies of people, to produce differentiated branches of the human +family, and to maintain them in such numerical force that alien +intermixtures were powerless essentially to modify the gradually +developing ethnic type. The larger continents are marked by such +diversity of climate, relief and contour, that they have afforded the +varied environments and the area for the development of several great +types or sub-types of mankind. Australia has been just large enough to +produce one distinct native race, the result of a very ancient blend of +Papuan and Malayan stocks. But prevailing aridity has cast a mantle of +monotony over most of the continent, nullifying many local geographic +differences in highland and lowland, curtailing the available area of +its already restricted surface, and hence checking the differentiation +that results either from the competition of large numbers or from a +varied environment. We find Australia characterized above all other +continents by monotony of culture, mode of life, customs, languages, and +a uniform race type from the Murray River to York peninsula.[747] The twin +continents of the Americas developed a race singularly uniform in its +physical traits,[748] if we leave out of account the markedly divergent +Eskimos, but displaying a wide range of political, social and economic +developments, from the small, unorganized groups of wandering savages, +like the desert Shoshones and coast Fuegians, to the large, stable +empire of the Incas, with intensive agriculture, public works, a state +religion and an enlightened government. + +Even the largest islands of the world, such as Borneo, New Guinea and +Madagascar, show no such independent ethnic development. This is the +distinguishing characteristic of the largest land-masses. Europe, except +on the basis of its size and peninsula form, has no title to the name of +continent; certainly not on anthropo-geographical grounds. Its +classification as a continent arose in the Mediterranean among the +Greeks, as a geographical expression of the antagonism between +themselves and their Carian, Phoenician and Persian enemies across the +Aegean; the idea had therefore a political origin, and was formed +without knowledge of that vast stretch of plains between the Black Sea +and the Arctic Ocean, where Asia's climate and races lap over into +Europe, and where to-day we find the Muscovite Empire, in point of +geographic conditions, its underlying ethnic stock and form of +government, as much Asiatic as European. The real or western Europe, +which the Roman Empire gradually added to the narrow Europe of the +Greeks, and which is strikingly contrasted to Asia in point of size, +relief, contour, climate and races, only served to maintain the +distinction between the two continents in men's minds. But from a +geographical standpoint the distinction is an error. It has confused the +interpretation of the history of the Greeks and the development of the +Russians. It has brought disorder into the question of the European or +Asiatic origin of the Aryan linguistic family, which the +anthropo-geographer would assign to the single continent of Eurasia. The +independent development that falls to the lot of great world islands +like the Americas and Australia is impossible in a peninsular continent +like Europe, large as it is. + +[Sidenote: Independence of location versus independence of size.] + +The independence of a land-mass is based not alone on size: there is +also an independence of location. This, owing to the spherical form of +the earth, tends to be neutralized by the independence based upon large +area. The larger a land-mass is, the nearer it approaches to others. +Eurasia, the largest of all the continents, comes into close proximity +and therefore close relations with Africa, North America, and even +Australia; whereas Australia is at once the smallest and the most +isolated of the continents. The remote oceanic islands of the Atlantic +Ocean, measuring only a few square miles in area, have a location so +independent of other inhabited lands, that before the period of the +great discoveries they had never appeared on the horizon of man. + +[Sidenote: The case of Asia.] + +Asia's size and central location to the other continents were formerly +taken as an argument for its correspondingly significant position in the +creation and history of man. Its central location is reflected in the +hypothesis of the Asiatic origin of the Indo-European linguistic group +of peoples; and though the theory has been justly called into question, +these peoples have undoubtedly been subjected to Asiatic influences. +The same thing is true of the native American race, both as to Asiatic +origin and influences; because the approximation of Siberia to Alaska is +too close to exclude human relations between the two continents. The +Malays, too, were probably sprung from the soil of southeastern Asia and +spread thence over their close-packed Archipelago. Even the native +Australians betray a Malayan and therefore Asiatic element in their +composition,[749] while the same element can be traced yet more distinctly +in the widely scattered Polynesians and the Hovas of Madagascar. This +radiation of races seems to reflect Asia's location at the core of the +land-masses. Yet the capacity to form such centers of ethnic +distribution is not necessarily limited to the largest continents; +history teaches us that small areas which have early achieved a +relatively dense population are prone to scatter far their seeds of +nations. + +[Sidenote: Location of hemispheres and ethnic kinship.] + +The continents harbor the most widely different races where they are +farthest apart; where they converge most nearly, they show the closest +ethnic kinships. The same principle becomes apparent in their plants and +animals. The distribution of the land-masses over the earth is +conspicuous for their convergence in the north and divergence in long +peninsular forms toward the south. The contrasted grouping is reflected +in both, the lower animals and the peoples inhabiting these respectively +vicinal and remote lands. Only where North America and Eurasia stretch +out arms to one another around the polar sea do Eastern and Western +Hemisphere show a community of mammalian forms. These are all strictly +Arctic animals, such as the reindeer, elk, Arctic fox, glutton and +ermine.[750] This is the Boreal sub-region of the Holoarctic zoological +realm, characterized by a very homogeneous and very limited fauna.[751] In +contrast, the portion of the hemispheres lying south of the Tropic of +Cancer is divided into four distinct zoological realms, corresponding to +Central and South America, Africa south of Sahara, the two Indian +peninsulas with the adjacent islands, and Australia.[752] But when we +consider the continental extremities projecting beyond the Tropic of +Capricorn, where geographic divergence reaches a climax, we find their +faunas and floras utterly dissimilar, despite the fact that climate and +physical conditions are very similar.[753] We find also widely divergent +races in the southern sections of Africa, Australia or Tasmania and +South America, while Arctic Eurasia and America come as near meeting +ethnically as they do geographically. Here and here only both Eastern +and Western Hemisphere show a strong affinity of race. The Eskimo, long +classed as Mongoloid, are now regarded as an aberrant variety of the +American race, owing to their narrow headform and linguistic affinity; +though in Alaska even their headform closely approximates the Mongoloid +Siberian type.[754] But in stature, color, oblique eyes, broad flat face, +and high cheek bones, in his temperament and character, artistic +productions and some aspects of his culture, he groups with the Asiatic +Hyperboreans across the narrow sixty miles of water forming Bering +Strait.[755] In the northern part of the earth's land area, the +distribution of floras, faunas, and races shows interdependence, +intercourse; in the southern, separation, isolation. + +[Sidenote: Continental convergence and ethnic kinship.] + +What is true where the hemispheres come together is true also where +continents converge. The core of the Old World is found in the +Mediterranean basin where Europe, Asia and Africa form a close circle of +lands and where they are inhabited by the one white Mediterranean race. +Contrast their racial unity about this common center with the extremes +of ethnic divergence in their remote peripheries, where Teutons, +Mongols, Malays and Negroes differ widely from the Mediterranean stock +and from each other. Eastern Australia represents the ethnic antipodes +of western Asia, in harmony with the great dividing distance between +them, but the sides of these continents facing each other across the +bridge of the Sunda Islands are sparsely strewn with a common Malay +element. + +[Sidenote: Africa's location.] + +Africa's early development was never helped by the fact that the +continent lay between Asia and South America. It was subjected to strong +and persistent Asiatic Influences, but apparently to no native American +ones. From that far-off trans-Atlantic shore came no signs of life. +Africa appears in history as an appendage of Asia, a cultural peninsula +of the larger continent. This was due not only to the Suez Isthmus and +the narrowness of the Red Sea rift, but to its one-sided invasion by +Asiatic races and trade from the east, while the western side of the +continent lay buried in sleep, unstirred by any voice from the silent +shores of America. Semitic influences, in successive waves, spread over +the Dark Continent as far as Morocco, the Senegal, Niger, Lake Chad, +Nyanza, Tanganyika and Nyassa, and gave it such light as it had before +the 16th century. Only after the Atlantic gulf was finally crossed did +influences from the American side of the ocean begin to impinge upon the +West African coast, first in the form of the slave and rum trade, then +in the more humane aspect of the Liberian colony. But with the full +development of the Atlantic period in history, we see all kinds of +Atlantic influences, though chiefly from the Atlantic states of Europe, +penetrating eastward into the heart of Africa, and there meeting other +commercial and political activities pressing inland from the Indian +Ocean. + +[Sidenote: The Atlantic abyss.] + +The long Atlantic rift between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, +which was such a potent factor in the primitive retardation of Africa +is, from the standpoint of anthropo-geography, the most important +feature in the distribution of the land-masses over the globe. Not till +the discovery of America bridged this abyss did the known world become a +girdle round the earth. Except the Norse ventures to the American +continent by way of Iceland and Greenland between 1000 and 1347, no +account of pre-Columbian intercourse between the two shores of the +Atlantic has ever been substantiated. Columbus found the opposite land +unfamiliar in race as in culture. He described the people as neither +whites nor blacks, the two ethnic types which he knew on the eastern +side of the Atlantic abyss. He and his successors found in the Americas +only a Stone Age culture, a stage already outgrown by Europe and Africa. +These continents from Lapland to the Hottentot country were using iron. +Prior to the voyage of the great Genoese, Europe gave nothing to America +and received nothing from it, except the Gulf Stream's scanty cargo of +driftwood stranded on bleak Icelandic shores. The Tertiary land-bridge +across the North Atlantic between Norway and Greenland may possibly have +guided a pre-Caucasic migration to America and given that continent part +of its aboriginal population.[756] However, no trace of any European +stock remains. + +[Sidenote: Atlantic islands uninhabited.] + +The collapse of the bridge at the close of the Glacial Epoch left the +Atlantic abyss effectually dividing the two hemispheres. Its islands, +few and far between, were helpless to maintain intercourse between the +opposite shores; this is proven by the fact that all of them from +Greenland to Tristan da Cunha, excepting only the Canaries, were +uninhabited at the time of their discovery. History records when the +first bold voyagers came upon them in that unmarked waste of waters, and +gave them their first occupants. The political upheavals of Norway in +King Harfagr's time (872) sent to the Faroes and Iceland their first +settlers, though these islands were previously known to the Celts of +Ireland. The Norse colonists who went to Greenland in the year 1000 seem +to have been the first regular settlers on those inhospitable coasts. +They found no native inhabitants, but numerous abandoned dwellings, +fragments of boats and stone implements,[757] which doubtless recorded +the intermittent voyages thither of the Eskimo, preliminary to permanent +occupation. The Scandinavians did not encounter natives on the island +till the 12th century, when Greenland probably received its first Eskimo +immigration.[758] + +[Sidenote: Geographical character of the Pacific.] + +While the Atlantic thus formed a long north-and-south rift across the +inhabited world at the period of the great discoveries, the Pacific, +strewn with islands and land-rimmed at its northern extremity by the +peninsulas of Alaska and eastern Siberia, spread a nebula of population +from the dense centers of Asia across to the outskirts of America. The +general Mongoloid character of the American Indians as a race, the +stronger Asiatic stamp of the Western Eskimo, the unmistakeable ethnic +and cultural affinities of the Northwest Coast tribes both with southern +Polynesians and Asiatics,[759] all point to America as the great eastern +wing of the Mongoloid or Asiatic area, and therefore as the true Orient +of the world. + +Geographic conditions have made this possible or even probable. The +winds and currents of the North Pacific set from Japan straight toward +the American coast. Junks blown out to sea from China or Japan have been +carried by the Kuro Siwo and the prevailing westerlies across the +Pacific to our continent. There is record of a hundred instances of this +occurrence.[760] + +[Sidenote: Pacific affinities of North American Indians.] + +The broken bridge across Bering Strait formed by East Cape, Cape Prince +of Wales and the Diomede Islands between, and further south the natural +causeway of the Commander and Aleutian Islands leading from the +peninsula of Kamchatka to that of Unalaska, have facilitated intercourse +between Asia and America.[761] Justin Winsor says, "There is hardly a +stronger demonstration of such connection between the two continents +than the physical resemblances of the peoples now living on opposite +sides of the Pacific Ocean in these upper latitudes."[762] This +resemblance is by no means confined to the Eskimo and Chukches, who have +exchanged colonists across Bering Sea. Recent investigations have +revealed a wider kinship. The population of northern Siberia speaks in +general Ural-Altaic languages, but it includes a few scattered tribes +whose singular speech excludes them from this linguistic group, and who +have therefore been placed by ethnologists in a distinct class called +"paleasiatics" or "hyperboreans." This class is composed of the Ostyak +and Kot on the Yenisei River, the Gilyak and Ainos at the mouth of the +Amur and on the Kurile, Sakhalin and Yezo islands, the Kamchadal and +Koryak of Kamchatka, and the Chukches and Yukaghir of extreme +northeastern Siberia. As far back as 1850, the eminent philologist +Robert Latham noted a marked linguistic agreement, both in structure and +verbal affinity, between our Northwest Coast tribes and the peoples of +the islands and peninsulas fringing northeastern Asia. "Koriak is +notably American," he said.[763] The recent Jesup Expedition to the +Northwest Coast of America and the nearby coast of Asia investigated the +Koryak, to determine whether in the past there had been any connection +between the cultures and ethnic types of the Old and New World. These +investigations have proved beyond doubt a kinship of culture, +attributable either to a remote common origin or to former contact, long +and close, between these isolated Siberian tribes and the American +aborigines. They show that the Koryak are one of the Asiatic tribes +standing nearest to the northwestern American Indian.[764] [See map page +103.] + +[Sidenote: Polynesian affinities.] + +W.H. Dall finds the inhabitants of the Pacific slope of North America +conspicuously allied with Oceanica in cultural achievements, whose +origin he therefore assigns to that vast congeries of islands stretching +from Asia toward South America in latitude 25° south. These islands, +closely clustered as far as the Paumota group, straggle along with +widening spaces between, through Easter Isle, which carries the +indestructible memorials of a strange civilization, through +Sala-y-Gomez, San Felix, and St. Ambrose almost to the threshold of the +Peruvian coast. It is to be noted that these islands lie just outside +the westward-bearing Equatorial Current and trade-winds, on the margin +of the South Pacific anti-cyclonic winds and a southern current which +sets towards the Peruvian coast.[765] A more probable avenue for the +introduction of these Polynesian or Malayan elements of culture is found +in O.T. Mason's theory, that primitive mariners of the southwestern +Pacific, led into migration by the eternal food quest, may have skirted +the seaboard of East Asia and Northwest America, passing along a +great-circle route through the succession of marginal seas and +archipelagoes to various ports of entry on the Pacific front of America. +Such a route, favored by the prevailing marine currents and winds from +the southwest, and used repeatedly during long periods of time, might +have introduced trans-Pacific elements of race and culture into the +western side of America.[766] + +[Sidenote: The real Orient of the World.] + +Moreover, primitive America resembled Oceanica and northern Asia in its +ignorance of iron, in its Stone Age civilization, and its retarded +social and political development. Such affinities as it shows were +predominantly Pacific or trans-Pacific.[767] On its Atlantic side, it +stood out in striking contrast to the contemporaneous civilizations and +races in Europe and Africa; this was its unneighbored shore, lying on +the eastern margin of that broad zone of habitation which stretched +hence westward on and on around the world, to the outermost capes of +Europe and Africa. The Atlantic abyss formed the single gap in this +encircling belt of population, to which Columbus at last affixed the +clasp. The Atlantic face of the Americas formed therefore the drowsy +unstirred Orient of the inhabited world, which westward developed +growing activity--dreaming a civilization in Mexico and Peru, roused to +artistic and maritime achievement in Oceanica and the Malay Archipelago, +to permanent state-making and real cultural development in Asia, and +attaining the highest civilization at last in western Europe. There was +the sunset margin of the inhabited world, the area of achievement, the +adult Occident, facing across the dividing ocean that infant Orient +beyond. Here the Old World, the full-grown world, had accumulated in +Columbus' time the matured forces of a hemisphere; it was searching for +some outlet across the shoreless distances of the Atlantic, waiting for +some call from its voiceless beyond. + +[Sidenote: The Atlantic abyss in historic movements of peoples.] + +This deep, unbridged chasm of the Atlantic, closed only four hundred +years ago, must be taken into account in all investigations of the +geographical distribution of races, whether in prehistoric or historic +times. The influences of those ages when it formed an impassable gulf +are still operative in directing the movements of the peoples to-day +inhabiting its shores, because that barrier maintained the continents of +America as a vast territorial reserve, sparsely inhabited by a Stone Age +people, and affording a fresh field for the superior, accumulated +energies of Europe. + +[Sidenote: Races and continents.] + +Australia and the double continent of America show each the coincidence +of an ethnic realm with an isolated continent. In contrast, when we come +to the Old World triad of Europe, Asia and Africa, we find three races, +to be sure, but races whose geographical distribution ignores the +boundaries of the continents. The White race belongs to all three, and +from time immemorial has made the central basin of the Mediterranean the +white man's sea. The Mongolian, though primarily at home in Asia, +stretches along the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic shores of +Norway, and in historical times has penetrated up the Danube to the foot +of the Alps. Nor was the Negroid stock confined to Africa, though Africa +has always been its geographical core. The Indian Peninsula and Malay +Archipelago, once peopled by a primitive Negroid race, but now harboring +only remnants of them in the Deccan, Malacca, the Philippines and +elsewhere, bridge the distance to the other great Negroid center in +Melanesia and the derivative or secondary Negroid area of +Australia.[768] The Negroid race belongs essentially to the long southern +land pendants of the Eastern Hemisphere; and wherever it has bordered on +the lighter northern stocks, it has drawn a typical boundary zone of +mingled tints which never diverges far from the Equator, from the +Atlantic shores of the Sudan to Pacific Fiji.[769] [See map page 105.] + +The effort of the old ethnology, as represented by Blumenbach, to make a +five-fold division of the races in agreement with the five continents +was a mistake. To distinguish between the continents is one thing and to +distinguish between the races is another. Neither bio-geography nor +anthropo-geography can adopt the continents as geographical provinces, +although floras, faunas and races the world over give evidence of +partial or temporary restriction to a certain continent, whence they +have overflowed to other lands. A ground-plan for the geographical +classification of races is to be found, as Tylor says, in the fact that +they are not found scattered indiscriminately over the earth's surface, +but that certain races belong to certain regions, in whose peculiar +environment they have developed their type, and whence they have spread +to other lands, undergoing modifications from race intermixture and +successive changes of environment on the way.[770] + +[Sidenote: Contrast of the northern and southern continents.] + +From this general law of race movements it follows that certain groups +of land-masses, favored by location and large area, play a great +imperial rôle, holding other lands as appanages. The Eastern Hemisphere, +as we have seen, enjoys this advantage over the Western. Still more the +Northern Hemisphere, blessed with an abundance of land and a predominant +Temperate Zone location, is able to lord it over the Southern, so +insular in its poverty of land. The history of the Northern Hemisphere +is marked by far-reaching historical influences and wide control; that +of the Southern, by detachment, aloofness and impotence, due to the +small area and isolation of its land-masses. A subordinate rôle is its +fate. Australia will always follow in the train of Eurasia, whence alone +it has derived its incentives and means of progress. Neither the +southern half of Africa nor South America has ever in historical times +struck out a road to advancement unaided by its northern neighbors. +Primitive South America developed the only independent civilization that +ever blossomed in the Southern Hemisphere, but the Peruvian achievements +in progress were inferior to those of Mexico and Central America.[771] + +[Sidenote: Isolation of the southern continents.] + +This subordination of the southern continents is partly due to the fact +that they have only one side of contact or neighborhood with any other +land, that is, on the north; yet even here the contact is not close. In +Australia the medium of communication is a long bridge of islands; in +America, a winding island chain and a mountainous isthmus; in Africa, a +broad zone of desert dividing the Mediterranean or Eurasian from the +tropical and Negroid part of the continent. Intercourse was not easy, +and produced clear effects only in the case of Africa. Enlightenment +filtering in here was sadly dimmed as it spread. Moreover it was delayed +till the introduction from Asia of the horse and camel, which were not +native to Africa, and which, as Ratzel points out, alone made possible +the long journey across the Sahara. The opposite or peninsular sides, +running out as great spurs from the compacter land-masses of the north, +look southward into vacant wastes of water, find no neighbors in those +Antarctic seas. Owing to this unfavorable location on the edge of +things, they were historically dead until four centuries ago, when +oceanic navigation opened up the great sea route of the Southern +Hemisphere, and for the first time included them in the world's circle +of communication. But even when lifted by the ensuing Europeanizing +process, they only emphasize the fundamental dependence of the Southern +Hemisphere upon the superior geographical endowments of the Northern. + +[Sidenote: Effect of continental structure upon historical development.] + +The build of the land-masses influences fundamentally the movements and +hence the development of the races who inhabit them. A simple +continental structure gives to those movements a few simple features and +a wide monotonous distribution which checks differentiation. A manifold, +complex build, varied in relief and ragged in contour, breaks up the +moving streams of peoples, turns each branch into a different channel, +lends it a distinctive character through isolation, finally brings it up +in a _cul de sac_ formed by a peninsula or mountain-rimmed basin, where +further movement is checked and the process of local individualization +begins. Therefore great simplicity of continental build may result in +historical poverty, as in the flat quadrangle of European Russia, the +level plateau of Africa, and the smooth Atlantic slope of North America, +with its neatly trimmed outline. Complexity, abounding in contrasted +environments, tends to produce a varied wealth of historical +development. Africa lies on the surface of the ocean, a huge torso of a +continent, headless, memberless, inert. Here is no diversity of outward +form, no contrast of zonal location, no fructifying variety of +geographic conditions. Humanity has forgotten to grow in its stationary +soil. Only where the Suez Isthmus formed an umbilical cord uniting +ancient Egypt to the mother continent of Asia was Africa vitalized by +the pulse of another life. European influences penetrated little beyond +the northern coast. + +Asia, on the other hand, radiating great peninsulas, festooned with +islands, supporting the vast corrugations of its highlands and lowlands, +its snow-capped mountains and steaming valleys, stretching from the +Equator through all the zones to the ice-blocked shores of the Arctic, +knowing drought and deluge, tundra waste and teeming jungle, has offered +the manifold environment and segregated areas for individualized +civilizations, which have produced such far-reaching historical results. +The same fact is true of Europe, and that in an intensified degree. Here +a complex development of mountains and highlands built on diverse axes, +peninsulas which comprise 27 per cent. and Islands which comprise nearly +8 per cent. of the total area,[772] vast thalassic inlets cleaving the +continent to the core, have provided an abundance of those naturally +defined regions which serve as cradles of civilization and, reacting +upon the continent as a whole, endow it with lasting historical +significance.[773] Even Strabo saw this. He begins his description of the +inhabited world with Europe, because, as he says, it has such a +"polymorphous formation" and is the region most favorable to the mental +and social ennoblement of man.[774] + +[Sidenote: Structure of North and South America.] + +In North and South America, great simplicity of continental build gave +rise to a corresponding simplicity of native ethnic and cultural +condition. There is only one marked contrast throughout the length of +this double continent, that between its Atlantic and Pacific slopes. On +the Atlantic side of the Cordilleras, a vast trough extends through both +land-masses from the Arctic Ocean to Patagonia; this has given to +migration in each a longitudinal direction and therefore constantly +tended to nullify the diversities arising from contrasted zonal +conditions. On the Pacific side of North America, there has been an +unmistakeable migration southward along the accessible coast from Alaska +to the Columbia River, and down the great intermontane valleys of the +western highlands from, the Great Basin to Honduras;[775] while South +America shows the same meridional movement for 2,000 miles along the +Pacific coast and longitudinal valleys of the Andes system. There was +little encouragement to cut across the grain of the continents. The +eastern range of the Cordilleras drew in general a dividing line between +the eastern and western tribes.[776] Though Athapascans from the east +overstepped it at a few points in North America, the Great Divide has +served effectually to isolate the two groups from one another and to +draw that line of linguistic cleavage which Major Powell has set down in +Ms map of Indian linguistic stocks. Consequently, Americanists recognize +a distinct resemblance among the members of the North Atlantic group of +Indians, as among those of the South Atlantic group; but they note an +equally distinct contrast between each of them and its corresponding +Pacific group. Nor is this contrast superficial; it extends to physical +traits, temperament and culture,[777] and appears in the use of the +vigesimal system of enumeration in primitive Mexico, Central America, +among the Tlingits of the Northwest coast and the Eskimo as also among +the Chukches and Ainus of Asia, while in the Atlantic section of North +America the decimal system, with one doubtful exception, was alone in +use.[778] + +[Sidenote: Cultural superiority of the Pacific slope Indians.] + +To the anthropo-geographer, the significant fact is that all the higher +phases of native civilization are confined to the Pacific slope group of +Indians, which includes the Mexican and Isthmian tribes. From the +elongated center of advanced culture stretching from the Bolivian +highlands northward to the Anahuac Plateau, the same type shades off by +easy transitions through northern Mexico and the Pueblo country, +vanishes among the lower intrusive stocks of Oregon and California, only +to reappear among the Haidas and Tlingits of British Columbia and +Alaska, whose cultural achievements show affinity to those of the Mayas +in Yucatan.[779] Dall found certain distinguishing customs or +characteristics spread north and south along the western slope of the +continent in a natural geographical line of migration. They included +labretifery, tattooing the chin of adult women, certain uses of masks, a +certain style of conventionalizing natural objects, the use of +conventional signs as hieroglyphics, a peculiar facility in carving wood +and stone, a similarity of angular designs on their pottery and +basketry, and of artistic representations connected with their common +religious or mythological ideas. Many singular forms of carvings and the +method of superimposing figures of animals one upon another in their +totem poles are found from Alaska to Panama, except in California. These +distinguishing features of an incipient culture are found nowhere else +in North America, even sporadically. Dall therefore concludes that "they +have been impressed upon the American aboriginal world from without," +and on the ground of affinities, attributes their origin to +Oceanica.[780] + +Cyrus Thomas, on the basis of the character and distribution of the +archeological remains in North America, concurs in this opinion. He +finds that these remains fall into two classes, one east of the Rocky +Mountain watershed and the other west. "When those of the Pacific slope +as a whole are compared with those of the Atlantic slope, there is a +dissimilarity which marks them as the products of different races or as +the result of different race influences." He emphasizes the resemblance +of the customs, arts and archeological remains of the west coast to +those of the opposite shores and islands of the Pacific, and notes the +lack of any resemblance to those of the Atlantic; and finally leans to +the conclusion that the continent was peopled from two sources, one +incoming stream distributing itself over the Atlantic slope, and the +other over the Pacific, the two becoming gradually fused into a +comparatively homogeneous race by long continental isolation. Yet these +two sources may not necessarily include a trans-Atlantic origin for one +of the contributing streams; ethnic evidence is against such a +supposition, because the characteristics of the American race and of the +archeological remains point exclusively to affinity with the people of +the Pacific.[781] John Edward Payne also reaches the same conclusion, +though on other grounds.[782] + +[Sidenote: Lack of segregated districts.] + +The one strong segregating feature in primitive America was the +Cordilleras, which held east and west apart. In the natural pockets +formed by the high intermontane valleys of the Andes and the Anahuac +Plateau, and in the constricted isthmian region, the continent afforded +a few secluded localities where civilization found favorable conditions +of development. But in general, the paucity of large coast +articulations, and the adverse polar or subpolar location of most of +these, the situation of the large tropical islands along that barren +Atlantic abyss, and the lack of a broken or varied relief, have +prevented the Americas from developing numerous local centers of +civilization, which might eventually have lifted the cultural status of +the continents.[783] + +[Sidenote: Coast articulations of continents.] + +It is necessary to distinguish two general classes of continental +articulations; first, marginal dependences, like the fringe of European +peninsulas and islands, resulting from a deeply serrated contour; and +second, surface subdivisions of the interior, resulting from differences +of relief or defined often by enclosing mountains or deserts, like the +Tibetan Plateau, the Basin of Bohemia, the Po River trough, or the +sand-rimmed valley of the Nile. The first class is by far the more +important, because of the intense historical activity which results from +the vitalizing contact with the sea. But in considering coast +articulations, anthropo-geography is led astray unless it discriminates +between these on the basis of size and location. Without stopping to +discuss the obvious results of a contrasted zonal location, such as that +between Labrador and Yucatan, the Kola Peninsula and Spain, it is +necessary to keep in mind always the effect of vicinal location. An +outlying coastal dependency like Ireland has had its history +impoverished by excessive isolation, in contrast to the richer +development of England, Jutland, and Zealand in the same latitude, +because these have profited from the closer neighborhood of other +peripheral regions. So from ancient times, Greece has had a similar +advantage over the Crimea, the Tunisian Peninsula of North Africa over +Spain, the Cotentin Peninsula of France over Brittany, and Kent over +Cornwall or Caithness in Great Britain. + +[Sidenote: Importance of size in continental articulations.] + +Articulations on a vast scale, like the southern peninsulas of Asia, +produce quite different cultural and historical effects from small +physical sub-divisions, like the fiord promontories and "skerries" of +Norway and southern Alaska, or the finger peninsulas of the +Peloponnesus. The significant difference lies in the degree of isolation +which the two types yield. Large continental dependencies of the Asiatic +class resemble small continents in their power to segregate; while +overgrown capes like ancient Attica and Argolis or the more bulky +Peloponnesus have their exclusiveness tempered by the mediating power of +the small marine inlets between them. Small articulations, by making a +coast accessible, tend to counteract the excessive isolation of a large +articulation. They themselves develop in their people only minor or +inner differentiations, which serve to enrich the life of the island or +peninsula as a whole, but do not invade its essential unity. The +contrast in the history of Hellas and the Peloponnesus was due largely +to their separation from one another; yet neither was able to make of +its people anything but Greeks. Wales and Cornwall show in English +history the same contrast and the same underlying unity. + +[Sidenote: Historical contrast of large and small peninsulas.] + +In discussing continental articulations, therefore, it makes a great +difference whether we draw our deductions from small projections of the +coast, like Wales, the Peloponnesus, Brittany and the Crimea, whose +areas range from 7442 to 10,023 square miles (19,082 to 25,700 square +kilometers); or the four Mediterranean peninsulas, which range in size +from the 58,110 square miles (149,000 square kilometers) of the +Apennine Peninsula to the 197,600 square miles (506,-600 square +kilometers) of Asia Minor and the 227,700 square miles (584,000 square +kilometers) of the Iberian; or the vast continental alcoves of southern +Asia, like Farther India with its 650,000 square miles (1,667,000 square +kilometers), Hither India with 814,320 square miles (2,088,000 square +kilometers) and Arabia with 1,064,700 square miles (2,730,000 square +kilometers).[784] The fact that the large compound peninsula of western +Europe which comprises Spain, Portugal, France, Jutland, Belgium, +Holland, Switzerland, Italy and western Germany, and has its base in the +stricture between the Adriatic and the Baltic, is about the size of +peninsular India, suggests how profound may be the difference in +geographic effects between large and small peripheral divisions. The +three huge extremities which Asia thrusts forward into the Indian Ocean +are geographical entities, which in point of size and individualization +rank just below the continents; and in relation to the solid mass of +Central Asia, they have exhibited in many respects an aloofness and +self-sufficiency, that have resulted in an historical divergence +approximating that of the several continents. India, which has more +productive territory than Australia and a population not much smaller +than that of Europe, becomes to the administrators of its government +"the Continent of India," as it is regularly termed in the Statistical +Atlas published at Calcutta. Farther India has in the long-drawn pendant +of Malacca a sub-peninsula half as large again as Italy. The Deccan has +in Ceylon an insular dependency the size of Tasmania. The whole scale is +continental. It appears again somewhat diminished, in the largest +articulations of Europe, in Scandinavia, the British Isles, the Iberian +and Balkan peninsulas. This continental scale stamps also the +anthropo-geography of such large individualized fields. They are big +enough for each to comprise one or even several nations, and isolated +enough to keep their historical processes for long periods at a time to +a certain extent detached from those of their respective continents. + +[Sidenote: Peninsular conditions most favorable to historical +development.] + +The most favorable conditions for historical development obtain where +the two classes of marginal articulation are combined, and where they +occur in groups, as we find them in the Mediterranean and the North +Sea-Baltic basin. Here the smaller indentations multiply contact with +the sea, and provide the harbors, bays and breakwaters of capes and +promontories which make the coast accessible. The larger articulations, +by their close grouping, break up the sea into the minor thalassic +basins which encourage navigation, and thus insure the exchange of their +respective cultural achievements. In other words, such conditions +present the pre-eminent advantages of vicinal location around an +enclosed sea. + +The enormous articulations of southern Asia suffer from their paucity of +small indentations, all the more because of their vast size and +sub-tropical location. The Grecian type of peninsula, with its broken +shoreline, finds here its large-scale homologue only in Farther India, +to which the Sunda Islands have played in history the part of a gigantic +Cyclades. The European type of articulation is found only about the +Yellow-Japan Sea, where the island of Hondo and the peninsulas of +Shangtung and Korea reproduce approximately the proportions of Great +Britain, Jutland and Italy respectively. Arabia and India, like the +angular shoulder of Africa which protrudes into the Indian Ocean, +measure an imposing length of coastline, but this length shrinks in +comparison with the vast area of the peninsulas. The contour of a +peninsula is like the surface of the brain: in both it is convolutions +that count. Southern Asia has had lobes enough but too few convolutions. +For this reason, the northern Indian Ocean, despite its exceptional +location as the eastward extension of the Mediterranean route to the +Orient, found its development constantly arrested till the advent of +European navigators. + +[Sidenote: Length of coastline.] + +Although the peripheral articulations of a continent differ +anthropo-geographically according to their size, their zonal and vicinal +location, yet large and small, arctic and tropical, are grouped +indiscriminately together in the figures that state the length of +coastlines. For this reason, statistics of continental coastlines have +little value. For instance, the fact that Eurasia has 67,000 miles +(108,000 kilometers) and North America 46,500 miles (75,000 kilometers) +of contact with the ocean is not illuminating; these figures do not +reveal the fact that the former has its greatest coastal length on its +tropical and sub-tropical side, while the latter continent has wasted +inlets and islands innumerable in the long, bleak stretch from +Newfoundland poleward around to Bering Sea. + +[Sidenote: The continental base of the peninsulas.] + +Peninsulas are accessible from the sea according to the configuration of +their coasts, but from their hinterland, according to the length and +nature of their connection with the same. This determines the degree of +their isolation from the land-mass. If they hang from the continent by a +frayed string, as does the Peloponnesus, Crimea, Malacca, Indian +Gutjerat, and Nova Scotia, they are segregated from the life of the +mainland almost as completely as if they were islands. The same effects +follow where the base of a peninsula is defined by a high mountain +barrier, as in all the Mediterranean peninsulas, in the two Indias, and +in Korea; or by a desert like that which scantily links Arabia to Egypt, +Syria and Mesopotamia; or by a blur of swamps and lakes such as half +detaches Scandinavia, Courland, Estland and Finland from Russia. + +Held to their continents by bonds that often fail to bind, subjected by +their outward-facing peripheral location to every centrifugal force, +feeling only slightly the pull of the great central mass behind, +peninsulas are often further detached economically and historically by +their own contrasted local conditions. A sharp transition in geological +formation and therefore in soil, a difference of climate, rainfall, +drainage system, of flora or fauna, serve greatly to emphasize the lack +of community of interests with the continental interior, and therefore +produce an inevitable diversity of historical development.[785] Hence, +many peninsulas insulate their people as completely as islands. It is +hard to say whether the Pyrenean peninsula or Sicily, Scandinavia or +Great Britain, has held itself more aloof from the political history of +remaining Europe; whether Korea is not more entitled to its name of the +Hermit Kingdom than island Japan could ever be; whether the Peloponnesus +or Euboea was more intimately associated with the radiant life of +ancient Hellas. These questions lead to another, namely, whether a high +mountain wall like the Pyrenees, or a narrow strait like that of Messina +is the more effective geographical boundary. + +[Sidenote: Continental base a zone of transition.] + +Peninsulas not infrequently gain in breadth as they approach the +continent; here they tend to abate their distinctive character as lobes +of the mainland, together with the ethnic and historical marks of +isolation. Here they form a doubtful boundary zone of mingled +continental and peninsular development. Such peninsulas fall naturally, +therefore, into a continental and a peninsular section, and reveal this +segmentation in the differentiated history of the two portions. That +great military geographer Napoleon distinguished the Italy of the Po +basin as _Italie continentale_, and the Apennine section as +_Presqu'ile_. Not only is the former broader, but, expanding like a tree +trunk near the ground, it sends its roots well back into the massive +interior of the continent; it is dominated more by the Alps than by the +Apennines; it contains a lowland and a river of continental proportions, +for which there is no space on the long, narrow spur of southern Italy. +If its geographical character approximates that of the mainland, so does +its ethnic and historical. The Po basin is a well defined area of race +characterization, in which influences have made for intermixture. South +of the crest of the Apennines the Italian language in its purity begins, +in contrast to the Gallo-Italian of the north. This mountain ridge has +also held apart the dark, short dolichocephalic stock of the +Mediterranean race from the fairer, taller, broad-headed Celts, who have +moved down into the Po basin from the Alps, and the Germans and +Illyrians who have entered it from the northeast.[786] Northern Italy is +therefore allied ethnically, as it has often been united politically, to +the neighboring countries abutting upon the Alps, so that it has +experienced only in a partial degree that detachment which has stamped +the history of the Apennine section. + +[Sidenote: Historical contrast between base and extremity.] + +The Balkan Peninsula tells much the same story of contrasted geographic +conditions and development in its continental and peninsular sections. +Greece proper, in ancient as in modern times, reached its northern +confines where the peninsula suddenly widens its base through Macedonia +and Thrace. In this narrow southern section to-day, especially in +isolated Peloponnesus, Attica, and the high-walled garden of Thessaly, +are found people of the pure, long-headed, Hellenic type, and here the +Greek language prevails.[787] But that broad and alien north, long +excluded from the Amphictyonic Council and a stranger to Aegean culture +in classical times, is occupied to-day by a congeries of Slavs, who form +a southwestern spur of the Slav stock covering eastern Europe. Its +political history shows how often it has been made a Danubian or +continental state, by Alexander of Macedon, by the Romans, Bulgarians, +and Ottoman Turks,[788] as it may be some day by Russia; and also how +often its large and compact form has enabled it to dominate the tapering +peninsular section to the south. + +In the same way, the vast Ganges and Indus basins, which constitute the +continental portion of India, have received various Tibetan, Scythian, +Aryan, Pathan, and Mongol-Tartar ingredients from Central Asia; and by +reason of the dense populations supported by these fruitful river +plains, it has been able to dominate politically, religiously and +culturally the protruding triangle of the Deccan. [See maps pages 8 and +102.] The continental side of Arabia, the Mesopotamian valley which ties +the peninsula to the highlands of Persia and Armenia, has received into +its Semitic stock constant infiltrations of Turanian and Aryan peoples +from the core of Asia. This process has been going on from the ancient +Elamite and Persian conquests of Mesopotamia down to the Ottoman +invasion and the present periodic visits of Kurdish shepherds to the +pastures of the upper Tigris.[789] Here we have the same contrast of +geographic conditions as in Italy and India, a wide, populous alluvial +plain occupying the continental section of the peninsula, and a less +attractive highland or mountainous region in the outlying spur of land. + +[Sidenote: Continental base a scene of invasion and war.] + +These continental sections of peninsulas become therefore strongly +marked as areas of ethnic characterization and differentiated historical +development. Their threshold location, by reason of which they first +catch any outward migration from the core of the continent, and their +fertility, which serves as a perennial lure to new comers, whether +peaceful or warlike, combine to give them intense historical activity. +They catch the come and go between their wide hinterland and the +projection of land beyond, the stimulus of new arrivals and fresh blood. +But tragedy too is theirs. The Po Valley has been called "the cockpit of +Europe." Even the little Eider, which marks the base of Jutland, has +been the scene of war between Danes and Germans since the tenth +century.[790] The Indus Valley has again and again felt the shock of +conflict with invading hordes from the central highlands, and witnessed +the establishment of a succession of empires. Peace at the gates of the +Balkan Peninsula has never been of long duration, and the postern door +of Korea has been stormed often enough. + +[Sidenote: Peninsular extremities as areas of isolation.] + +In contrast to these continental sections which stand in contact with +the solid land-mass behind, the extremities of the peninsulas are areas +of isolation and therefore generally of ethnic unity. They often +represent the last stand of displaced people pressed outward into these +narrow quarters by expanding races in their rear. The vast triangle of +the Deccan, which forms the essentially peninsular part of India, is +occupied, except in the more exposed northwest corner, by the Dravidian +race which once occupied all India, and afterward was pushed southward +by the influx of more energetic peoples.[791] Here they have preserved +their speech and nationality unmixed and live in almost primitive +simplicity.[792] In the peninsular parts of Great Britain, in northern +Scotland. Wales and Cornwall, we find people of Celtic speech brought to +bay on these remote spurs of the land, affiliating little with the +varied folk which occupied the continental side of the island, and +resisting conquest to the last.[793] The mountainous peninsula of western +Connaught in Ireland has been the rocky nucleus of the largest +Celtic-speaking community in the island.[794] Brittany, with a similar +location, became the last refuge of Celtic speech on the mainland of +Europe,[795] the seat of resistance to Norman and later to English +conquest, finally the stronghold of conservatism in the French +Revolution. + +[Sidenote: Ethnic unity of peninsulas.] + +The northern wall of the Apennines and the outpost barrier of the Alps +have combined to protect peninsular Italy from extensive ethnic +infusions from the direction of the continent. This portion of the +country shows therefore, as the anthropological maps attest, a striking +uniformity of race. It has been a melting-pot in which foreign elements, +filtering through the breaches of the Apennines or along the southern +coast, have been fused into the general population under the isolating +and cohesive influences of a peninsular environment.[796] The population +of the Iberian Peninsula is even more unified, probably the most +homogeneous in Europe. Here the long-headed Mediterranean race is found +in the same purity as in island Corsica and Sardinia.[797] Spain's short +line of contact with France and its sharp separation by the unbroken +wall of the Pyrenees robs the peninsula of any distinctly continental +section, and consequently of any transitional area of race and culture; +hence the unity of Spain as opposed to that twofold balanced diversity +which we find in Italy and India. The Balkan Peninsula, on the other +hand, owing to the great predominance of its continental section and the +confused relief of the country, has not protected its distinctively +peninsular or Greek section from the southward migrations of Slavs, +Albanians, Wallachians, and other continental peoples.[798] It has been +like a big funnel with a small mouth; the pressure from above has been +very great. Hellas and even the Peloponnesus have had their +peninsularity impaired and their race mixed, owing to the predominant +continental section to the north. + +[Sidenote: Peninsulas as intermediaries.] + +Peninsulas, so far as they project from their continents, are areas of +isolation; but so far as they extend also toward some land beyond, they +become intermediaries. The isolating and intermediary aspects can be +traced in the anthropo-geographical effects of every peninsula, even +those which, like Brittany and Cornwall, project into the long uncharted +waste of the Atlantic. In the order of historical development, a +peninsula first isolates, until in its secluded environment it has +molded a mature, independent people; then, as that people outgrows its +narrow territory, the peninsula becomes a favorable base for maritime +expansion to distant lands, or becomes a natural avenue for numerous +reciprocal relations with neighboring lands beyond. Korea was the bridge +for Mongolian migration from continental Asia to the Japan islands, and +for the passage thither of Chinese culture, whether intellectual, +esthetic, industrial or religious.[799] It has been the one country +conspicuous in the foreign history of Japan. Conquered by the island +empire in 1592, it paid tribute for nearly three centuries and yielded +to its foreign master the southeastern port of Fusan, the Calais of +Korea.[800] Since the treaty of Portsmouth in 1905 made it subject to +Japan, it has become the avenue of Japanese expansion to the mainland +and the unwilling recipient of the modern civilization thrust upon it by +these English of the East. In like manner the Pyrenean peninsula has +always been the intermediary between Europe and northwest Africa. Its +population, as well as its flora and fauna, group with those of the +southern continent. It has served as transit land between north and +south for the Carthaginians, Vandals and Saracens; and in modern times +it has maintained its character as a link by the Portuguese occupation +of the Tangiers peninsula in the fifteenth century,[801] and the Spanish +possession of Ceuta and various other points along the Moroccan coast +from the year 709 A.D. to the present.[802] + +[Sidenote: Peninsulas of intercontinental location.] + +This rôle of intermediary is inevitably thrust upon all peninsulas +which, like Spain, Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, Arabia, Farther India, +Malacca, Chukchian Siberia, and Alaska, occupy an intercontinental +location. Arabia especially in its climate, flora, races and history +shows the haul and pull now of Asia, now of Africa. From it Asiatic +influences have spread over Africa to Morocco and the Niger River on the +west, and to Zanzibar on the south, permeated Abyssinia, and penetrated +to the great Equatorial Lakes, whether in the form of that Mecca-born +worship of Allah, or the creeping caravans and slave-gangs of Arab +trader. Of all such intercontinental peninsulas, Florida alone seems to +have had no rôle as an intermediary. Its native ethnic affinities were +wholly with its own continent. It has given nothing to South America and +received nothing thence. The northward expansion of Arawak and Carib +tribes from Venezuela in historic times ceased at Cuba and Hayti. The +Straits drew a dividing line. Local conditions in Florida itself +probably furnish the explanation of this anomaly. Extensive swamps made +the central and southern portion of the peninsula inhospitable to +colonization from either direction, transformed it from a link into a +barrier. + +[Sidenote: Atlantic peninsulas of Europe] + +Peninsulas which conspicuously lack an intercontinental location must +long await their intermediary phase of development, but do not escape +it. The Cornish, Breton and Iberian peninsulas were all prominent in the +trans-Atlantic enterprises of Europe from the end of the fifteenth +century. The first French sailors to reach the new world were Breton and +Norman fishermen. Plymouth, as the chief port of the Cornish peninsula, +figures prominently in the history of English exploration and settlement +in America. It seems scarcely accidental that most of Queen Elizabeth's +great sea captains were natives of this district--Sir Francis Drake, Sir +John Hawkins, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and Sir Walter Raleigh, the latter +holding the office of vice-admiral of Cornwall and Devon. It was the +peninsula-like projection of South America about Cape St. Roque, twenty +degrees farther east than Labrador, that welcomed the ships of Cabral +and Americus Vespucius, and secured to Portugal a foothold in the +Western Hemisphere. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER XII + +[747] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 336. London, 1896-1898. + +[748] D.G. Brinton, The American Race, p. 41. Philadelphia, 1901. + +[749] D.G. Brinton, Races and Peoples, pp. 239-240. Philadelphia, 1901. +Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 336. London, 1896-1898. + +[750] A.E. Wallace, Island Life, p. 14. New York, 1892. + +[751] A. Heilprin, Geographical Distribution of Animals, p. 69, map. +1887. + +[752] _Ibid._, pp. 78, 82, 90, 100. + +[753] Darwin, Origin of Species, Chap. XII. New York, 1895. A.R. +Wallace, Island Life, p. 6. New York, 1892. + +[754] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, Map on p. 43. New York, 1899. + +[755] _Ibid._, pp. 39, 50, 80. Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, pp. +100-110. London, 1896-1898. + +[756] A.H. Keane, Ethnology, pp. 231-232, 362. Cambridge, 1896. + +[757] McGee and Thomas, Prehistoric North America, p. 56, Vol. XIX of +History of North America. Philadelphia, 1905. + +[758] Fiske, Discovery of America, Vol. I, p. 224. Boston, 1893. + +[759] For various Asiatic and Oceanic elements, see Franz Boas, The +Indians of British Columbia, _Bull. of the Amer. Geog. Society_ Vol. 28, +p. 229. The Northwest Coast Tribes, Science, Vol. XII, pp. 194-196. +Niblack, The Indians of the Northwest Coast, p. 385, Washington. H.H. +Bancroft, The Native Races, Vol. I, pp. 177, 178, footnote; pp. 210, +225. San Francisco, 1886. W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, map p. 42. New +York, 1899. + +[760] T.W. Higginson and William Macdonald, History of the United +States, p. 21. New York and London, 1905. + +[761] Edward John Payne, History of the New World Called America, Vol. +II, pp. 64-68, 74-77, 305, 388-389. Oxford, 1899. + +[762] Justin Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, Vol. I, p. 60. +Boston, 1889. + +[763] Cited by E.J. Payne, History of the New World Called America, Vol. +II, p. 292, footnote p. 294. Oxford, 1899. + +[764] Waldemar Jochelson, The Mythology of the Koryak, _The American +Anthropologist_, Vol. VI, pp. 415-416, 421-425. 1904. + +[765] W.D. Dall, Masks, Labrets, and Certain Aboriginal Customs, Third +Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 46-147. Washington, 1884. + +[766] O.T. Mason, Migration and the Food Quest, pp. 275-292. Washington, +1894. + +[767] McGee and Thomas, Prehistoric North America, pp. 51, 58-82. +Philadelphia, 1905. Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, pp. 5-7, +145-147, 153-154. London, 1896-1898. + +[768] Ripley, Races of Europe, map p. 42, pp. 43-44. New York, 1899. + +[769] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 7. London, 1896-1898. + +[770] Tylor, Anthropology, pp. 86-87. New York, 1881. + +[771] E.J. Payne, History of the New World Called America, Vol. II, pp. +554-555. Oxford, 1899. + +[772] Justus Perthes, _Taschen Atlas_, p. 17. Gotha, 1905. + +[773] Carl Ritter, Comparative Geography, pp. 188-212. Translated by +W.L. Gage, Philadelphia, 1865. N.S. Shaler, Nature and Man in America, +pp. 11-18, 151-165. New York, 1896. + +[774] Strabo, Book II, chap. V. 26. + +[775] McGee and Thomas, Prehistoric North America, p. 3, map. +Philadelphia, 1905. + +[776] D.G. Brinton, Races and Peoples, pp. 248-249. Philadelphia, 1901. + +[777] D.G. Brinton, The American Race, pp. 58, 103-104. Philadelphia, +1901. McGee and Thomas, Prehistoric North America, p. 86. +Philadeladelphia, 1905 Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, pp. 5-7, +145-147, 153. + +[778] _Ibid._, p. 293. E.J. Payne, History of the New World Called +America, Vol. II, p. 315. Oxford, 1899. + +[779] _Ibid._, Vol. II, pp. 412-417. McGee and Thomas, Prehistoric North +America, pp. 72-75. Philadelphia, 1905. + +[780] W.H. Dall, Masks, Labrets, and Certain Aboriginal Customs, Third +Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 146-147. Washington, 1884. + +[781] Cyrus Thomas, Report of Mound Explorations, pp. 522-523, 722-728. +Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1894. + +[782] E.J. Payne, History of the New World Called America, Vol. II, pp. +382-383. Oxford, 1899. + +[783] N.S. Shaler, Nature and Man in America, pp. 151, 168-173. New +York, 1891. + +[784] Justus Perthes, _Taschen Atlas_, p. 9. Gotha, 1905. + +[785] Carl Ritter, Comparative Geography, pp. 191-192. Translated by W. +L. Gage, Philadelphia, 1865. + +[786] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 247-258. New York, 1899. + +[787] _Ibid._, pp. 403-409. + +[788] E.A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, Atlas, Maps, 34, 49. +London, 1882. + +[789] For race elements in Mesopotamia, see D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer +East, Maps, pp. 173 and 176. London, 1903. + +[790] E.A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, pp. 201-202, +506-508, 535-536, 541. London, 1882. + +[791] Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. I, pp. 293-297. Oxford, 1907. + +[792] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, Ethnographical map, p. 201, pp. 202, +213-216. London, 1905. B.H. Baden-Powell, The Indian Village Community, +pp. 111, 116, 119, 161. London, 1896. + +[793] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 312-321. New York, 1899. E. +Reclus, Europe, Vol. IV, pp. 73, 83-84. New York, 1882. + +[794] H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, Ethnographic map, p. +184, and p. 306. London, 1904. + +[795] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 22, 23, 150-151. New York, 1899. + +[796] _Ibid._, pp. 248, 258, 272. + +[797] _Ibid._, pp. 247, 273. + +[798] _Ibid._, pp. 403-409, and map. + +[799] F. Brinkley, Japan, Vol. I, pp. 38-42, 70, 75-80, 83-84, 126. +Boston and Tokyo, 1901. W.E. Griffis, The Mikado's Empire, Vol. I, pp. +73, 83. New York, 1903. + +[800] Henry Dyer, Dai Nippon, pp. 59, 69. New York, 1904. + +[801] E.A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, p. 558. London, +1882. + +[802] _Ibid._, pp. 559, 561. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman +Empire, Vol. V, p. 248. New York, 1858. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +ISLAND PEOPLES + + +[Sidenote: Physical relationship between islands and peninsulas.] + +The characteristics which mark peninsulas, namely, ample contact with +the sea, small area as compared with that of the continents, peripheral +location, more or less complete isolation, combined, however, with the +function of bridge or passway to yet remoter lands, are all accentuated +in islands. A list of the chief peninsulas of the world, as compared +with the greatest islands, shows a far larger scale of areas for the +former, even if the latter be made to include the vast ice-capped +land-mass of Greenland (2,170,000 square kilometers or 846,000 square +miles). New Guinea, the largest habitable island, has only one-fourth +the area of Arabia, the largest of the peninsulas.[803] Therefore, both +the advantages and disadvantages incident to a restricted area may be +expected to appear in an intensified degree in islands. + +Peninsulas are morphologically transition forms between mainland and +islands; by slight geological changes one is converted into the other. +Great Britain was a peninsula at the end of the Tertiary period, before +subsidence and the erosion of Dover Channel combined to sever it from +the continent. It bears to-day in its flora and fauna the evidence of +its former broad connection with the mainland.[804] In Pliocene times, +Sicily and Sardinia were united by a land bridge with the Tunisian +projection of North Africa; and they too, in their animal and plant +life, reveal the old connection with the southern continent.[805] +Sometimes man himself for his own purposes converts a peninsula into an +island. Often he constructs a canal, like that at Kiel or Corinth, to +remove an isthmian obstruction to navigation; but occasionally he +transforms his peninsula into an island for the sake of greater +protection. William of Rubruquis tells us that in 1253 he found the neck +of the Crimea cut through by a ditch from sea to sea by the native +Comanians, who had taken refuge in the peninsula from the Tartar +invaders, and in this way had sought to make their asylum more +secure.[806] + +The reverse process in nature is quite as common. The Shangtung +Peninsula rises like a mountainous island from the sea-like level of +alluvial plains about it, suggesting that remote time when the plains +were not yet deposited and an arm of the Yellow Sea covered the space +between Shangtung and the highlands of Shansi.[807] The deposition of +silt, aided often by slight local elevation of the coast, is constantly +tying continental islands to the mainland. The Echinades Archipelago off +the southwest coast of ancient Acarnania, opposite the mouth of the +Achelous River, Strabo tells us, was formerly farther from shore than +in his time, and was gradually being cemented to the mainland by +Achelous silt. Some islets had already been absorbed in the advancing +shoreline, and the same fate awaited others.[808] Farther up this western +coast of Greece, the island of Leukas has been converted into a +peninsula by a sickle-shaped sandbar extending across the narrow +channel.[809] Nature is working in its leisurely way to attach Sakhalin to +the Siberian coast. The strong marine current which sets southward from +the Okhotsk Sea through the Strait of Tartary carries silt from the +mouth of the heavy laden Amur River, and deposits it in the "narrows" of +the strait between Capes Luzarev and Pogobi, building up sandbars that +come dangerously near the surface in mid channel.[810] Here the water is +so shallow that occasionally after long prevailing winds, the ground is +left exposed and the island natives can walk over to Asia.[811] The close +proximity of Sakhalin to the mainland and the ice bridge covering the +strait in winter rob the island of much of its insular character and +caused it to pass as a peninsula until 1852. Yet that five-mile wide +stretch of sea on its western coast determined its selection as the +great penal station of the Russian Empire. The fact that peninsular +India accords in so many points of flora, fauna and even primitive +ethnic stock with Madagascar and South Africa, indicates its former +island nature, which has been geographically cloaked by its union with +the continent of Asia. + +[Sidenote: Character of insular flora and fauna.] + +Islands, because of their relatively limited area and their clearly +defined boundaries, are excellent fields for the study of floral, +faunal, and ethnic distribution. Small area and isolation cause in them +poverty of animal and plant forms and fewer species than are found in an +equal continental area. This is the curse of restricted space which we +have met before. The large island group of New Zealand, with its highly +diversified relief and long zonal stretch, has only a moderate list of +flowering plants, in comparison with the numerous species that adorn +equal areas in South Africa and southwestern Australia.[812] Ascension +possessed originally less than six flowering plants. The four islands of +the Greater Antilles form together a considerable area and have all +possible advantages of climate and soil; but there are probably no +continental areas equally big and equally favored by nature which are so +poor in all the more highly organized groups of animals.[813] Islands +tend to lop off the best branches. Darwin found not a single indubitable +case of terrestrial mammals native to islands situated more than three +hundred miles from the mainland.[814] The impoverishment extends +therefore to quality as well as quantity, to man as well as to brute. In +the island continent of Australia, the native mammalia, excepting some +bats, a few rodents, and a wild dog, all belong to the primitive +marsupial sub-class; its human life, at the time of the discovery, was +restricted to one retarded negroid race, showing in every part of the +island a monotonous, early Stone Age development. The sparsely scattered +oceanic islands of the Atlantic, owing to excessive isolation, were all, +except the near-lying Canaries, uninhabited at the time of their +discovery; and the Canary Islanders showed great retardation as compared +with their parent stock of northern Africa. [See map page 105.] + +[Sidenote: Endemic forms.] + +Despite this general poverty of species, island life is distinguished by +a great proportion of peculiar or endemic forms, and a tendency toward +divergence, which is the effect of isolation and which becomes marked in +proportion to the duration and effectiveness of isolation. Isolation, by +reducing or preventing the intercrossing which holds the individual true +to the normal type of the species, tends to produce divergences.[815] +Hence island life is more or less differentiated from that of the +nearest mainland, according to the degree of isolation. Continental +islands, lying near the coast, possess generally a flora and fauna to a +large extent identical with that of the mainland, and show few endemic +species and genera; whereas remote oceanic islands, which isolation has +claimed for its own, are marked by intense specialization and a high +percentage of species and even genera found nowhere else.[816] Even a +narrow belt of dividing sea suffices to loosen the bonds of kinship. +Recent as are the British Isles and near the Continent, they show some +biological diversity from the mainland and from each other.[817] + +[Sidenote: Paradoxical influences of island habitats upon man.] + +The influence of an island habitat upon its human occupants resembles +that upon its flora and fauna, but is less marked. The reason for this +is twofold. The plant and animal life are always the older and therefore +have longer felt the effects of isolation; hence they bear its stamp in +an intensified degree. Man, as a later comer, shows closer affinity to +his kin in the great cosmopolitan areas of the continents. More than +this, by reason of his inventiveness and his increasing skill in +navigation, he finds his sea boundary less strictly drawn, and therefore +evades the full influence of his detached environment, though never able +wholly to counteract it. For man in lowest stages of civilization, as +for plants and animals, the isolating influence is supreme; but with +higher development and advancing nautical efficiency, islands assume +great accessibility because of their location on the common highway of +the ocean. They become points of departure and destination of maritime +navigation, at once center of dispersal and goal, the breeding place of +expansive national forces seeking an outlet, and a place of hospitality +for wanderers passing those shores. Yet all the while, that other +tendency of islands to segregate their people, and in this aloofness to +give them a peculiar and indelible national stamp, much as it +differentiates its plant and animal forms, is persistently operative. + +[Sidenote: Conservative and radical tendencies.] + +These two antagonistic influences of an island environment may be seen +working simultaneously in the same people, now one, now the other being +dominant; or a period of undisturbed seclusion or exclusion may suddenly +be followed by one of extensive intercourse, receptivity or expansion. +Recall the contrast in the early and later history of the Canaries, +Azores, Malta, England, Mauritius and Hawaii, now a lonely, +half-inhabited waste, now a busy mart or teeming way-station. Consider +the pronounced insular mind of the globe-trotting Englishman, the +deep-seated local conservatism characterizing that world-colonizing +nation, at once the most provincial and cosmopolitan on earth. Emerson +says with truth, "Every one of these islanders is an island himself, +safe, tranquil, incommunicable."[818] Hating innovation, glorifying their +habitudes, always searching for a precedent to justify and countenance +each forward step, they have nevertheless led the world's march of +progress. Scattered by their colonial and commercial enterprises over +every zone, in every clime, subjected to the widest range of modifying +environments, they show in their ideals the dominant influence of the +home country. The trail of the Oxford education can be followed over the +Empire, east to New Zealand and west to Vancouver. Highschool students +of Jamaica take Oxford examinations in botany which are based upon +English plant life and ignore the Caribbean flora! School children in +Ceylon are compelled to study a long and unfamiliar list of errors in +English speech current only in the London streets, in order to identify +and correct them on the Oxford papers, distributed with Olympian +impartiality to all parts of the Empire. Such insularity of mind seems +to justify Bernard Shaw's description of Britain as an island whose +natives regard its manners and customs as laws of nature. Yet these are +the people who in the Nile Valley have become masters of irrigation, +unsurpassed even by the ancient Egyptians; who, in the snow-wrapped +forests of Hudson Bay, are trappers and hunters unequalled by the +Indians; who, in the arid grasslands of Australia, pasture their herds +like nomad shepherd or American cowboy, and in the Tropics loll like the +natives, but somehow manage to do a white man's stint of work. + +[Sidenote: The case of Japan.] + +In Japan, isolation has excluded or reduced to controllable measure +every foreign force that might break the continuity of the national +development or invade the integrity of the national ideal. Japan has +always borrowed freely from neighboring Asiatic countries and recently +from the whole world; yet everything in Japan bears the stamp of the +indigenous. The introduction of foreign culture into the Empire has been +a process of selection and profound modification to accord with the +national ideals and needs.[819] Buddhism, coming from the continent, was +Japanized by being grafted on to the local stock of religious ideas, so +that Japanese Buddhism is strongly differentiated from the continental +forms of that religion.[820] The seventeenth century Catholicism of the +Jesuits, before it was hospitably received, had to be adapted to +Japanese standards of duty and ritual. Modern Japanese converts to +Christianity wish themselves to conduct the local missions and teach a +national version of the new faith.[821] But all the while, Japanese +religion has experienced no real change of heart. The core of the +national faith is the indigenous Shinto cult, which no later interloper +has been permitted to dislodge or seriously to transform; and this has +survived, wrapped in the national consciousness, wedded to the national +patriotism, lifted above competition. Here is insular conservatism. + +Japan's sudden and complete abandonment of a policy of seclusion which +had been rigidly maintained for two hundred and fifty years, and her +entrance upon a career of widespread intercourse synchronously with one +of territorial expansion and extensive emigration, form one of those +apparently irreconcilable contradictions constantly springing from the +isolation and world-wide accessibility of an island environment; yet +underlying Japan's present receptivity of new ideas and her outwardly +indiscriminate adoption of western civilization is to be detected the +deep primal stamp of the Japanese character, and an instinctive +determination to preserve the core of that character intact. + +[Sidenote: Islands as nurseries and disseminators of distinctive +civilizations.] + +It is this marked national individuality, developed by isolation and +accompanied often by a precocious civilization, in combination with the +opposite fact of the imminent possibility of an expansive unfolding, a +brilliant efflorescence followed by a wide dispersal of its seeds of +culture and of empire, which has assigned to islands in all times a +great historical rôle. Rarely do these wholly originate the elements of +civilization. For that their area is too small. But whatever seed ripen +in the wide fields of the continents the islands transplant to their own +forcing houses; there they transform and perfect the flower. Japan +borrowed freely from China and Korea, as England did from continental +Europe; but these two island realms have brought Asiatic and European +civilization to their highest stage of development. Now the borrowers +are making return with generous hand. The islands are reacting upon the +continents. Japanese ideals are leavening the whole Orient from +Manchuria to Ceylon. English civilization is the standard of Europe. +"The Russian in his snows is aiming to be English," says Emerson. +"England has inoculated all nations with her civilization, intelligence +and tastes."[822] + +[Sidenote: Ancient Cretan civilization.] + +The recent discoveries in Crete show beyond doubt that the school of +Aegean civilization was in that island. Ancient Phoenicia, Argos, even +Mycenæ and Tiryns put off their mask of age and appear as rosy boys +learning none too aptly of their great and elderly master. Borrowing the +seeds of culture from Asia and Egypt,[823] Crete nursed and tended them +through the Neolithic and Bronze Age, transformed them completely, much +as scientific tillage has converted the cotton tree into a low shrub. +The precocity of this civilization is clear. At early as 3000 B.C. it +included an impressive style of architecture and a decorative art +naturalistic and beautiful in treatment as that of modern Japan.[824] +From this date till the zenith of its development in 1450 B.C., Crete +became a great artistic manufacturing and distributing center for stone +carving, frescoes, pottery, delicate porcelain, metal work, and +gems.[825] By 1800 B. C., seven centuries before Phoenician writing is +heard of, the island had matured a linear script out of an earlier +pictographic form.[826] This script, partly indigenous, partly borrowed +from Libya and Egypt, gives Crete the distinction of having invented the +first system of writing ever practised in Europe.[827] + +Yet all this wealth of achievement bore the stamp of the indigenous; +nearly every trace of its remote Asiatic or Egyptian origin was +obliterated. Here the isolation of an island environment did thoroughly +its work of differentiation, even on this thalassic isle which +maintained constant intercourse with Egypt, the Cyclades, the Troad and +the Greek peninsula.[828] Minoan art has a freshness, vivacity, and +modernity that distinguishes it fundamentally from the formal products +of its neighbors. "Many of the favorite subjects, like the crocus and +wild goat, are native to the islands.... Even where a motive was +borrowed from Egyptian life, it was treated in a distinctive way," made +tender, dramatic, vital. "In religion, as in art generally, Crete +translated its loans into indigenous terms, and contributed as much as +it received."[829] The curator of Egyptian antiquities in the New York +Metropolitan Art Museum examined five hundred illustrations of second +and third millenium antiquities from Gournia and Vasiliki in Crete, made +by Mrs. Harriet Boyd Hawes during her superintendence of the excavations +there, and pronounced them distinctly un-Egyptian, except one vase, +probably an importation.[830] All this was achieved by a small insular +segment of the Mediterranean race, in their Neolithic and Bronze Age, +before the advent of those northern conquerors who brought in an Aryan +speech and the gift of iron. It was in Crete, therefore, that Aegean +civilization arose. On this island it had a long and brilliant +pre-Hellenic career, and thence it spread to the Greek mainland and +other Aegean shores.[831] + +[Sidenote: Limitation of small area in insular history.] + +A small cup soon overflows. Islands may not keep; they are forced to +give, live by giving. Here lies their historical significance. They +dispense their gifts of culture in levying upon the resources of other +lands. But finally more often than not, the limitation of too small a +home area steps in to arrest the national development, which then fades +and decays. To this rule Great Britain and Japan are notable exceptions, +owing partly to the unusual size of their insular territory, partly to a +highly advantageous location. Minoan Crete, in that gray antiquity when +Homeric history was still unborn, gave out of its abundance in art, +government, laws and maritime knowledge to the eastern Mediterranean +world, till the springs of inspiration in its own small land were +exhausted, and its small population was unable to resist the flood of +northern invasion. Then the dispenser of gifts had to become an +alms-taker from the younger, larger, more resourceful Hellenic world. + +The same story of early but short lived preëminence comes from other +Aegean islands. Before the rise of Athens, Samos under the great despot +Polykrates became "the first of all cities, Hellenic or barbaric," a +center of Ionian manners, luxury, art, science and culture, the seat of +the first great thalassocracy or sea-power after that of Cretan Minos, a +distributing point for commerce and colonies.[832] Much the same history +and distinction attached to the island of Rhodes long before the first +Olympiad,[833] and to the little island of Aegina.[834] If we turn to the +native races of America, we find that the Haida Indians of the Queen +Charlotte Archipelago are markedly superior to their Tlingit and +Tsimshean kinsmen of the nearby Alaskan and British Columbian coast. In +their many and varied arts they have freely borrowed from their +neighbors; but they have developed these loans with such marvelous skill +and independence that they greatly surpass their early masters, and are +accredited with possessing the creative genius of all this coast.[835] +Far away, on the remote southeastern outskirts of the island world of +the Pacific, a parallel is presented by little Easter Isle. Once it was +densely populated and completely tilled by a people who had achieved +singular progress in agriculture, religion, masonry, sculpture in stone +and wood carving, even with obsidian tools, and who alone of all the +Polynesians had devised a form of hieroglyphical writing.[836] Easter +Isle to-day shows only abandoned fields, the silent monuments of its huge +stone idols, and the shrunken remnant of a deteriorated people.[837] + +[Sidenote: Sources of ethnic stock of islands.] + +Isolation and accessibility are recorded in the ethnic stock of every +island. Like its flora and fauna, its aboriginal population shows an +affinity to that of the nearest mainland, and this generally in +proportion to geographical proximity. The long line of deposit islands, +built of the off-scourings of the land, and fringing the German and +Netherland coast from Texel to Wangeroog, is inhabited by the same +Frisian folk which occupies the nearby shore. The people of the Channel +Isles, though long subject to England, belong to the Franco-Gallic stock +and the _langue d'oïl_ linguistic family of northern France. The native +Canary Islanders, though giving no evidence of previous communication +with any continental land at the time of their discovery, could be +traced, through their physical features, speech, customs and utensils, +to a remote origin in Egypt and the Berber regions of North Africa prior +to the Mohammedan conquest.[838] Sakhalin harbors to-day, besides the +immigrant Russians, five different peoples--Ainos, Gilyaks, Orochons, +Tunguse, and Yakuts, all of them offshoots of tribes now or formerly +found on the Siberian mainland a few miles away.[839] + +[Sidenote: Ethnic divergence with increased isolation.] + +Where the isolation of the island is more pronounced, owing either to a +broader and more dangerous channel, as in the case of Madagascar and +Formosa, or to the nautical incapacity of the neighboring coast peoples, +as in the case of Tasmania and the Canary Islands, the ethnic influence +of the mainland is weak, and the ethnic divergence of the insular +population therefore more marked, even to the point of total difference +in race. But this is generally a case of survival of a primitive stock +in the protection of an unattractive island offering to a superior +people few allurements to conquest, as illustrated by the ethnic history +of the Andaman and Kurile Isles. + +[Sidenote: Differentiation of peoples and civilizations on islands.] + +The sea forms the sharpest and broadest boundary; it makes in the island +which it surrounds the conditions for differentiation. Thus while an +insular population is allied in race and civilization to that of the +nearest continent, it nevertheless differs from the same more than the +several sub-groups of its continental kindred differ from each other. In +other words, isolation makes ethnic and cultural divergence more marked +on islands than on continents. The English people, despite their close +kinship and constant communication with the Teutonic peoples of the +European mainland, deviate from them more than any of these Germanic +nations deviate from each other. The Celts of Great Britain and Ireland +are sharply distinguished from the whole body of continental Celts in +physical features, temperament, and cultural development. In Ireland the +primitive Catholic Church underwent a distinctive development. It was +closely bound up in the tribal organization of the Irish people, lacked +the system, order and magnificence of the Latinized Church, had its +peculiar tonsure for monks, and its own date for celebrating Easter for +nearly three hundred years after the coming of St. Patrick.[840] The +Japanese, in their physical and mental characteristics, as in their +whole national spirit, are more strikingly differentiated from the +Chinese than the agricultural Chinese from the nomadic Buriat shepherds +living east of Lake Baikal, though Chinese and Japanese are located much +nearer together and are in the same stage of civilization. The Eskimo, +who form one of the most homogeneous stocks, and display the greatest +uniformity in language and cultural achievements of all the native +American groups, have only one differentiated offshoot, the Aleutian +Islanders. These, under the protection and isolation of their insular +habitat from a very remote period, have developed to a greater extent +than their Eskimo brethren of the mainland. The difference is evident in +their language, religious ceremonies, and in details of their handiwork, +such as embroidery and grass-fiber weaving.[841] The Haidas of the Queen +Charlotte Archipelago show such a divergence in physique and culture +from the related tribes of the mainland, that they have been accredited +with a distinct origin from the other coast Indians.[842] + +[Sidenote: Differentiation of language in islands.] + +The differentiating influence is conspicuous in the speech of island +people, which tends to form a distinct language or dialect or, in an +archipelago, a group of dialects. The Channel Isles, along with their +distinctive breeds of cattle, has each its own variant of the _langue +d'oïl_.[843] According to Boccaccio's narrative of a Portuguese voyage to +the Canaries in 1341, the natives of one island could not understand +those from another, so different were their languages. The statement was +repeated by a later authority in 1455 in regard to the inhabitants of +Lancerote, Fuerteventura, Gomera and Ferro, who had then been +Christianized. A partial explanation is supplied by the earlier +visitors, who found the Canary Guanches with no means of communication +between the several islands except by swimming.[844] In the Visayan group +of the Philippines, inhabited exclusively by the civilized Visayan +tribes except for the Negritos in the mountainous interior, the people +of Cebu can not understand their brethren in the adjacent islands; in +Cuyos and Calmanianes, dialects of the Visayan are spoken.[845] [See map +page 147.] + +The differentiation of language from the nearby continental speech may +be due to a higher development, especially on large islands affording +very advantageous conditions, such as Great Britain and Japan. Japanese +speech has some affinity with the great Altaic linguistic family, but no +close resemblance to any sub-group.[846] It presents marked contrasts to +the Chinese because it has passed beyond the agglutinative stage of +development, just as English has sloughed off more of its inflectional +forms than the continental Teutonic languages. + +[Sidenote: Archaic forms of speech in islands.] + +More often the difference is due to the survival of archaic forms of +speech. This is especially the case on very small or remote islands, +whose limited area or extreme isolation or both factors in conjunction +present conditions for retardation. The speech of the Sardinians has a +strong resemblance to the ancient Latin, retains many inflectional forms +now obsolete in the continental Romance languages; but it has also been +enlivened by an infusion of Catalan words, which came in by the bridge +of the Balearic Islands during the centuries of Spanish rule in +Sardinia.[847] Again, it is in Minorca and Majorca that this Catalan +speech is found in its greatest purity to-day. On its native soil in +eastern Spain, especially in Barcelona, it is gradually succumbing to +the official Castilian, and probably in a few centuries will be found +surviving only in the protected environment of the Balearic Isles. +Icelandic and the kindred dialects of the Shetland and Faroe Islands had +their origin in the classic Norse of the ninth century, and are +divergent forms of the speech of the Viking explorers.[848] The old +Frisian tongue of Holland, sister speech to Anglo-Saxon, survives to-day +only in West Friesland beyond the great marshlands, and in the +long-drawn belt of coastal islands from Terschelling through Helgoland +to Sylt, as also on the neighboring shores of Schleswig-Holstein.[849] +This region of linguistic survival, insulated partially by the marshes +or completely by the shallow "Wattenmeer" of this lowland coast, reminds +us of the protracted life of the archaic Lithuanian speech within a +circle of sea and swamp in Baltic Russia, and the survival of the Celtic +tongue in peninsular Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, in Ireland, and the +Highlands and islands of Scotland. + +[Sidenote: Unification of race in islands.] + +Islanders are always coast dwellers with a limited hinterland. Hence +their stock may be differentiated from the mainland race in part for the +same reason that all coastal folk in regions of maritime development are +differentiated from the people of the back country, namely, because +contact with the sea allows an intermittent influx of various foreign +strains, which are gradually assimilated. This occasional ethnic +intercrossing can be proved in greater or less degree of all island +people. Here is accessibility operating against the underlying isolation +of an island habitat. The English to-day represent a mixture of Celts +with various distinct Teutonic elements, which had already diverged from +one another in their separate habitats--Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Danes, +Norse and Norman French. The subsequent detachment of these immigrant +stocks by the English Channel and North Sea from their home people, and +their arrival in necessarily small bands enabled them to be readily +assimilated, a process which was stimulated further by the rapid +increase of population, the intimate interactive life and unification of +culture which characterizes all restricted areas. Hence islands, like +peninsulas, despite ethnic admixtures, tend to show a surprising +unification of race; they hold their people aloof from others and hold +them in a close embrace, shut them off and shut them in, tend to force +the amalgamation of race, culture and speech. Moreover, their relatively +small area precludes effective segregation within their own borders, +except where a mountainous or jungle district affords a temporary refuge +for a displaced and antagonized tribe. Hence there arises a +preponderance of the geographic over the ethnic and linguistic factors +in the historical equation. + +The uniformity in cranial type prevailing all over the British Isles is +amazing; it is greater than in either Spain or Scandinavia. The cephalic +indices range chiefly between 77 and 79, a restricted variation as +compared with the ten points which represents the usual range for +Central Europe, and the thirteen between the extremes of 75 and 88 found +in France and Italy.[850] Japan stands in much the same ethnic relation +to Asia as Britain to Europe. She has absorbed Aino, Mongolian, Malay +and perhaps Polynesian elements, but by reason of her isolation has been +left free to digest these at her leisure, so that her population is +fairly well assimilated, though evidences of the old mixture can be +discerned.[851] In Corsica and Sardinia a particularly low cephalic +index, dropping in some communes to 73, and a particularly short stature +point to a rare purity of the Mediterranean race,[852] and indicate the +maintenance here of one ethnic type, despite the intermittent intrusion +of various less pure stocks from the Italian mainland, Africa, +Phoenicia, Arabia, and Spain. The location of the islands off the main +routes of the basin, their remoteness from shore, and the strong spirit +of exclusiveness native to the people,[853] bred doubtless from their +isolation, have combined to reduce the amount of foreign intermixture. + +[Sidenote: Remoter sources of island populations.] + +Islands do not +necessarily derive their population from the land that lies nearest to +them. A comparatively narrow strait may effectively isolate, if the +opposite shore is inhabited by a nautically inefficient race; whereas a +wide stretch of ocean may fail to bar the immigration of a seafaring +people. Here we find a parallel to the imperfect isolation of oceanic +islands for life forms endowed with superior means of dispersal, such as +marine birds, bats and insects.[854] Iceland, though relatively near +Greenland, was nevertheless peopled by far away Scandinavians. These +bold sailors planted their settlements even in Greenland nearly two +centuries before the Eskimo. England received the numerically dominant +element of its population from across the wide expanse of the North Sea, +from the bare but seaman-breeding coasts of Germany, Denmark and Norway, +rather than from the nearer shores of Gaul. So the Madeira and Cape +Verde Isles had to wait for the coming of the nautical Portuguese to +supply them with a population; and only later, owing to the demand for +slave labor, did they draw upon the human stock of nearby Africa, but +even then by means of Portuguese ships. + +[Sidenote: Double sources.] + +Owing to the power of navigation to bridge the intervening spaces of +water and hence to emphasize the accessibility rather than the isolation +of these outlying fragments of land, we often find islands facing two or +three ways, as it were, tenanted on different sides by different races, +and this regardless of the width of the intervening seas, where the +remote neighbors excel in nautical skill. Formosa is divided between its +wild Malay aborigines, found on the eastern, mountainous side of the +island, and Chinese settlers who cultivate the wide alluvial plain on +the western side.[855] Fukien Strait, though only eighty miles wide, +sufficed to bar Formosa to the land-loving northern Chinese till 1644, +when the island became an asylum for refugees from the Manchu invaders; +but long before, the wider stretches of sea to the south and north were +mere passways for the sea-faring Malays, who were the first to people +the island, and the Japanese who planted considerable colonies on its +northern coasts at the beginning of the fifteenth century. [See map page +103.] + +In a similar way Madagascar is divided between the Malayan Hovas, who +occupy the eastern and central part of the island, and the African +Sakalavas who border the western coast. [See map page 105.] This +distribution of the ethnic elements corresponds to that of the insect +life, which is more African on the western side and more Indo-Malayan on +the eastern.[856] Though the population shows every physical type between +Negro and Malayan, and ethnic diversity still predominates over ethnic +unity in this vast island, nevertheless the close intercourse of an +island habitat has even in Madagascar produced unification of language. +Malayan speech of an ancient form prevails everywhere, and though +diversified into dialects, is everywhere so much alike that all +Malagasies can manage to understand one another.[857] The first +inhabitants were probably African; but the wide Mozambique Current (230 +miles), with its strong southward flow, was a serious barrier to fresh +accessions from the mainland, especially as the nautical development of +the African tribes was always low. Meanwhile, however, successive relays +of sea-bred Malay-Polynesians crossed the broad stretch of the Indian +Ocean, occupied the island, and finally predominated over the original +Negro stock.[858] Then in historic times came Arabs, Swahilis, and East +Indians to infuse an Asiatic element into the population of the coasts, +while Portuguese, English, Dutch, and French set up short-lived colonies +on its shores. But despite this intermittent foreign immigration, the +fundamental isolation of Madagascar, combined with its large area, +enabled it to go its own slow historical gait, with a minimum of +interference from outside, till France in 1895 began to assume control +of the island. + +[Sidenote: Mixed population of small thalassic isles.] + +Small thalassic islands, at an early date in their history, lose their +ethnic unity and present a highly mixed population. The reasons for this +are two. The early maritime development characterizing enclosed seas +covers them with a network of marine routes, on which such islands serve +as way stations and mid-sea markets for the surrounding shores. Sailors +and traders, colonists and conquerors flock to them from every side. +Such a nodal location on commercial routes insures to islands a +cosmopolitanism of race, as opposed to the ethnic differentiation and +unity which follows an outlying or oceanic situation. Here the factor of +many-sided accessibility predominates over isolation. + +The prevailing small area of such thalassic islands, moreover, involves +a population so small that it is highly susceptible to the effects of +intercrossing. Too restricted to absorb the constant influx of foreign +elements, the inhabitants tend to become a highly mixed, polyglot breed. +This they continue to be by the constant addition of foreign strains, so +long as the islands remain foci of trade or strategic points for the +control of the marine highways. Diomede Island in Bering Strait is the +great market place of the polar tribes. Here Siberian Chukches and +Alaskan Eskimos make their exchanges. The Eskimo of St. Lawrence Island +in Bering Sea, from long intercourse, have adopted certain articles of +dress, the boats and part of the vocabulary of the Chukches.[859] +Kilwauru, located on a sand-bank at the eastern end of Ceram, on the +border between Malayan and Papuan island districts, is the metropolis of +native traders in the Far East. Here gather the _praus_ of the +sea-faring Bugis bringing manufactured goods from Singapore, and boats +laden with the natural products of New Guinea.[860] The smaller these +island marts and the wider their circle of trade, the more mixed is +their population. Thursday Isle, an English coaling-station in Torres +Strait, is a port of call for all steamers bound from Europe or China +for east Australian ports, besides being a center of a big local trade +in pearl shell and tripang. Hence its population of 526 souls comprises +270 Europeans of various nationalities, including British, Germans, +Scandinavians, Danes, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Australians of +European origin, besides 256 South Sea Islanders, Papuans, Africans, +Philippines, Chinese and other Asiatics.[861] + +[Sidenote: Mixed population of island markets.] + +Antiquity shows the same thing on a smaller scale, which grew, however, +with the expansion of the circle of commerce. Ancient Aegina in the +Saronic Gulf received inhabitants from Crete, Argos, Epidaurus in +eastern Argolis and Athens; it became a central maritime market and its +people sea-traders, whose goods of a certain small kind became known as +"Aegina wares."[862] Delos at the crossroads of the Aegean was the center +of longer radii. It became the inn for travelers and merchants sailing +from Asia and Egypt to Italy and Greece, and hence drew to itself the +trade and people of the whole Mediterranean basin.[863] The northwestern +Indian Ocean had a similar emporium in the ancient Dioscoridis, +(Sokotra) which focused on itself the trade between Arabia and eastern +Africa.[864] + +Ceylon's location made it in ancient and medieval times the common +meeting place for Arab traders from the west and Chinese merchants from +the east; it thus became the Sicily of the semi-enclosed North Indian +Ocean. To-day its capital Colombo is "the Clapham Junction of the Eastern +Seas," where passengers change steamers for China, India and Australia; +a port of call for vessels passing from the Straits of Malacca to the +Persian Gulf or Mediterranean. Hence Ceylon's solid nucleus of +Singhalese and Tamil population, protected against absorption by the +large area of the island (25,365 square miles) is interspersed in the +coastal districts with Arabs, Portuguese, Eurasians dating from the old +Portuguese occupation, and some ten thousand Europeans.[865] The island +of Gotland, located at the crossroads of the Baltic, was early adopted +by the Hanseatic merchants as their maritime base for the exploitation +of Swedish, Finnish, and Russian trade. Here were "peoples of divers +tongues," so the old chronicles say, while the archeological finds of +Byzantine, Cufic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and German coins testify to the +wide circle of trade whose radii focused at this nodal point of the +Baltic.[866] + +[Sidenote: Significant location of island way stations.] + +The great importance of such islands has been due solely to their +location. Their size and resources are negligible quantities, but their +natural position as way stations lent them preeminence so long as +navigation held to short "laps," and was restricted to enclosed seas. In +the wide expanse of the open ocean, similar sparsely scattered isles, +like Ascension, St. Helena, the Canaries and Hawaii, assumed importance +in proportion to their scarcity. Though never the centers of rife +intercourse like Delos and Gotland, those lying conspicuously in the +track of commerce have succeeded in drawing to themselves the typical +polyglot nodal population. Mauritius, located at the southwestern +entrance of the Indian Ocean about equally distant from Aden, Ceylon, +Bombay, Singapore and West Australia, and possessing the best harbor +within many hundred miles, has been held successively by Dutch, French +and English, and to-day has a dense population of French, English and +Hindus.[867] A situation at the northeast entrance to the Caribbean Sea, +keystone of the vast arch formed by the Greater and Lesser Antilles, +made the island of St. Thomas a natural distributing point for this +whole basin. Facing that much traveled Virgin Passage, and forming the +first objective of vessels bound from Europe to Panama, it became a +great ship rendezvous, and assumed strategic and commercial importance +from early times. We find the same political owners here as in Mauritius +and in the same order--Dutch, French and English, though in 1671 the +island was occupied by the Danes, then from 1807 to 1815 by the English +again, and finally secured by the Danes.[868] The history of the Falkland +Islands is a significant reflection of their location on the south +oceanic trade route, where they command the entrance to the Magellan +Straits and the passage round the Horn, Here on the outskirts of the +world, where they form the only break in the wide blank surface of the +South Atlantic, they have been coveted and held in turn by the chief +European powers having colonies in the Orient,--by France, Spain, +England, Spain again, England again, by Argentine in 1820, and finally +by England since 1833. Their possession was of especial advantage to +Great Britain, which had no other base in this part of the world +intermediate between England and New Zealand. + +[Sidenote: Thalassic islands as goals of expansion.] + +Islands located in enclosed seas display the transitional character of +border districts. They are outposts of the surrounding shores, and +become therefore the first objective of every expanding movement, +whether commercial or political, setting out from the adjacent coasts. +Such islands are swept by successive waves of conquest or colonization, +and they carry in their people and language evidences of the wrack left +behind on their shores. This has been the history of Aegina, Cyprus, +Rhodes, Crete, Malta, Corfu, Sicily and Sardinia. That of Cyprus is +typical. It was the first island base for the ancient Tyrian fleets, and +had its Phoenician settlements in 1045 B. C. From that time it was one +of the many prizes in the Mediterranean grab-bag for the surrounding +nations. After the decline of Tyre, it was occupied by Greeks, then +passed in turn to Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Romans, Saracens, +Byzantines, and in 1191 was seized by the Crusaders. Later it fell to +Egypt again; but in 1373 was taken by Genoa, in 1463 by Venice, in 1571 +by the Turks, and finally in 1878 was consigned to England.[869] All +these successive occupants have left their mark upon its people, speech, +culture and architecture. In the same way Sicily, located at the waist +of the Mediterranean, has received the imprint of Greeks, Carthagenians, +Romans, Saracens, Normans, Spaniards and Italians.[870] Its architectural +remains bear the stamp of these successive occupants in every degree of +purity and blending. The Sicilians of to-day are a mixture of all these +intrusive stocks and speak a form of Italian corrupted by the infusion +of Arabic words.[871] In 1071 when the Normans laid siege to Palermo, +five languages were spoken on the island,--Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic +and vulgar Sicilian, evidence enough that it was the meeting ground of +the nations of Europe, Asia and North Africa.[872] Polyglot Malta to-day +tells the same story of successive conquests, the same shuttlecock +history.[873] Almost every language of Europe is spoken here; but the +native Maltese speech is a corrupt form of Arabic mixed with modern +Italian and ancient Phoenician words.[874] The whole island is +ethnographically a border hybrid of Europe and North Africa. The Channel +Isles are to-day the only spot in Europe where French and English survive +side by side as official and commercial languages. French and Italian +meet on equal terms in Corsica. Chinese, Japanese and Malays have +traded and warred and treated on the debatable land of Formosa. The Aru, +Ke, and other small archipelagoes of the Banda Sea link together the +pure Malay and the pure Papuan districts, between which they lie. + +From the border character of many islands there follow often +far-reaching historical effects. Like all border regions they are +natural battlegrounds. Their historical episodes are small, often slow +and insidious in their movement, but large in their final content; for +they are prone to end in a sudden dramatic _denouement_ that draws the +startled gaze of all the neighboring world. It was the destiny of Sicily +to make and unmake the fortunes of ancient Carthage. Ceylon, from the +dawn of history, lured traders who enriched and conquerors who oppressed +peninsular India. The advance of Spain to the Canary Isles was the +drowsy prologue to the brilliant drama of American discovery. The island +of Tsushima in the Korean Strait was seized by the forces of Kublai Khan +in 1280 as the base of their attack upon Japan;[875] and when in 1857 the +Russian bear tried to plant a foot on this island, Japan saw danger in +the movement and ordered him off.[876] Now we find Japan newly +established in Sakhalin, the Elliot Islands and Formosa, by means of +which and her own archipelago she blankets the coast of Asia for +twenty-two hundred miles. This geographical situation may be productive +of history. + +[Sidenote: Political detachability of islands.] + +Islands are detached areas physically and readily detached politically. +Though insularity gives them some measure of protection, their +relatively small size and consequently small populations make them easy +victims for a conquering sea power, and easy to hold in subjection. The +security of an island habitat against aggression therefore, increases +with its size, its efficiency in naval warfare, and its degree of +isolation, the last of which factors depends in turn upon its location +as thalassic or oceanic. Islands of enclosed seas, necessarily small and +never far from the close encircling lands, are engulfed by every tide of +conquest emanating from the nearby shores. Oesel and Dago have been held +in succession by every Baltic power, by the Teutonic Orders, Denmark, +Sweden and Russia. Gotland has acknowledged allegiance to the Hanseatic +League, to Denmark and Sweden. Sardinia, occupying the center of the +western Mediterranean, has figured in a varied series of political +combinations,--with ancient Carthage, Rome, the Saracens of North +Africa, with Sicily, Pisa, Aragon, Piedmont, and finally now with united +Italy.[877] To the land-bred Teutonic hordes which swept over western +Europe in the early centuries of our era, a narrow strip of sea was some +protection for Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta and the Balearic Isles. +Hence we find these islands slow in succumbing to their non-maritime +conquerors, and readily regained by the energetic Justinian. Later they +fell victim to the sea-wise Saracens, but again gravitated back to their +closer and more natural European connections. + +[Sidenote: Insular weakness due to small area.] + +More often the small area of an island facilitates its retention in +bondage, when the large and less isolated continental districts have +thrown off an unwelcome yoke. Athens, with her strong navy, found it an +easy task to whip back into the ranks of the Delian Confederacy her +recalcitrant island subjects like Naxos, Samos and Thasos; but her +mutinous cities in peninsular Chalcidice and isthmian Megara, incited to +revolt and aided by their neighbors,[878] were less at her mercy. This +principle was recognized by Thucydides,[879] and taken advantage of by +the Lacedæmonians during the great war for Spartan supremacy. England +has been able to hold Ireland in a vise. Of all her former French +territory, she retains only the Channel Isles. Cuba and Porto Rico +remained in the crushing grasp of Spain sixty-four years after Mexico +and the continental states of Central and South America, by mutual help +and encouragement, had secured independence. The islands found that the +isolation which confers protection from outside aggression meant for +them detachment from friendly sources of succor on the mainland. The +desultory help of filibuster expeditions, easily checked at the port of +departure or landing, availed little to supplement the inadequate forces +of rebellion pent up on their relatively small areas. By contrast, +Mexico's larger area and population, continually stirred by American +example and encouragement, reinforced by American volunteers and even by +United States army officers, found revolt from 1812 to 1824 a +comparatively easy task. + +Cuba suffered from its geographic aloofness. So did little Crete, which +submitted to Turkish oppression sixty years after the continental Greeks +had made good their claim to freedom. Nor was this the first time that +Cretan liberty had suffered from the detachment of an island +environment. Aristotle recognized the principle when he wrote: "The +people of Crete have hitherto submitted to the rule of the leading +families as _Cosmi_, because the insular situation of Crete cuts off the +interference of strangers or foreigners which might stir up rebellion +against the unjust or partial government." And then he adds that this +insular exclusion of outside incitement long rendered the fidelity of +the _Perioeci_ or serf-like peasants of Crete a striking contrast to the +uneasy spirit of the Spartan Helots, who were constantly stirred to +revolt by the free farmers of Argos, Messinia and Arcadia.[880] Thus +ancient like modern Crete missed those beneficient stimuli which +penetrate a land frontier, but are cut off by the absolute boundary of +the sea. + +[Sidenote: Island remains of broken empires.] + +Island fragments of broken empires are found everywhere. They figure +conspicuously in that scattered location indicative of declining power. +Little St. Pierre and Miquelon are the last geographical evidences of +France's former dominion in Canada. The English Bermudas and Bahamas +point back to the time when Great Britain held the long-drawn opposite +coast. The British, French, Dutch, Danish, as once even Swedish, +holdings in the Lesser Antilles are island monuments to lost continental +domains, as recently were Cuba and Porto Rico to Spain's once vast +American empire. Of Portugal's widespread dominion in the Orient there +remain to her only the island fragments of Timor, Kambing, Macao and +Diu, besides two coastal points on the western face of peninsular India. +All the former continental holdings of the Sultan of Zanzibar have been +absorbed into the neighboring German and British territories, and only +the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba remain to him by the temporary +indulgence of his strong neighbors. The Sheik of the Bahrein Islands +originally held also the large kingdom of El Hasa on the nearby Persian +Gulf littoral of Arabia; but he lost this to the Turks in 1840, and now +retains the Bahrein Islands as the residuum of his former +territories.[881] + +[Sidenote: Security of such remnants merely passive.] + +The insular remnants of empires are tolerated, because their small size, +when unsupported by important location, usually renders them innocuous; +and their geographic isolation removes them from international +entanglements, unless some far-reaching anthropo-geographic readjustment +lends them a new strategic or commercial importance. The construction of +the Suez Canal gave England a motive for the acquisition of Cyprus in +1878, as a nearer base than Malta for the protection of Port Said, just +as the present Panama Canal project led the United States to re-open +negotiations for the purchase of the Danish Isles. One cannot get away +from the impression that the law of political detachability will operate +again to make some new distribution of the parti-colored political +holdings in the Lesser Antilles. The small size of these islands, and +their thalassic location commanding approaches to a large region of only +partially developed resources and to the interoceanic passway across it, +will pitch them into the dice-box on the occasion of every naval war +between their sovereign powers. + +The shifting fate of political detachability becomes moderated in +islands of the open ocean, because of their remoteness from the +colonizing or conquering movements emanating from the continents. In +contrast to the changing political connections of thalassic isles, +consider the calm or monotonous political history of outlying islands +like the Shetland, Faroes, Iceland, Canaries, Madeira, Cape Verde, +Azores, St. Helena, Ascension and Hawaii. The Norse colony of Iceland, +as a republic, maintained loose connections with its mother country from +874 to 1264; then for nearly six centuries it followed the political +fate of Norway till 1814, when an oversight left it in the hands of +Denmark on the dissolution of the union of Denmark and Norway. The +Azores have known no history except that which came to them from +Portugal; even their discovery goes back to a Saracen navigator who, in +1147, sailed from the mouth of the Tagus a thousand miles straight into +the sunset.[882] For two hundred years thereafter extreme isolation kept +them outside the pale of history till their rediscovery by Prince +Henry, the Navigator. + +[Sidenote: Political autonomy of islands based upon area and location.] + +Land-masses, as we have found, are independent by location or +independent by size. Large islands, especially where they occupy an +outskirt location, may long succeed in maintaining an independent +national existence; but to render this permanent, they must supplement +their area by the acquisition of continental lands, according to the law +of increasing territorial aggregates. Great Britain and Japan, though +ethnically and culturally appendages of the nearby mainland, were large +enough, aided by the dividing sea, to maintain political autonomy. They +absorbed all the insular fragments lying about them to extend their +areas, and then each in turn entered upon a career of continental +expansion. To Japan this movement as a determined policy came late, only +when she faced the alternative of absorbing territory or being absorbed +by all-devouring Russia. The isolation of Madagascar resulted in only +slight community of race with Africa, and combined with large area, has +kept the island to a great extent distinct from the political history of +Africa. The impulses which swept the eastern coast of the continent +reached the outlying island with abated force. Arab, Portuguese, Dutch +and English only scratched its rim. The character of its western coasts, +of its vigorous Malayan population, and of the intervening Mozambique +Current rendered conquest difficult from the African shore. Its large +size, with the promise of abundant resources, offered a bait to +conquest, yet put a barrier in its way. Hence we find that not till +1895, when the partition of continental Africa was almost accomplished, +did the French conquest of Madagascar occur. + +By contrast, the closely grouped East Indies, long coveted for their +tropical products, suffered a contagion of conquest. The large size of +these islands, so far from granting them immunity, only enabled the +epidemic of Portuguese and Dutch dominion to pass from one to the other +more readily, and that even when the spice and pepper trade languished +from a plethora of products. But even here the size of the islands, +plus the sub-equatorial climate which bars genuine white colonization, +has restricted the effective political dominion of Europeans to the +coasts, and thus favored the survival of the natives undisturbed in the +interior, with all their primitive institutions. The largest islands, +like Borneo and Sumatra, have vast inland tracts still unexplored and +devoted to savagery, thus illustrating the contrast between center and +periphery. When Australia, the largest of all the Pacific island group, +became an object of European expansion, its temperate and sub-tropical +location adapted it for white colonization, and the easy task of +conquering its weak and retarded native tribes encouraged its +appropriation; but the natural autonomy which belongs to large area and +detached location asserted itself in the history of British Australia. +The island continent is now erected into a confederation of states, +enjoying virtual independence. In New Zealand, we find the recent +colonists taking advantage of their isolation to work out undisturbed +certain unique social theories. Here, against a background of arrested +aboriginal development, another race evinces a radical spirit of +progress; and to these contrasted results equally the detached island +environment has contributed its share. + +[Sidenote: Historical effects of island isolation; primitive +retardation.] + +The historical development of island peoples bears always in greater or +less degree the stamp of isolation; but this isolation may lead to +opposite cultural results. It may mean in one case retardation, in +another accelerated development. Its geographical advantages are +distinctly relative, increasing rapidly with a rising scale of +civilization. Therefore in an island habitat the race factor may operate +with or against the geographic factor in producing a desirable +historical result. If the isolation is almost complete, the cultural +status of the inhabitants low, and therefore their need of stimulation +from without very great, the lack of it will sink them deeper in +barbarism than their kinsmen on the mainland. The negroes of Africa, +taken as a whole, occupy a higher economic and cultural rank than the +black races of Australia and Melanesia; and for this difference one +cause at least is to be found in the difference of their habitats. The +knowledge of iron, stock-raising, and many branches of agriculture were +continental achievements, which belonged to the great eastern land-mass +and spread from Egypt over Africa even to the Hottentot country; the +lack of them among the Australians must be attributed to their +insularity, which barred them from this knowledge, just as the ignorance +of iron and other metals among the native Canary Islanders[883] can only +be ascribed to a sea barrier fifty-two miles wide. The scant +acquaintance of the Balearic Islanders with iron in Roman days[884] +points to insular detachment. The lack of native domesticable animals in +the Pacific archipelagoes illustrates another limitation incident to the +restricted fauna of islands, though this particular lack also retarded +the cultural development of primitive North America. + +[Sidenote: Later stimulation of development.] + +On the other hand, people who have already secured the fundamental +elements of civilization find the partial seclusion of an island +environment favorable to their further progress, because it permits +their powers to unfold unhindered, protects them from the friction of +border quarrels, from the disturbance and desolation of invading armies, +to which continental peoples are constantly exposed. But even here the +advantage lies in insulation but not in isolation,[885] in a location +like that of England or Japan, near enough to a continent to draw thence +culture, commerce and occasional new strains of blood, but detached by +sea-girt boundaries broad enough to ward off overwhelming aggressions. +Such a location insures enough segregation for protection, but also +opportunity for universal contact over the vast commons of the sea. + +[Sidenote: Excessive isolation.] + +Excessive isolation may mean impoverishment in purse and progress even +for an advanced race. Ireland has long suffered from its outskirt +location. It lies too much in the shadow of England, and has been barred +by the larger island from many warming rays of immigration, culture and +commerce that would have vitalized its national existence. The "round +barrow" men of the Bronze Age, the Romans, and the Normans never carried +thither their respective contributions to civilization. The +Scandinavians infused into its population only inconsiderable strains of +their vigorous northern blood.[886] In consequence the Irish are to-day +substantially the same race as in Cæsar's time, except for the small, +unassimilated group of antagonistic English and Lowland Scotch, both +Teutonic, in Ulster.[887] Barred by Great Britain from direct contact +with the Continent and all its stimulating influences, suffering from +unfavorable conditions of climate and topography, Ireland's political +evolution progressed at a snail's pace. It tarried in the tribal stage +till after the English conquest, presenting a primitive social +organization such as existed nowhere in continental Europe. Property was +communal till the time of the Tudors, and all law was customary.[888] +Over-protected by excessive isolation, it failed to learn the salutary +lesson of political co-operation and centralization for defense, such as +Scotland learned from England's aggressions, and England from her close +continental neighbors. Great Britain, meanwhile, intercepted the best +that the Continent had to give, both blows and blessings, and found an +advantage in each. The steady prosecution of her continental wars +demanded the gradual erection of a standing army, which weakened the +power of feudalism; and the voting of funds for the conduct of these +same wars put a whip into the hand of Parliament. + +[Sidenote: The case of Iceland.] + +The history of Iceland illustrates the advantage and subsequently the +drawback of isolation. The energetic spirits who, at the end of the +ninth century, resented the centralization of political power in Norway +and escaped from the turmoil and oppression of the home country to the +remote asylum offered by Iceland, maintained there till 1262 the only +absolutely free republic in the world.[889] They had brought with them +various seeds of culture and progress, which grew and flowered richly in +this peaceful soil. Iceland became the center of brilliant maritime and +colonial achievements, the home of a native literature which surpassed +that of all its contemporaries except Dante's Italy.[890] But after the +decay of the Greenland colonies converted Iceland from a focal into a +remote terminal point, and after the progress of the world became based +upon complex and far-reaching commercial relations, the blight of +extreme isolation settled upon the island; peace became stagnation. + +[Sidenote: Protection of an island environment.] + +The concomitant of isolation is protection. Though this protection, if +the result of extreme isolation, may mean an early cessation of +development, history shows that in the lower stages of civilization, +when the social organism is small and weak, and its germs of progress +easily blighted, islands offer the sheltered environment in which +imported flowers of culture not only survive but improve; in less +protected fields they deteriorate or disappear. When learning and +Christianity had been almost wiped out on the continent of Europe by the +ravages of barbarian invasion between 450 and 800 A. D., in Ireland they +grew and flourished. In the seventh and eighth centuries, the high +scholarship of the Irish monks and their enthusiastic love of learning +for its own sake drew to their schools students of the noblest rank from +both England and France.[891] It was from Irish teachers that the Picts +of Scotland and the Angles of northern England received their first +lessons in Christianity. These fixed their mission stations again on +islands, on Iona off southwestern Scotland and on Lindisfarne or Holy +Isle near the east coast of Northumbria.[892] It was in the protected +environment of the medieval Iceland that Scandinavian literature reached +its highest development. + +Insular protection was undoubtedly a factor in the brilliant cultural +development of Crete. The progress of the early civilization from the +late Stone Age through the Bronze Age was continuous; it bears no trace +of any strong outside influence or sudden transition, no evidence of +disturbance like an invasion or conquest by an alien people till 1200 B. +C. when the latest stage of Minoan art was crushed by barbarian +incursion from the north.[893] + +[Sidenote: Factor of protection in Ceylon and Japan.] + +The early history of the Singhalese monarchy in Ceylon from 250 B. C. to +416 A. D., when even the narrow moat of Palk Strait discouraged Tamil +invasions from the mainland, shows the brilliant development possible +under even a slight degree of protection.[894] However, in the case of +these Ceylon Aryans, as in that of the Icelandic Norse, we must keep in +mind the fact that the bearers of this culture were picked men, as are +early maritime colonists the world over. The sea selects and then +protects its island folk. But the seclusion of Ceylon was more favorable +to progress than the mainland of India, with its incessant political and +religious upheavals. Japan, in contrast to China's long list of +invasions, shows the peace of an insular location. She never suffered +any overwhelming influx of alien races or any foreign conquest. The +armada sent by Kublai Khan in 1281 to subdue the islands paralleled the +experience of the famous Spanish fleet three centuries later in English +waters. This is the only attempt to invade Japan that recorded history +shows.[895] In the original peopling of the island by Mongolian stock at +the cost of the Aino aborigines, there is evidence of two distinct and +perhaps widely separated immigrations from the mainland, one from Korea +and another from more northern Asia. Thus Japan's population contained +two continental elements, which seem to have held themselves in the +relation of governing and governed class, much as Norman and Saxon did +in England, while the Ainos lingered in the geographical background of +mountain fastness and outlying islands, as the primitive Celts did in +the British Isles.[896] In the case both of England and Japan, the island +location made the occupation by continental races a fitful, piecemeal +process, not an inundation, because only small parties could land from +time to time. The result was gradual or partial amalgamation of the +various stocks, but nowhere annihilation. + +[Sidenote: Character of the invaders as factor.] + +But island location was not the sole factor in the equation. Similarity +of race and relative parity of civilization between the successive +immigrants and the original population, as well as the small numbers of +the Invaders, made the struggle for the ownership of the island not +wholly one-sided, and was later favorable to amalgamation in England as +in Japan; whereas very small bands of far-coming Spaniards in the +Canaries, Cuba, and Porto Rico resulted in the extinction of the +original inhabitants, by the process operating now in New Zealand and +Australia. Prior to the arrival of the Europeans in the Antilles, the +conquest of these islands by South American Caribs had resulted in race +intermixture. These sea-marauders brought no women with them in their +small boats from the distant mainland, so they killed off the men and +married the Arawak women of the islands. Here again insular location +plus similarity of race and culture produced amalgamation, as opposed +to extermination of the vanquished by over-sea invaders. + +While the insular security of a primitive folk like the Tasmanians, +Hawaiians and Malagasies is only passive, that of a civilized people +like the English and modern Japanese is active, consciously utilized and +reinforced. It is therefore more effective, and productive of more +varied political and cultural results. Such people can allow themselves +extensive contact with other nations, because they know it is in their +power to control or check such contact at will. Japan took refuge in its +medieval period in a policy of seclusion suggested by its island +habitat,[897] relying on the passive protection of isolation. England, on +the other hand, from the time of King Alfred, built up a navy to resist +invasion. The effect, after the political unification of Great Britain, +was a guarantee of protection against foreign attack, the concentration +of the national defenses in a navy,[898] the elimination of the standing +army which despotic monarchs might have used to crush the people, the +consequent release of a large working force from military service, and +the application of these to the development of English Industry.[899] + +[Sidenote: Islands as places of refuge.] + +Islands, as naturally protected districts, are often sought places of +refuge by the weak or vanquished, and thus are drawn into the field of +historical movement. We find this principle operating also in the animal +world. The fur seals of the North Pacific have fled from the American +coasts and found an asylum on the Pribiloff Islands of Bering Sea, where +their concentration and isolation have enabled them to become wards of +the United States government, though this result they did not foresee. +The last Rhytina or Arctic sea-cow was found on an island in Bering +Strait.[900] So the Veneti of Northern Italy in the fifth century sought +an asylum from the desolating Huns and, a century later, from the +Lombards, in the deposit islands at the head of the Adriatic, and there +found the geographic conditions for a brilliant commercial and cultural +development. Formosa got its first contingent of Chinese settlers in the +thirteenth century in refugees seeking a place of safety from Kublai +Khan's armies; and its second in 1644 in a Chinese chief and his +followers who had refused to submit to the victorious Manchus. In 1637 +Formosa was an asylum also for Japanese Christians, who escaped thither +from the persecutions attending the discovery of Jesuit conspiracies +against the government.[901] The Azores, soon after their rediscovery in +1431, were colonized largely by Flemish refugees,[902] just as Iceland +was peopled by rebellious Norwegians. To such voluntary exiles the +dividing sea gives a peculiar sense of security, this by a psychological +law. Hence England owing to its insular location, and also to its free +government, has always been an asylum for the oppressed. The large body +of Huguenot refugees who sought her shores after the revocation of the +Edict of Nantes added a valuable element to her population. + +[Sidenote: Convict islands.] + +Islands find their populations enriched by the immigration of this +select class who refuse to acquiesce in oppression and injustice. But +the geographic conditions which make islands natural asylums make them +also obvious places of detention for undesirable members of society; +these conditions render segregation complete, escape difficult or +impossible, and control easy. Hence we find that almost all the nations +of the world owning islands have utilized them as penal stations. From +the gray dawn of history the Isles of the Blessed have been balanced by +the isles of the cursed. The radiant Garden of Hesperides has found its +antithesis in the black hell of Norfolk Isle, peopled by the "doubly +condemned" criminals whom not even the depraved convict citizens of +Botany Bay could tolerate.[903] There is scarcely an island of the +Mediterranean without this sinister vein in its history. The +archipelagoes of the ancient Aegean were constantly receiving political +exiles from continental Greece. Augustus Cæsar confined his degenerate +daughter Julia, the wife of Tiberius, on the island of Pandateria, one +of the Ponza group; and banished her paramour, Sempronius Gracchus, to +Cercina in the Syrtis Minor off the African coast.[904] Other Roman +matrons of high degree but low morals and corrupt officials were exiled +to Corsica, Sardinia, Seriphos, Amorgos and other of the Cyclades.[905] +To-day Italy has prisons or penal stations in Ischia, the Ponza group, +Procida, Nisida, Elba, Pantellaria, Lampedusa, Ustica, and especially +in the Lipari Isles, where the convicts are employed in mining sulphur, +alum and pumice from the volcanic cones.[906] + +[Sidenote: Penal colonies on uninhabited islands.] + +In modern times many remote oceanic islands have gotten their first or +only white settlers from this criminal class. Such are the citizens whom +Chile has sent to Easter Isle twenty-five hundred miles away out in the +Pacific.[907] The inhabitants of Fernando Noronha, 125 miles off the +eastern point of South America, are convicts from Brazil, together with +the warders and troops who guard them.[908] In 1832 Ecuador began to use +the uninhabited Gallapagos Islands, lying 730 miles west of its coast, +as a penal settlement.[909] The history of St. Helena is typical. Its +first inhabitants were some Portuguese deserters who in punishment were +marooned here from a Portuguese ship with a supply of seed and cattle. +They proved industrious and had cultivated a good deal of the land when +four years later they were removed to Portugal. The next inhabitants +were a few slaves of both sexes who escaped from a slave ship that had +stopped here for wood and water. These multiplied, worked and restored +the overgrown plantations of their predecessors, till a Portuguese +vessel about twenty years later was sent to exterminate them. A few +escaped to the woods, however, and were found there in prosperity in +1588.[910] From 1815 till 1821 St. Helena was the prison of Napoleon. + +Many of these penal islands seem chosen with a view to their severe or +unhealthy climate, which would forever repel free immigration and +therefore render them useless for any other purpose. This is true of the +French Isles du Salut off the Guiana coast, of Spanish Fernando Po in +the Gulf of Guinea, of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, notoriously +unhealthy, which receive the criminals of British India,[911] and of +numerous others. A bleak climate and unproductive soil have added to the +horror of exile life in Sakhalin, as they overshadowed existence in the +Falkland Islands, when these were a penal colony of Spain and later of +Argentine.[912] + +[Sidenote: Island prisons for political offenders.] + +In the case of political offenders and incorrigibles, the island prison +is as remote and inaccessible as possible. The classic example is +Napoleon's consignment to Elba and subsequently to St. Helena, whence +escape was impossible. Spain has sent its rebellious subjects, even +university professors of independent views, to Fernando Po in the Gulf +of Guinea and Teneriffe in the Canaries.[913] Russian political +offenders of the most dangerous class are confined first in the +Schlüsselberg prison, situated on a small island in Lake Ladoga near the +effluence of the Neva. There they languish in solitary confinement or +are transferred to far-off Sakhalin, whose very name is taboo in St. +Petersburg.[914] During our Civil War, one of the Dry Tortugas, lying a +hundred miles west of the southern point of Florida and at that time the +most isolated island belonging to the American government, was used as a +prison for dangerous Confederates; and here later three conspirators in +the assassination of President Lincoln were incarcerated.[915] Far away +to the southeast, off the coast of South America, are the Isles du +Salut, a French penal station for criminals of the worst class. The Isle +du Diable, ominous of name, lies farthest out to sea. This was for five +years the prison of Dreyfus. Its other inhabitants are lepers. Isles of +the cursed indeed! + +[Sidenote: Islands as places of survival.] + +What islands have they tend to hold, to segregate, secrete from meddling +hands, preserve untouched and unaltered. Owing to this power to protect, +islands show a large percentage of rare archaic forms of animal and +plant life. The insular fauna of Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea and +Madagascar display a succession of strange, ancestral forms going back +to the biological infancy of the world. The Canaries in the Atlantic and +Celebes In the Pacific are museums of living antiquities, some of them +dating probably from Miocene times.[916] Such survivals are found +elsewhere only in high mountains, whose inaccessible slopes also offer +protection against excessive competition. Hence some of the antiquated +species of insular Celebes, Formosa, Japan and Hainon occur again on the +Asiatic mainland only in the Himalayas.[917] + +For man, too, islands and their sister areas of isolation, mountains, +are areas of survivals. The shrinking remnants of that half-dwarf +Negrito stock which may have formed the aboriginal population of +southern Asia are found to-day only in the mountains of peninsular +India and in island groups like the Andaman and the Philippines. But +even in the Philippines, they are confined either to the mountainous +interiors of the larger islands, or to little coastal islets like +Polillo, Alabat, Jomalig, and others.[918] [See map page 147.] Yezo, +Sakhalin and the Kurile Isles harbor the last feeble remnants of the +Ainos, a primitive people who formerly occupied a long stretch of the +Asiatic coast south of the Amur mouth. The protected environment of +these islands has postponed the doom of extinction toward which the +Ainos are hastening.[919] With insular conservatism they dress, live and +seek their food on the sea to-day, just as depicted in Japanese art and +literature at the dawn of history.[920] [See map page 103.] + +[Sidenote: Insular survivals of manners and customs.] + +It is chiefly on islands of harsh climatic conditions, like Sakhalin, or +of peculiarly restricted resources and area, like the Andaman, or of +remote, side-tracked location, like Iceland, Sardinia and Cape Breton, +that the stamp of the primitive or antiquated is strongest. Even when +not apparent in race stock, owing to the ubiquitous colonization of +maritime peoples, it marks the language and customs of even these +late-coming occupants, because an island environment asserts always some +power to isolate. This is due not only to the encircling moat of sea, +but also to the restricted insular area, too small to attract to itself +the great currents of human activity which infuse cosmopolitan ideas and +innovations, and too poor to buy the material improvements which +progress offers. If the tourist in Sicily finds the women of Taormina or +Girgenti spinning with a hand spindle, and the express trains moving +only twelve miles an hour, he can take these two facts as the product of +a small, detached area, although this island lies at the crossroads of +the Mediterranean. Corsica and Sardinia, lying off the main routes of +travel in this basin, are two of the most primitive and isolated spots +of Europe. Here the old wooden plow of Roman days is still in common use +as it is in Crete, and feudal institutions of the Middle Ages still +prevail to some extent[921],--a fact which recalls the long survival of +feudalism in Japan. The little Isle of Man, almost in sight of the +English coast, has retained an old Norse form of government. Here +survives the primitive custom of orally proclaiming every new law from +the Tynwald Hill before it can take effect,[922] and the other ancient +usage of holding the court of justice on the same hill under the open +sky. The Faroe Islands and Iceland are museums of Norse antiquities. The +stamp of isolation and therefore conservatism is most marked in the +remoter, northern islands. Surnames are rare in Iceland, and such as +exist are mostly of foreign origin. In their place, Christian names +followed by the patronymic prevail; but in the Faroes, these patronymics +have in a great many cases become recognized as surnames. So again, +while the Faroese women still use a rude spinning-wheel introduced from +Scotland in 1671, in Iceland this spinning-wheel was still an innovation +in 1800, and even to-day competes with spindles. Hand-querns for +grinding wheat, stone hammers for pounding fish and roots, the wooden +weighing-beam of the ancient Northmen, and quaint marriage customs give +the final touch of aloofness and antiquity to life on these remote +islands.[923] + +[Sidenote: Effects of small area in islands.] + +As all island life bears more or less the mark of isolation, so it +betrays the narrow area that has served at its base. Though islands show +a wide variation in size from the 301,000 square miles (771,900 square +kilometers) of New Guinea or the 291,000 square miles (745,950 square +kilometers) of Borneo to the private estates like the Scilly Isles, +Gardiner and Shelter islands off Long Island, or those small, sea-fenced +pastures for sheep and goats near the New England coast and in the +Aegean, yet small islands predominate; the large ones are very few. +Islands comprise a scant seven per cent. of the total land area of the +earth, and their number is very great,--nine hundred, for instance, in +the Philippine group alone. Therefore small area is a conspicuous +feature of islands generally. It produces in island people all those +effects which are characteristic of small, naturally defined areas, +especially early or precocious social, political and cultural +development. The value of islands in this respect belongs to the youth +of the world, as seen in the ancient Mediterranean, or in the +adolescence of modern primitive races; it declines as the limitations +rather than the advantages of restricted territory preponderate in later +historical development. + +[Sidenote: Political dominion of small islands.] + +This early maturity, combined with the power to expend the concentrated +national or tribal forces in any given direction, often results in the +domination of a very small island over a large group. In the Society +Islands, Cook found little Balabola ruling over Ulietea (Raitea) and +Otaha, the former of these alone being over twice the size of Balabola, +whose name commanded respect as far as Tahiti.[924] The Fiji Archipelago +was ruled in pre-Christian days by the little islet of Mbau, scarcely a +mile long, which lies like a pebble beside massive Viti Levu. It was the +chief center of political power and its supremacy was owned by nearly +all the group. The next important political center was Rewa, no larger +than Mbau, which had for its subject big Mbengga.[925] In the same way, +the Solomon group was ruled by Mongusaie and Simbo, just as tiny New +Lauenberg lorded it over the larger islands of the Bismarck +Archipelago.[926] When the Dutch in 1613 undertook the conquest of the +coveted Spice Isles, they found there two rival sultans seated in the +two minute islets of Ternate and Tidore off the west coast of Gilolo. +Their collective possessions, which the Dutch took, comprised all the +Moluccas, the Ke and Banda groups, the whole of northwestern New Guinea, +and Mindanao of the Philippines.[927] + +It was no unusual thing for classic Aegean isles to control and exploit +goodly stretches of the nearest coast, or to exercise dominion over +other islands. Aristotle tells us that Crete's location across the +southern end of the Aegean Sea confirmed to it by nature the early naval +empire of the Hellenic world. Minos conquered some of the islands, +colonized others,[928] and, according to the story of Theseus and the +Minotaur, laid Athens under tribute; but his suppression of piracy in +these waters and his conspicuous leadership in the art of navigation +point to a yet more significant supremacy. So insular Venice ruled and +exploited large dependencies. The island of Zealand, strategically +located at the entrance to the Baltic, has been the heart and head and +strong right arm of the Danish dominion, through all its long history of +fluctuating boundaries. England's insularity has been the strongest +single factor in the growth of her vast colonial empire and in the +maintenance of its loyal allegiance and solidarity. The widely strewn +plantation of her colonies is the result of that teeming island seed-bed +at home; while the very smallness of the mother country is the guarantee +of its supremacy over its dependencies, because it is too small either +to oppress them or to get along without them. Now an Asiatic variant of +English history is promised us by growing Japan. + +[Sidenote: Economic limitations of their small area.] + +Though political supremacy is possible even to an island of +insignificant size, both the advantages arid the grave disadvantages of +small area are constantly asserting themselves. Some developments +peculiar to large territory are here eliminated at the start. For +instance, robbery and brigandage, which were so long a scourge in +peninsular Greece, were unheard of on the small Aegean islands. +Sheep-raising was at an early date safer in England than on the +Continent, because wolves were earlier exterminated there. Bio-geography +shows an increasing impoverishment in the flora and fauna, of small +islands with distance from the mainland. In the Pacific Ocean, this +progressive impoverishment from west to east has had great influence +upon human life in the islands. In Polynesia, therefore, all influences +of the chase and of pastoral life are wanting, while in Melanesia, with +its larger islands and larger number of land animals, hunting still +plays an important part, and is the chief source of subsistence for many +New Guinea villages.[929] Therefore a corresponding decay of projectile +weapons is to be traced west to east, and is conspicuous in those crumbs +of land constituting Polynesia and Micronesia. The limit of the bow and +arrow includes the northeastern portion of the Philippine group, cuts +through the Malay Archipelago so as to include the Moluccas and Flores, +includes Melanesia as far as Tonga or the Friendly Isles, but excludes +Micronesia, Polynesia and Australia, Even in Melanesia, however, bows +and arrows are not universal; they are lacking in peripheral islands +like New Caledonia and New Ireland.[930] + +The restriction of trees, also, with the exception of the coco-palm and +pandanus, has had its effect upon boat making. This general +impoverishment is unmistakably reflected in the whole civilization of +the smaller islands of Polynesia and Micronesia, especially in the +Paumota and Pelew groups. In the countless coralline islands which strew +the Pacific, another restricting factor is found in their monotonous +geological formation. Owing to the lack of hard stone, especially of +flint, native utensils and weapons have to be fashioned out of wood, +bones, shells, and sharks' teeth.[931] + +[Sidenote: Poverty of alluvial lowlands in islands.] + +Nor does the geographical limitation end here. Islands have +proportionately a scanter allowance of fertile alluvial lowlands than +have continents. This follows from their geological history, except in +the case of those low deposit islands built up from the waste of the +land. Most islands are summits of submerged mountain ranges, like +Corsica and Sardinia, the Aegean archipelagoes, the Greater Antilles, +Vancouver, and the countless fiord groups; or they are single or +composite volcanic cones, like the Canaries, Azores, Lipari, Kurile, +Fiji, Ascension, St. Helena and the Lesser Antilles; or they are a +combination of highland subsidence and volcanic out-thrust, like Japan, +the Philippines, the long Sunda chain and Iceland. Both geologic +histories involve high reliefs, steep slopes, a deep surrounding sea, +and hence rarely a shallow continental shelf for the accumulation of +broad alluvial lowlands. Among the Aegean Isles only Naxos has a flood +plain; all the rest have steep coasts, with few sand or gravel beaches, +and only small deposit plains at the head of deep and precipitous +embayments. Japan's area of arable soil is to-day only 15.7 per cent. of +its total surface, even after the gentler slopes of its mountains have +been terraced up two thousand feet. Some authorities put the figure +lower, at 10 and 12 per cent. + +[Sidenote: Dense populations of islands.] + +Yet in spite of limited area and this paucity of local resources, +islands constantly surprise us by their relatively dense populations. +More often than not they show a density exceeding that of the nearest +mainland having the same zonal location, often the same geologic +structure and soil. Along with other small, naturally defined areas, +they tend to a closer packing of the population. Yet side by side with +this relative over-population, we find other islands uninhabited or +tenanted only by sheep, goats and cattle. + +In the wide Pacific world comprising Australia and Oceanica, islands +take up fifteen per cent. of the total land area, but they contain +forty-four per cent. of the population.[932] The insular empire of +Japan, despite the paucity of its arable soil, has a density of +population nearly twice that of China, nearly three times that of Korea, +and exceeding that of any political subdivision of continental Asia; but +Japan, in turn, is surpassed in congestion only by Java, with a density +of 587 to the square mile,[933] which almost equals that of Belgium +(643) and England (600). Great Britain has a density of population (453 +to the square mile) only exceeded in continental Europe by that of +Belgium, but surpassed nearly threefold by that of the little Channel +Isles, which amounts to 1254 to the square mile.[934] If the average +density of the United Kingdom is greatly diminished in Ireland, just as +Italy's is in Sardinia and France's in Corsica, this fact is due +primarily to a side-tracked or overshadowed location and adverse +topography, combined with misgovernment. + +If we compare countries which are partly insular, partly continental, +the same truth emerges. The kingdom of Greece has fifteen per cent of +its territory in islands. Here again population reaches its greatest +compactness in Corfu and Zante, which are nearly thrice as thickly +inhabited as the rest of Greece.[935] Similarly the islands which +constitute so large a part of Denmark have an average density of 269 to +the square mile as opposed to the 112 of Jutland. The figures rise to +215 to the square mile in the Danish West Indies, but drop low in the +bleak, subarctic insular dependencies of Greenland, Iceland and the +Faroes. Portugal's density is tripled in the Madeiras[936] and doubled +in the Azores,[937] but drops in the badly placed Cape Verde Island, +exposed to tropical heat and the desiccating tradewinds blowing off the +Sahara. Spain's average rises twenty-five per cent. in the Canary +Islands, which she has colonized, and France's nearly doubles in the +French West Indies. The British West Indies, also, with the exception of +the broken coral bank constituting the Bahamas, show a similar +surprising density of population, which in Bermuda and Barbadoes +surpasses that of England, and approximates the teeming human life of +the Channel Isles. + +[Sidenote: Density of population in Polynesia.] + +This general tendency toward a close packing of the population in the +smaller areas of land comes out just as distinctly in islands inhabited +by natural peoples in the lower stages of development. Despite the +retarded economic methods peculiar to savagery and barbarism, the +Polynesian islands, for instance, often show a density of population +equal to that of Spain and Greece (100 to the square mile) and exceeding +that of European Turkey and Russia. "Over the whole extent of the South +Sea," says Robert Louis Stevenson, "from one tropic to another, we find +traces of a bygone state of over-population, when the resources of even +a tropical soil were taxed, and even the improvident Polynesian trembled +for the future."[938] He calls the Gilbert atolls "warrens of men."[939] +One of them, Drummond's Island, with, an area of about twenty square +miles, contained a population of 10,000 in 1840, and all the atolls were +densely populated.[940] To-day they count 35,000 inhabitants in less +than 200 square miles. The neighboring Marshall group has 15,000 on its +158 square miles of area. The Caroline and Pelew archipelagoes show a +density of 69 to the square mile, the Tonga or Friendly group harbor +about 60 and the French holdings of Futuma and Wallis (or Uea) the +same.[941] So the Bismarck Archipelago, Solomon, Hawaiian, Samoan and +Marianne islands have to-day populations by no means sparse, despite the +blight that everywhere follows the contact of superior with primitive +peoples. + +[Sidenote: Various causes of this density.] + +In all these cases, if economic status be taken into account, we have a +density bordering on congestion; but the situation assumes a new aspect +if we realize that the crowded inhabitants of small islands often have +the run of the coco plantations and fishing grounds of an entire +archipelago. The smaller, less desirable islands are retained as fish +and coco-palm preserves to be visited only periodically. Of a low, +cramped, monotonous coral group, often only the largest and most +productive is inhabited,[942] but that contains a population surprising +in view of the small base, restricted resources and low cultural status +of its inhabitants. The population of the wide-strewn Paumota atolls +was estimated as about 10,000 in 1840. Of these fully one-half lived on +Anaa or Chain Island, and one-fourth on Gambier, but they levied on the +resources of the other islands for supplies.[943] The Tonga Islands at +the same time were estimated to have 20,000 inhabitants, about half of +whom were concentrated on Tongatabu, while Hapai and Varao held about +4,000 each.[944] + +[Sidenote: Crowded and vacant islands.] + +This is one of the sharp contrasts in island life,--here density akin to +congestion, there a few miles away a deserted reef or cone rising from +the sea, tenanted only by sheep or goats or marine birds, its solitude +broken only by the occasional crunching of a boat's keel upon its beach, +as some visitant from a neighboring isle comes to shear wool, gather +coco-nuts, catch birds or collect their eggs. All the 500 inhabitants of +the Westman Isles off the southern coast of Iceland live in one village +on Heimey, and support themselves almost entirely by fishing and fowling +birds on the wild crags of the archipelago.[945] An oceanic climate, +free contact with the Gulf Stream, and remoteness from the widespread +ice fields of Iceland give them an advantage over the vast island to the +north. Only twenty-seven of the ninety islands composing the Orkney +group are inhabited, and about forty smaller ones afford natural meadows +for sheep on their old red sandstone soil;[946] but Pomona, the largest +Orkney has 17,000 inhabitants on its 207 square miles of territory or 85 +to the square mile. The Shetlands tell the same story--29 out of 100 +islands inhabited, some of the _holms_ or smaller islets serving as +pastures for the sturdy ponies and diminutive cattle, and Mainland, the +largest of the group, showing 58 inhabitants to the square mile. This is +a density far greater than is reached in the nearby regions of Scotland, +where the county of Sutherland can boast only 13 to the square mile, and +Invernesshire 20. Here again insularity and contracted area do their +work of compressing population. + +The causes of this insular density of population are not far to seek. +Islands can always rely on the double larder of land and sea. They are +moreover prone to focus in themselves the fishing industry of a large +continental area, owing to their ample contact with the sea. Shetland is +now the chief seat of the Scotch herring fishery, a fact which +contributes to its comparatively dense population. The concentration of +the French export trade of Newfoundland fish in little St. Pierre and +Miquelon accounts for the relatively teeming population (70 to the +square mile) and the wealth of those scraps of islands. So the Lofoden +Islands of Norway, like Iceland, Newfoundland and Sakhalin, balance a +generous sea against an ungenerous soil, and thus support a population +otherwise impossible. + +[Sidenote: Oceanic climate as factor.] + +For these far northern islands, the moderating effect of an oceanic +climate has been a factor in making them relatively populous, just as it +is on tropical isles by mitigating heat and drought. The prosperity and +populousness of the Bermuda Islands are to be explained largely by the +mild, equable climate which permits the raising of early vegetables and +flowers for English and American markets. Like climatic conditions and a +like industry account for the 2,000 souls living on the inhabited +islands of the Scilly group. Here intensive horticulture supports a +large force of workmen and yields a profit to the lord proprietor. Syros +in the Cyclades fattens on its early spring vegetable trade with Athens +and Constantinople.[947] + +In the Mediterranean lands, where drought and excessive heat during the +growing season offer adverse conditions for agriculture, the small +islands, especially those of fertile volcanic soil, show the greatest +productivity and hence marked density of population. Though the rainfall +may be slight, except where a volcanic peak rises to condense moisture, +heavy dews and the thick mists of spring quicken vegetation. This is the +case in Malta, which boasts a population of 2,000 to the square mile, +exclusive of the English garrison.[948] Little Limosa and Pantellaria, +the merest fragments of land out in the mid-channel of the +Mediterranean, have a population of 200 to the square mile.[949] The +Lipari group north of Sicily average nearly 400 on every square mile of +their fertile soil;[950] but this average rises in Salina to 500, and in +Lipari itself, as also in Ponza of the Pontine group, to nearly 1300. +Here fertile volcanic slopes of highly cultivated land lift vineyards, +orchards of figs, and plantations of currants to the sunny air. But +nearby Alicuri, almost uncultivated, has a sparse population of some +five hundred shepherds and fishermen. Panaria and Filicuri are in about +the same plight. Here again we find those sharp island contrasts. + +[Sidenote: Relation of density to area.] + +The insular region of the Indian Ocean, which is inhabited by peoples +quite different in race and cultural status from those of the +Mediterranean, yet again demonstrates the power of islands to attract, +preserve, multiply and concentrate population. This is especially true +of the smaller islands, which in every case show a density of population +many times that of the neighboring mainland of Africa. Only vast +Madagascar, continental in size, repeats the sparsity of the continent. +An oceanic climate increases the humidity of the islands as compared +with the mainland lying in the same desiccating tradewind belt. Moreover +their small area has enabled them to be permeated by incoming Arab, +English, and French influences, which have raised their status of +civilization and therewith the average density of population. This +culminates in English Mauritius, which shows 540 inhabitants to the +square mile, occupied in the production of sugar, molasses, rum, +vanilla, aloes, and copra. In Zanzibar this density is 220 to the square +mile; in Reunion 230; in Mayotte, the Comores and Seychelles, the +average varies from 100 to 145 to the square mile, though Mahe in the +Seychelles group has one town of 20,000 inhabitants.[951] + +In the Malay Archipelago, an oceanic climate and tropical location have +combined to stimulate fertility to the greatest extent; but this local +wealth has been exploited in the highest degree in the smaller islands +having relatively the longest coastline and amplest contact with the +sea. The great continent-like areas of Borneo, New Guinea and Sumatra +show a correspondingly sparse population; Java, smaller than the +smallest of these and coated with mud from its fertilizing volcanoes, +supports 587 inhabitants to the square mile; but this exceptional +average is due to rare local productivity. Java's little neighbors to +the east, Bali and Lombok, each with an area of only about 2100 square +miles, have a density respectively of 338 and 195 to the square mile. +This density rises suddenly in small Amboina (area 264 square miles), +the isle of the famous clove monopoly, to 1000,[952] drops in the other +Moluccas, where Papuan influences are strong, even to 20, but rises +again in the pure Malayan Philippines to 69. In the Philippines a +distinct connection is to be traced between the density of population +and smallness of area. The explanation lies in the attraction of the +coast for the sea-faring Malay race, and the mathematical law of +increase of shoreline with decrease of insular area. Since 65 per cent. +of the whole Philippine population inhabits coastal municipalities, it +is not surprising that the 73 islands from ten to a hundred square miles +in area count 127 inhabitants to the square mile, and those of less than +ten square miles, of which there are nearly a thousand, have a density +of 238.[953] + +This same insular density, supported by fertility, fisheries and trade, +appears again in the West Indies, and also the contrast in density +between large and small islands down to a certain limit of +diminutiveness. The Greater Antilles increase in density from Cuba +through smaller Haiti and Jamaica down to little Porto Rico, which +boasts 264 inhabitants to the square mile. In the smaller area of the +Danish Indies and Guadeloupe about this same density (215 and 274) +reappears; but it mounts to 470 in Martinique and to 1160 in +Barbadoes.[954] + +[Sidenote: Island resorts.] + +Climate advantages often encourage density of population on islands, by +attracting to them visitors who make a local demand for the fruits of +the soil and thereby swell the income of the islands. For instance, +about the densely populated region of the Gulf of Naples, Procida has +14,000 inhabitants on its one and a half square miles of area, while +fertile Ischia and Capri have 1400 to the square mile. Here a rich +volcanic soil, peaks which attract rain by their altitude and visitors +by their beauty, and a mild oceanic climate delightful in winter as in +summer, all contribute to density of population. Sicily, Malta and Corfu +also gain in the same way in winter. The Isle of Man owes some of its +recent increase of population, now 238 to the square mile, to the fact +that it has become the summer playground for the numerous factory +workers of Lancashire in England. + +[Sidenote: Density of population affected by focal location for trade.] + +Sometimes climatic advantages are reinforced by a favorable focal point, +which brings the profits of trade to supplement those of agriculture. +This factor of distributing and exporting center has undoubtedly +contributed to the prosperity and population of Reunion, Mahe, Mauritius +and Zanzibar, as it did formerly to that of ancient Rhodes and modern +St. Thomas at the angle of the Antilles. Barbadoes, by reason of its +outpost location to the east of the Windward Isles, is the first to +catch incoming vessels from England, and is therefore a focus of +steamship lines and a distributing point for the southern archipelago, +so that we find here the greatest density of any island in the West +Indies.[955] The 9405 inhabitants of Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas and +the 15,000 of Willemsted on Curaçao give these also a characteristic +insular density. Samos, blessed with good soil, an excellent position on +Aegean maritime routes, and virtual autonomy, supports a population of +300 to the square mile.[956] + +Focal location alone can often achieve this density. Syros, one of the +smallest and by nature the most barren of the Cyclades, though well +tilled is the great commercial and shipping center of the Aegean, and +has in Hermupolis with its 17,700 population by far the largest town of +the archipelago.[957] This development has come since Greece achieved +its independence. It reminds us of the distinction and doubtless also +population that belonged to Delos in ancient days. Advantageous +commercial location and density of population characterize Kilwauru and +Singapore at the east and west extremities of the Malay Archipelago. The +Bahrein Islands, which England has acquired in the Persian Gulf, serve +as an emporium of trade with eastern Arabia and have a local wealth in +their pearl fisheries. These facts account for the 68,000 inhabitants +dwelling on their 240 square miles (600 square kilometers) of sterile +surface.[958] + +[Sidenote: Overflow of island population to the mainland.] + +The concentration of population in these favored spots of land with +inelastic boundaries, and the tendency of that population to increase +under the stimulating, interactive life make the restriction of area +soon felt. For this reason, so many colonies which are started on +inshore islets from motives of protection have to be transferred to the +mainland to insure a food supply. A settlement of Huguenots, made in +1535 on an island in the harbor of Rio Janeiro, found its base too small +for cultivation, but feared the attack of the hostile Indians and +Portuguese on the mainland. After three years of a struggling existence, +it fell a prey to the Portuguese,[959] De Monts' short-lived colony on +an island in the mouth of the St. Croix River in 1604 had an excellent +site for defence, but was cut off by the drifting ice in winter from +mainland supplies of wood, water and game, while no cultivation was +possible in the sandy soil.[960] + +Such sites suffice for mere trading posts, but are inadequate for the +larger social group of a real colony. The early Greek colonists, with +their predilection for insular locations, recognized this limitation and +offset it by the occupation of a strip of the nearest mainland, +cultivated and defended by fortified posts, as an adjunct to the support +of the islands. Such a subsidiary coastal hem was called a _Paraea_. The +ancient Greek colonies on the islands of Thasos and Samothrace each +possessed such a Paraea.[961] The Aeolian inhabitants of Tenedos held a +strip of the opposite Troad coast north of Cape Lekton, while those of +Lesbos appropriated the south coast of the Troad.[962] In the same way +Tarentum and Syracuse, begun on inshore islands, soon overflowed on to +the mainland. Sometimes the island site is abandoned altogether and the +colony transferred to the mainland. The ancient Greek colony of Cyrene +had an initial existence on the island of Platea just off the Libyan +coast, but, not flourishing there, was moved after an interval of +several years to the African mainland, where "the sky was perforated" by +the mountains of Barca.[963] De Monts' colony was removed from its +island to Port Royal in Nova Scotia. + +[Sidenote: Precocious development of island agriculture.] + +Where an island offers in its climate and soil conditions favorable to +agriculture, tillage begins early to assume an intensive, scientific +character, to supply the increasing demand for food. The land, fixed in +the amount of area, must be made elastic in its productivity by the +application of intelligence and industry. Hence in island habitats, an +early development of agriculture, accompanied by a parallel skill in +exploiting the food resources of the sea, is a prevailing feature. In +Oceanica, agriculture is everywhere indigenous, but shows greatest +progress in islands like Tonga and Fiji, where climate and soil are +neither lavish nor niggardly in their gifts, but yield a due return for +the labor of tillage. The Society[964] and Samoan Islands, where nature +has been more prodigal, rank lower in agriculture, though George Forster +found in Tahiti a relatively high degree of cultivation.[965] The small, +rocky, coralline Paumotas rank lower still, but even here plantains, +sugar-cane, sweet potatoes, yams, taro and solanum are raised. The +crowded atolls of the Gilbert group show pains-taking tillage. Here we +find coco-palms with their roots fertilized with powdered pumice, and +taro cultivated in trenches excavated for the purpose and located near +the lagoons, so that the water may percolate through the coral sand to +the thirsty roots.[966] To lonely Easter Isle nature has applied a +relentless lash. At the time of Cook's visit it was woodless and +boatless except for one rickety canoe, and therefore was almost excluded +from the food supplies of the sea. Hence its destitute natives, by means +of careful and often ingenious tillage, made its parched and rocky +slopes support excellent plantations of bananas and sugar-cane.[967] + +The islands of Melanesia show generally fenced fields, terrace farming +on mountain sides, irrigation canals, fertilized soils, well trimmed +shade trees and beautiful flower gardens,[968] proof that the +cultivation of the ground has advanced to the aesthetic stage, as it has +in insular Japan. In Tonga the coco-palm plantations are weeded and +manured. Here, after a devastating war, the victorious chief devotes his +attention to the cultivation of the land, which soon assumes a beautiful +and flourishing appearance.[969] In Tongatabu, which is described by the +early visitors as one big garden, Cook found officials appointed to +inspect all produce of the island and to enforce the cultivation of a +certain quota of land by each householder.[970] Here agriculture is a +national concern. + +[Sidenote: Melanesian agriculture.] + +In the minute land fragments which constitute Micronesia, fishing is +the chief source of subsistence; agriculture, especially for the all +important taro, is limited to the larger islands like the Pelews. In the +vast islands of western Melanesia, agriculture is on the whole less +advanced. New Guinea, where the chase yields support to many villages, +has large sections still a wilderness, though some parts are cultivated +like a garden. In the smaller Melanesian islands, such as New Hebrides, +New Britain and the Solomon group, we find extensive plantations laid +out on irrigated terraces, In New Hebrides and the Banks Islands every +single village has its flowers and aromatic herbs.[971] But it is in +Fiji that native island agriculture seems to culminate. Here a race of +dark, frizzly haired savages, addicted to cannibalism, have in the art +of tillage taken a spurt forward in civilization, till in this respect +they stand abreast of the average European. The German asparagus bed is +not cultivated more carefully than the yam plants of Fiji; these also +are grown in mounds made of soil which has been previously pulverized by +hand. The variety and excellence of their vegetable products are +amazing, and find their reflection in an elaborate national cuisine, +strangely at variance with the otherwise savage life.[972] + +West of Melanesia, the Malay Archipelago shows a high average of +tillage. The inhabitants of Java, Madura, Bali, Lombok and Sumbawa are +skilled agriculturists and employ an elaborate system of +irrigation,[973] but the natives of Timor, on the other hand, have made +little progress. In the Philippines a rich and varied agriculture has +been the chief source of wealth since the Spanish conquest early in the +sixteenth century, proving a native aptitude which began to develop long +before.[974] + +[Sidenote: Intensive tillage.] + +The dense population of the Mediterranean islands is the concomitant of +an advanced agriculture. The connection between elaborate tillage and +scant insular area is indicated in the earliest history of classic +Aegina. The inhabitants of this island were called Myrmidons, Strabo +tells us, because by digging like ants they covered the rocks with earth +to cultivate all the ground; and in order to economize the soil for this +purpose, lived in excavations under ground and abstained from the use +of bricks.[975] To-day, terraced slopes, irrigation, hand-made soils, +hoe and spade tillage, rotation of crops, and a rich variety of field +and garden products characterize the economic history of most +Mediterranean islands, whether Elba, the Lipari, Ponza, Procida, Capri, +Ischia, Pantellaria, Lampedusa,[976] or the Aegean groups. The sterile +rock of Malta has been converted for two-thirds of its area into fertile +gardens, fields and orchards. The upper stratum of rock has been +pulverized and enriched by manure; the surface has been terraced and +walled to protect it against high winds. In consequence, the Maltese +gardens are famous throughout the Mediterranean.[977] In the Cyclades +every patch of tillable ground is cultivated by the industrious +inhabitants. Terraced slopes are green with orchards of various southern +fruits, and between the trees are planted melons and vegetables. Fallow +land and uncultivated hillsides, as well as the limestone islands fit +only for pastures, are used for flocks of sheep and goats.[978] + +[Sidenote: Japanese agriculture.] + +It is in Japan that agriculture has attained a national and aesthetic +importance reached nowhere else. Of the 150,000 square miles +constituting Japan proper, two-thirds are mountains; large tracts of +lowlands are useless rock wastes, owing to the detritus carried down by +inundating mountain torrents.[979] Hence to-day arable land forms only +15.7 per cent. of the whole area. During the two hundred and fifty years +of exclusion when emigration and foreign trade were forbidden, a large +and growing population had to be supplied from a small insular area, +further restricted by reason of the configuration of the surface. Here +the geographical effects of a small, naturally defined area worked out +to their logical conclusion, Consequently agriculture progressed rapidly +and gave the farmer a rank in the social scale such as he attained +nowhere else.[980] His methods of tillage are much the same as in +overcrowded China, but his national importance and hence his ranking in +society is much higher. In Japan to-day farming absorbs 60 per cent. of +the population. The system of tillage, in many respects primitive, is +yet very thorough, and by means of skilful manuring makes one plot of +ground yield two or three crops per annum.[981] Every inch of arable +land is cultivated in grain, vegetables and fruits. Mountains and hills +are terraced and tilled far up their slopes. Meadows are conspicuously +absent, as are also fallow fields. Land is too valuable to lie idle. +Labor is chiefly manual and is shared by the women and children; mattock +and hoe are more common than the plow.[982] Such elaborate cultivation +and such pressure of population eventuate in small holdings. In Japan +one hectar (2 1-2 acres) is the average farm per family. + +[Sidenote: The case of England.] + +While Japan's agriculture reflected the small area of an island +environment, and under its influence reached a high development, +England's from the beginning of the fifteenth century declined before +the competition of English commerce, which gained ascendency owing to +the easy accessibility of Great Britain to the markets of Europe. The +ravages of the Black Death in the latter half of the fourteenth century +produced a scarcity of agricultural laborers and hence a prohibitive +increase of wages. To economize labor, the great proprietors resorted to +sheep farming and the raising of wool, which, either in the raw state or +manufactured into cloth, became the basis of English foreign trade. A +distinct deterioration in agriculture followed this reversion to a +pastoral basis of economic life, supplemented by a growing commerce +which absorbed all the enterprise of the country. The steady contraction +of the area under tillage threw out of employment the great mass of +agricultural laborers, made them paupers and vagrants.[983] Hence +England entered the period of maritime discoveries with a redundant +population. This furnished the raw material for her colonies, and made +her territorial expansion assume a solid, permanent character, unknown +to the flimsy trading stations which mark the mere extension of a field +of commerce. + +[Sidenote: Emigration and colonization from islands.] + +Even when agriculture, fisheries and commerce have done their utmost, in +the various stages of civilization, to increase the food supply, yet +insular populations tend to outgrow the means of subsistence procurable +from their narrow base. Hence islanders, like peninsula peoples, are +prone to emigrate and colonize. This tendency is encouraged by their +mobility, born of their nautical skill and maritime location. King +Minos of Crete, according to Thucydides and Aristotle, colonized the +Cyclades.[984] Greece, from its redundant population, peopled various +Aegean and Ionian islands, which in turn threw off spores of settlements +to other isles and shores. Corcyra, which was colonized from the +Peloponnesus, sent out a daughter colony to Epidamnos on the Illyrian +coast. Andros, one of the Cyclades, as early as 654 B.C., colonized +Acanthus and Stagirus in Chalcidice.[985] Paros, settled first by +Cretans and then by Ionians, at a very early date sent colonies to +Thasos and to Parium on the Propontis, while Samos was a perennial +fountain emitting streams of settlement to Thrace, Cilicia, Crete, Italy +and Sicily. [Map page 251.] + +This moving picture of Greek emigration is duplicated in the Malay +Archipelago, especially in the smaller eastern islands. Almost every +Malay tribe has traditions based upon migrations. The southern +Philippines derived the considerable Mohammedan element of their +populations from the Samal Laut, who came from Sumatra and the islands +of the Strait of Malacca.[986] A Malayan strain can be traced through +Polynesia to far-off Easter Isle. Sometimes the emigration is a +voluntary exile from home for a short period and a definite purpose. The +inhabitants of Bouton, Binungku, and the neighboring islets, all of them +located southeast of Celebes, have for the past twenty-five years come +in great numbers to the larger islands of Ceram, Buru, Amboina and +Banda, where they have laid out and carefully cultivated plantations of +maize, tobacco, bananas and coco-palms. Generally only the men come, +work two years, save their profits and then return home. These ambitious +tillers look like savages, are shy as wild things of the woods, and work +naked to the waist.[987] + +Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia, where every condition of land and +sea tends to develop the migratory spirit, form a region of extensive +colonization.[988] Settlements of one race are scattered among the +island groups of another, making the ethnic boundaries wide penumbras. +In some smaller islands of Melanesia the Polynesian colonists have +exterminated or expelled the original inhabitants, and are found there +now with all their distinctive race characteristics; but in the larger +islands, they have been merged in the resident population, and their +presence is only to be surmised from the existence of Polynesian +customs, such as father-right in New Hebrides and Solomon Island side +by side with the prevailing Melanesian mother-right.[989] In small +islands, like Tongatabu, Samoa and Fiji, emigration becomes habitual, a +gradual spilling over of the redundant population and hence not a +formidable inundation. In all this insular region of the Pacific, the +impulse to emigration is so persistent, that the resulting inter-insular +colonization obliterates sharp distinctions of race; it annuls the +segregation of an island environment, and makes everywhere for +amalgamation and unification, rather than differentiation.[990] + +[Sidenote: Modern emigration from islands.] + +Among highly civilized peoples, where better economic methods bring +greater density of population and set at the same time a higher standard +of living, emigration from islands is especially marked. Japan has seen +a formidable exodus since an end was put to its long period of +compression. This has taken the form of widespread emigration to various +foreign lands, notably the Hawaiian Islands and the United States, and +also of internal colonization in its recently acquired territory in +Formosa and Korea.[991] The Maltese have spread from their congested +island, and are found to-day as gardeners, sailors and traders along all +the Mediterranean coasts.[992] Majorca and the more barren Cyclades[993] +tell the same story. The men of Capri go in considerable numbers to +South America, but generally return home again. The Icelanders often +pull themselves out of the stagnation of their lonely, ungenerous island +to become thrifty citizens of western Canada. + +[Sidenote: Maritime enterprise as outlet.] + +Emigration from islands readily throws itself into the channel of +navigation and foreign trade. The northern Sporades, especially Skiathos +and Skopelos, are the home of sailors who can be found over all the +world.[994] In this appetency for a nautical career, small inshore +islets are often distinguished from the nearby mainland. Nearly all the +masculine population of the Frisian Islands were seamen prior to 1807. +In the eighteenth century a third of the Hamburg vessels were commanded +by captains from the little island of Sylte, and a third of the +Greenland fleet of the Netherlands by natives of Föhr.[995] + +In England the exodus took the form of trading expeditions and the +foundation of commercial colonies long before the food resources of the +island had been even considerably developed. The accessible sea offered +lines of least resistance, while the monopoly of the land by a +privileged aristocracy and the fiercely defended corn laws made the +limitations of a small area more oppressive. In Ireland, a landless +peasantry in a grainless land, dulled by deprivation of opportunity, +found in emigration an escape from insupportable evils. + +[Sidenote: Artificial checks to population.] + +While emigration draws off the surplus population, there tend to develop +in islands, as also in barren highlands where population early reaches +the point of saturation, various devices to restrict natural increase. +The evils of congestion are foreseen and guarded against. Abbé Raynal, +writing of islanders in general, remarked as far back as 1795, "It is +among these people that we trace the origin of that multitude of +singular institutions which retards the progress of population. +Anthropophagy, the castration of males, the infibulation of females, +late marriages, the consecration of virginity, the approbation of +celibacy, the punishments exercised against girls who become mothers at +too early an age," he enumerates as such checks. Malthus, in his Essay +on Population, commenting on this statement, notes that the bounds to +the number of inhabitants on islands, especially small ones, are so +narrow and so obvious that no one can ignore them.[996] + +The checks to population practiced on islands are either preventive or +positive. The extreme measure to restrict marriage is found among the +wretched Budumas who inhabit the small, marshy islands of Lake Chad. +Tribal custom allows only the chiefs and headmen to have wives. A brass +crescent inserted in the ear of a boy indicates the favored one among a +chief's sons destined to carry on his race. For his brothers this is +made physically impossible; they become big, dull, timid creatures +contributing by their fishing to the support of the thinly populated +villages. The natives of the Shari River delta on the southern shore of +Lake Chad use Buduma as a term of contempt for a man.[997] + +[Sidenote: Polyandry.] + +In islands, as in unproductive highlands where hunger stalks abroad, +marriage readily takes the form of polyandry. On the Canary Islands, at +the time of their conquest in 1402, polyandry existed in Lancerote and +possibly in Fuerteventura, often assigning one woman to three husbands; +but in the other islands of the group monogamy was strictly +maintained.[998] In Oceanica polygamy, monogamy or polyandry prevails +according to a man's means, the poverty of the islands, and the supply +of women. A plurality of wives is always the privilege of the chiefs and +the wealthy, but all three forms of marriage may be found on the same +island. Scarcity of women gives rise to polyandry in Tahiti,[999] and +consigns one woman to four or five men. In old Hawaii, where there were +four or five men to one woman a kind of incipient polyandry arose by the +addition of a countenanced paramour to the married couple's +establishment.[1000] Robert Louis Stevenson found the same complaisant +arrangement a common one in the Marquesas, where the husband's deputy +was designated by the term of _pikio_ in the native vocabulary.[1001] +Polyandry existed in Easter Isle, among whose stunted and destitute +population the men far exceeded the women, and children were few, +according to reports of the early visitors.[1002] Numerous other +instances make this connection between island habitat, deficiency of +women, need of checking increase, and polyandrous marriages an obvious +one.[1003] + +[Sidenote: Infanticide.] + +This disproportion of the sexes in Oceanica is due to the murder of +female infants, too early child-bearing, overwork, privation, +licentiousness, and the violence of the men.[1004] The imminence of +famine dictates certain positive checks to population, among which +infanticide and abortion are widespread in Oceanica. In some parts of +the New Hebrides and the Solomon groups it is so habitual, that in some +families all children are killed, and substitutes purchased at +will.[1005] In the well-tilled Fiji Islands, a pregnant girl is strangled +and her seducer slain. The women make a practice of drinking medicated +waters to produce sterility. Failing in this, the majority kill their +children either before or after birth. In the island of Vanua Levu +infanticide reaches from one-half to two-thirds of all children +conceived; here it is reduced to a system and gives employment to +professional murderers of babies, who hover like vultures over every +child-bed. All destroyed after birth are females.[1006] And yet here, as +on many other islands of Melanesia and Polynesia, such offspring as are +spared are treated with foolish fondness and indulgence.[1007] The two +facts are not incompatible. + +[Sidenote: Approved by the state.] + +Geographic conditions made infanticide a state measure in these crowded +communities. On the small coral atolls, where the food supply was +scantest, it was enforced by law. On Vaitupu, in the Ellice group, only +two children were allowed to a couple; on Nukufelau, only one. Any +violation of this unique sumptuary law was punished by a fine.[1008] On +the congested Gilbert atolls, a woman rarely had more than two children, +never more than three. Abortion, produced by a regular midwife, disposed +of any subsequent offspring. Affection for children was very strong +here, and infanticide of the living was unknown.[1009] In Samoa, also, +Turner found the practice restricted to the period before birth; but in +Tahiti and elsewhere it was enforced by the tribal village authorities +on the born and unborn.[1010] In pre-Christian Hawaii, two-thirds of all +children, and especially girls, were killed by their parents either +before or after birth. The result was a decay of the maternal instinct +and the custom of farming out children to strangers. This contributed to +the excess of infant mortality, the degeneration of morals and the +instability of the family.[1011] So in Japan the pressure of population +led to infanticide and the sale of daughters to a life of ignominy, +which took them out of the child-bearing class.[1012] Nor was either +custom under the ban. + +The result is a deterioration of morals, an invasion of the family bond, +and a decay of the finer sentiments therewith connected. Captain Cook in +1770 found in Tahiti _Eareeoie_ or _Arreoys_ societies, which were +free-love associations including in their number "over half of the +better sort of the inhabitants." The children begotten of these +promiscuous unions were smothered at birth. Obscene conversations, +indecent dances and frank unchastity on the part of girls and women were +the attendant evils of these loose morals.[1013] Cook was sure that +"these societies greatly prevent the increase of the superior classes of +people of which they are composed." Malthus reports a similar +association in the Marianne Islands, distinguished by a similar name, +devoted to race suicide.[1014] Everywhere in Oceanica marriage is +unstable, and with few exceptions unchastity prevails. Stevenson thinks +it chiefly accountable for the decline of population in the +islands.[1015] However, in the detailed _taboos_ laid upon women in Fiji, +Marquesas, and other Polynesian islands we have the survival of an early +measure to increase reserve between the sexes, long after regard for +chastity has vanished.[1016] + +[Sidenote: Low valuation of human life.] + +The constant pressure of population upon the limits of subsistence +throughout Oceanica has occasioned a low valuation of human life. Among +natural peoples the helpless suffer first. The native Hawaiians, though +a good-natured folk, were relentless towards the aged, weak, sick, and +insane. These were frequently stoned to death or allowed to perish of +hunger.[1017] In Fiji, the aged are treated with such contempt, that when +decrepitude or illness threatens them, they beg their children to +strangle them, unless the children anticipate the request.[1018] In Vate +(or Efate) of the New Hebrides, old people are buried alive, and their +passage to another world duly celebrated by a feast.[1019] However, in +the Tonga Islands and in New Zealand, great respect and consideration +are shown the aged as embodying experience.[1020] The harsher custom +recalls an ancient law of Aegean Ceos, which, ordained that all persons +over sixty years of age should be compelled to drink hemlock, in order +that there might be sufficient food for the rest.[1021] + +[Sidenote: Cannibalism in islands.] + +Many customs of Oceanica can be understood only in the light of the +small value attached to human life in this island world. The +overpopulation which lies back of their colonization explains the human +sacrifices in their religious orgies and funeral rites, as also the +widespread practice of cannibalism. This can be traced in vestigial +forms, or as an occasional or habitual custom from one end of the +Pacific to the other, from the Marquesas to New Guinea and from New +Zealand to Hawaii. All Melanesia is tainted with it, and Micronesia is +not above suspicion. The cause of this extensive practice, Stevenson +attributes to the imminence of famine and the craving for flesh as food +in these small islands, which are destitute of animals except fowls, +dogs and hogs. In times of scarcity cannibalism threatens all; it +strikes from within or without the clan.[1022] Ratzel leans to the same +opinion.[1023] Captain Cook thought the motive of a good full meal of +human flesh was often back of the constant warfare in New Zealand, and +was sometimes the only alternative of death by hunger. Cannibalism was +not habitual in the Tonga Islands, but became conspicuous during periods +of famine.[1024] In far-away Tierra del Fuego, where a peculiarly harsh +climate and the low cultural status of the natives combine to produce a +frightful infant mortality and therefore to repress population, +cannibalism within the clan is indulged in only at the imperious dictate +of mid-winter hunger. The same thing is true in the nearby Chonos +Archipelago.[1025] + +These are the darker effects of an island habitat, the vices of its +virtues. That same excessive pressure of population which gives rise to +infanticide also stimulates agriculture, industry and trade; it develops +ingenuity in making the most of local resources, and finally leads to +that widespread emigration and colonization which has made islanders the +great distributors of culture, from Easter Isle to Java and from ancient +Crete to modern England. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER XIII + +[803] Table of areas of peninsulas and islands, Justus Perthes, _Taschen +Atlas_, p. 9. Gotha, 1905. + +[804] H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, pp. 105-108. London, +1904. + +[805] W. Deecke, Italy, p. 45. London, 1904. + +[806] Journey of William de Rubruquis, pp. 187, 204, Hakluyt Society +Publication, London, 1903. + +[807] Archibald Little, The Far East, pp. 35, 45. Oxford, 1905. + +[808] Strabo, Book X, chap. II, 19. + +[809] Ratzel, _Die Erde und das Leben_, Vol. I. pp. 312-313. Leipzig, +1901. + +[810] Charles H. Hawes, In the Uttermost East, p. 103. New York, 1904. + +[811] W.E. Griffis, The Mikado's Empire, Vol. I, pp. 26-27. New York, +1904. + +[812] Darwin, Origin of Species, Vol. II, chap. XIII, p, 178. New York, +1895. + +[813] A.R. Wallace, Geographical Distribution of Animals, Vol. II, p. +61. London, 1876. + +[814] Darwin, Origin of Species, Vol. II, chap. XIII, p. 183. New York, +1895. + +[815] _Ibid._, Vol. II, chap. XIII, pp. 178-180. + +[816] A.R. Wallace, Island Life, pp. 331-332, 338-389, 393, 402, +409-410, 449, 456-463. New York, 1893. + +[817] _Ibid._, 342, 370-371. + +[818] Emerson, English Traits, chap. VI. + +[819] Capt. F. Brinkley, Japan, Vol. I, p. 50. Boston and Tokyo, 1901. + +[820] W.E. Griffis, The Mikado's Empire, Vol. I, p. 198. New York, 1904. + +[821] Arthur M. Knapp, Feudal and Modern Japan, Vol. I, pp. 211, 220, +221. New York, 1900. + +[822] Emerson, English Traits, chap. III. + +[823] Ronald M. Burrows, The Discoveries in Crete, pp. 134-136, 141, +162, 177. New York, 1907. + +[824] _Ibid._, chapters IV and V. + +[825] _Ibid._, p. 179. Angelo Mosso, The Palaces of Crete, pp. 46, +54-55, 61-62, 81. London, 1907. + +[826] Ronald M. Burrows, The Discoveries in Crete, pp. 64-65, 82, 84, +147-150. New York, 1907. James Baikie, The Sea Kings of Crete, pp. +235-237. London, 1910. + +[827] J.B. Bury, History of Greece, pp. 8-10. New York,1909. + +[828] R.M. Burrows, The Discoveries in Crete, pp. 36, 44-46, 50-51, 85, +149-150, 179. New York, 1907. + +[829] _Ibid._, 136-137. + +[830] Private communication from Mrs. Harriet Boyd Hawes. + +[831] Recent Discoveries in Crete, _The Chautauquan_, Vol. 43, p. 220. +1906. R.M. Burrows, The Discoveries in Crete, pp. 103, 162. New York, +1907. + +[832] Grote, History of Greece, Vol. IV, pp. 244-245. New York, 1857. + +[833] Strabo, Book XIV, chap. II, 7-13. + +[834] Strabo, Book VII, chap. VI, 16. + +[835] A.P. Niblack, Coast Indians of Southern Alaska and Northern +British Columbia, pp. 382-384. House Misc. Doc. 142. Washington. Dr. +George Dawson, The Haidas, _Harper's Monthly_, August, 1882. + +[836] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 180. London, 1896-1898. + +[837] Article, The National Academy of Sciences, Nation, Vol. LXXX, p. +328. 1905. Capt. James Cook, A Voyage Towards the South Pole, 1772-1775, +Vol. I, p. 284, 288-296. London. 1777. George Forster, Voyage Round the +World, Vol. I, pp. 566-567, 580-581, 586-591. London, 1777. + +[838] G. Sergi, The Mediterranean Race, chap. VII. London and New York, +1901. Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. IV, pp. 222-223. New York, +1902-1906. + +[839] Charles W. Hawes, The Uttermost East, pp. 113-116. New York, +1904. + +[840] William Bright, Early English Church History, pp. 224-234. Oxford. +1897. P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ireland, Vol. I, pp. 320, 389, 390. +London, 1903. + +[841] W.H. Dall, Masks and Labrets, p. 137. Third Annual Report of +Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1884. + +[842] A.P. Niblack, Coast Indians of Southern Alaska and Northern +British Columbia, pp. 236-382. Washington. + +[843] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 187. New York, 1902. + +[844] A.B. Ellis, The West African Islands, p. 202. London, 1885. +History of the Conquest of the Canaries, Introduction, pp. XIII, XVII, +XXXIII, XXXIV. Hakluyt Society, London, 1872. + +[845] Henry Gannett, People of the Philippines, Report of the Eighth +International Geographical Congress, Washington, 1904. + +[846] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 549. New York, 1903. + +[847] W. Deecke, Italy, p. 451. London, 1904. + +[848] Nelson Annandale, The Faroes and Iceland, p. 14. Oxford, 1905. + +[849] J. Partsch, Central Europe, Map, p. 131, and p. 133. London, 1903. + +[850] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 272, 304, 305, 317. New York, +1899. + +[851] _Ibid._, p. 303. + +[852] _Ibid._, Map, p. 251, and p. 253. + +[853] W. Deecke, Italy, p. 451. London, 1904. + +[854] Darwin, Origin of Species, Vol. II, chap. XIII, pp. 179, 180, 184. +New York, 1895. A. E. Wallace, Island Life, pp. 284-285, 290-291. London +and New York, 1892. + +[855] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 554. New York, 1902. + +[856] Ratzel, _Die Erde und das Leben_, Vol. I, p. 364. Leipsig, 1901. + +[857] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, pp. 454-456. London, +1896-1898. H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 1018. New York, 1902. + +[858] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 456. London, 1896-1898. + +[859] Nordenskiold, Voyage of the Vega, pp. 563, 588, 591. New York, +1882. + +[860] A.R. Wallace, Malay Archipelago, pp. 368, 380, 381. New York, +1869. + +[861] Richard Semon, In the Australian Bush, pp. 277-278. London,1899. + +[862] Strabo, Book VIII, chap. VI, 16. + +[863] Pliny, _Naturalis Historia_, Book IV, 12. + +[864] _Ibid._, Book VI, chap, 32. + +[865] Hereford George, Historical Geography of the British Empire, pp. +130-133. London, 1904. + +[866] Dietrich Schaefer, _Die Hansestädte und König Waldemar von +Dänemark_, pp. 37-44. Jena, 1879. + +[867] Hereford George, Historical Geography of the British Empire, pp. +127-128. London, 1904. + +[868] The Danish West Indies, pp. 2767, 2769. Summary of Commerce and +Finance for January, 1902. Washington. + +[869] E.A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, pp. 22, 29, 37, 65, +77, 384, 412-415, 419, 426, 465. London, 1882. + +[870] _Ibid._, 35, 48, 49, 54-55, 80, 379, 382-385, 409, 411, 556, 557. +E.A. Freeman, Sicily, chaps. I, II. New York and London, 1894. + +[871] W. Deecke, Italy, pp. 132, 445. London, 1904. W.Z. Ripley, Races +of Europe, p. 271. New York, 1899. + +[872] Elisée Reclus, Europe, Vol. I, p. 320. New York, 1886. + +[873] W. Deecke, Italy, pp. 448, 453. London, 1904. + +[874] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 367. New York, 1902. + +[875] David Murray, Story of Japan, p. 156. New York, 1894. + +[876] Henry Dyer. Dai Nippon, p. 61. New York, 1904. + +[877] E.A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, pp. 55, 245, 252, +257, 258, 264, 556. London, 1882. + +[878] Thucydides I, 114; IV, 57-59, 62. + +[879] _Ibid._, IV, 120-122. + +[880] Aristotle, Politics, Book XI, chaps. 7, 8. + +[881] J.T. Bent, The Bahrein Islands in the Persian Gulf, _Proceedings +of the Roy. Geog. Soc_., Vol. XII, p. 1. London, 1890. + +[882] W.F. Walker, The Azores, p. 22. London, 1886. + +[883] A.B. Ellis, West African Islands, p. 203. London, 1885. + +[884] Strabo, Book III, chap. V, 1. + +[885] H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, pp. 10-12. London, +1904. + +[886] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 301, 311. New York, 1899. + +[887] H.B. George, Historical Geography of the British Empire, pp. 100, +103, 104. London, 1904. + +[888] J.R. Green, The Making of England, Vol. II, pp. 30, 31, 35. +London, 1904. + +[889] James Bryce, Holy Roman Empire, p. 185. London, 1890. George Webbe +Dasent, The Story of Burnt Njal, or Life in Iceland at the End of the +Tenth Century, Vol. I, pp. LII-LXVIII. Edinburgh, 1861. + +[890] Dahlmann, _Geschichte van Dänemark_, Vol. II, pp. 265-268. +Hamburg, 1857. James Bryce, Introduction to Helmolt, History of the +World, Vol. I, p. XXII. New York, 1902. + +[891] George T. Stokes, Ireland and the Celtic Church, pp. 206-230. +London, 1886. + +[892] J.R. Green, History of the English People, Vol. I, pp. 48-49. + +[893] Recent Discoveries in Crete, _The Chautauquan_, Vol. XLIII, p. +220. 1906. Angelo Mosso, The Palaces of Crete, p. 325. London, 1907. + +[894] Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. II, pp. 496-504 New York +1902-6. + +[895] David Murray, Story of Japan, p. 156. New York, 1894. W.E. +Griffis, The Mikado's Empire, Vol. I, pp. 176-181. New York, 1903. + +[896] J.R. Green, History of the English People, Vol. I, pp. 30-33. New +York. + +[897] Capt. F. Brinkley, Japan, Vol. I, p. 8. Boston and Tokyo, 1901. + +[898] Capt. A.T. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon History, p. 29. New +York, 1902. + +[899] H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, pp. 341, 343. +London, 1904. + +[900] Ratzel, _Die Erde und das Leben_, Vol. I, p. 362. Leipzig, 1901. + +[901] W.E. Griffis, The Mikado's Empire, Vol. I, p. 258. New York, +1903. + +[902] W.F. Walker, The Azores, p. 2. London, 1886. + +[903] F.W. Wines, Punishment and Reformation, pp. 166-167, 184-188. New +York, 1895. + +[904] Tacitus, Annals, Book I, chap. XIII. + +[905] _Ibid._, Book IV, chaps. III, XV. Book II, chap. XIX. + +[906] W. Deecke, Italy, pp. 270, 410, 413, 448, 450. London, 1904. + +[907] Longmans Gazetteer of the World, Article Easter Isle. + +[908] Darwin and Fitzroy, Voyage of the Beagle, Vol. II, p. 59. London, +1839. + +[909] _Ibid._, Vol. II, pp. 490-492. + +[910] A.B. Ellis, West African Islands, pp. 1-3. London, 1885. + +[911] Longmans Gazetteer of the World, Andaman and Nicobar. + +[912] Darwin and Fitzroy, Voyage of the Beagle, Vol. III, p. 245. +London, 1839. + +[913] A.B. Ellis, West African Islands, pp. 72, 73, 241. London, 1885. + +[914] Charles H. Hawes, The Uttermost East, p. 345. New York, 1904. + +[915] The Dry Tortugas, _Harper's Monthly_, Vol. 37, p. 260. 1868. + +[916] A.R. Wallace, Island Life, pp. 332, 371, 410, 457, 460-461, 464. +London, 1892. + +[917] _Ibid._, pp. 407, 408, 410, 462. + +[918] Census of the Philippine Islands of 1903, Vol. I, p. 456. +Washington, 1905. + +[919] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, pp. 446, 449, 451. London, +1896-1898. + +[920] W.E. Griffis, The Mikado's Empire, Vol. I, pp. 30-31. New York, +1903. + +[921] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, p. 271. New York, 1899. + +[922] Hereford George, Historical Geography of the British Empire, pp. +106-107. London, 1904. + +[923] Nelson Annandale, The Faroes and Iceland, pp. 19, 20, 33, 37, +64-65, 148, 193-194, 198, 206, 208. Oxford, 1905. + +[924] Capt. James Cook, Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, 1776-1780, Vol. II, +pp. 69-70, 75-78. New York, 1796. + +[925] Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, pp. 5-7, 14, 15. New +York, 1859. Basil Thomson, The Fijians, pp. 23-32. London, 1908. + +[926] Mahler, _Siedelungsgebiete und Siedelungslage in Ozeanien_. +Melching _Staatenbildung in Melanesien_, Leipzig, Dissertations, 1897. + +[927] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 570. New York, 1902. + +[928] Aristotle, Politics, Book II, chap. 8. + +[929] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, 297-299. London, 1896-1898. + +[930] _Ibid._, Vol. I, Map, p. 145, pp. 234, 251. + +[931] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 204-214. + +[932] Justus Perthes, _Taschen Atlas_, p. 67. Gotha, 1910. + +[933] _Ibid._, p. 60. + +[934] _Ibid._, p. 37. + +[935] _Ibid._, p. 51. + +[936] _Ibid._, pp. 37, 67. + +[937] Lippincott's New Gazetteer of the World, Madeira and Azores. + +[938] R.L. Stevenson, The South Seas, p. 37. New York, 1903. + +[939] _Ibid._, p. 222. + +[940] J.S. Jenkins, United States Exploring Squadron under Capt. Wilkes, +1838-1842, pp. 401-403. New York, 1855. + +[941] Justus Perthes, _Taschen Atlas_, p. 70. Gotha, 1905. + +[942] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, pp. 158, 179. London, +1896-1898. + +[943] J.S. Jenkins, United States Exploring Squadron under Capt. Wilkes, +1838-1842, p. 462. New York, 1855. + +[944] _Ibid._, p. 314. + +[945] Nelson Annandale, The Faroes and Iceland, pp. 93-129. Oxford, +1905. + +[946] Elisée Reclus, Europe, Vol. IV, p. 344. New York, 1886. + +[947] John Murray, Handbook to Greece and the Ionian Isles, p. 329. +London, 1872. + +[948] Hereford George, Historical Geography of the British Empire, p. +119. London, 1904. + +[949] W. Deecke, Italy, pp. 449-450. London, 1904. + +[950] _Ibid._, pp. 447-448, 410-411. + +[951] Statistics from Justus Perthes, _Taschen Atlas_, p. 65. Gotha, +1910. + +[952] Longmans Gazetteer of the World, Amboina. + +[953] Census of the Philippine Islands of 1903. Vol. II, p. 30. +Washington, 1905. + +[954] Justus Perthes, _Taschen Atlas_, pp. 75, 77. Gotha, 1910. + +[955] Hereford George, Historical Geography of the British Empire, pp. +238-240. London, 1904. + +[956] D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, pp. 243-244. London, 1902. + +[957] Dr. A. Philippson, The Greek Islands of the Aegean, _Scottish +Geographical Magazine_, Vol. XIII, p. 489. 1897. + +[958] J.T. Brent, The Bahrein Islands in the Persian Gulf, _Proceedings +of the Roy. Geog. Society_, Vol. XII, pp. 1-19, 1890; and Justus +Perthes, _Taschen Atlas_, p. 55. Gotha, 1910. + +[959] Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World, pp. 26-32. Boston, +1900. + +[960] _Ibid._, pp. 253-262. + +[961] Thucydides, I, 100, 101. Herodotus, VII, 108, 109. + +[962] Grote, History of Greece, Vol. III, pp. 195, 197. New York, 1857. + +[963] _Ibid._, Vol. IV, pp. 30-33. + +[964] Capt. James Cook, Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, 1776-1780, Vol. II, +pp. 85-86, 88. New York. 1796. + +[965] George Forster, Voyage Round the World, Vol. I, p. 274, 280, 281, +285. London, 1777. + +[966] J.S. Jenkins, United States Exploring Squadron under Capt. Wilkes, +1838-1842, p. 402. New York, 1855. + +[967] George Forster, Voyage Round the World, Vol. I, pp. 571, 578, 587, +595. London, 1777. + +[968] R.H. Codrington, The Melanesians, pp. 303-304. Oxford, 1891. + +[969] William Mariner, Natives of the Tonga Islands, Vol. II, p. 30. +Edinburgh, 1827. + +[970] Capt. James Cook, Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, 1776-1780, Vol. I, +p. 302. New York, 1796. + +[971] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, pp. 254-256. London, +1896-1898. + +[972] Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, pp. 8, 46-49. New +York, 1859. Basil Thomson, The Fijians, p. 339. London, 1908. + +[973] H.R. Mill, International Geography, pp. 562, 564, 572. New York, +1902. + +[974] Census of the Philippine Islands of 1903, Vol. IV, pp. 1-2. +Washington, 1905. + +[975] Strabo, Book VIII, chap. VI, 16. + +[976] W. Deecke, Italy, pp. 380, 448-450. London, 1904. + +[977] _Ibid._, p. 452. + +[978] Dr. A. Philippson, The Greek Islands of the Aegean, _Scottish +Geographical Magazine_, Vol. XIII, pp. 489-490. 1897. John Murray, +Handbook to Greece and the Ionian Isles. London, 1872. + +[979] W.E. Griffis, The Mikado's Empire, Vol. I, pp. 17-20. New York, +1904. + +[980] Henry Dyer, Dai Nippon, pp. 238-244. New York, 1903. Arthur M. +Knapp, Feudal and Modern Japan, Vol. I, pp. 78, 79, 116, 117. New York, +1900. + +[981] Alfred Stead, Japan by the Japanese, p. 413. London, 1904. + +[982] Sir Rutherford Alcock, Three Years in Japan, Vol. I, pp. 83, 84, +283-286. New York, 1868. + +[983] H.D. Traill, Social England, Vol. II, pp. 243-246, 547-554; Vol. +III, pp. 114-121, 239-241, 253-255, 351-359. London, 1905. + +[984] Thucydides, Book I, 4. Aristotle, Politics, Book II, chap. 7, 2. +Herodotus, Book VII, 170. + +[985] Thucydides, Book IV, chaps. 84, 88. + +[986] Census of the Philippine Islands in 1903, Vol. I, pp. 412-414. +Washington, 1905. + +[987] Richard Semon, In the Australian Bush, p. 517. London, 1899. + +[988] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, pp. 174-177. London, 1896-98. + +[989] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 178-179. + +[990] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 157-161, 165. + +[991] Henry Dyer, Dai Nippon, pp. 250-257, 266. New York, 1904. + +[992] Elisée Reclus, Europe, Vol. I, p. 337. New York, 1886. Hereford +George, Historical Geography of the British Empire, pp. 118-119. London, +1904. + +[993] D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, p. 244. London, 1902. + +[994] Dr. A. Philippson, The Greek Islands of the Aegean, _Scottish +Geographical Magazine_, Vol. XIII, p. 488. 1897. + +[995] Jensen, _Die Nordfrieschen Inseln_, p. 133. 1891. + +[996] Malthus, Essay on Population, Book I, chap. V, p. 67. London, +1826. This whole chapter on "Checks to Population in the Islands of the +South Seas" is valuable. + +[997] Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, Vol. II, pp. 108-110. +London, 1907. + +[998] History of the Conquest of the Canaries, p. xxxix. Hakluyt +Society, London, 1872. + +[999] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, pp. 273, 299-300. London, +1896-98. + +[1000] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 270, 274-275. Adolf Marcuse, _Die +Hawaiischen Inseln_, p. 108. Berlin, 1894. + +[1001] R.L. Stevenson, The South Seas, pp. 138-139. New York, 1903. + +[1002] George Forster, Voyage Round the World, Vol. I, p. 564, 569, 572, +577, 584, 586, 596. London, 1777. + +[1003] Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, pp. 116, 441, 462-463, +450-452, 454, 457. London, 1891. + +[1004] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 270. London, 1896-1898. + +[1005] R.H. Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 229. Oxford, 1891. + +[1006] Basil Thomson, The Fijians, pp. 221-227. London, 1908. Williams +and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, pp. 132, 142. New York, 1859. + +[1007] _Ibid._, p. 130. R.L. Stevenson, The South Seas, pp. 38, 40. New +York, 1903. + +[1008] _Ibid._, p. 38. + +[1009] J.S. Jenkins, United States Exploring Squadron under Capt. +Wilkes, 1838-1842, pp. 404-405. New York, 1855. + +[1010] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, pp. 270, 299. London, +1896-98. + +[1011] Adolf Marcuse, _Die Hawaiischen Inseln_, p. 109. Berlin, 1894. + +[1012] G.W. Knox, Japanese Life in Town and Country, p. 188. New York, +1905. + +[1013] Capt. Cook's Journal, First Voyage Round the World in the +Endeavor, 1768-1771, pp. 95, 96. Edited by W.J.L. Wharton. London, 1893. + +[1014] Malthus, Essay on Population, Book I, chap. V. + +[1015] R.L. Stevenson, The South Seas, p. 39. New York, 1903. + +[1016] _Ibid._, p. 52. + +[1017] Adolf Marcuse, _Die Hawaiischen Inseln_, p. 109. Berlin, 1894. + +[1018] Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, pp. 144-146. New +York, 1859. + +[1019] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 330. London, 1896-1898. + +[1020] William Mariner, Natives of the Tonga Islands, Vol. II, pp. 95, +134-135. Edinburgh, 1827. Capt. Cook's Journal, First Voyage Round the +World in the Endeavor, 1768-1771, pp. 220-221. Edited by W.J.L. Wharton. +London, 1893. + +[1021] Strabo, Book X, chap. V, 6. + +[1022] R.L. Stevenson, The South Seas, pp. 98-104. New York, 1903. + +[1023] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, pp. 297-299. London, +1896-1898. + +[1024] William Mariner, Natives of the Tonga Islands, Vol. II, pp. +108-109. Edinburgh, 1827. + +[1025] Darwin and Fitzroy, Voyage of the Beagle, Vol. II, pp. 183, +189-190. London, 1839. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +PLAINS, STEPPES AND DESERTS + + +[Sidenote: Relief of the sea floor.] + +Anthropo-geography has to do primarily with the forms and relief of the +land. The relief of the sea floor influences man only indirectly. It +does this by affecting the forms of the coast, by contributing to the +action of tides in scouring out river estuaries, as on the flat beaches +of Holland and England, by determining conditions for the abundant +littoral life of the sea, the fisheries of the continental shelf which +are factors in the food quest and the distribution of settlements. +Moreover, the ocean floor enters into the problem of laying telegraph +cables, and thereby assumes a certain commercial and political +importance. The name of the Telegraph Plateau of the North Atlantic, +crossed by three cables, points to the relation between these and +submarine relief. So also does the erratic path of the cable from +southwestern Australia to South Africa via Keeling Island and Mauritius. + +Submarine reliefs have yet greater significance in their relation to the +distribution of the human race over the whole earth; for what is now a +shallow sea may in geologically recent times have been dry land, on +which primitive man crossed from continent to continent. It is vital to +the theory of the Asiatic origin of the American Indian that in Miocene +times a land bridge spanned the present shallows of Bering Sea. Hence +the slight depth of this basin has the same bio-geographical +significance as that of the British seas, the waters of the Malay +Archipelago, and the Melanesian submarine platform. The impressive fact +about "Wallace's Line" is the depth of the narrow channel which it +follows through Lombok and Macassar Straits and which, in recent +geological times, defined the southeastern shore of Asia. In all these +questions of former land connection, anthropo-geography follows the lead +of bio-geography, whose deductions, based upon the dispersal of +countless plant and animal forms, point to the paths of human +distribution. + +[Sidenote: Mean elevations of the continents.] + +The mean elevation of the continents above sea level indicates the +average life conditions of their populations as dependent upon relief. +The 1010 meters (3313 feet) of Asia indicate its predominant highland +character. The 330 meters (1080 feet) representing the average height of +Europe, and the 310 meters (1016 feet) of Australia indicate the +preponderance of lowlands. Nevertheless, anthropo-geography rarely lends +itself to a mathematical statement of physical conditions. Such a +statement only obscures the facts. The 660 meters (2164 feet) mean +elevation of Africa indicates a relief higher than Europe, but gives no +hint of the plateau character of the Dark Continent, in which lowlands +and mountains are practically negligible features; while the almost +identical figure (650 meters or 2133 feet) for both North and South +America is the average derived from extensive lowlands in close +juxtaposition to high plateaus capped by lofty mountain ranges. Such +mathematical generalizations indicate the general mass of the +continental upheaval, but not the way this mass is divided into low and +high reliefs.[1026] + +The method of anthropo-geography is essentially analytical, and +therefore finds little use for general orometric statements, which may +be valuable to the science of geo-morphology with its radically +different standpoint. For instance, geo-morphology may calculate from +all the dips and gaps in the crest of a mountain range the average +height of its passes, Anthropo-geography, on the other hand, +distinguishes between the various passes according as they open lines of +greater or less resistance to the historical movement across the +mountain barriers. It finds that one deep breach in the mountain wall, +like the Mohawk Depression[1027] and Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian +system,[1028] Truckee Pass in the Sierra Nevada[1029] and the Brenner in +the Alps,[1030] has more far-reaching and persistent historical +consequences than a dozen high-laid passes that only notch the crest. +Pack-trail, road and railroad seek the former, avoid the latter; one +draws from a wide radius, while the other serves a restricted local +need. Therefore anthropo-geography, instead of clumping the passes, +sorts them out, and notes different relations in each. + +[Sidenote: Distribution of reliefs.] + +In continents and countries the anthropo-geographer looks to see not +what reliefs are present, but how they are distributed; whether +highlands and lowlands appear in unbroken masses as in Asia, or +alternate in close succession as in western Europe; whether the +transition from one to the other is abrupt as in western South America, +or gradual as in the United States. A simple and massive land structure +lends the same trait of the simple and massive to every kind of +historical movement, because it collects the people into large groups +and starts them moving in broad streams, as it were. This fact explains +the historical preponderance of lowland peoples and especially of steppe +nomads over the small, scattered groups inhabiting isolated mountain +valleys. The island of Great Britain illustrates the same principle on a +small scale in the turbid, dismembered history of independent Scotland, +with its Highlanders and Lowlanders, its tribes and clans separated by +mountains, gorges, straits, and fiords,[1031] in contrast to the smoother, +unified course of history in the more uniform England. Carl Ritter +compares the dull uniformity of historical development and relief in +Africa with the variegated assemblage of highlands and lowlands, nations +and peoples, primitive societies and civilized states in the more +stimulating environment of Asia.[1032] + +[Sidenote: Homologous relief and homologous histories.] + +The chief features of mountain relief reappear on a large scale in the +continents, which are simply big areas of upheaval lifted above sea +level. The continents show therefore homologous regions of lowlands, +uplands, plateaus and mountains, each district sustaining definite +relations to the natural terrace above or below it, and displaying a +history corresponding to that of its counterpart in some distant part of +the world, due to a similarity of relations. This appears first in a +specialization of products in each tier and hence in more or less +economic interdependence, especially where civilization is advanced. The +tendency of conquest to unite such obviously complementary districts is +persistent. Hence the Central Highland of Asia is fringed with low +peripheral lands like Manchuria, China, India and Mesopotamia, into +whose history it has repeatedly entered as a disturbing force. All the +narrow Pacific districts of the Americas from Alaska to Patagonia are +separated by the Cordilleras from the lowlands on the Atlantic face of +the continents; all reveal in their history the common handicap arising +from an overwhelming preponderance of plateau and mountain and a paucity +of lowlands. Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have in the past century been +stretching out their hands eastward to grasp sections of the bordering +Amazon lowlands, where to-day is the world's great field of conflicting +boundary claims. Chile would follow its geographical destiny if it +should supplement its high, serrated surface by the plateaus and +lowlands of Bolivia, as Cyrus the Persian married the Plateau of Iran to +the plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, and Romulus joined the Alban +hills to the alluvial fields of the Tiber. + +[Sidenote: Anthropo-geography of lowlands.] + +Well-watered lowlands invite expansion, ethnic, commercial and +political. In them the whole range of historical movements meet few +obstacles beyond the waters gathering in their runnels and the forests +nourished in their rich soils. Limited to 200 meters (660 feet) +elevation, lowlands develop no surface features beyond low hills and +undulating swells of land. Uniformity of life conditions, monotony of +climate as of relief, except where grades of latitude intervene to chill +or heat, an absence of natural boundaries, and constant encouragement to +intercourse, are the anthropo-geographic traits of lowlands, as opposed +to the arresting, detaining grasp of mountains and highland valleys. +Small, isolated lowlands, like the mountain-rimmed plains of Greece and +the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, the Nile flood-plain, Portugal, and +Andalusia in Spain, may achieve precocious and short-lived historical +importance, owing to the fertility of their alluvial soils, their +character as naturally defined districts, and their advantageous +maritime location; but while in these restricted lowlands the telling +feature has been their barrier boundaries of desert, mountains and sea, +the vast level plains of the earth have found their distinctive and +lasting historical importance in the fact of their large and unbounded +surface. + +Such plains have been both source and recipient of every form of +historical movement. Owing to their prevailing fitness for agriculture, +trade and intercourse, they are favored regions for the final massing of +a sedentary population. The areas of greatest density of population in +the world, harboring 150 or more to the square kilometer (385 to the +square mile), are found in the lowlands of China, the alluvial plains of +India, and similar level stretches in the Neapolitan plain and Po +Valley, the lowlands of France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, England and +Scotland. Such a density is found in upland districts (660 to 2000 feet, +or 200 to 600 meters) bordering agricultural lowlands, only where +industries based upon mineral wealth cause a concentration of +population. [See maps pages 8, 9, 559.] + +[Sidenote: Extensive plains unfavorable to early development.] + +The level or undulating surface of extensive lowlands is not favorable +to the early development of civilization. Not only do their wide extent +and absence of barriers postpone the transition from nomadism to +sedentary life, but their lack of contrasting environments and +contrasted developments, which supplement and stimulate, puts chains +upon progress. A flat, monotonous relief produces a monotonous +existence, necessarily one-sided, needing a complement in upland or +mountain. To the pioneer settlers in the lowlands of Missouri the Ozark +Plateau was a boon, because its streams furnished water-power for much +needed saw and flour mills. Treeless Egypt even before 2500 B. C. +depended upon the cedars of the Lebanon Mountains for the construction +of its ships; so that the conquest of Lebanon, begun by Thutmose I. and +completed by Thutmose III. in about 1470 B. C., had a sound geographical +basis.[1033] Similarly the exploitation of the copper, malachite, turquoise +and lapis-lazuli of Mount Sinai, minerals not found in the Nile plain, +led the ancient Egyptians into extensive mining operations there before +3000 B. C., and resulted in the establishment of Egyptian political +supremacy in 2900 B. C., as a measure to protect the mines against the +depredations of the neighboring Bedouin tribes.[1034] Lowlands lack the +distinctive advantages of highlands found in diversity of climate, +water-power, generally in more abundant forests and minerals. The latter +are earlier discovered and worked in the tilted strata of mountains and +uplands. + +Plain countries suffer particularly from a paucity of varied geographic +conditions and of resulting contrasts in their population. Their +national characters tend to be less richly endowed; their possibilities +for development are blighted or retarded, because even racial +differences are rapidly obliterated in the uniform geographic +environment, A small diversified country like Crete, Great Britain, +Italy, Portugal, Saxony, or Japan, is a geographical _multum in parvo_. +The western half of Europe bears the same stamp, endowing each country +and nation with marked individuality born of partial isolation and a +varied combination of environment. The larger eastern half of the +continent embraced in the plains of Poland and Russia shows monotony in +every aspect of human life. This comes out anthropologically in the +striking similarity of head-form found everywhere north and east of the +Carpathian Mountains, except in the secluded districts of Lithuania and +Crimea, which shelter remnants of distinct races. Over all this vast +territory the range of cephalic variation is only five units or +one-third that in the restricted but diversified territory of western +Europe. Italy, only one-eighteenth the size of European Russia, has a +range of fifteen units, reflecting in the variety of its human types the +diversity of its environment.[1035] + +[Sidenote: Conditions for fusion in plains.] + +In the plains geography makes for fusion. Russia shows this marked +homogeneity, despite a motley collection of race ingredients which have +entered into the make-up of the Russian people. Without boundary or +barrier, the country has stood wide open to invasion; but the intruders +found no secluded corners where they could entrench themselves and +preserve their national individuality.[1036] They dropped into a vast +melting-pot, which has succeeded in amalgamating the most diverse +elements. The long-drawn Baltic-North Sea plain of Europe shows the same +power to fuse. Here is found a prevailing blond, long-headed stock from +the Gulf of Finland to the Somme River in France.[1037] Yet this natural +boulevard has been a passway for races. Prehistoric evidences show that +the dark, broad-headed Celtic folk once overspread this plain east to +the Weser;[1038] it still tends to trickle down from the southern uplands +into the Baltic lowland, and modify the Teutonic type along its southern +margin throughout Germany.[1039] The Slavs in historic times reached as +far west as the Weser, while the expansion of the Teutons has embraced +the whole maritime plain from Brittany to the Finnish Gulf. Here it is +difficult to draw an ethnic boundary on the basis of physical +differences. The eastern Prussians are Slavonized Teutons, and the +adjacent Poles seem to be Teutonized Slavs, while the purest type of +Letto-Lithuanian at the eastern corner of the Baltic coast approximates +closely to the Anglo-Saxon type which sprang from the western +corner.[1040] A similar amalgamation of races and peoples has taken place +in the lowlands of England and Scotland, while diversity still lingers +in the highlands. In the Lowlands of Scotland, Picts in small numbers, +Britons, Scots from Ireland, Angles, Frisians, Northmen and Danes have +all been blended and assimilated in habits, customs and speech.[1041] + +[Sidenote: Retardation due to monotonous environment.] + +This uniformity is advantageous to early development in a small plain, +because of the juxtaposition of contrasted environments, but is +stultifying to national life in an immense expanse of monotony like that +of Russia. Here sameness leaves its stamp on everything. Language is +differentiated with only two dialects, that of the Great Russians of the +north and the Little Russians of the southern steppes, who were so long +exposed to Tartar influences. Most other languages of Europe, though +confined to much smaller areas, show far greater diversity.[1042] While +the Russian of Kazan or Archangel can converse readily with the citizen +of Riga or St. Petersburg, Germans from highland Bavaria and Swabia are +scarcely intelligible to Prussian and Mecklenberger. And whereas Germany +a few decades ago could count over a hundred different kinds of national +dress or _Tracht_, Great Russia alone, with six times the area, had only +a single type with perhaps a dozen slight variations. Leroy-Beaulieu +comments upon this eternal sameness. "The cities are all alike; so are +the peasants, in looks, habits, in mode of life. In no country do people +resemble one another more; no other country is so free from political +complexity, those oppositions in type and character, which even yet we +encounter in Italy and Spain, in France and Germany. The nation is made +in the likeness of the country; it shows the same unity, we might say +the same monotony, as the plains on which it dwells." + +[Sidenote: Influence of soils in low plains.] + +The more flat and featureless a lowland is, the more important become +even the slightest surface irregularities which can draw faint dividing +lines among the population. Here a gentle land-swell, river, lake, +forest, or water-soaked moor serves as boundary. Especially apparent is +the differentiating influence of difference of soils. Gravel and +alluvium, sand and clay, chalk and more recent marine sediments, +emphasize small geographical differences throughout the North German +lowland and its extension through Belgium and Holland; here various +soils differentiate the distribution of population. In the Netherlands +we find the Frisian element of the Dutch people inhabiting chiefly the +clay soils and low fens of the west and northwest, the Saxon in the +diluvial tracts of the east, and the Frankish in the river clays and +diluvium of the south. All the types have maintained their differences +of dialect, styles of houses, racial character, dress and custom.[1043] +The only distinctive region in the great western lowland of France, +which comprises over half of the country, is Brittany, individualized in +its people and history by its peninsula form, its remote western +location, and its infertile soil of primary rocks. Within the +sedimentary trough of the Paris Basin, a slight Cretacean platform like +the meadow land of Perche[1044] (200 to 300 meters elevation) introduces +an area of thin population devoted to horse and cattle raising in close +proximity to the teeming urban life of Paris. The eastern lowland of +England also can be differentiated economically and historically chiefly +according to differences of underlying rocks, Carboniferous, Triassic, +Jurassic, chalk, boulder clays, and alluvium, which also coincide often +with slight variations of relief.[1045] In Russia the contrast between the +glaciated surface of the north and the Black Mould belt of the south +makes the only natural divisions of that vast country, unless we +distinguish also the arid southeastern steppes on the basis of a purely +climatic difference. [See map page 484.] + +The broad coastal plain of our South Atlantic States contains only low +reliefs; but it is diversified by several soil belts, which exert a +definite control over the industries of the inhabitants, and thereby +over the distribution of the negro population. In Georgia, for instance, +the rich alluvial soil of the swampy coast is devoted to the culture of +rice and sea-island cotton, and contains over 60 per cent. of negroes in +its population. This belt, which is only 25 miles wide, is succeeded +inland by a broader zone of sandy pine barrens, where the proportion of +negroes drops to only 20 or 30 per cent. of the total. Yet further +inland is another fertile belt, devoted chiefly to the cultivation of +upland cotton and harboring from 35 to over 60 per cent. of negroes in +its population.[1046] Alabama shows a similar stratification of soils and +population from north to south over its level surface. Along the +northern border of the state the cereal belt coincides with the deep +calcareous soil of the Tennessee River Valley, where negroes constitute +from 35 to 60 per cent. of the inhabitants. Next comes the mineral belt, +covering the low foot-hills of the Appalachian Mountains. It contains +the densest population of the state, less than 17 per cent. of which is +negro. South of this is the broad cotton belt of various rich soils, +chiefly deep black loam of the river bottoms, which stretches east and +west across the state and includes over 60 per cent. of negroes in its +population. This is succeeded by the low, coastal timber belt, marked by +a decline in the quality of the soil and the proportion of negro +inhabitants.[1047] + +[Sidenote: Value of slight elevations.] + +In the dead level of extensive plains even slight elevations are seized +upon for special uses, or acquire peculiar significance. The Kurgans or +burial mounds of the prehistoric inhabitants of Russia, often twenty to +fifty feet high, serve to-day as watch-towers for herdsmen tending their +flocks.[1048] Similarly the Bou-bous, inhabiting the flat grasslands of +the French Congo between the Shari and Ubangui Rivers, use the low +knolls dotted over their country, probably old ant-hills, as lookout +points against raiders.[1049] The sand hills and ridges which border the +southern edges of the North German lowland form districts sharply +contrasted to the swampy, wooded depressions of the old deserted river +valleys just to the north. Early occupied by a German stock, they +furnished the first German colonists to displace the primitive Slav +population surviving in those unattractive, inaccessible regions, as +seen in the Spreewald near Kottbus to-day. + +[Sidenote: Plains and political expansion.] + +The boundless horizon which is unfavorable to a nascent people endows +them in their belated maturity with the power of mastering large areas. +Political expansion is the dominant characteristic of the peoples of the +plains. Haxthausen observed that handicapped and retarded Russia +commands every geographic condition and national trait necessary for +virile and expansive political power.[1050] Muscovite expansion eastward +across the lowlands of Europe and Asia is paralleled by the rapid +spread of American settlement and dominion across the plains and +prairies of the Mississippi Valley, and Hungarian domination of the wide +Danubian levels from the foot-hills of the Austrian Alps to the far +Carpathian watershed. It was the closely linked lowlands of the Seine +and Loire which formed the core of political expansion and +centralization in France. Nearly the whole northern lowland of Germany +has been gradually absorbed by the kingdom of Prussia, which now +comprises in its territory almost two-thirds of the total area of the +Empire. Prussian statesmen formulated the policy of German unification +and colonial expansion, and to Prussia fell the hereditary headship of +the Empire. + +Lowland states tend to stretch out and out to boundaries which depend +more upon the reach of the central authority than upon physical +features. We have seen American settlement and dominion overleap one +natural boundary after another between the Mississippi River and the +Pacific, from 1804 to 1848. Russia in an equally short period has pushed +forward its Asiatic frontier at a dozen points, despite all barriers of +desert and mountain. Argentina, blessed with extensive plains, fertile +soil and temperate climate, which have served to augment its population +both by natural increase and steady immigration (one-fourth of its +population is foreign), has expanded across the Rio Negro over the +grasslands of the Patagonian plain, and thereby enlarged its area by +259,620 square miles since 1881. The statesman of the plains is a +nature-made imperialist; he nurses wide territorial policies and draws +his frontiers for the future. To him a "far-flung battle line" is +significant only as a means to secure a far-flung boundary line. + +[Sidenote: Arid plains.] + +From these low, accessible plains of adequate rainfall, which at first +encourage primitive nomadism but finally make it yield to sedentary life +and to dense populations spreading their farms and cities farther and +farther over the unresisting surface of the land, we turn to those +boundless arid steppes and deserts which Nature has made forever the +homes of restless, rootless peoples. Here quiescence is impossible, the +_Völkerwanderung_ is habitual, migration is permanent. The only change +is this eternal restlessness. While the people move, progress stands +still. Everywhere the sun-scorched grasslands and waterless waste have +drawn the dead-line to the advance of indigenous civilization. They +permit no accumulation of productive wealth beyond increasing flocks and +herds, and limit even their growth by the food supply of scanty, +scattered pasturage. The meager rainfall eliminates forests and +therewith a barrier to migrations; it also restricts vegetation to +grasses, sedges and those forms which can survive a prolonged summer +drought and require a short period of growth. + +[Illustration: ANNUAL RAINFALL OF THE WORLD.] + +[Sidenote: Distribution and extent of arid plains.] + +The union of arid plains and steppe vegetation is based upon climate, +and is therefore a widely distributed phenomenon. These plains, whether +high or low, are found in their greatest extent in the dry trade-wind +belts, as in the deserts and steppes of Arabia, Persia, Sudan, the +Sahara, South Africa and Central Australia; and in vast continental +interiors, where the winds arrive robbed of their moisture in passing +intervening highlands, as in the grasslands of our western plains, the +llanos and pampas of South America, and the steppes of Central Asia. But +wherever they occur, whether in Argentina or Russian Turkestan or the +higher plains of Mongolia and Tibet, they present the same general +characteristics of land surface, climate, flora and fauna, and the same +nomadic populations of pastoral or hunting tribes. In them the movement +of peoples reaches its culminating point, permanent settlement its nil +point. Here the hunting savage makes the widest sweep in pursuit of +buffalo or antelope, and pauses least to till a field; here the pastoral +nomad follows his systematic wandering in search of pasturage and his +hardly less systematic campaigns of conquest. It is the vast area and +wide distribution of these arid plains, combined with the mobility which +they impose on native human life, that has lent them historical +importance, and reproduced in all sections of the world that significant +homologous relation of arid and well-watered districts. + +[Sidenote: Pastoral life.] + +The grasslands of the old world developed historical importance only +after the domestication of cattle, sheep, goats, asses, horses, camels +and yaks. This step in progress resulted in the evolution of peoples +who renounced the precarious subsistence of the chase and escaped the +drudgery of agriculture, to devote themselves to pastoral life. It was +possible only where domesticable animals were present, and where the +intelligence of the native or the peculiar pressure exerted by +environment suggested the change from a natural to an artificial basis +of subsistence. Australia lacked the type of animal. Though North +America had the reindeer and buffalo, and South America the guanaco, +llama and alpaca, only the last two were domesticated in the Andean +highlands; but as these were restricted to altitudes from 10,000 to +14,000 feet, where pasturage was limited, stock raising in primitive +South America was merely an adjunct to the sedentary agriculture of the +high intermontane valleys, and never became the basis for pastoral +nomadism on the grassy plains. However, when the Spaniards introduced +horses and cattle into South America, the Indians and half-breeds of the +llanos and pampas became regular pastoral nomads, known as llaneros and +gauchos. They are a race of horsemen, wielding javelin and lasso and +bola, living on meat, often on horse-flesh like the ancient Huns, +dwelling in leather tents made on a cane framework, like those of the +modern Kirghis and medieval Tartars, dressed in cloaks of horsehide sewn +together, and raiding the Argentinian frontier of white settlement for +horses, sheep and cattle, with the true marauding instinct of all +nomads.[1051] + +[Sidenote: Pastoral nomads of Arctic plains.] + +Aridity is not the only climatic condition condemning a people to +nomadic life. Excessive cold, producing the tundra wastes of the far +north, has the same effect. Therefore, throughout Arctic Eurasia, from +the Lapp district of Norway to the Inland Chukches of eastern Siberia, +we have a succession of Hyperborean peoples pasturing their herds of +reindeer over the moss and lichen tundra, and supplementing their food +supply with hunting and fishing. The reindeer Chukches once confined +themselves to their peninsula, so long as the grazing grounds were +unexhausted; but they now range as far west as Yakutsk on the Lena +River, The Orochones of the Kolima River district in eastern Siberia, +who live chiefly by their reindeer, have small herds. A well-to-do +person will have 40 to 100 animals, and the wealthiest only 700, while +the Chukches with herds of 10,000 often seek the pasture of the Kolima +tundra.[1052] Farther west, the Samoyedes of northern Siberia and Russia +and the Zirians of the Petchora River range with their large herds +northward to the Yalmal Peninsula and Vaygats Isle in summer, and +southward in winter. [See map pages 103, 225.] Here a herd of fifty +head, which just suffices for the support of one family of four souls, +requires 10 square versts, or 4.44 square miles of tundra pasturage.[1053] +Hence population must forever remain too sparse ever to attain +historical significance. [See map page 8.] The Russian Lapps, too, lead +a semi-nomadic life. Each group has a particular summer and winter +settlement. The winter village is located usually inland in the Kola +Peninsula, where the forests lend shelter to the herds, and the summer +one near the tundra of the coast, where fishing is accessible. In +winter, like the nomads of the deserts, they add to their slender income +by the transport of goods by their reindeer and by service at the post +stations.[1054] + +[Sidenote: Historical importance of steppe nomads.] + +These nomads of the frozen north, scattered sparsely over the remote +periphery of the habitable world, have lacked the historical importance +which in all times has attached to the steppe nomads, owing to their +central location. The broad belt of deserts and grasslands which crosses +the old world diagonally between 10° and 60° North Latitude from the +Atlantic in Africa to the Pacific in Asia, either borders or encompasses +the old domains of culture found in river oases, alluvial lowlands or +coastal plains of the Torrid and Temperate Zones. The restless, mobile, +unbound shepherds of the arid lands have never long been contained by +the country which bred them. They have constantly encroached upon the +territory of their better placed neighbors, invading, conquering, +appropriating their fields and cities, disturbing but at the same time +acquiring their culture, lording it over the passive agriculturists, and +at the same time putting iron into their weaker blood. It is the +geographical contact between arid steppes and moist river valley, +between land of poverty and land of plenty, that has made the history of +the two inseparable.[1055] + +[Illustration: CULTURAL REGIONS OF AFRICA AND ARABIA.] + +[Sidenote: Mobility of pastoral nomads.] + +Every aspect of human life in the steppes bears the stamp of mobility. +The nomad tolerates no clog upon his movements. His dwelling is the tent +of skin or felt as among Kalmucks and Kirghis, or the tent wagon of the +modern Boer[1056] and the ancient Scythian as described by Herodotus.[1057] +"This device has been contrived by them as the country is fit for it," +he says,--level, grassy, treeless. The temporary settlement of shepherd +tribes is the group of tents, or the ancient _carrago_ camp of the +nomadic Visigoths,[1058] or the _laager_ of the pastoral Boers, both a +circular barricade or corral of wagons. + +[Sidenote: Tendency to trek.] + +Constant movement reduces the impedimenta to a minimum. The Orochones, a +Tunguse nomadic tribe of eastern Siberia, have no furniture in their +tents, and keep their meager supply of clothing and utensils neatly +packed on sledges, as if to start at a moment's notice.[1059] The only +desirable form of capital is that which transports itself, namely, +flocks and herds. Beyond that, wealth is limited to strictly portable +forms, preferably silver, gold and jewels. It was in terms of these, +besides their herds, that the riches of Abraham and Lot were rated in +the Bible. That the Israelites when traveling through the wilderness +should have had the gold to make the golden calf accords strictly with +the verisimilitude of pastoral life.[1060] Moreover, that these enslaved +descendants of the Sheik Abraham, with their traditions of pastoral +life, should have simply trekked-ruptured the frail ties of recently +acquired habit which bound them to the Nile soil, is also in keeping +with their inborn nomadic spirit. Similar instances occur among modern +peoples. The Great Trek of the South African Boers in 1836, by which +they renounced not only their unwelcome allegiance to England, but also +their land,[1061] was another exodus in accordance with the instinct of a +pastoral people. They adopted no strange or difficult course, but +traveled with their families as they were wont in their every day life +of cattle-tenders, took all their chattels with them, and headed for the +thin pastures of the far-reaching veldt. The Russian government has had +to contend with a like fluidity in her Cossack tribes of the steppes, +who have been up and off when imperial authority became oppressive. In +the summer of 1878 West Siberia lost about 9000 Kirghis, who left the +province Semipalatinsk to seek Mongolia. + +[Sidenote: Seasonal migrations.] + +Environment determines the nomadic habits of the dweller of desert and +steppe. The distribution of pasture and water fixes the scope and the +rate of his wandering; these in turn depend upon geographic conditions +and vary with the season. The Papago Indians of southern Arizona range +with their cattle over a territory 100 by 150 miles in extent, and +wander across the border into Mexico. When their main water supply, +derived from wells or artificial reservoirs near their summer villages, +is exhausted, they migrate to the water-holes, springs or streams in the +cañons. There the cattle graze out on the plains and return to the +cañons to drink.[1062] Every Mongol tribe and clan has its seasonal +migration. In winter the heavier precipitation and fuller streams enable +them to collect in considerable groups in protected valleys; but the dry +summer disperses them over the widest area possible, in order to utilize +every water-hole and grass spot. The hotter regions of the plains are +abandoned in summer for highlands, where the short period of warmth +yields temporary pastures and where alone water can be found. The +Kirghis of Russian Turkestan resort in summer to the slopes and high +valleys of the Altai Mountains, where their auls or tent villages may be +seen surrounded by big flocks of sheep, goats, camels, horses and +cattle.[1063] The Pamir in the warm months is the gathering place for the +nomads of Central Asia. The naked desert of Arabia yields a rare herbage +during the rainy season, when the Bedouin tribes resort to it for +pasturage;[1064] but during the succeeding drought they scatter to the +hills of Yemen, Syria and Palestine,[1065] or migrate to the valley of the +Nile and Euphrates.[1066] The Arabs of the northern Sahara, followed by +small flocks of sheep and goats, vibrate between the summer pastures on +the slopes of the Atlas Mountains and the scant, wiry grass tufts found +in winter on the borders of the desert.[1067] When the equatorial rains +begin in June, the Arabs of the Atbara River follow them north-westward +into the Nubian desert, and let their camel herds graze on the delicate +grass which the moisture has conjured up from the sandy soil. The +country about Cassala, which is flooded during the monsoon rains by the +rivers from the Abyssinian Mountains, is reserved for the dry +season.[1068] In the same way the Tartar tribes of the Dnieper, Don, Volga +and Ural Rivers in the thirteenth century moved down these rivers in +winter to the sea coast, and in summer up-stream to the hills and +mountains.[1069] So for the past hundred years the Boers of the South +African grasslands have migrated in their tent wagons from the higher to +the lower pastures, according to the season of the year, invading even +the Karroo Desert after the short summer rains.[1070] + +[Sidenote: Marauding expeditions.] + +This systematic movement of nomads within their accepted boundaries +leads, on slight provocation, to excursions beyond their own frontiers +into neighboring territories. The growing herd alone necessitates the +absorption of more land, more water-holes, because the grazed pastures +renew their grass slowly under the prevailing conditions of drought. An +area sufficient for the support of the tribe is inadequate for the +sustenance of the herd, whose increase is a perennial expansive force. +Soon the pastures become filled with the feeding flocks, and then +herdsmen and herds spill over into other fields. Often a season of +unusual drought, reducing the existing herbage which is scarcely +adequate at best, gives rise to those irregular, temporary expansions +which enlarge the geographical horizon of the horde, and eventuate in +widespread conquest. Such incursions, like the seasonal movements of +nomads, result from the helpless dependence of shepherd tribes upon +variations of rainfall. + +The nomad's basis of life is at best precarious. He and want are +familiar friends. A pest among his herds, diminished pasturage, failing +wells, all bring him face to face with famine, and drive him to robbery +and pillage.[1071] Marauding tendencies are ingrained in all dwellers of +the deserts and steppes.[1072] Since the days of Job, the Bedouins of +Arabia have been a race of marauders; they have reduced robbery to a +system. Predatory excursions figure conspicuously in the history of all +the tribes. Robber is a title of honor.[1073] Pliny said that the Arabs +were equally addicted to theft and trade. They pillaged caravans and +held them for ransom, or gave them safe conduct across the desert for a +price. Formerly the Turkoman tribes of the Trans-Caspian steppes levied +on the bordering districts, notably the northern part of Khorasan, which +belonged more to the Turkomans, Yomut and Goklan tribes of the adjoining +steppe than to the resident Persians. The border districts of Herat, +Khiva, Merv and Bukhara used to suffer in the same way from the raids of +the Tekkes, till the Russians checked the evil.[1074] The Tekkes had +depopulated whole districts, invaded Persian towns of considerable size, +and carried off countless families into slavery. Both Turkomans and +Kirghis tribes prior to 1873 raided caravans and carried off the +travelers to the slave markets of Bukhara and Samarkand.[1075] [See map +page 103.] + +Among these tribes no young man commanded respect in his community till +he had participated in a _baranta_ or cattle-raising.[1076] For centuries +the nomadic hordes of the Russian steppes systematically pillaged the +peaceful agricultural Slavs, who were threatening to encroach upon their +pasture lands. The sudden, swift descent and swift retreat of the +mounted marauders with the booty into the pathless grasslands, whither +pursuit was dangerous, their tendency to rob and conquer but never to +colonize, involved Russia in a long struggle, which ceased only with the +extension of Muscovite dominion over the steppes.[1077] + +[Sidenote: Depredation and conquests of African nomads.] + +All the Saharan tribes are marauders, whether Arabs, Berber Tuaregs, or +Negroid Tibbus. The desert has made them so. The Tuaregs are chronic +freebooters; they keep the Sahara and especially the caravan routes in +constant insecurity. They stretch a cordon across these routes from +Ghadames and Ghat in the east to the great oases of Insalah and Twat in +the west; and from the oases and hills forming their headquarters they +spread for pasturage and blackmail over the desert.[1078] They exact toll +over and over again from a caravan, provide it with a military escort of +their own tribesmen, and then pillage it on the way.[1079] This has been +the experience of Barth[1080] and other explorers. Caravans have not been +their only prey. The agricultural peoples in the Niger flood-plain, the +commerce on the river, and the markets of Timbuctoo long suffered from +the raids of the Tuaregs of the Sahara. They collected tribute in the +form of grain, salt, garments, horses and gold, typical needs of a +desert people, imposed tolls on caravans and on merchant fleets passing +down the Niger to Timbuctoo. In 1770 they began to move from the desert +and appropriate the fertile plains in the northern part of the Niger +Valley, and in 1800 they conquered Timbuctoo; but soon they had to yield +to another tribe of pastoral nomads, the Fulbes from the Senegal, who in +1813 established a short-lived but well organized empire on the ruins of +the Tuareg dominion.[1081] [See map page 105.] The other agricultural +states of the Sudan have had the same experience. The Tibbus, predatory +nomads of the French Sahara just north of Lake Chad and the River Yo, +mounted on camels and ponies, cross the shrunken river in the dry season +and raid Bornu for cattle, carry off women and children to sell as +slaves, pillage the weekly markets on the Yo, and plunder caravans of +pilgrims moving eastward to Mecca.[1082] Nowhere can desert nomads and the +civilized peoples of agricultural plains dwell side by side in peace. +Raids, encroachments, reprisals, finally conquest from one side or the +other is the formula for their history. [See map page 487.] + +[Sidenote: Forms of defense against nomad depredations.] + +The raided territory, if a modern civilized state, organizes its border +communities into a native mounted police, as the English have done in +Bornu, Sokoto and the Egyptian Sudan, and as the Russians did with their +Cossack riders along the successive frontiers of Muscovite advance into +the steppes; or it takes into its employ, as we have seen, the nearest +nomad tribes to repress or punish every hostile movement beyond. Among +the ancient states the method was generally different. Since the nomad +invaders came with their flocks and herds, a barrier often sufficed to +block their progress. For this purpose Sesostris built the long wall of +1500 stadia from Pelusium to Heliopolis as a barricade against the +Arabians.[1083] Ancient Carthage constructed a ditch to check the +depredations of the nomads of Numidia.[1084] The early kings of Assyria +built a barrier across the plains of the Euphrates above Babylon to +secure their dominion from the incursions of the desert Medes.[1085] In +the fifth century of our era, the "Red Wall" was constructed near the +northern frontier of Persia as a bulwark against the Huns. It stretched +for a hundred and fifty miles from the Caspian Sea at the ancient port +of Aboskun eastward to the mountains, and thus enclosed the populous +valley of the Gurgen River.[1086] In remote ages the neck of the Crimean +Peninsula was fortified by a wall against the irruptions of the +Tauro-Scythians.[1087] The Russians early in their national history used +the same means of defense against Tartar incursions. One wall was built +from Pensa on the Sura River to Simbirsk on the Volga, just south of +Kazan; another, further strengthened by a foss and palisades, extended +from the fortress of Tsaritzin at the southern elbow of the Volga across +the fifty-mile interval to the Don, and was still defended in 1794 by +the Cossacks of the Don against the neighboring Kirghis hordes.[1088] The +classic example of such fortifications against pastoral nomads, however, +is the Great Wall of China. + +[Sidenote: Pastoral life as a training for soldiers.] + +The nomad is economically a herdsman, politically a conqueror, and +chronically a fighter. Strife over pasturage and wells meets us in the +typical history of Abraham, Lot and Isaac;[1089] it exists within and +without the clan. The necessity of guarding the pastures, which are only +intermittently occupied, involves a persistent military organization. +The nation is a quiescent army, the army a mobilized nation.[1090] It +carries with it a self-transporting commissariat in its flocks and +herds. Constant practice in riding, scouting and the use of arms, +physical endurance tested by centuries of exertion and hardship, make +every nomad a soldier. Cavalry and camel corps add to the swiftness and +vigor of their onslaught, make their military strategy that of sudden +attack and swifter retreat, to be met only by wariness and extreme +mobility. The ancient Scythians of the lower Danubian steppes were all +horse archers, like the Parthians. "If the Scythians were united, there +is no nation which could compare with them or would be capable of +resisting them; I do not say in Europe, but even in Asia," said +Thucydides.[1091] In this opinion Herodotus concurred.[1092] The nomad's +whole existence breeds courage. The independent, hazardous life of the +desert makes the Arab the bravest of mankind, but the settled, +agricultural Arab of Egypt and Mohammedan Spain lost most of his +fighting qualities.[1093] + +[Sidenote: Military organization of nomads.] + +The daily life of a nomad horde is a training school for military +organization. In the evening the flocks and herds are distributed with +system around the camp to prevent confusion. The difficult art of a well +ordered march, of making and breaking camp, and of foraging is practiced +almost daily in their constant migrations.[1094] The usual order of the +Bedouin march could scarcely be surpassed by an army. In advance of the +caravan moves a body of armed horsemen, five or seven kilometers ahead; +then follows the main body of the tribesmen mounted on horses and +camels, then the female camels, and after these the beasts of burden +with the women and children. The encampment of tents with the places +for men, arms and herds is also carefully regulated. More than this, the +horde is organized into companies with their superior and subordinate +leaders.[1095] John de Carpini describes Genghis Khan's military +organization of his vast Tartar horde by tens, hundreds and thousands, +his absolute dominion over his conquered subjects, and prompt absorption +of them into his fighting force, by the compulsory enlistment of +soldiers out of every freshly subjugated nation.[1096] In the same way the +Hebrew tribes, when preparing for the conquest of Canaan, adopted from +the desert Midianites the organization of the horde into tens, hundreds +and thousands under judges, who were also military leaders in time of +war. + +[Sidenote: Capacity for conquest and political consolidation.] + +Thus certain geographic conditions produce directly the habitual and +systematic migration of the nomads, and through this indirectly that +military and political organization which has given the shepherd races +of the earth their great historical mission of political consolidation. +Agriculture, though underlying all permanent advance in civilization, is +handicapped by the lack of courage, mobility, enterprise and large +political outlook characterizing early tillers of the soil. All these +qualities the nomad possesses. Hence the union of these two elements, +imperious pastor superimposed upon peaceful tiller, has made the only +stable governments among savage and semi-civilized races.[1097] The +politically invertebrate peoples of dark Africa have secured the +back-bone to erect states only from nomad conquerors. The history of the +Sudan cannot be understood apart from a knowledge of the Sahara and its +peoples. All the Sudanese states were formed by invaders from the +northern desert, Hamitic or Semitic. [See map page 487.] The Galla or +Wahuma herdsmen of East Africa founded and maintained the relatively +stable states of Uganda, Kittara, Karague, and Uzinza in the equatorial +district; the conquerors remained herders while they lorded it over the +agricultural aborigines.[1098] In prehistoric times when the various +peoples of the Aryan linguistic family were spreading over Europe and +southern Asia, the superiority of the shepherd races must have been +especially marked, because in that era only the unobstructed surface of +the steppes permitted the concentration of men on a vast scale for +migration and conquest. Everywhere else regions of broken relief and +dense forests harbored small, isolated peoples, to whom both the idea +and the technique of combined movement were foreign. + +[Sidenote: Scope of nomad conquests.] + +The rapidity and wide scope of such conquests is explained largely by +the fact that nomads try to displace only the ruling classes in the +subjugated territory, leaving the mass of the population practically +undisturbed. Thus they spread themselves thin over a wide area. How +lasting are the results of such conquests depends upon the degree of +social evolution attained by the herdsmen. Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, +after the manner of overlords, organized their conquered nations, but +left them under the control of local princes,[1099] while their tribute +gatherers annually swept the country like typical nomad marauders. The +Turks are still only encamped in Europe. They too make taxation +despoliation. And though their dominion has produced no assimilation +between victor and vanquished, it has given political consolidation to a +large area occupied by varied peoples. The Hyksos conquest of Egypt +found the Nile Valley divided into several petty principalities under a +nominal king. The nomad conquerors possessed political capacity and gave +to Egypt a strong, centralized government, which laid the basis for the +power and glory of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The Tartars in 1279 A.D. and +the Manchus in 1664 conquered China, extended its boundaries, governed +the country as a ruling class, and left the established order of things +undisturbed. The Saracen conquest of North Africa and Spain showed for a +time organization and a permanence due to the advanced cultural status +of the sedentary Arabs drawn into the movement by religious enthusiasm. +The environment of Spain tended to conserve the knowledge of +agriculture, industry, architecture, and science which they brought in +and which might have cemented Spaniard and Moor, had it not been for the +intense religious antagonism existing between the two races. + +The history of nomad conquerors shows that they become weakened by the +enervating climate and the effeminating luxury of the moist and fertile +lowlands. They lose eventually their warlike spirit, like the Fellatah +or Fulbe founders of the Sudanese states,[1100] and are either displaced +from their insecure thrones by other conquerors sprung from the same +nomad-breeding steppe, as the Aryan princes of India by the Mongol +Emperor, and the Saracen invaders of Mesopotamia by the victorious +Turkomans; or they are expelled in time by their conquered subjects, as +the Tartars were from Russia, the Moors from Spain, and the Turks from +the Danube Valley. + +[Sidenote: Centralization versus decentralization in nomadism.] + +Nomad hordes unite for concerted action to resist encroachment upon +their pastures, or for marauding expeditions, or for widespread +conquest; but such unions are from their nature temporary, though a +career of conquest may be sustained for decades. The geographically +determined mobility which facilitates such concentration favors also +dispersal, decentralization. This is the paradox in nomadism. Geographic +conditions in arid lands necessitate sparse distribution of population +and of herds. Pastoral life requires large spaces and small social +groups. When Abraham and Lot went to Canaan from Egypt, "the land was +not able to bear them that they might dwell together, for their +substance was great." Strife for the pasturage ensued between their +respective herdsmen, so the two sheiks separated, Lot taking the plains +of Jordan and Abraham the hill pastures of Hebron. Jacob and Esau +separated for the same reason. The encampment of the Kirghis shepherds +rarely averages over five or six tents, except on the best grazing +grounds at the best season of the year. The flow of spring, well or +stream also helps to regulate their size. The groups of Mongol yurts or +felt tents along the piedmont margin of the Gobi vary from four tents to +a large encampment, according to water and grass.[1101] Prevalsky mentions +a population of 70 families or 300 souls in the Lob Nor district +distributed in 11 villages, or less than 28 in each group.[1102] Barth +noticed the smallness of all the oasis towns of the Sahara, even those +occupying favorable locations for trade on the caravan routes.[1103] + +[Sidenote: Spirit of independence among nomads.] + +The nature-made necessity of scattering in small groups to seek +pasturage induces in the nomad a spirit of independence. The Bedouin is +personally free. The power of the sheik is only nominal,[1104] and depends +much upon his personal qualities. The gift of eloquence among the +ancient Arabs has been attributed to the necessity of persuading a +people to whom restraint was irksome.[1105] Political organization is +conspicuously lacking among the Tibbus of the Sahara[1106] and the +Turkoman tribes of the Trans-Caspian steppes. "We are a people without a +head," they say. The title of sheik is an empty one. Custom and usage +are their rulers.[1107] Though the temporary union of nomadic tribes forms +an effective army, the union is short-lived. Groups form, dissolve and +re-form, with little inner cohesion. The Boers in South African +grasslands showed the same development. The government of the Dutch East +India Company in Cape Colony found it difficult to control the wandering +cattlemen of the interior plateau. They loved independence and +isolation; their dissociative instincts, bred by the lonely life of the +thin-pastured veldt, were overcome only by the necessity of defense +against the Bushmen. Then they organized themselves into commandos and +sallied out on punitive expeditions, like the Cossack tribes of the Don +against marauding Tartars. Scattered over wide tracts of pasture land, +they were exempt from the control of either Dutch or English authority; +but when an energetic administration pursued them into their widespread +ranches, they eluded control by trekking.[1108] Here was the independent +spirit of the steppe, reinforced by the spirit of the frontier. + +[Sidenote: Resistance to conquest.] + +Though the desert and steppe have bred conquerors, they are the last +parts of the earth's surface to yield to conquest from without. The +untameable spirit of freedom in the shepherd tribes finds an ally +against aggression in the trackless sands, meager water and food supply +of their wilderness. Pursuit of the retreating tribesmen is dangerous +and often futile. They need only to burn off the pasture and fill up or +pollute the water-holes to cripple the transportation and commissariat +of the invading army. This is the way the Damaras have fought the German +subjugation of Southwest Africa.[1109] Moreover, the paucity of economic +and political possibilities in deserts and grasslands discourages +conquest. Conquest pays only where it is a police measure to check +depredations on the bordering agricultural lands, or where such barren +areas are transit lands to a desirable territory beyond. It is chiefly +the "Gates of Herat" and the lure of India which have drawn Russian +dominion across the scorched plains of Turkestan. France has assumed the +big task of controlling the Sahara to secure a safe passway between +French Tunisia and the rich Niger basin of the French Sudan. The recent +British-Egyptian expansion southward across the Nubian steppes had for +its objective the better watered districts of the upper Nile above +Khartum. This desert advance is essentially a latter day phenomenon, the +outcome of modern territorial standards; it is attended or secured by +the railroad. To this fact the projected Trans-Saharan line is the +strongest witness. + +Nature everywhere postpones, obstructs, jeopardizes the political +conquest of arid lands. The unstable, fanatical tribesmen of the +Egyptian Sudan, temporarily but effectively united under the Mahdi, made +it necessary for Kitchener to do again in 1898 the work of subjugation +which Gordon had done thirty years before. The body of the Arabian +people is still free. The Turkish sovereignty over them to-day is +nominal, rather an alliance with a people whom it is dangerous to +provoke and difficult to attack. Only the coast provinces of Hejaz, +Yemen and Hasa are subject to Turkey, while the tribes of the interior +and of the southeastern seaboard are wholly independent.[1110] The +Turkoman tribes of Trans-Caspia have been subordinated to Russia largely +by a process of extermination.[1111] China is satisfied with a nominal +dominion over the roaming populations of Mongolia and Chinese Turkestan. +The French pacification and control of Northwest Africa meets a peculiar +problem, due to the extreme restlessness and restiveness of the dominant +Arab race. The whole population is unstable as water; a disturbance or +movement in one tribe is soon communicated to the whole mass.[1112] + +[Sidenote: Curtailment of nomadism.] + +The steppe or desert policy for the curtailment of nomadism, and the +reclamation of both land and people is to encourage or enforce +sedentary life. The French, to settle the wandering tribes on the Atlas +border of the Sahara, have opened a vast number of artesian wells +through the agency of skillful engineers, and thus created oases in +which the fecund sands support abundant date-palm groves.[1113] The method +pursued energetically by the Russians is to compress the tribes into +ever narrowing limits of territory, taking away their area of plunder +and then so restricting their pasture lands, that they are forced to the +drudgery of irrigation and tillage. In this way the Yomuts and Goklans +occupying the Caspian border of Trans-Caspia have been compelled to +abandon their old marauding, nomadic life and become to some extent +agriculturists.[1114] The method of the Chinese is to push forward the +frontier of agricultural settlement into the grasslands, dislodging the +shepherd tribes into poorer pastures. They have thus reclaimed for grain +and poppy fields considerable parts of the Ordos country in the great +northern bend of the Hoangho, which used to be a nursery for nomadic +invaders. A similar substitution of agriculture for pastoral nomadism of +another type has in recent decades taken place in the semi-arid plains +of the American West. Sheep-grazing on open range was with difficulty +dislodged from the San Joaquin Valley of California by expanding farms +in the sixties. More recently "dry farming" and scientific agriculture +adapted to semi-arid conditions have "pushed the desert off the map" in +Kansas, and advanced the frontier of tillage across the previous domain +of natural pastures to the western border of the state. + +Pastoral nomadism has been gradually dislodged from Europe, except in +the salt steppes of the Caspian depression, where a vast tract, 300,000 +square miles in area and wholly unfit for agriculture, still harbors a +sparse population of Asiatic Kalmuck and Kirghis hordes, leading the +life of the Asiatic steppes.[1115] In Asia, too, the regions of pastoral +nomadism have been curtailed, but in Africa they still maintain for the +most part the growing, expanding geographical forms which they once +showed in Europe, when nomadism prevailed as far as the Alps and the +Rhine. In Africa shepherd tribes cover not only the natural grasslands, +but lap over into many districts destined by nature for agriculture. +Hence it is safe to predict that a conspicuous part of the future +economic and cultural history of the Dark Continent will consist in the +release of agricultural regions from nomad occupancy and dominion. + +[Sidenote: Supplementary agriculture of pastoral nomads.] + +Though agriculture is regarded with contempt and aversion by pastoral +nomads and is resorted to for a livelihood only when they lose their +herds by a pest or robbery, or find their pasture lands seriously +curtailed, nevertheless nomadism yields such a precarious and monotonous +subsistence that it is not infrequently combined with a primitive, +shifting tillage. The Kalmucks of the Russian steppes employ men to +harvest hay for the winter feeding. The Nogai Tartars practice a little +haphazard tillage on the alluvial hem of the steppe streams.[1116] Certain +Arab tribes living east of the Atbara and Gash Rivers resort with their +herds during the dry season to the fruitful region of Cassala, which is +inundated by the drainage streams from Abyssinia, and there they +cultivate dourra and other grains.[1117] The Bechuana tribes inhabiting +the rich, streamless grassland of the so-called Kalahari Desert rear +small herds of goats and cultivate melons and pumpkins; among the other +Bechuana tribes on the eastern margin of the desert, the men hunt, herd +the cattle and milk the cows, while the women raise dourra, maize, +pumpkins, melons, cucumbers and beans.[1118] [Compare maps pages 105, +487.] + +Such supplementary agriculture usually shifts with the nomad group. But +where high mountains border rainless tracts, their piedmont districts +regularly develop permanent cultivation. Here periodic rains or melting +snows on the ranges fill the drainage streams, whose inundation often +converts their alluvial banks into ready-made fields. The reliability of +the water supply anchors here the winter villages of the nomads, which +become centers of a limited agriculture, while the pasture lands beyond +the irrigated strips support his flocks and herds. Where the piedmont of +the Kuen Lun Mountains draws a zone of vegetation around the southern +rim of the Takla Makan Desert, Mongol shepherds raise some wheat, maize +and melons as an adjunct to their cattle and sheep; but their tillage is +often rendered intermittent by the salinity of the irrigating +streams.[1119] Along the base of the Tian Shan Mountains, the felt yurt of +the Gobi nomad gives place to Turki houses with wheat and rice fields, +and orchards of various fruits; so that the whole piedmont highway from +Hami to Yarkand presents an alternation of desert and oasis +settlement.[1120] Even the heart of arid Arabia shows fertile oases under +cultivation where the lofty Nejd Plateau, with its rain-gathering peaks +over five thousand feet high, varies its wide pastures with well tilled +valleys abounding in grain fields and date-palm groves.[1121] Along the +whole Saharan slope of the Atlas piedmont a series of parallel wadis +and, farther out in the desert, a zone of artesian wells, sunk to the +underground bed of hidden drainage streams from the same range, form +oases which are the seat of permanent agriculture and more or less +settled populations. The Saharan highlands of Tibesti, whose mountains +rise to 8,300 feet, condense a little rain and permit the Tibbus to +raise some grain and dates in the narrow valleys.[1122] + +[Sidenote: Irrigation and horticulture.] + +The few and limited spots where the desert or steppe affords water for +cultivation require artificial irrigation, the importation of plants, +and careful tillage, to make the limited area support even a small +social group. Hence they could have been utilized by man only after he +had made considerable progress in civilization.[1123] Oasis agriculture is +predominantly intensive. Gardens and orchards tend to prevail over field +tillage. The restricted soil and water must be forced to yield their +utmost. While on the rainy or northern slope of the Atlas in Algiers and +Tunis farms abound, on the Saharan piedmont are chiefly plantations of +vegetables, orchards and palm groves.[1124] In Fezzan at the oasis of +Ghat, Barth found kitchen gardens of considerable extent, large palm +groves, but limited fields of grain, all raised by irrigation; and in +the flat hollow basin forming the oasis of Murzuk, he found also fig and +peach trees, vegetables, besides fields of wheat and barley cultivated +with much labor.[1125] In northern Fezzan, where the mountains back of +Tripoli provide a supply of water, saffron and olive trees are the +staple articles of tillage. The slopes are terraced and irrigated, laid +out in orchards of figs, pomegranates, almonds and grapes, while fields +of wheat and barley border the lower courses of the wadis.[1126] In the +"cup oases" or depressions of the Sahara, the village is always built on +the slope, because the alluvial soil in the basin is too precious to be +used for house sites.[1127] + +[Sidenote: Effect of diminishing water supply.] + +The water supply in deserts and steppes, on which permanent agriculture +depends, is so scant that even a slight diminution causes the area of +tillage to shrink. Here a fluctuation of snowfall or rainfall that in a +moist region would be negligible, has conspicuous or even tragic +results. English engineers who examined the utilization of the Afghan +streams for irrigation reported that the natives had exploited their +water supply to the last drop; that irrigation converted the Kabul River +and the Heri-rud at certain seasons of the year into dry channels.[1128] +In the Turkoman steppes it has been observed that expanding tillage, by +the multiplication of irrigation canals, increased the loss of water by +evaporation, and hence diminished the supply. Facts like these reveal +the narrow margin between food and famine, which makes the uncertain +basis of life for the steppe agriculturist. Even slight desiccation +contracts the volume and shortens the course of interior drainage +streams; therefore it narrows the piedmont zone of vegetation and the +hem of tillage along the river banks. The previous frontier of field and +garden is marked by abandoned hamlets and sand-buried cities, like those +which border the dry beds of the shrunken Khotan rivers of the Tarim +basin.[1129] The steppe regions in the New World as well as the Old show +great numbers of these ruins. Barth found them in the northern Sahara, +dating from Roman days.[1130] They occur in such numbers in the Syrian +Desert, in the Sistan of Persia, in Baluchistan, the Gobi, Takla Makan +Desert, Turfan and the Lop Nor basin, that they indicate a marked but +irregular desiccation of central and western Asia during the historical +period.[1131] + +[Sidenote: Scant diet of nomads.] + +If a scant water supply places sedentary agriculture in arid lands upon +an insecure basis, it makes the nomad's sources of subsistence even more +precarious. It keeps him persistently on low rations, while the drought +that burns his pastures and dries up well and wadi brings him face to +face with famine. The daily food of the Bedouin is meal cooked in sour +camel's milk, to which bread and meat are added only when guests arrive. +His moderation in eating is so great that one meal of a European would +suffice for six Arabs.[1132] The daily food of the shepherd +agriculturists on the Kuen Lun margin of the Takla Makan Desert is bread +and milk; meat is indulged in only three or four times a month.[1133] The +Tartars, even in their days of widest conquest, showed the same habitual +frugality. "Their victuals are all things that may be eaten, for we saw +some of them eat lice." The flesh of all animals dying a natural death +is used as food; in summer it is sun-dried for winter use, because at +that time the Tartars live exclusively on mare's milk which is then +abundant. A cup or two of milk in the morning suffices till evening, +when each man has a little meat. One ram serves as a meal for fifty or a +hundred men. Bones are gnawed till they are burnished, "so that no whit +of their food may come to naught." Genghis Khan enacted that neither +blood nor entrails nor any other part of a beast which might be eaten +should be thrown away.[1134] Scarcity of food among the Tibetan and +Mongolian nomads is reflected in their habit of removing every particle +of meat from the bone when eating.[1135] A thin decoction of hot tea, +butter and flour is their staple food. Many Turkoman nomads, despite +outward appearance of wealth, eat only dried fish, and get bread only +once a month, while for the poor wheat is prohibited on account of its +cost.[1136] The Saharan Tibbus, usually on a starvation diet, eat the +skin and powdered bones of their dead animals.[1137] + +The privations and hardships of life in the deserts and steppes +discourage obesity. The Koko-Nor Mongols of the high Tibetan plateau are +of slight build, never fat.[1138] The Bedouin's physical ideal of a man +is spare, sinewy, energetic and vigorous, "lean-sided and thin," as the +Arab poet expresses it.[1139] The nomadic tribesmen throughout the +Sahara, whether of Hamitic, Semitic or Negro race, show this type, and +retain it even after several generations of settlement in the river +valleys of the Sudan. The Bushmen, who inhabit the Kalahari Desert, have +thin wiry forms and are capable of great exertion and privations.[1140] + +[Sidenote: Checks to population.] + +Though the conquering propensities of nomadic tribes make large families +desirable, in order to increase the military strength of the horde, and +though shepherd folk acquiring new and rich pastures develop patriarchal +families, as did the Jews after the conquest of Canaan, nevertheless the +limited water and food supply of desert and grassland, as well as the +relatively low-grade economy of pastoral life, impose an iron-bound +restriction upon population, so that as a matter of fact patriarchal +families are rare. When natural increase finds no vent in emigration and +dispersal, marriage among nomads becomes less fruitful.[1141] Artificial +limitation of population occurs frequently among desert-dwellers. In the +Libyan oasis of Farafeah, the inhabitants never exceed eighty males, a +limit fixed by a certain Sheik Murzuk.[1142] Poverty of food supply +explains the small number of children in the typical Turkoman family. +Among the Koko-Nor Tibetans, monogamy is the rule, polygamy the +exception and confined to the few rich, while families never include +more than two or three children.[1143] According to Burckhardt, three +children constitute a large family among the Bedouins, much to the +regret of the Bedouins themselves. Mohammedans though they are, few +practice polygamy, while polyandry and female infanticide existed in +heathen times.[1144] Desert peoples seem to be naturally monogamous.[1145] + +[Sidenote: Trade of nomads.] + +The prevailing poverty, monotony and unreliability of subsistence in +desert and steppe, as well as the low industrial status, necessitate +trade with bordering agricultural lands. The Bedouins of Arabia buy +flour, barley for horse feed, coffee and clothing, paying for them +largely with butter and male colts. The northern tribes resort every +year to the confines of Syria, when they are visited by pedlers from +Damascus and Aleppo.[1146] The tribes from Hasa and the Nejd pasture land +bring horses, cattle and sheep to the city of Koweit at the head of the +Persian Gulf to barter for dates, clothing and firearms; and large +encampments of them are always to be seen near this town.[1147] Arabia +and the Desert of Kedar sold lambs, rams and goats to the markets of +ancient Tyre.[1148] The pastoral tribes of ancient Judea in times of +scarcity went to Egypt for grain, which they purchased either with money +or cattle. The picture of Jacob's sons returning from Egypt to Canaan +with their long lines of asses laden with sacks of corn is typical for +pastoral nomads; so is their ultimate settlement, owing to protracted +famine, in the delta land of Goshen. The Kirghis of the Russian and +Asiatic steppes barter horses and sheep for cereals, fine articles of +clothing, and coarse wooden utensils in the cities of Bukhara and the +border districts of Russia. Occasionally the land of the nomad yields +other products than those of the flocks and herds, which enter therefore +into their trade. Such is the salt of the Sahara, secured at Taudeni and +Bilma, the gums of the Indus desert, and balm of Gilead from the dry +plateau east of Jordan. + +[Sidenote: Pastoral nomads as middlemen.] + +The systematic migrations of nomads, their numerous beasts of burden, +and the paucity of desert and steppe products determine pastoral tribes +for the office of middlemen;[1149] and as such they appear in all parts +of the world. The contrast of products in arid regions and in the +bordering agricultural land, as also in the districts on opposite sides +of these vast barriers, stimulates exchanges. This contrast may rest on +a difference of geographic conditions, or of economic development, or +both. The reindeer Chukches of Arctic Siberia take Russian manufactured +wares from the fur stations on the Lena River to trade at the coast +markets on Bering Sea for Alaskan pelts. The sons of Jacob, pasturing +their flocks on the Judean plateau, saw "a company of Ishmaelites come +from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going +to carry it down to Egypt."[1150] This caravan of Arabian merchants +purchased Joseph as a slave, a characteristic commodity in desert +commerce from ancient times to the present. The predatory expeditions of +nomads provide them with abundant captives, only few of which can be +utilized as slaves in their pastoral economy. In the same way the +Kirghis manage the caravan trade between Russia and Bukhara, sometimes +adding captured travelers to their other wares. In ancient times Nubian +shepherd folk acted as migrant middlemen between Egypt and Meroe near +the junction of the Atbara River and the Nile, as did also the desert +tribe of the Nasamones between Carthage and interior Africa.[1151] From +remote ages an active caravan trade was carried on between the +productive districts of Arabia Felix and the cities of Mesopotamia, +Syria and Egypt. Mohammed himself was a caravan leader; in the faith +which he established religious pilgrimages and commercial ventures were +inextricably united, while to the mercantile spirit it gave a fresh and +vigorous impetus.[1152] The caravan trade of the Sahara was first +organized by Moorish and Arab tribes who dwelt on the northern margin of +the desert, rearing herds of camels. These they hired to merchants for +the journey between Morocco and Timbuctoo, in return for cereals and +clothing. Hence Morocco has been the chief customer of the great desert +town near the Niger, and sends thither numerous caravans from Tendouf +(Taredant) Morocco, Fez and Tafilet. Algiers dominates the less +important route via the oasis of Twat, and Tripolis that through +Ghadames to the busy towns in the Lake Chad basin.[1153] + +[Sidenote: Desert markets.] + +If the camel is "the ship of the desert," the market towns on the margin +of the sandy wastes are the ports of the desert. Their bazaars hold +everything that the nomad needs. Their suburbs are a shifting series of +shepherd encampments or extensive caravanseries for merchant and pack +animal, like the _abaradion_ of Timbuctoo, which receives annually from +fifty to sixty thousand camels.[1154] Their industries develop partly in +response to the demand of the desert or trans-desert population. The +fine blades of Damascus reflected the Bedouin's need of the best weapon. +Each city has its sphere of desert influence. The province of Nejd in +Central Arabia is commercially subservient to Bagdad, Busrah, Koweit and +Bahrein.[1155] The bazaars of Samarkand and Tashkent exist largely for +the scattered nomads of Turkestan. Ancient Gaza[1156] and Askelon +fattened on the Egyptian trade across the Desert of Shur, as Petra, +Bostra and Damascus on the thin but steady streams of nomad products +flowing in from the Syrian Desert. + +[Sidenote: Nomad industries.] + +The abundant leisure of nomadic life encourages the beginning of +industry, but rarely advances it beyond the household stage, owing to +the thin, family-wise dispersion of population which precludes division +of labor. Such industry as exists consists chiefly in working up the raw +materials yielded by the herds. Among the Bedouins, blacksmiths and +saddlers are the only professional artisans; these are regarded with +contempt and are never of Bedouin stock.[1157] In the ancient world, +industry reached its zero point in Arabia, and in modern times shows +meager development there. On the other hand the Saharan Arabs developed +an hereditary guild of expert well-makers, which seems to date back to +remote times, and is held in universal honor.[1158] + +[Sidenote: Oriental rugs.] + +It is to the tent-dwellers of the world, however, that we apparently owe +the oriental rug. This triumph of the weaver's art seems to have +originated among pastoral nomads, who developed it in working up the +wool and hair of their sheep, goats and camels; but it early became +localized as a specialized industry in the towns and villages of +irrigated districts on the borders of the grazing lands, where the +nomads had advanced to sedentary life. Therefore in the period of the +Caliphate, from 632 to 1258, we find these brilliant flowers of the +loom, blooming like the Persian gardens, in Persian Farsistan, +Khusistan, Kirman and Khorasan. We find them spreading the mediæval fame +of Shiraz, Tun, Meshed, Amul, Bukhara and Merv. The secret of this +preeminence lay partly in the weaver's inherited aptitude and artistic +sense for this textile work, derived from countless generations of +shepherd ancestors; partly in their proximity to the finest raw +materials, whose quality was equalled nowhere else, because it depended +upon the character of the pasturage, probably also upon the climatic +conditions affecting directly the flocks and herds.[1159] + +A map showing the geographical distribution of Eastern rug-making +reveals the relation of the industry to semi-arid or saline pastures, +and makes the mind revert at once to the blankets of artistic design and +color, woven by the Navajo Indians of our own rainless Southwest. Rug +weaving in the Old World reached its finest development in countries +like Persia, Turkestan, western Afghanistan, Baluchistan, western India +and the plateau portions of Asia Minor, countries where the rainfall +varies from 10 to 20 inches or even less, [See map page 484.] where +nomadism claims a considerable part of the population, and where the +ancestry of all traces back to some of the great shepherd races, like +Turkomans and Tartars. These peoples are hereditary specialists in the +care, classification, and preparation of wools.[1160] Weavers of rugs +form an industrial class in the cities of Persia and Asia Minor, where +they obey largely the taste of the outside world in regard to design and +color;[1161] whereas the nomads, weaving for their own use, adhere +strictly to native colors and designs. Their patterns are tribal +property, each differing from that of the other; and though less +artistic than those of the urban workers, are nevertheless interesting +and consistent, while the nomad's intuitive sense of color is fine.[1162] + +[Sidenote: Architecture of nomad conquerors.] + +The principles of design and color which these tent-dwellers had +developed in their weaving, they applied, after their conquest of +agricultural lands, to stone and produced the mosaic, to architecture +and produced the Alhambra and the Taj Mahal.[1163] Whether Saracens of +Spain or Turkoman conquerors of India, they were ornamentists whose +contribution to architecture was decoration. Working in marble, stone, +metals or wood, they wrought always in the spirit of color and textile +design, rather than in the spirit of form. The walls of their mosques, +palaces and tombs reproduce the beauty of the rugs once screening the +doors of their felt tents. The gift of color they passed on to the West, +first through the Moors of Sicily and Spain, later through Venetian +commerce. Their influence can be seen in the exquisite mosaic decoration +in the cloister of Mont Reale of once Saracenic Palermo, and in the +Ducal Palace and St. Mark's Cathedral of beauty-loving Venice.[1164] This +has been almost their sole contribution to the art of the world. + +Pastoral nomads can give political union to civilized peoples; they can +assimilate and spread ready-made elements of civilization, but to +originate or develop them they are powerless. Between the art, +philosophy and literature of China on the one side, and of the settled +districts of Persia on the other, lies the cultural sterility of the +Central Asia plateau. Its outpouring hordes have only in part acquired +the civilization of the superior agricultural peoples whom they have +conquered; from Kazan and Constantinople to Delhi, from Delhi to Peking +they have added almost nothing to the local culture. + +[Sidenote: Arid lands as areas of arrested development.] + +Deserts and steppes lay an arresting hand on progress. Their tribes do +not develop; neither do they grow old. They are the eternal children of +the world. Genuine nomadic peoples show no alteration in their manners, +customs or mode of life from millennium to millennium. The interior of +the Arabian desert reveals the same social and economic status,[1165] +whether we take the descriptions of Moses or Mohammed or Burckhardt or +more recent travelers. The Bedouins of the Nubian steppes adhere +strictly to all their ancient customs, and reproduce to-day the pastoral +nomadism of Abraham and Jacob.[1166] Genealogies were not more important +to the biblical house of David and stem of Jesse than they are for the +modern Kirghis tribesman, who as a little child learns to recite the +list of his ancestors back to the seventh generation. The account which +Herodotus gives of the nomads of the Russian steppes agrees in minute +details with that of Strabo written five centuries later,[1167] with that +of William de Rubruquis in 1253, and with modern descriptions of Kalmuck +and Kirghis life. The Gauchos or Indian pastoral halfbreeds of the +Argentine plains were found by Wappäus in 1870 to accord accurately with +Avara's description of them at the end of the eighteenth century.[1168] +The restless tenants of the grasslands come and go, but their type never +materially changes. Their culture is stationary amid persistent +movement. Only when here or there in some small and favored spot they +are forced to make the transition to agriculture, or when they learn by +long and close association with sedentary nations the lesson of drudgery +and progress, do the laws of social and economic development begin to +operate in them. As a rule, they must first escape partly or wholly the +environment of their pasture lands, either by emigration or by the +intrusion into their midst of alien tillers of the soil. + +But while the migrant shepherd originates nothing, he plays an +historical rôle as a transmitter of civilization. Asiatic nomads have +sparsely disseminated the culture of China, Persia, Egypt and Yemen over +large areas of the world. The Semite shepherds of the Red Sea deserts, +through their merchants and conquerors, long gave to the dark Sudan the +only light of civilization which it received, Mohammed, a Bedouin of the +Ishmaelite tribe, caravan leader on the desert highways between Mecca +and Syria, borrowed from Jerusalem the simple tenets of a monotheistic +religion, and spread them through his militant followers over a large +part of Africa and Asia. + +[Sidenote: Mental and moral qualities of nomads.] + +The deserts and grasslands breed in their sons certain qualities and +characteristics-courage, hardihood, the stiff-necked pride of the +freeman, vigilance, wariness, sense of locality,[1169] keen powers of +observation stimulated by the monotonous, featureless environment, and +the consequent capacity to grasp every detail.[1170] Though robbery +abroad is honorable and marauder a term with which to crown a hero, +theft at home is summarily dealt with among most nomads. The property of +the unlocked tent and the far-ranging herd must be safeguarded.[1171] The +Tartars maintained a high standard of honesty among themselves and +punished theft with death.[1172] Wide dispersal in small groups is +reflected in the diversity of dialects among desert peoples;[1173] in the +practice of hospitality, whether among Bedouins of the Nejd, Kirghis of +the Central Asia plateau,[1174] or semi-nomadic Boers of South +Africa;[1175] in the persistence of feuds and of the duty of blood +revenge, which is sanctioned by the Koran. + +Isolation tends to breed among nomads pride of race and a repugnance to +intermixture. The ideal of the pastoral Israelites was a pure ethnic +stock, protected by stern inhibition of intermarriage with other tribes. +Therefore, Moses enjoined upon them the duty of exterminating the +peoples of Canaan whom they dispossessed.[1176] While the urban Arabs +show a medley of breeds, dashed with a strain of negro blood, among the +nomad Bedouins, mixture is exceptional and is regarded as a +disgrace.[1177] The same thing is true among the nomad Arabs of Algeria, +and there it has placed a stumbling block in the way of the French +colonial administration, by preventing the appearance of half-breeds who +might bridge the gap between the colonials and natives. Where pastoral +Semites have settled in agricultural lands, intermixture on a wide scale +has followed, as in the Sudan from Niger to Nile; but even here, when a +tribe or clan has retained a strictly pastoral life in the grassland, +and has held itself aloof from the agricultural districts of the Negro +villages, relatively pure survivals are to be found, as among the Cow +or Bush Fulani of Bornu.[1178] On the other hand, the Hausa, a migrant +trading folk of mingled Arab and Negro blood, spread northward along the +trans-Saharan caravan route to the oasis of Air before the fourteenth +century, and there have infused into the local Berber stock a strong +Negro strain.[1179] Among the nomads of Central Asia, one wave of race +movement has so often followed and overtaken another, that it has +produced a confused blending of breeds. The mixtures are so numerous +that pure types are exceptional,[1180] and the exclusiveness of the +desert Semites disappears. + +[Sidenote: Religion of pastoral nomads.] + +Though all these desert-born characteristics and customs have a certain +interest for the sociologist, they possess only minor importance in +comparison with the religious spirit of pastoral nomads, which is always +fraught with far-reaching historical results. The evidence of history +shows us that there is such a thing as a desert-born genius for +religion. Huc and Gabin testify to the deeper religious feeling of the +Buddhist nomads of the Central Asia plateaus, as compared with the +lowland Chinese. The three great monotheistic religions of the world are +closely connected in their origin and development with the deserts of +Syria and Arabia. The area of Mohammedism embraces the steppe zone of +the Old World[1181] from Senegambia and Zanzibar in Africa to the Indus, +Tarim and the upper Obi, together with some well watered lands on its +margins. It comprises in this territory a variety of races--Negroes, +Hamites, Semites, Iranians, Indo-Aryans, and a long list of Mongoloid +tribes. Here is a psychological effect of environment. The dry, pure air +stimulates the faculties of the desert-dweller, but the featureless, +monotonous surroundings furnish them with little to work upon. The mind, +finding scant material for sustained logical deduction, falls back upon +contemplation. Intellectual activity is therefore restricted, narrow, +unproductive; while the imagination is unfettered but also unfed. First +and last, these shepherd folk receive from the immense monotony of their +environment the impression of unity.[1182] Therefore all of them, upon +outgrowing their primitive fetish and nature worship, gravitate +inevitably into monotheism. Their religion is in accord with their whole +mental make-up; it is a growth, a natural efflorescence. Therefore it +is strong. Its tenets form the warp of all their intellectual fabrics, +permeate their meager science and philosophy, animate their more +glorious poetry. It has moreover the fanaticism and intolerance +characterizing men of few ideas and restricted outlook upon life. +Therewith is bound up a spirit of propaganda. The victories of the Jews +in Palestine, Syria and Philistia were the victories of Jehovah; the +conquests of Saladin were the conquests of Allah; and the domain of the +Caliphate was the dominion of Islam. + +[Illustration: DISTRIBUTION OF RELIGIONS IN THE OLD WORLD (World map +showing distribution of Christians, Mohammedans, Brahmans, Buddhists, +and Heathen).] + +[Sidenote: Fanaticism as a force in nomad expansion.] + +The desert everywhere, sooner or later, drives out its brood, ejects its +people and their ideas, like those exploding seed-pods which at a touch +cast their seed abroad. The religious fanaticism of the shepherd tribes +gives that touch; herein lies its historical importance. Mohammedism, +fierce and militant, conduced to those upheavals of migration and +conquest which since the seventh century have so often transformed the +political geography of the Old World. The vast empire of the Caliphate, +from its starting point in Arabia, spread in eighty years from the Oxus +River to the Atlantic Ocean.[1183] The rapid rise and spread between 1745 +and 1803 of the Wahaby clan and sect, the Puritans of Islam, which +resulted for a time in their political and religious domination of much +of Arabia from their home in the Nejd, recalls the stormy conquests of +Mohammed's followers. Islam is to-day a persistent source of ferment in +Algeria, the Sahara, and the Sudan, On the other hand. Buddhism serves +to cement together the diverse nomadic tribes of the Central Asia +plateaus, and keep them in spiritual subjection to the Grand Lama of +Lhassa. The Chinese government makes political use of this fact by +dominating the Lama and employing him as a tool to secure quiet on its +long frontier of contact with its restless Mongol neighbors. Moreover +the religion of Buddha has restrained the warlike spirit of the nomads, +and by its institution of celibacy has helped keep down population below +the boiling-point. [Compare maps pages 484 and 513.] + +[Sidenote: The faith of the desert.] + +The faith of the desert tends to be stern, simple and austere. The +indulgence which Mohammed promised his followers in Paradise was only a +reflex of the deprivation under which they habitually suffered in the +scant pastures of Arabia. The lavish beauty of the Heavenly City +epitomized the ideals and dreams of the desert-stamped Jew. The active, +simple, uncramped life of the grasslands seems essential to the +preservation of the best virtues of the desert-bred. These disappear +largely in sedentary life. The Bedouin rots when he takes root. City +life contaminates, degrades him. His virile qualities and his religion +both lose their best when he leaves the desert. Contact with the cities +of Philistia and the fertile plains of the Canaanites, with their +sensual agricultural gods, demoralized the Israelites.[1184] The prophets +were always calling them back to the sterner code of morals and the +purer faith of their days of wandering. Jeremiah in despair holds up to +them as a standard of life the national injunction of the pastoral +Rechabites, "Neither shall ye build house nor sow corn nor plant +vineyard, but all your days ye shall dwell in tents."[1185] The ascent in +civilization made havoc with Hebrew morals and religion, because ethics +and religion are the finest and latest flower of each cultural stage. +Transition shows the breaking down of one code before the establishment +of another. + +Judaism has always suffered from its narrow local base. Even when +transplanted to various parts of the earth, it has remained a distinctly +tribal religion. Intense conservatism in doctrine and ceremonial it +still bears as the heritage of its desert birth. Islam too shows the +limitations of its original environment. It embodies a powerful appeal +to the peoples of arid lands, and among these it has spread and survives +as an active principle. But it belongs to an arrested economic and +social development, lacks the germs of moral evolution which +Christianity, born in the old stronghold of Hebraic monotheism, but +impregnated by all the cosmopolitan influences of the Mediterranean +basin and the _Imperium Romanum_, amply possesses. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER XIV + +[1026] Figures taken from Albrecht Penck, _Morphologie der +Erdoberfläche_, Vol. I, p. 151. Stuttgart, 1894. + +[1027] A.P. Brigham, Geographic Influences in American History, Chap. +IV. Boston, 1903. + +[1028] E.C. Semple, American History and Its Geographic Conditions, pp. +65-69, 230, 288, 385. Boston, 1903. + +[1029] _Ibid._, pp. 218, 221, 393. + +[1030] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 127. New York, 1902. + +[1031] Henry Buckle, History of Civilization in England, Vol. II, pp. +126-136. New York, 1871. + +[1032] Carl Ritter, Comparative Geography, pp. 191-192, 201. +Philadelphia, 1865. + +[1033] J.H. Breasted, History of Egypt, pp. 142, 144, 261-265, 293-302, +513-517. New York, 1905. + +[1034] _Ibid._, 6, 48, 93, 114, 119, 127, 134, 136, 163, 164, 182, 190, +191, 507. + +[1035] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 340-343, map. New York, 1899. + +[1036] Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, Vol. I, pp. +57-60. New York, 1893. + +[1037] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, Maps, pp. 53 and 66. New York, +1899. + +[1038] Hans Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. VI, p. 130, map of +ancient distribution of Germans and Celts. New York, 1907. + +[1039] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 216-218. New York, 1899. + +[1040] _Ibid._, 344-347, 356, 365. + +[1041] Elisée Reclus, Europe, Vol. IV, pp. 309-310. New York, 1882. + +[1042] Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, Empire of the Tsars, Vol. I, p. 107. New +York, 1893. + +[1043] H.R. Mill, International Geography, pp. 220-222. New York, 1902. + +[1044] Vidal-Lablache, _Atlas Général_, Maps pp. 63, 64, 93. Paris, +1909. + +[1045] H.R. Mill, International Geography, 174, 177-182. New York, 1902. + +[1046] Twelfth Census, Bulletin of Agriculture No. 181, p. 2, compared +with Eleventh Census, Statistics of Population, map of negro +distribution, p. XCVII. Washington, 1895. + +[1047] Twelfth Census, Bulletin of Agriculture, No. 155, p. 2. +Washington, 1902. + +[1048] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, p. 353. New York, 1899. + +[1049] Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, Vol. II, p. 238. +London, 1907. + +[1050] Haxthausen, _Studien_, Vol. I, p. 309. _Die ländliche Verfassung +Russlands_, pp. 3, 7. Leipzig, 1866. + +[1051] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, pp. 79-83. London, +1896-1898. J. Wappäus, _Handbuch der Geographie und Statistik des +ehemaligen spanischen Mittel- und Sud-Amerika_, pp. 978-980, 1019. +Leipzig, 1863-1870. + +[1052] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, pp. 206-208. London, +1896-1898. + +[1053] Nordenskiold, Voyage of the Vega, pp. 60, 156, 452. New York, +1882. Alexander P. Engelhardt, A Russian Province of the North, pp. +291-295. London, 1899. + +[1054] _Ibid._, pp. 83, 88-91. + +[1055] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, pp. 166-167. London. +1896-1898. + +[1056] James Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, p. 107. New York, 1897. + +[1057] Herodotus, Melpomene, 19, 46. + +[1058] Thomas Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, Vol. I, p. 262. Oxford, +1892. + +[1059] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, p. 220. London, 1896-1898. + +[1060] Genesis, XIII, 2, 5. + +[1061] James Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, p. 474. New York, 1897. + +[1062] Eleventh Census, Indian Report, pp. 143-144. Washington, 1894. + +[1063] Sven Hedin, Central Asia and Tibet, Vol. I, pp. 18-20. London and +New York, 1903. + +[1064] J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, Vol. I, pp. +32-33. London, 1831. + +[1065] George Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, pp. +8-10. New York, 1897. + +[1066] Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. V, pp. 78-79. +New York, 1858. + +[1067] L. March Phillipps, In the Desert, p. 95. London, 1905. + +[1068] Sir Samuel W. Baker, The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, pp. 88, +128, 129, 135. Hartford, 1868. + +[1069] Journey of John de Carpini and William de Rubruquis in 1253, pp. +8, 217. Hakluyt Society, London, 1903. + +[1070] James Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, pp. 107, 421. New York, +1897. + +[1071] Wilhelm Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Ackerbaues_, p. 44. +Stuttgart, 1888. + +[1072] A full discussion in Malthus, Principles of Population, Book I, +chap. 7. + +[1073] J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, Vol. I, pp. +133-144, 157-160. London, 1831. S.M. Zwemer, Arabia, The Cradle of +Islam, 155-157. New York, 1900. + +[1074] Vambery, _Reise in Mittelasien_, pp. 285, 289-297. Leipzig, 1873. + +[1075] Alexis Krausse, Russia in Asia, pp. 127-129. New York, 1899. + +[1076] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, pp. 174-175. London, +1896-1898. + +[1077] Wallace, Russia, pp. 340-342. New York, 1904. + +[1078] L. March Phillipps, In the Desert, pp. 17, 63-66. London, 1905. + +[1079] Felix Dubois, Timbuctoo, pp. 256, 324-325. Translated from the +French, New York, 1896. + +[1080] Heinrich Barth, Travels in North and Central Africa, Vol. I, pp. +287-288, 293, 305. New York, 1857. + +[1081] Felix Dubois, Timbuctoo, pp. 133-134, 203, 206-207, 229, 232, +239-245. New York, 1896. + +[1082] Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, Vol. II, pp. 1-2, 6, +16-18, 80. London, 1907. + +[1083] Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman. Empire, Vol. V, p. 87. New +York, 1858. + +[1084] Pliny, _Historia Naturalis_, V, 3. + +[1085] Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. II, p. 495. +New York, 1858. + +[1086] Ellsworth Huntington, The Pulse of Asia, p. 340. Boston, 1907. + +[1087] Pallas, Travels in the Southern Provinces of Russia in 1793-1794, +Vol. II, p. 4. London, 1812. + +[1088] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 94, 256. + +[1089] Genesis, XIII, 7-8; XXI, 25-30; XXVI, 15-22. + +[1090] Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, Vol. I, p. 545. New +York, 1887. + +[1091] Thucydides, Book II, 96. + +[1092] Herodotus, IV, 46. + +[1093] Meredith Townsend, Asia and Europe, Chapter on Arab Courage. New +York, 1904. + +[1094] Wilhelm Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Ackerbaues_, p. 44. +Stuttgart, 1888. + +[1095] J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, Vol. I, pp. +35-36. London, 1831. + +[1096] John de Plano Carpini, Journey to the Northeast, pp. 114-117, +120-125. Hakluyt Society, London, 1904. + +[1097] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 28. London, 1896-1898. + +[1098] J.H. Speke, Discovery of the Source of the Nile, pp. 241-244. New +York, 1868. + +[1099] Journey of William de Rubruquis, pp. 18-27, Hakluyt Society, +London, 1900. + +[1100] Jerome Dowd, The Negro Races, Vol. I, pp. 225-232. New York, +1907. + +[1101] Sir Francis Younghusband, The Heart of a Continent, pp. 85-98. +London, 1904. + +[1102] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 170. London, 1896-1898. + +[1103] Heinrich Barth, Travels in North and Central Africa, Vol. I, pp. +148, 152, 204, 210, 303. New York, 1857. + +[1104] J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, Vol. I, pp. +115-119, 284-286, 296-300. London, 1831. + +[1105] Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. V, pp. 85-87. +New York, 1857. + +[1106] Jerome Dowd, The Negro Races, Vol. I, pp. 234-235. New York,1907. + +[1107] Vambery, _Reise in Mittel Asien_, pp. 288-290. Leipzig, 1873. + +[1108] James Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, pp. 108, 128, 129, 155, +199, 452-453. New York, 1897. + +[1109] For vivid description of desert defensive warfare, see Gustav +Frensen, Peter Moore's Journey to Southwest Africa. Translated from the +German, 1908. Based upon interviews with hundreds of returning German +soldiers from the Damara campaign. + +[1110] H.B. Mill, International Geography, p. 454. New York, 1902. + +[1111] Henry Norman, All the Russias, p. 273. New York, 1902. + +[1112] L. March Phillipps, In the Desert, pp. 54-56. London, 1905. + +[1113] _Ibid._, pp. 181-164. + +[1114] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, p. 177. London, 1896-1898. + +[1115] Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, Vol. I, pp. +29-30. New York, 1893. + +[1116] Pallas, Travels through the Southern Provinces of Russia, Vol. I, +pp. 532-533. London, 1812. + +[1117] Sir S.W. Baker, Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, p. 88. Hartford, +1868. + +[1118] David Livingstone, Missionary Travels, pp. 53-56, 169. New York, +1858. + +[1119] Sven Hedin, Central Asia and Tibet, Vol. I, pp. 96, 136, 359, New +York and London, 1903. Ellsworth Huntington, The Pulse of Asia, pp. 193, +202, 212, 213. Boston, 1907. + +[1120] Sir Francis Younghusband, The Heart of a Continent, pp. 103, 104, +107, 112-116, 120, 125-128, 137, 138, 143. London, 1904. + +[1121] S.W. Zwemer, Arabia the Cradle of Islam, pp. 147, 151. New York, +1900. D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, pp. 185, 195. 265. London, 1902. + +[1122] Nachtigal, _Sahara und Sudan_, Vol. I, pp. 214-218, 267-269. +Berlin, 1879. + +[1123] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, p. 168. London, 1896-1898. + +[1124] H.R. Mill, International Geography, pp. 906, 914. New York, 1902. + +[1125] H. Barth, Travels in North and Central Africa, Vol. I, pp. 152, +207, 210, 211. New York, 1857. + +[1126] _Ibid._, 41-44, 52, 61-64, 67, 76, 93, 95, 99, 103, 105. + +[1127] L. March Phillipps, In the Desert, p. 174. London, 1905. + +[1128] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, pp. 91-93. London, 1905. + +[1129] M.A. Stein, The Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan, pp. 275-324, +354-408. London, 1903. + +[1130] H. Barth, Travels in North and Central Africa, Vol. I, chap. III. +New York, 1857. + +[1131] Ellsworth Huntington, The Pulse of Asia, pp. 160-190, 209, 304, +309-310, 315, 367. Boston, 1907. + +[1132] J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, Vol. I, pp. +57-64, 238-242. London, 1831. + +[1133] E. Huntington, The Pulse of Asia, pp. 137-138. Boston, 1907. + +[1134] John de Plano Carpini, Journey to the Northeast, pp. 109-111, +120. Hakluyt Society, London, 1904. Journey of William de Rubruquis, pp. +191-193, 203, 224. Hakluyt Society, London, 1903. + +[1135] W.W. Rockhill, The Land of the Lamas, p. 80. New York, 1891. + +[1136] Vambery, _Reise in Mittel Asien_, p. 295. Leipzig, 1873. + +[1137] Nachtigal, _Sahara und Sudan_, Vol. I, pp. 257, 268. Berlin, +1879. + +[1138] E. Huntington, The Pulse of Asia, p. 74. Boston, 1907. + +[1139] L. March Phillipps, In the Desert, pp. 198-201. London, 1905. + +[1140] D. Livingstone, Travels and Researches in South Africa, p. 55. +New York, 1859. + +[1141] W. Roscher, _Grundlagen der Nationalökonomik_, Book VI, chap. II, +p. 244. Stuttgart, 1886. + +[1142] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, p. 170. London, 1896-98. + +[1143] W.W. Rockhill, Land of the Lamas, p. 80. New York, 1891. + +[1144] J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, Vol. I, pp. +106, 187. London, 1831. S.M. Zwemer, Arabia the Cradle of Islam, pp. +162, 268. New York, 1900. + +[1145] Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 429, notes 2 and 5, p. +440, note 2, p. 507. London, 1891. + +[1146] J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, Vol. I, pp. +47, 48, 70, 71, 191-192, 239. London, 1831. + +[1147] S.M. Zwemer, Arabia the Cradle of Islam, p. 128. New York, 1900. + +[1148] Ezekiel, Chap. XXVII, 21. + +[1149] For economic principle, see W. Roscher, _Handel und +Gewerbefleiss_, pp. 141-147. Stuttgart, 1899. + +[1150] Genesis, Chap. XXXVII, 25-28, 36. + +[1151] W. Roscher, _National-Oekonomik des Ackerbaues_, p. 39, Note 11. +Stuttgart, 1888. + +[1152] S.P. Scott, History of the Moorish Empire in Europe, Vol. III, p. +616. Philadelphia, 1904. + +[1153] Felix Dubois, Timbuctoo, pp. 251-252. New York, 1896. + +[1154] _Ibid._, pp. 257-264. + +[1155] S.M. Zwemer, Arabia the Cradle of Islam, p. 151. New York, 1900. + +[1156] George Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, pp. +182-184. New York, 1897. + +[1157] J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, Vol. I, p. +65. London, 1831. + +[1158] L. March Phillipps, In the Desert, pp. 130-134. London, 1903. + +[1159] F.R. Martin, A History of Oriental Carpets before 1800, pp. 9, +29, 69 et seq., 101, 121. Vienna, 1908. G. LeStrange, Land of the +Eastern Caliphates, pp. 37, 293-294, 353, 363, 471. Cambridge, 1905. + +[1160] J.K. Mumford, Oriental Rugs, pp. 23-40, 100-111. New York, 1895. + +[1161] D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, pp. 197-198. London, 1902. + +[1162] J.K. Mumford, Oriental Rugs, p. 61. New York, 1895. + +[1163] J. Ferguson, History of Architecture, Vol. II, pp. 277-278, 499, +500. New York. J. Ferguson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, +Vol. II, pp. 210-214. New York, 1891. + +[1164] Wilhelm Bode, _Vorderasiatische Knüpfteppiche_, pp. 3-4. Leipzig. + +[1165] Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. V, p. 78. New +York, 1858. + +[1166] Sir S.W. Baker, Exploration of the Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, +pp. 148-152. Hartford, 1868. + +[1167] Strabo, Book VII, chap. III, 7, 17; chap. IV, 6. Book XI, chap. +II, 1, 2, 3. + +[1168] J. Wappäus, _Handbuch der Geographie und Statistik des chemaligen +spanischen Mittel- und Sud-Amerika_, p. 1019. Leipzig, 1863-1870. + +[1169] Sir F. Younghusband, The Heart of a Continent, pp. 72, 74. +London, 1904. Alfred Kirchoff, Man and Earth, pp. 58-71. London. + +[1170] J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, Vol. I, pp. +374-377. London, 1831. L. March Phillipps, In the Desert, pp. 98-100. +London, 1905. + +[1171] Exodus, Chap. XXII, 1-4, 23. + +[1172] John de Plano Carpini, Journey to the Northeast in 1246, pp. 110, +111, 113. Hakluyt Society, London, 1904. + +[1173] Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. V, p. 89. New +York, 1858. H. Barth, Travels in North and Central Africa, Vol. I, p. +144. New York, 1857. + +[1174] E. Huntington, The Pulse of Asia, pp. 121-123. Boston, 1907. + +[1175] James Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, p. 422. New York, 1897. + +[1176] Deuteronomy, VII, 1-3. + +[1177] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, p. 184. London, 1896-1898. + +[1178] Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, Vol. I, pp. 190-197. +London, 1907. + +[1179] H. Barth, Travels in North and Central Africa, Vol. I, pp. 202, +277-281. New York, 1857. + +[1180] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, p. 173. London, 1896-1898. + +[1181] _Ibid._, Vol. III, Chapter on Islam, pp. 195-204. + +[1182] George Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, pp. +28-30. New York, 1897. L. March Phillipps, In the Desert, pp. 101-105. +London, 1905. + +[1183] E.A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, pp. 114-116. +London, 1882. + +[1184] George Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, pp. +88-90. New York, 1897. + +[1185] Jeremiah, Chap. XXXV, 6-14. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +MOUNTAIN BARRIERS AND THEIR PASSES + + +[Sidenote: Man as part of the mobile envelope of the earth.] + +The important characteristic of plains is their power to facilitate every +phase of historical movement; that of mountains is their power to +retard, arrest, or deflect it. Man, as part of the mobile envelope of +the earth, like air and water feels always the pull of gravity. From +this he can never fully emancipate himself. By an output of energy he +may climb the steepest slope, but with every upward step the ascent +becomes more difficult, owing to the diminution of warmth and air and +the increasing tax upon the heart.[1186] Maintenance of life in high +altitudes is always a struggle. The decrease of food resources from +lower to higher levels makes the passage of a mountain system an ordeal +for every migrating people or marching army that has to live off the +country which it traverses. Mountains therefore repel population by +their inaccessibility and also by their harsh conditions of life, while +the lowlands attract it, both in migration and settlement. Historical +movement, when forced into the upheaved areas of the earth, avoids the +ridges and peaks, seeks the valleys and passes, where communication with +the lowlands is easiest. + +[Sidenote: Inaccessibility of mountains.] + +High massive mountain systems present the most effective barriers which +man meets on the land surface of the earth. To the spread of population +they offer a resistance which long serves to exclude settlers. The +difficulty of making roads up steep, rocky slopes and through the +forests usually covering their rain-drenched sides, is deterrent enough; +but in addition to this, general infertility, paucity of arable land, +harsh climatic conditions, and the practical lack of communication with +the outside world offer scant basis for subsistence. Hence, as a rule, +only when pressure of population in the lowlands becomes too great under +prevailing economic methods, do clearings and cabins begin to creep up +the slopes. Mountains are always regions of late occupation. Even in the +Stone Age, we find the long-headed race of Mediterranean stock, who +originally populated Europe, distributed over the continent close up to +the foot of the high Alps, but not in the mountains themselves, and only +scantily represented in the Auvergne Plateau of France. The inhospitable +highlands of Switzerland, the German Alps, and the Auvergne received +their first population later when the Alpine race began to occupy +western Europe.[1187] The _Mittelgebirge_ of Germany were not settled till +the Middle Ages. In the United States, the flood of population had +spread westward by 1840 to the ninety-fifth meridian and the north-south +course of the Missouri River; but out of this sea of settlement the +Adirondack Mountains, a few scattered spots in the Appalachians, and the +Ozark Highlands rose as so many islands of uninhabited wilderness, and +they remain to-day areas of sparser population. In 1800, the "bare +spots" in the eastern mountains were more pronounced. [See map page +156.] Great stretches of the Rocky Mountains, of the Laurentian +Highlands of Canada, like smaller patches in the Scandinavian and Swiss +Alps, are practically uninhabited. + +[Sidenote: Mountains as transit regions.] + +Mountain regions, like deserts and seas, become mere transit districts, +which man traverses as quickly as possible. Hence they often lie as +great inert areas in the midst of active historical lands, and first +appear upon the historical stage in minor rôles, when they are wanted by +the plains people as a passway to desirable regions beyond. Then, as a +rule, only their transit routes are secured, while the less accessible +regions are ignored. Cæsar makes no mention of the Alps, except to state +that he has crossed them, until some of the mountain tribes try to block +the passage of Roman merchants or armies; then they become important +enough to be conquered. It was not till after the Cimbri in 102 B.C. +invaded Italy by the Brenner route, that the Romans realized the value +of Rhaetia (Tyrol) as a thoroughfare from Italy to Germany, and began +its conquest in 36 B.C. This was the same value which the Tyrol so long +had for the old German Empire and later for Austria,--merely to secure +connection with the Po Valley. The need of land communication with the +Rhone Valley led the Romans to attack the Salyes, who inhabited the +Maritime Alps, and after eighty years of war to force from them the +concession of a narrow transit strip, twelve stadia or one and a half +miles wide, for the purpose of making a road to Massilia.[1188] The +necessity of controlling such transit lands has drawn British India into +the occupation of mountain Baluchistan, Kashmir and Sikkim, just as it +has caused the highlands of Afghanistan to figure actively in the +expansion policy of both India and Russia. The conquest of such transit +lands has always been attended by road building, from the construction +of the Roman highway through the Brenner Pass to the modern Russian +military road through the Pass of Dariel across the Caucasus, and the +yet more recent Indian railroad to Darjeeling, with the highway +extension beyond to the Tibetan frontier through Himalayan Sikkim. + +Such mountain regions attain independent historical importance when +their population increases enough to form the nucleus of a state, and to +acquire additional territory about the highland base either by conquest +or voluntary union, while they utilize their naturally protected +location and their power to grant safe transit to their allies, as means +to secure their political autonomy. Therefore to mountain regions so +often falls the rôle of buffer states. Such were medieval Burgundy and +modern Savoy, which occupied part of the same territory, Navarre which +in the late Middle Ages controlled the important passway around the +western end of the Pyrenees, and Switzerland which commands the passes +of the central Alps. The position of such mountain states is, however, +always fraught with danger, owing to the weakness inherent in their +small area and yet smaller allowance of productive soil, to their +diverse ethnic elements, and the forces working against political +consolidation in their deeply dissected surface. Political solidarity +has a hard, slow birth in the mountains. + +[Sidenote: Transition forms of relief between highlands and lowlands.] + +In view of the barrier character of mountains, a fact of immense +importance to the distribution of man and his activities is the rarity +of abrupt, ungraded forms of relief on the earth's surface. The +physiographic cause lies in the elasticity of the earth's crust and the +leveling effect of weathering and denudation. Everywhere mountains are +worn down and rounded off, while valleys broaden and fill up to shallow +trough outlines. Transition forms of relief abound. Human intercourse +meets therefore few absolute barriers on the land; but these few reveal +the obstacles to historical movement in perpendicular reliefs. The +mile-high walls of the Grand Cañon of the Colorado are an insuperable +obstacle to intercourse for a stretch of three hundred miles. The +glacier-crowned ridge of the Bernese Alps is crossed by no wagon road +between the Grimsel Pass and the upper Rhone highway around their +western end, a distance of 100 kilometers (62 miles). The Pennine Alps +have no pass between the Great St. Bernard and the Simplon, a distance +of 90 kilometers (54 miles). + +[Sidenote: Importance of transition slopes.] + +Gentle transition slopes or terrace lands facilitate almost everywhere +access to the lowest, most habitable and therefore, from the human +standpoint, most important section of mountains. They combine the ease +of intercourse characteristic of plains with many advantages of the +mountains, and especially in warm climates they unite in a narrow zone +both tropical and temperate vegetation. The human value of these +transition slopes holds equally of single hills, massive mountain +systems, and continental reliefs. The earth as a whole owes much of its +habitability to these gently graded slopes. Continents and countries in +which they are meagerly developed suffer from difficulty of intercourse, +retarded development and poverty of the choicest habitable areas. This +is one disadvantage of South Africa, emphasized farther by a poor +coastline. The Pacific face of Australia would gain vastly in historical +importance, if the drop from the highlands to the ocean were stretched +out into a broad slope, like that which links our Atlantic coastal plain +with the Appalachian highlands. There each river valley shows three +characteristic anthropo-geographical sub-divisions--the active seaports +and tide-water tillage of its lower course, the contrasted agriculture +of its hilly course, the upland farms, waterpower industries and mines +of its headstream valleys, each landscape giving its population +distinctive characteristics. The same natural features, with the same +effect upon human activities and population, appear in the long seaward +slopes of France, Germany and northern Italy. + +[Sidenote: Piedmont belts as boundary zones.] + +At the base of the mountains themselves, where the bold relief begins, +is always a piedmont zone of hilly surface but gentler grade, at whose +inner or upland edge every phase of the historical movement receives a +marked check. Here is a typical geographical boundary, physical and +human. It shifts slightly in different periods, according to the growing +density of population in the plains below and improved technique in +industry and road-making. It is often both an ethnic and cultural +boundary, because at the rim of the mountains the geologic and economic +character of the country changes.[1189] The expanding peoples of the plains +spread over the piedmont so far as it offers familiar and comparatively +favorable geographic conditions, scatter their settlements along the +base of the mountains, and here fix their political frontier for a time, +though later they may advance it to the crest of the ridge, in order to +secure a more scientific boundary. The civilized population of the broad +Indus Valley spread westward up the western highlands, only so far as +the shelving slopes of the clay and conglomerate foothills, which +constitute the piedmont of the Suleiman and Kirthar Mountains, afforded +conditions for their crops. Thus from the Arabian Sea for 600 miles +north to the Gomal River, the political frontier of India was defined by +the line of relief dividing the limestone mountains from the alluvial +plain, the marauding Baluch and Afghan hill tribes from the patient +farmers of the Sind.[1190] This line remained the border of India from +pre-British days till the recent annexation of Baluchistan. + +These piedmont boundaries are most clearly defined in point of race and +civilization, where superior peoples from the lowlands are found +expanding at the cost of retarded mountain folk. Romans and Rhaetians +once met along a line skirting the foot of the eastern Alps, as Russians +to-day along the base of the Caucasus adjoin the territories of the +heterogeneous tribes occupying that mountain area.[1191] [See map page +225.] The plains-loving Magyars of Hungary have pushed up to the rim of +mountainous Siebenburgen or Transylvania from Arad on the Maros River to +Sziget on the upper Theiss, while the highland region has a predominant +Roumanian population. A clearly defined linguistic and cultural boundary +of Indo-Aryan speech and religion, both Hindu and Mohammedan, follows +the piedmont edges of the Brahmaputra Valley, and separates the lowland +inhabitants from the pagans of Tibeto-Burman speech occupying the +Himalayan slope to the north and the Khasia Mountains to the south. The +highland race is Mongoloid, while the Bengali of an Aryan, Dravidian and +Mongoloid blend fill the river plain.[1192] Such piedmont boundary lines +tend to blur into bands or zones of ethnic intermixture and cultural +assimilation. The western Himalayan foothills show the blend of +Mongoloid and Aryan stocks, where the vigorous Rajputs of the plains +have encroached upon the mountaineer's land.[1193] Of almost every mountain +folk it can be assumed that they once occupied their highlands to the +outermost rim of the piedmont, and retired to the inner rim of this +intermediary slope only under compulsion from without. + +[Sidenote: Density of population in piedmont belts.] + +The piedmont boundary also divides two areas of contrasted density of +population. Mountain regions are, as a rule, more sparsely settled than +plains. The piedmont is normally a transition region in this respect; +but where high mountains rise as climatic islands of adequate water +supply out of desert and steppes, they concentrate on their lower slopes +all the sedentary population, making their piedmonts zones of greatest +density. Low mountains in arid regions become centers of population; +here their barrier nature vanishes. In the Sudanese state of Darfur, the +Marra Mountains are the district best watered and most thickly +populated. Nowhere higher than 6000 feet (1850 meters), they afford +running water at 4000 feet elevation and water pools in the sandy beds +of their wadis at 3200 feet. Below this, water disappears from the +surface, and can be found only in wells whose depth and scarcity +increase with distance from the central mountains.[1194] The neighboring +kingdom of Wadai shows similar conditions and effects.[1195] In the heart +of Australia, where utter desert reigns, the Macdonnell Ranges form the +nucleus of the northern area occupied by the Arunta tribe of natives; +farther north the Murchison Range, usually abounding in water-holes, is +the center and stronghold of the Warramunga tribe.[1196] + +Mineral wealth or waterpower in the mountains serves to collect an urban +and industrial population along their rim, as we see it about the base +of the Erz Mountains in Saxony, the Riesen range in Silesia, the +coal-bearing Pennine Mountains of northwestern England, and the +highlands of southern Wales, all which piedmont zones show a density of +over 150 to the square kilometer (385 to the square mile). Hence the +original Swiss Confederation, which included only the mountain cantons +of Schwyz, Uri and Unterwalden, was greatly strengthened by the +accession of the piedmont cantons of Lucerne, Zurich, Zug and Bern in +the early fourteenth century, as later by St. Gall, Aargau and Geneva. +These marginal cantons to-day show a density of population exceeding +385 to the square mile, and rising to 1356 in the canton of Geneva. + +[Sidenote: Piedmont towns and roads.] + +Piedmont belts tend strongly towards urban development, even where rural +settlement is sparse. Sparsity of population and paucity of towns within +the mountains cause main of traffic to keep outside the highlands, but +close enough to their base to tap their trade at every valley outlet. On +the alluvial fans or plains of these valley outlets, where mountain and +piedmont road intersect, towns grow up. Some of them develop into +cities, when they command transverse routes of communication quite +across the highlands. The ancient _Via Aemilia_ traced the northern base +of the Apennines from Ariminum on the Adriatic to Dertona at the foot of +the Ligurian range back of Genoa, and connected a long line of Roman +colonies. The modern railroad follows almost exactly the course of the +old Roman road,[1197] while a transverse line southward across the +Apennines, following an ancient highway over the Poretta Pass to the +Arno Valley, has maintained the old preëminence of Bologna. A line of +towns, connected by highways or railroads, according to the economic +development of the section, defines the bases of the Pyrenees, Alps, +Jura, Apennines, Harz, Vosges, Elburz and numerous other ranges. Along +the Elburz piedmont runs the imperial road of Persia from Tabriz through +Teheran to Meshed. In arid regions these piedmont roads are an unfailing +feature, but their towns shrink to rural settlements, except at the +junction of transmontane routes. + +[Sidenote: Piedmont termini of transmontane routes.] + +Piedmont cities draw their support from plain, mountain and transmontane +region, relying chiefly on the fertile soil of the level country to feed +their large populations. Sometimes they hug the foot of the mountains, +as Bologna, Verona, Bergamo, Zurich, Denver and Pittsburg do; sometimes, +like Milan, Turin, and Munich, they drop down into the plain, but keep +the mountains in sight. They flourish in proportion to their local +resources, in which mineral wealth is particularly important, and to the +number and practicability of their transmontane connections. Hence they +often receive their stamp from the mountains behind them as well as from +the bordering plain. The St. Gotthard route is flanked by Lucerne on the +north and Milan on the south. The Brenner has its urban outlets at +Munich and Verona. Narbonne and Barcelona form the termini of the route +over the eastern Pyrenees; Toulouse commands the less used central +passes, and Bayonne the western. Tiflis is situated in the great +mountain trough connecting the Black Sea and the Caspian; but over the +Caucasus by the Pass of Dariel come the influences which make it a +Russian town. Peshawar, situated in the mountain angle of the Punjab, +depends more upon the Khaibar Pass and its connections thereby with +Central Asia than upon the plains of the Indus; its population, in +appearance and composition nearly as much Central Asiatic as Indian, is +engaged in traffic between the Punjab and the whole trans-Hindu Kush +country.[1198] + +Where a mountain system describes a semi-circular course, its transit +routes tend to converge on the inner side, and at their foci fix the +sites of busy commercial centers. Turin draws on a long series of Alpine +and Apennine routes from the Pass of Giovi (1548 feet or 472 meters) +leading up from Genoa on the south, to the Great St. Bernard on the +north. Milan gets immense support from the St. Gotthard and Simplon +railroads over the Alps, besides wagon routes over several minor passes. +Kulm, Balkh and Kunduz in the piedmont of northern Afghanistan are fed +by twenty or more passes over the Hindu Kush and Pamir. Bukhara is the +remoter focus of all these routes, and also of the valley highways of +the western Tian Shan. It therefore occupies a location which would make +it one of the great emporiums of the world, were it not for the expanse +of desert to the west and the scantiness of its local water supply, +which is tapped farther upstream for the irrigation of Samarkand. In its +bazaars are found drugs, dyes and teas from India; wool, skins and dried +fruit from Afghanistan; woven goods, arms, and books from Persia; and +Russian wares imported by rail and caravan. English goods, which +formerly came in by the Kabul route from India, have been excluded since +Russia established a protectorate over the province of Bukhara. Across +the highlands to the east, the cities of Kashgar and Yarkand, situated +in that piedmont zone of vegetation where mountain and desert meet, are +enclosed by a vast amphitheater formed by the Tian Shan, the Pamir +Highlands, and the Karakorum range. Stieler's atlas marks no less than +six trade routes over the passes of these mountains from Kashgar to the +headstreams of the Sir-daria and Oxus, and six from Yarkand to the Oxus +and Indus. Kashgar is a meeting ground of many nationalities. To its +bazaars come traders from China, India, Afghanistan, Bukhara, and +Russian Turkestan.[1199] The Russian railway up the Sir-daria to Andizhan +brings European goods within relatively easy reach of the Terek Davan +Pass, and makes serious competition for English wares entering by the +more difficult Karakorum Pass from India.[1200] + +[Sidenote: Cities of coastal piedmonts.] + +Where mountains drop off into a desert, as these Central Asiatic ranges +do, their piedmont cities are confined to a narrow zone between +mountains and arid waste. Bordering two transit regions of scant +population and through travel, they become natural outfitting points, +centers of exchange rather than production. Where mountains drop off +into the sea and the piedmont therefore becomes a coastal belt, again it +borders two transit regions; but here the ports of the desert are +replaced by maritime ports, which command the world thoroughfare of the +ocean. They therefore tend to concentrate population and commerce +wherever a good harbor coincides with the outlet of a transmontane +route, as in Genoa and Bombay. + +[Sidenote: Piedmonts as colonial or backwoods frontiers.] + +Since mountains are inhospitable to every phase of the historical +movement, they long remain regions of retardation. Hence to their +bordering plains they sustain the relation of young undeveloped lands, +so that life in their piedmont belts tends to show for a long time all +the characteristics of a new colonial frontier. The rim of the Southern +Appalachians abundantly illustrates this principle even to-day. During +the westward expansion of the American people from 1830 to 1850, the +eastern rim of the Rocky Mountains was dotted with trading posts like +that of the Missouri Fur Company at the forks of the Missouri River, +Forts Laramie and Platte on the North Fork of the Platte, Vrain's Fort +and Fort Lancaster on the South Fork, Bent's Fort at the mountain exit +of the Arkansas River, and Barclay's in the high Mora Valley of the +upper Canadian. These posts gathered in the rich pelts which formed the +one product of this highland area susceptible of bearing the cost of +transportation to the far away Missouri River. Though they developed +into way-stations on the overland trails, when the movement of +population to California and Oregon in the forties and fifties made the +Rocky Mountains a typical highland transit region, yet they long +remained frontier posts.[1201] Later the abundant water supply of this +piedmont district, as compared with the arid plains below, and the +mineral wealth of the mountains concentrated here an agricultural and +industrial population. + +In Sze Chuan province of western China, the piedmont of a vast highland +hinterland shows a similar development. Here the towns of Matang, +Sungpan, Kuan Hsien, and even the capital Chengtu, situated in the high +Min Valley at the foot of the mountains walling them in on the west, are +emporiums for trade with the Tibetans, who bring hither furs, hides and +wool from their plateau pastures, and musk from the musk deer on the +Koko Nor plains.[1202] Just to the north, Sian (Singan), capital of the +highland province of Shensi, concentrates the fur trade of a large +mountain wilderness to the west. Several blocks on the main street form +a great fur market for the sale of mink and other skins used to line the +official robes of mandarins.[1203] + +[Sidenote: Mountain carriers.] + +Like seas, deserts, and other geographical transit regions, mountains +too under primitive conditions develop their professional carriers. +These collect in the piedmont, where highway and mule train cease, and +where the steep track admits only human beasts of burden, trained by +their environment to be climbers and packers. These mountain carriers +are found on the Pacific face of the coast ranges of North and South +America from the peninsula of Alaska to the Straits of Magellan. They +are able to pack from 100 to 160 pounds up a steep grade. The Chilkoot +Indians, men, women and children, did invaluable service on the White +Horse and Chilkoot passes during the early days of the Klondike rush. +They had devised a well-arranged harness, which enabled them better to +carry their loads. Farther south in British Columbia the piedmont tribes +had once a like importance; there they operated especially from the town +of Hope on the lower Frazer River as a distributing center. The Mexican +carrier is so efficient and so cheap that he enters into serious +competition with modern schemes to improve transportation, especially as +the rugged relief of this country makes those schemes expensive.[1204] The +Indians of the eastern slope of the Andes pack India rubber, in loads of +150 pounds each, from the upper Purus and Madeira rivers up to the +Andean plateau at a height of 15,000 feet, and there transfer their +burdens to mules for transport down to the Peruvian port of +Mollendo.[1205] + +The retarded mountain peoples on the borders of the Central Asia plateau +employ the same primitive means of transportation. The roads leading +from the Sze Chuan province of western China over the mountain ranges to +Tibet are traversed by long lines of porters, men, women and children, +laden with bales of brick tea,[1206] the strongest of them shouldering 350 +pounds. The Bhutia coolies of Sikkim act as carriers on military and +commercial expeditions on the track across the Himalayas between +Darjeeling and Shigatze. Colonel Younghusband found that these Bhutias, +who were paid by the job, would carry a pack of 250 to 300 pounds, or +three times the usual burden of a Central Asia carrier. Landon cites the +case of a Bhutia lady who was said to have carried a piano on her head +from the plains up to Darjeeling (7150 feet).[1207] In Nepal, women and +girls, less often men, have long been accustomed to carry travellers and +merchandise over the Himalayan ranges.[1208] In the marginal valleys of +the Himalayas, like Kashmir and Baltistan, the natives are regularly +impressed for _begar_ or carrier service on the English military roads +to strategic points on the high mountain frontier of the Indian +Empire.[1209] So the Igorots of the Luzon province of Benguet pack all +goods and supplies from Naguilian in the lowlands up 4000 feet in a +distance of 25 miles to their little capital of Baguio; for this service +they are now paid one peso (46 cents in 1901) a day with food, or ten +times as much as under the Spanish rule.[1210] + +[Sidenote: Power of mountain barriers to block or deflect.] + +If the historical movement slackens its pace at the piedmont slope, +higher up the mountain it comes to a halt. Only when human invention has +greatly improved communication across the barrier are its obstacles in +part overcome. The great highland wall stretching across southern Europe +from the Bay of Biscay to the Black Sea long cut off the solid mass of +the continent from the culture of the Mediterranean lands. Owing to +these mountains Central Europe came late into the foreground of history, +not till the Middle Ages. Even the penetrating civilization of Greece +reached it only by long detours around the ends of the mountain barrier; +by Massilia and the Rhone, by Istria and the Danube, Greek commerce +trickled through to the interior of the continent. + +Where mountains fail to check, they deflect the historical movement. The +wall of the Carpathians, bulwark of Central Europe, split the westward +moving Slav hordes in the 6th century, diverting one southward up the +Danube Valley to the Eastern Alps, and turning one northward along the +German lowlands.[1211] The northward expansion of the Romans, rebuffed by +the high double wall of the Central Alps, was bent to the westward over +the Maritime, Cottine and Savoy Alps, where the barrier offered the +shortest and easiest transmontane routes. Hence Germany received the +elements of Mediterranean culture indirectly through Gaul, second-hand +and late. The ancient Helvetians, moving southward from northern +Switzerland into Gaul, took a route skirting the western base of the +Alps by the gap at Geneva, and thus threatened Roman Provincia. Cæsar's +campaigns into northern Gaul were given direction by the massive Central +Plateau of France.[1212] The rugged and infertile area of the Catskills +long retarded the westward movement in colonial New York and deflected +it northward through the Mohawk depression, which therefore had its long +thin line of settlements when the neighboring Catskills were still a +"bare spot." + +[Sidenote: Significance of mountain valleys.] + +In their valleys, mountains lose something of their barrier nature, and +approximate the level of the plains. Here they harbor oases of denser +population and easier intercourse. Valleys favor human settlement +through the milder climate of their lower elevation, the accumulation of +soil on their floors, their sheltered environment, and their command of +such routes of communication as the highlands afford. They are the +avenues into and within a mountain system, and therefore radically +influence its history by their direction and location. The Central +Plateau of France, through the valleys of the Alliers and upper Loire, +is most accessible from the north; therefore in that direction it has +maintained its most important historical connections,[1213] from the days +of Cæsar and Vercingetorix. The massive highland region of Transylvania, +which opens long accessible valleys westward toward the plains of the +Theiss and Danube, has since the eleventh century received thence +Hungarian immigration and political dominion.[1214] Its dominant Roumanian +population, however, seems to have fled thither from the Tartar-swept +plains to the southeast. + +The anthropo-geography of mountain valleys depends upon the structure of +the highlands themselves, whether they are fold mountains, whose ranges +wall in longitudinal valleys, or dissected plateaus, whose valleys are +mostly transverse river channels leading from the hydrographic center +out to the rim of the highlands. Longitudinal valleys are not only long, +but also broad as a rule and often show a nearly level floor.[1215] They +therefore form districts of considerable size, fertility, and +individuality, and play distinct historical rôles in the history of +their respective highlands. Such are the upper Rhone Valley with its +long line of flourishing towns and villages, the Hither Rhine, the Inn +of the Tyrol and the Engadine, the fertile trough of the meandering +Isère above Grenoble,[1216] the broad Orontes-Leontes valley between the +Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon where Kadesh and Baalbec were once the glory of +northern Syria. Such is the central trough of the Appalachian Mountains, +known as the Great Appalachian Valley, seventy-five miles wide, +subdivided into constituent valleys of similar character by parallel, +even-crested ridges following the trend of the mountains. These are +drained by broad, leisurely rivers, bordered by fertile farms and +substantial towns. Transverse valleys, on the other hand, are generally +narrow, with steep slopes rising almost from the river's edge and +supporting only small villages and farms. A comparison of the spacious, +smooth-floored valley of Andermatt with the wild Reuss gorge, of the +fertile and populous Shenandoah Valley in the Southern Appalachians with +the canon of the Kanawha in the Cumberland Plateau, makes the contrast +striking enough. + +[Sidenote: Longitudinal valleys.] + +Longitudinal valleys, by reason of their length and their branching +lateral valleys, are the natural avenues of communication within the +mountains themselves. They therefore give a dominant direction to such +phases of the historical movement as succeed in passing the outer +barrier. The series of parallel ranges which strike off from the eastern +end of the Tibetan plateau southward into Farther India have directed +along their valleys the main streams of Mongolian migration and +expansion, heading them toward the river basins of Burma and Indo China, +and away from India itself.[1217] While Tibetan elements have during the +ages slowly welled over the high Himalayan brim and trickled down toward +the Gangetic plain, Burma has been deluged by floods of Mongolians +pouring down the runnels of the land. A carriage road follows the axis +of the Central Alps from Lake Geneva to Lake Constance by means of the +upper Rhone, Andermatt, and upper Rhine valleys, linked by the Furca and +Oberalp passes. The Roman and Medieval routes northward across the +Central Alps struck the upper Rhine Valley above Coire, (the ancient +Curia Rhaetorum); this natural groove gave them a northeastward +direction, and made them emerge from the mountains directly south of +Ulm, which thereby gained great importance. The trade routes from +Damascus and Palmyra which once entered the Orontes-Leontes trough in +the Lebanon system found their Mediterranean termini south near Tyre or +north near Antioch, and thus contributed to the greatness of those +ancient emporiums. The Great Appalachian Valley used to be a highway for +the Iroquois Indians, when they took the warpath against the Cherokee +tribes of Tennessee. Later it gave a distinct southwestward trend to +pioneer movements of population within the mountains, blending in its +common channel the Quakers, Germans and Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania, +with the English and Huguenot French of the more southern colonies. In +the Civil War its fertile fields were swept by marching armies, all the +way from Chattanooga to Gettysburg. + +[Sidenote: Passes in mountain barriers.] + +The barrier nature of mountains depends upon their height and structure, +whether they are massive, unbroken walls like the Scandinavian Alps and +the Great Smoky range; or, like the Welsh Highlands and the Blue Ridge, +are studded with low passes. The Pyrenees, Caucasus and Andes, owing to +the scarcity and great height of their passes, have always been serious +barriers. The Pyrenees divide Spain from France more sharply than the +Alps divide Italy from France; owing to their rampart character, they +form the best and most definite natural boundary in Europe.[1218] Epirus +and Aetolia, fenced in by the solid Pindus range, took little part in +the common life of ancient Greece; but the intermittent chains of +Thessaly offered a passway between Macedon and Hellas. The Alps have an +astonishing number of excellent passes, evenly distributed for the most +part. These, in conjunction with the great longitudinal valleys of the +system, offer transit routes from side to side in any direction. The +Appalachian system is some three hundred miles broad and thirteen +hundred miles long, but it has many easy gaps among its parallel ranges, +so that it offered natural though circuitous highways to the early +winners of the West. The long line (400 miles) of the Hindu Kush range, +high as it is, forms no strong natural boundary to India, because it is +riddled with passes at altitudes from 12,500 to 19,000 feet.[1219] The +easternmost group of these passes lead down to Kashmir, and therefore +lend this state peculiar importance as guardian of these northern +entrances to India.[1220] The Suleiman Mountains along the Indo-Afghan +frontier are an imperfect defence for the same reason. They are indented +by 289 passes capable of being traversed by camels. The mountain border +of Baluchistan contains 75 more, the most important of which focus their +roads upon Kandahar. Hence the importance to British India of Kandahar +and Afghanistan. Across this broken northwest barrier have come almost +all the floods of invasion and immigration that have contributed their +varied elements to the mixed population of India. Tradition, epic and +history tell of Asiatic highlanders ever sweeping down into the warm +valley of the Indus through these passes; Scythians, Aryans, Greeks, +Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Turks, Tartars, and Mongols have all +traveled these rocky roads, to rest in the enervating valleys of the +peninsula.[1221] + +[Sidenote: Breadth of mountain barriers.] + +Mountains folded into a succession of parallel ranges are greater +obstructions than a single range like the Erz, Black Forest, and +Vosges, or a narrow, compact system like the Western Alps, which can +be crossed by a single pass. Owing to this simple structure the +Western Alps were traversed by four established routes in the days of +the Roman Empire. These were: I. The _Via Aurelia_ between the +Maritime Alps and the sea, where now runs the Cornice Road. II. The +_Mons Matrona_ (Mont Genevre Pass, 6080 feet or 1854 meters +[Transcriber's Note: printer's error incorrectly printed as +kilometers.]) between the headstream of the Dora Riparia and that of +the Durance, which was the best highway for armies. III. The Little +St. Bernard (7075 feet or 2157 meters), from Aosta on the Dora Baltea +over to the Isère and down to Lugdunum (Lyons). IV. The Great St. +Bernard (8109 feet or 2472 meters) route, which led northward from +Aosta over the Pennine Alps to Octodurus at the elbow of the upper +Rhone, where Martigny now stands. Across the broad double rampart of +the Central Alps the Roman used chiefly the Brenner route, which by a +low saddle unites the deep reëntrant valleys of the Adige and Inn +rivers, and thus surmounts the barrier by a single pass. However, a +short cut northward over the Chalk Alps by the Fern Pass made closer +connection with Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg). The Romans seem to +have been ignorant of the St. Gotthard, which, though high, is the +summit of an unbroken ascent from Lake Maggiore up the valley of the +Ticino on one side, and from Lake Lucerne up the Reuss on the other. + +Mountains which spread out on a broad base in a series of parallel +chains, and through which no long transverse valleys offer ready +transit, form serious barriers to every phase of intercourse. The lofty +boundary wall of the Pyrenees, a folded mountain system of sharp ranges +and difficult passes, has successfully separated Spain from continental +Europe; it has given the Iberian Peninsula, in the course of a long +history, closer relations with Morocco than with its land neighbor +France. It thus justifies the French saying that "Africa begins at the +Pyrenees." The Andalusian fold mountains stretching across southern +Spain in a double wall from Trafalgar to Cape Nao, accessible only by +narrow and easily defended passes, enabled the Moors of Granada to hold +their own for centuries against the Spaniard Christians. The high thin +ridges of the folded Jura system, poor in soil and sparsely populated, +broken by occasional "cluses" or narrow water-gaps admitting the rivers +from one elevated longitudinal valley to another, have always been a +serious hindrance to traffic.[1222] + +[Sidenote: Circuitous routes through folded mountains.] + +Such mountains can be crossed only by circuitous routes from pass to +pass, ascending and descending each range of the system. The Central +Alps, grooved by the longitudinal valleys of the upper Rhone, Rhine and +Inn, make transit travel a series of ups and downs. The northern range +must be crossed by some minor pass like the Gemmi, (7553 feet) or +Panixer (7907 feet) to the longitudinal valleys, and the southern range +again by the Simplon (6595 feet), San Bernadino (6768 feet), Splügen +(6946 feet) or Septimer (7582 feet) to the Po basin. Across the +corrugated highland of the Hindu Kush, lying between the plains of the +Indus and the Oxus, the caravans of western Asia seek the market of the +Punjab by a circuitous route through the Hajikhak Pass (12,188 feet) or +famous Gates of Bamian over the main range of the Hindu Kush, by the +Unai Pass over the Paghman Mountains to Kabul at 5740 feet, and then by +gorges of the Kabul River and the Khaibar Pass (6825 feet) down to +Peshawar. This road presents so many difficulties that caravans from +Turkestan to India prefer another route from Merv up the valley of the +Heri-Rud through the western hills of the Hindu Kush to Herat, thence +diagonally southeast across Afghanistan to Kandahar, and thence by the +Bolan Pass down to the Sind. The broad, low series of forested mountains +consisting of the Vindhyan and Kaimur Hills, reinforced by the Satpura, +Kalabet, Gawilgarh ranges, Mahadeo Hills, Maikal Range and Chutia Nagpur +Plateau as a secondary ridge to the south, forms a double barrier +across the base of peninsular India. It divides the Deccan from +Hindustan so effectually that it has sufficed to set limits to any Aryan +advance en masse southward. It kept southern India isolated, and +admitted only later Aryan influences which filtered through the barrier. +To people accustomed to treeless plains, these wide belts of wooded +hills were barrier enough. Even a few years ago their passes were +dreaded by cartmen; most of the carriage of the country was effected by +pack-bullocks. Even when roads were cleared through the forests, they +were likely to be rendered impassable by torrential rains.[1223] + +[Sidenote: Dominant trans-montane routes.] + +Where a broad, complex mountain system contracts to narrow compass, or +is cut by deep reentrant valleys leading up to a single pass, the +transmontane route here made by nature assumes great historical +Importance. The double chain of the mighty Caucasus, from 120 to 150 +miles wide and 750 miles long, stretches an almost insuperable barrier +between the Black Sea and the Caspian. But nearly midway between these +two seas it is constricted to only 60 miles by a geographical and +geological gulf, which penetrates from the steppes of Russia almost to +the heart of the system.[1224] This gulf forms the high valley of the +Terek River, beyond whose headstream lies the Dariel defile (7503 feet +or 2379 meters), which continues the natural depression across to the +short southern slope. All the other passes of the Caucasus are 3000 +meters or more high, lie above snow line and are therefore open only in +summer. The Dariel Pass alone is open all the year around.[1225] Here runs +the great military road from Vladicaucas to Tiflis, which the Russians +have built to control their turbulent mountaineer subjects; and here are +located the Ossetes, the only people among the variegated tribes of the +whole Caucasus who occupy both slopes. All the other tribes and +languages are confined to one side or the other.[1226] Moreover, the +Ossetes, occupying an exposed location in their highway habitat, lack +the courage of the other mountaineers, and yielded without resistance to +the Russians. In this respect they resemble the craven-spirited +Kashmiri, whose mountain-walled vale forms a passway from Central Asia +down to the Punjab. + +[Sidenote: Brenner route.] + +The Pass of Dariel, owing to its situation in a retarded Brenner corner +of Asia, has never attained the historical importance which attaches to +the deep saddle of the Brenner Pass (4470 feet) in the Central Alps. +Uniting the reëntrant valleys of the Inn and Adige rivers only 2760 feet +above the Inn's exit from the mountains upon the Bavarian plateau, it +forms a low, continuous line of communication across the Central Alps. +The Brenner was the route of the Cimbri invading the Po Valley, and +later of the Roman forces destined for frontier posts of the Empire on +the upper Danube. In the Middle Ages it was the route for the armies of +the German Emperors who came to make good their claim to Italy. By this +road came the artists and artisans of the whole north country to learn +the arts and crafts of beauty-loving Venice. From the Roman road-makers +to the modern railroad engineer, with the concomitant civilization of +each, the Brenner has seen the march of human progress. + +[Sidenote: Pass of Belfort.] + +Farther to the west, the wall of highlands stretching across southern +Europe is interrupted by a deep groove formed by the mountain-flanked +Rhone Valley and the Pass of Belfort, or Burgundian Gate, which lies +between the Vosges and Jura system, and connects the Rhone road with the +long rift valley of the middle Rhine. This pass, broad and low (350 +meters or 1148 feet) marks the insignificant summit in the great +historic route of travel between the Mediterranean and the North Sea, +from the days of ancient Etruscan merchants to the present. This was the +route of the invading Teuton hordes which the Roman Marius defeated at +Aquae Sextiae, and later, of the Germans under Ariovistus, whom Cæsar +defeated near the present Mühlhausen. Four centuries afterward came the +Alamannians, Burgundians and other Teutonic stocks, who infused a tall +blond element into the population of the Rhone Valley.[1227] The Pass of +Belfort is the strategic key to Central Europe. Here Napoleon repeatedly +fixed his military base for the invasion of Austria, and hither was +directed one division of the German army in 1870 for the invasion of +France. The gap is traversed to-day by a canal connecting the Doubs and +the Rhine and by a railroad, just as formerly by the tracks of migrating +barbarians. + +[Sidenote: Mohawk route.] + +The natural depression of the Mohawk Valley, only 445 feet (136 meters) +above sea level, is the only decided break across the entire width of +the long Appalachian system. This fact, together with its ready +accessibility from the Hudson on the east and Lake Ontario on the west, +lent it importance in the early history of the colonies, as well as in +the later history of New York. It was an easy line of communication with +the Great Lakes, and gave the colonists access to the fur trade of the +Northwest, then in the hands of the French. So when French and English +fought for supremacy in the New World, the Mohawk and Hudson valleys +were their chief battleground; elsewhere the broad Appalachian barrier +held them apart. Again in the Revolution, control of the Mohawk-Hudson +route was the objective of the British armies mobilized on the Canadian +frontier, because it alone would enable them to co-operate with the +British fleet blockading the coast cities of the colonies. In the War of +1812, it was along this natural transmontane highway that supplies were +forwarded to the remote frontier, to support Perry's fight for control +of the Great Lakes. The war demonstrated the strategic necessity of a +protected, wholly American line of water communication between the +Hudson and our western frontier, while the commercial and political +advantage was obvious. Hence a decade after the conclusion of the war, +this depression was traced by the Erie Canal, through which passed long +lines of boats to build up the commercial greatness of New York City. + +[Sidenote: Height in mountain barriers.] + +Other structural features being the same, mountains are barriers also in +proportion to their height; for, with few exceptions, the various +anthropo-geographic effects of upheaved areas are intensified with +increase of elevation. Old, worn-down mountains, like the Appalachians +and the Ural, broad as they are, have been less effective obstacles than +the towering crests of the Alps and Caucasus. The form of the elevation +also counts. Easy slopes and flat or rounded summits make readier +transit regions than high, thin ridges with escarpment-like flanks. +Mountains of plateau form, though reaching a great altitude, may be +relatively hospitable to the historical movement and even have a regular +nomadic population in summer. The central and western Tian Shan system +is in reality a broad, high plateau, divided into a series of smoothly +floored basins and gently rolling ridges lying at an elevation of 10,000 +to 12,000 feet above the sea. Its pamirs or plains of thick grass, +nourished by the relatively heavy precipitation of this high altitude, +and forming in summer an island of verdure in the surrounding sea of +sun-scorched waste, attract the pastoral nomads from all the bordering +steppes and deserts.[1228] Thus it is a meeting place for a seasonal +population, sparse and evanescent, but its uplifted mass holds asunder +the few sedentary peoples fringing its piedmont. The corrugated dome of +the Pamir highland, whose valley floors lie at an elevation of 11,000 to +13,000 feet, draws to its summer pastures Kirghis shepherds from north, +east and west; and their flocks in turn attract the raids of the +marauding mountaineers occupying the Hunza Valley to the south. The +Pamir, high but accessible, was a passway in the tenth century for +Chinese caravans bound from "Serica" or the "Land of Silk" to the Oxus +River and the Caspian. Here Marco Polo and many travelers after him +found fodder for their pack animals and food for themselves, because +they could always purchase meat from the visiting shepherds. The +possibilities of the Pamir as a transit region are apparent to Russia, +who in 1886 annexed most of it to the government of Bukhara. + +[Sidenote: Contrasted accessibility of opposite slopes.] + +Mountains are seldom equally accessible from all sides. Rarely does the +crest of a system divide it symmetrically. This means a steep, difficult +approach to the summit from one direction, and a longer, more gradual, +and hence easier ascent from the other. It means also in general a wide +zone of habitation and food supply on the gentler slope, a better +commissary and transport base whence to make the final ascent, whether +in conquest, trade or ethnic growth. Mountain boundaries are therefore +rarely by nature impartial. They do not umpire the great game of +expansion fairly. They lower the bars to the advancing people on one +side, and hold them relentlessly in place to the other. To the favored +slope they give the strategic advantage of a swift and sudden descent +beyond the summit down the opposite side. The political boundary of +France along the watershed of the Vosges Mountains is backed by a long, +gradual ascent from the Seine lowland and faces a sharp drop to the rift +valley of the middle Rhine, Its boundary along the crest of the Alps +from Mont Blanc to the Mediterranean brings over two-thirds of the +upheaved area within the domain of France, and gives to that country +great advantages of approach to the Alpine passes at the expense of +Italy. With the exception of the ill-matched conflict between the +civilized Romans and the barbarian Gauls, it is a matter of history that +from the days of Hannibal to Napoleon III, the campaigns over the Alps +from the north have succeeded, while those from the steep-rimmed Po +Valley have miscarried. The Brenner route favored alike the Cimbri +hordes in 102 B.C. and later the medieval German Emperors invading Italy +from the upper Danube. The drop from the Brenner Pass to Munich is 2800 +feet; to Rovereto, an equally distant point on the Italian side, the +road descends 3770 feet. + +[Sidenote: Its ethnic effects.] + +The inequality of slope has ethnic as well as political effects, +especially where a latitudinal direction also makes a sharp contrast of +climate on the two sides of the mountain system. Except in the Roman +period, the southern face of the Alps has been an enclosing wall to the +Italians. The southern cultivator penetrated its high but sunny valleys +only when forced by poverty, while the harsh climate on the long +northern slope effectively repelled him. On the other hand, Switzerland +has overstepped the Alpine crest in the province of Ticino and thrust +its political boundary in a long wedge down to the lowland of the Po +near Como; and the Alpine race, spilling everywhere over the mountain +rim into the inviting Po basin, has given to this lowland population a +relatively broad skull, blond coloring and tall figure, sharply +contrasted with the pure Mediterranean race beyond the crest of the +Apennines.[1229] + +The long northward slope of the Alps in Switzerland and Tyrol, and the +easy western grade toward France, have enabled Germanic and Gallic +influences of various kinds to permeate the mountains. A strong element +of blond, long-headed Germans mingles in the population of the Aar and +Rhine valleys up to the ice-capped ridge of the Glarner and Bernese +Alps,[1230] while the virile German speech has pushed yet farther south to +the insuperable barrier of the Monte Rosa group. The abrupt southward +slope of the Himalayas has repelled ethnic expansion from the river +lowlands of northern India, except in the mountain valleys of the Punjab +streams and Nepal, where the highland offered asylum to the Rajput race +when dislodged by a later Aryan invasion, or when trying their energies +in expansion and conquest.[1231] The Tibetan people, whose high plateaus +rise almost flush with the Himalayan passes, have everywhere trickled +through and given a Mongoloid mountain border to Aryan India,[1232] even +though their speech has succumbed to the pervasive Aryan language of the +piedmont, and thus confused the real ethnic boundary. [See map page +102.] The retarded and laborious approach of British "influence" up this +steep ascent to Lhassa, as opposed to the long established suzerainty of +the Chinese Emperor in Tibet, can be attributed in part to the +contrasted accessibility from north and south. + +[Sidenote: Persistence of barrier nature.] + +Mountains influence the life of their inhabitants and their neighbors +fundamentally and variously, but always reveal their barrier nature. For +the occupants of one slope they provide an abundant rainfall, hold up +the clouds, and rob them of their moisture; to the leeward side they +admit dry winds, and only from the melting snow or the precipitation on +their summits do they yield a scanty supply of water. The Himalayas are +flanked by the teeming population of India and the scattered nomadic +tribes of Tibet. Mountains often draw equally clear cut lines of +cleavage in temperature. The Scandinavian range concentrates upon Norway +the warm, soft air of the Atlantic westerlies, while just below the +watershed on the eastern side Sweden feels all the rigor of a sub-Arctic +climate. In history, too, mountains play the same part as barriers. They +are always a challenge to the energies of man. Their beauty, the charm +of the unknown beyond tempts the enterprising spirit; the hardships and +dangers of their roads daunt or baffle the mediocre, but by the great +ones whose strength is able to dwarf these obstacles is found beyond a +prize of victory. Such were Hannibal, Napoleon, Suvaroff, Genghis Khan, +and those lesser heroes of the modern work-a-day world who toiled across +the Rockies and Sierras in the feverish days of '49, or who faced the +snows of Chilkoot Pass for the frozen gold-fields of the Yukon. + +[Sidenote: Importance of mountain passes.] + +For migrating, warring and trading humanity therefore, the interest of +the mountains is centered in the passes. These are only dents or +depressions in the great up-lifted crest, or gaps carved out by streams, +or deeper breaches in the mountain wall; but they point the easiest +pathway to the ultramontane country, and for this reason focus upon +themselves the travel that would cut across the grain of the earth's +wrinkled crust. Their influence reaches far. The Brenner, by its +medieval trade, made the commercial greatness of Augsburg, Ratisbon, +Nuremberg, and Leipzig to the north, and promoted the growth of Venice +to the south. The Khaibar Pass and the Gates of Herat in Afghanistan +have for long periods dominated the Asiatic policy of Russia and British +India. The Mohawk depression and Cumberland Gap for decades gave +direction to the streams of population moving westward into the +Mississippi basin in the early history of the Republic. Where Truckee +Pass (7017 feet) makes a gash in the high ridge of the Sierra Nevada, +the California Trail in 1844 sought the line of least resistance across +the barrier mass, and deposited its desert-worn immigrants about the +Sacramento Valley and San Francisco Bay. There they made a nucleus of +American population in Mexican California, and in 1846 became the center +of American revolt. + +[Sidenote: Persistent influence of passes.] + +Though modern engineering skill, especially when backed by a political +policy, may cause certain passes to gain in historical importance at the +cost of others, the rule holds that passes are never quite +insignificant. Their influence is persistent through the ages. They are +nature-made thoroughfares, traversed now by undisciplined hordes of +migrating barbarians, now by organized armies, now by the woolly flocks +and guardian dogs of the nomad shepherd, now by the sumpter mule of the +itinerant merchant, now by the wagon-trains of over-mountain settlers, +now by the steam engine panting up the steep grade. Nowhere does history +repeat itself so monotonously, yet so interestingly as in these mountain +gates. In the Pass of Roncesvalles, notching the western Pyrenees +between Pamplona in Spain and St. Etienne in France, fell the army of +Charlemagne surprised and beset by the mountain tribes in 778;[1233] +through this breach the Black Prince in 1367 led his troops to the +victory of Navarette; in the Peninsular War a division of Wellington's +army in 1813 moved northward up this valley, driving the French before +them; and by this route Soult advanced southward across the frontier for +the relief of the French forces shut up in Pamplona. The history of +Palestine may be read in epitome in the annals of the Vale of Jezreel, +where the highlands of Palestine sink to a natural trough before rising +again to the hill country of Galilee and the mountain range of high +Lebanon. This was the avenue for war and trade between the Nile and +Euphrates, between Africa and Asia. Here the Canaanites expanded +eastward from the coast, cutting off northern Israel in Galilee from +Samaria and Judea. Here Gideon turned back the incursions of the +Midianites or western Arabs. Here was the open road for Assyrians, +Egyptians, for Greek armies under Antiochus, and Roman armies under +Pompey, Mark Antony, Vespasian and Titus. Hither came the Saracens from +the east in 634 A. D. to rout the Greek army, and later the Crusaders +from the west, to secure with castle and fortress this key to the Holy +Land. Finally, hither came Napoleon from Egypt in 1799 on his way to the +Euphrates.[1234] + +[Sidenote: Geographic factors in the historical importance of passes.] + +The historical importance of passes tends to increase with the depth of +the depression, since the lowest gap in a range relegates the others to +only occasional or local use; and with their rarity, in consequence of +which intercourse between opposite slopes is concentrated upon one or +two defiles. The low dips of the Central American Cordilleras to 262 +feet (80 meters) at Panama, 151 feet (46 meters) in the Nicaraguan +isthmus, and 689 feet (210 meters) at Tehuantepec, present a striking +contrast both orographically and historically to the South American +Andes, where from the equator to the Uspallata or Bermejo Pass (12,562 +feet or 3842 meters) back of Valparaiso, a stretch measuring 33 degrees +of latitude, the passes all reach or exceed 10,000 feet or 3000 meters. +The southern or Pennine range of the Alps, stretching as a snow-wrapped +barrier from Mont Blanc 90 miles to the central Alpine dome of the St. +Gotthard, is notched only by the Great St. Bernard and Simplon passes, +which have therefore figured conspicuously in war and trade, since very +early times. The Pass of Thermopylæ, as the only route southward along +the flank of the Pindus system, figures in every land invasion of Greece +from Xerxes to the Greek war of independence. All movements back and +forth across the Caucasus wall have been confined to the Pass of Dariel +and the far lower Pass of Derbent, or _Pylæ Albaniæ_; of the ancients, +which lies between the Caspian and the last low spurs of the mountains +as they drop down to the sea. The latter, as the easier of the two +passes, has had a longer and richer history. It alone enabled the +ancient Persians temporarily to force a wedge of conquest to the +northern foot of the Caucasus, and it has been in all ages a highway for +peoples entering Persia and Georgia from the north. It has so far been +the only practicable route for a railway from the Russian steppes to the +southern base of the Caucasus. While Vladicaucas and Tiflis have direct +connection by the military highway over the Pass of Dariel, the railroad +between these two points makes a detour of 300 miles to the east. + +[Sidenote: Intermarine mountains.] + +Intermarine mountains as a rule offer the easiest passways where they +sink to meet the flanking seas. The Pyrenees are crossed by only two +railroads, the Bayonne-Burgos line, along the shore of the Bay of +Biscay, and the Narbonne-Barcelona line, overlooking the Mediterranean. +Between these extremities the passes are very high and only two are +practicable for carriages, the Col de la Perche (5280 feet or 1610 +meters) between the valleys of the Tet and the upper Segre, and the Port +de Canfranc (7502 feet or 2288 meters) on the old Roman road from +Saragossa to Oloron. The coastal road around the eastern end of the +Cheviot Hills has been the great intermediary between England and +Scotland. It was the avenue for early Teutonic expansion into the Scotch +Lowlands, the thoroughfare for all those armies which for centuries made +Berwick a chronic battleground. + +For purposes of trade these intermarine mountains are less serious +barriers, because they can be avoided by an easier and cheaper sea +route. Hence on each side of such ranges grow up active ports, like +Narbonne and Barcelona, Bayonne and Bilbao with San Sebastian, on the +piedmont seaboard of the Pyrenees; Petrovsk and Baku on the Caspian rim +of the Caucasus, balancing the Crimean ports and Poti with Trebizond on +the Black Sea. Analogous is the position of Genoa and Marseilles in +relation to the Maritime Alps. Such ports are inevitably the object of +attack in time of hostilities. In the Peninsular War almost the first +act of the French was to seize Barcelona, San Sebastian and Bilbao; and +throughout the seven years of the conflict these points were centers of +battle, blockade and siege. If Russia ever tries to wrench the upper +Euphrates Valley from Turkey, Trebizond will repeat the history of +Barcelona in the Peninsular War. + +[Sidenote: Pass roads between regions of contrasted production] + +As the world's roads are used primarily for commerce, pass routes rank +in importance according to the amount of trade which they forward; and +this in turn is decided by the contrast in the lands which they unite. +The passes of the Alps and the Pass of Belfort have been busy +thoroughfares from the early Middle Ages, because they facilitate +exchanges between the tropical Mediterranean and the temperate regions +of Central Europe. Or the contrast may be one of economic and social +development. The Mohawk depression forwards the grain of the +agricultural Northwest in return for the manufactured wares of the +Atlantic seaboard. The passes of the Asiatic ranges connect the +industrial and agricultural lowlands of India and China with the +highland pastures of Mongolia, Tibet, Afghanistan and Russian Turkestan. +Hence they forward the wool, skins, felts, cloth and carpets of the +wandering shepherds in exchange for the food stuffs and industrial +products of the fertile, crowded lowlands. Where passes open a highway +for inland countries to the sea, their sphere of influence is greatly +increased. San Francisco, New York, Marseilles, Genoa, Venice, Beirut +and Bombay are seaports which owe their importance in no small degree to +dominant pass routes into their hinterland. + +[Sidenote: Passes determine trans-montane roads.] + +In plains and lowlands highways may run in any direction expediency +suggests, but in mountain regions the pass points the road. In very high +ranges there is no appeal from this law; but in lower systems and +especially in old mountains which have been rounded and worn down by +ages of denudation, economic and social considerations occasionally +transcend orographical conditions in fixing the path of highways. +Scarcely less important than pass or gap is the avenue of approach to +the same. This is furnished by lateral or transverse valleys of erosion. +The deeper their reentrant angles cut back into the heart of the +highlands, the more they facilitate intercourse and lend historical +importance to the pass route. The Alpine passes which are approached by +a single valley from each side are those crossed by railroads +to-day,--Mont Cenis, Simplon, St. Gotthard and the Brenner. The Alpine +chain is trenched on its inner or southern side by a series of +transverse erosion valleys, such as the Dora Baltea, Sesia, Tosa, +Ticino, Adda, Adige, and Tagliamento, which carry roads up to the chief +Alpine passes. The coincidence of the Roman and medieval roads over the +Alps with the modern railroads is striking, except in the single point +of elevation. Railroads tend to follow lower levels. Modern engineering +skill enables them to tunnel the crest, to cut galleries in the +perpendicular walls of gorges, and to embank mountain torrents against +the spring inundation of the roadbed, where it drops to the valley +floor. + +[Sidenote: Navigable river approaches to passes.] + +Where gaps are low and the approaching waters are navigable, at least +for the small craft of early days, they combine to enhance the +historical importance of their routes. The Mohawk River, navigable for +the canoe of Indian and fur trader, greatly increased travel and traffic +through the Mohawk depression. The Pass of Belfort is the greatest +historic gateway of western Europe, chiefly because it unites the +channels of the Rhone, Saône and Rhine. Lake Lucerne brings the modern +tourist by boat to the foot of the railroad ascent to the St. Gotthard +Pass, as the long gorge of Lake Maggiore receives him at the southern +end. Lake Maggiore is the water outlet also of the Simplon Pass from the +upper Rhone, the Lukmanier (6288 feet or 1917 meters) from the Hither +Rhine, and the San Bernadino (6766 feet or 2063 meters) from the Hinter +Rhine.[1235] This geographical fact explains the motive of Swiss expansion +in the fifteenth century in embracing the Italian province of Ticino and +the upper end of Lake Maggiore. A significance like that of the Swiss +and Italian lakes for the Alpine passes appears emphasized in the Sogne +Fiord of Norway. This carries a marine highway a hundred miles into the +land; from its head, roads ascend to the only two dents in the mountain +wall south of the wide snowfield of the Jotun Fjeld, and they lead +thence by the valleys of Hallingdal and Valders down to the plains of +Christiania. + +[Sidenote: Types of settlements in the valley approaches.] + +Genuine mountain passes have only emergency inhabitants--the monks and +dogs of the hospice, the road-keepers in their refuge huts or +_cantonière_, or the garrison of a fort guarding these important +thoroughfares. The flanking valleys of approach draw to themselves the +human life of the mountains. Their upper settlements show a certain +common physiognomy, born of their relation to the barren transit region +above, except in those few mountain districts of advanced civilization +where railroads have introduced through traffic over the barrier. At the +foot of the final ascent to the pass, where often the carriage road ends +and where mule-path or foot-trail begins, is located a settlement that +lives largely by the transmontane travel. It is a place of inns, +hostelries, of blacksmith shops, where in the busy season the sound of +hammer and anvil is heard all night; of stables and corrals crowded with +pack and draft animals; of storehouses where the traveler can provide +himself with food for the journey across the barren, uninhabited +heights. It is the typical outfitting point such as springs up on the +margin of any pure transit region, whether mountain or desert. Such +places are Andermatt and Airolo, lying at an altitude of 4000 feet or +more on the St. Gotthard road, St. Moritz below the Maloja Pass, Jaca +near the Pass de Canfranc over the Pyrenees, Kugiar and Shahidula[1236] at +an elevation of 10,775 feet or 3285 meters on the road up to the +Karakorum Pass (18,548 feet or 5655 meters), which crosses the highest +range of the Himalayas between Leh in the upper Indus Valley and +Yarkand in Chinese Turkestan. + +[Sidenote: Lower settlements.] + +Farther down the transverse valley the type of settlement changes where +side valleys, leading down from other passes, converge and help build up +a distributing center for a considerable highland area. Such a point is +Chiavenna in northern Italy, located above the head of Lake Como at the +junction of the Mera and Liro valleys, which lead respectively to the +Splügen and Maloja passes. It lies at an altitude of 1090 feet (332 +meters) and has a population of 4000. Such a point is Aosta (1913 feet +or 583 meters elevation) in the Dora Baltea Valley, commanding the +Italian approaches to the Great St. Bernard Pass, and the less important +Col de Fenêtre leading to the upper Rhone, the Little St. Bernard +highway to the valley of the Isère, and Col de la Seigne path around the +Mont Blanc range to the valley of the Arve. Aosta was an important place +in the Roman period and has to-day a population of about 8000. Kokan, in +the upper Sir-Daria Valley in Russian Turkestan, commands the approach +to the passes of the western Tian Shan and the northern Pamir. Its +well-stocked bazaars, containing goods from Russia, Persia and India, +testify to its commercial location. + +[Sidenote: Pass cities and their markets.] + +When the highland area is very broad and therefore necessitates long +transit journeys, genuine pass cities develop at high altitudes, and +become the termini of the transmontane trade. Such is the Leh (11,280 +feet or 3439 meters) on the caravan route from Central Asia over the +Karakorum Pass down to Kashmir, and such is Srinagar (5252 feet or 1603 +meters) in Kashmir. To their markets come caravans from Chinese +Turkestan, laden with carpets and brick tea, and Tibetan merchants from +Lhassa, bringing wool from their highland pastures to exchange for the +rice and sugar of lowland India.[1237] Leh is conveniently situated about +half way between the markets of India and Central Asia. Therefore it is +the terminus for caravans arriving from both regions, and exchange place +for products from north and south. Seldom do caravans from either +direction go farther than this point. Here the merchants rest for a +month or two and barter their goods. Tents of every kind, camels, yaks, +mules and horses, coolie transports of various races, men of many +languages and many religions, give to this high-laid town a truly +cosmopolitan stamp in the summer time when the passes are open.[1238] +Kabul, which lies at an altitude of nearly 6000 feet near the head of +the Kabul River, is the focus of numerous routes over the Hindu Kush, +and dominates all routes converging on the northwest frontier of the +Punjab.[1239] It is therefore the military and commercial key to India. +Its narrow winding streets are obstructed by the picturesque _kafilas_ +of Oriental merchants, stocked with both Russian goods from the Oxus +districts and British goods from India in evidence of its intermediary +location.[1240] + +Occasionally a very high market develops for purely local use. The +Indian Himalayan province of Kumaon contains the market town of +Garbyang, at an elevation of 10,300 feet or about 3000 meters, on the +Kali River road leading by the Lipu Lekh Pass (16,780 feet or 5115 +meters) over to Tibet. It has grown up as a trade center for the Dokpa +Tibetans, who will not descend below 10,000 feet because their yak and +sheep die at a lower altitude.[1241] Farther east in the Sikkim border, +Darjeeling (7150 feet or 2180 meters elevation) is center of the British +wool trade with Tibet. + +Often the exchange point moves nearer the summit of the pass, dividing +the journey more equally between the two areas of production. Here +develops the temporary summer market. High up on the route between Leh +and Yarkand is Sasar, a place of unroofed enclosures for the deposit of +cotton, silk and other goods left there by the caravans plying back and +forth between Leh and Sasar, or Sasar and Yarkand.[1242] Nearly midway on +the much frequented trade route between Leh and Lhassa, at a point +15,100 feet (nearly 500 meters) above sea level, just below the Schako +Pass, lies Gartok in western Tibet, in summer a busy market surrounded +by a city of tents, and the summer residence of the two Chinese +viceroys, who occupy the only two substantial dwellings in the place. +Here at the end of August is held a great annual fair, which is attended +by traders from India, Kashmir, Mongolia, Chinese Turkestan, China +proper, and Lhassa; but by November the place is deserted. The traders +disperse, and the few residents of Gartok, together with the viceroys, +retire down the Indus Valley to the more sheltered village of Gargunza +(14,140 feet or 4311 meters elevation), which represents the limits of +permanent settlement in these altitudes.[1243] The Sutlej Valley route +from the Punjab to Lhassa is capped near its summit at an altitude of +about 5000 meters by the summer market, of Gyanema, whose numerous types +of tents indicate the various homes of the traders from Lhassa to +India.[1244] + +[Sidenote: Pass peoples.] + +Natural thoroughfares, whether river highways or mountain pass routes, +draw to themselves migration, travel, trade and war. They therefore +early assume historical importance. Hence we find that peoples +controlling transmontane routes have always been able to exert an +historical influence out of proportion to their size and strength; and +that in consequence they early become an object of conquest to the +people of the lowlands, as soon as these desire to control such transit +routes. The power of these pass tribes is often due to the trade which +they command and which compensates them for the unproductive character +of their country. In the eastern Himalayas the Tomos of the Chumbi +Valley are intermediaries of trade between Darjeeling and Tibet, In the +western Himalayas, the Kumaon borderland of northern India, which +commands some of the best passes, has made its native folk or Bhutias +bold merchants who jealously monopolize the trade over the passes to the +Tibetan markets. They stretch for a zone of thirty miles south of the +boundary from Nepal to Garhwal along the approach to every pass, each +sub-group having its particular trade route.[1245] + +[Sidenote: Transit duties.] + +It is always possible for such pass tribes to levy a toll or transit +duty on merchandise, or in lieu of this to rob. Cæsar made war upon the +Veragri and Seduni, who commanded the northern end of the Great St. +Bernard Pass, in order to open up the road over the Alps, which was +traversed by Roman merchants _magno cum periculo magnisque cum +portoriis_.[1246] The Salassi, who inhabited the upper Dora Baltea Valley +and hence controlled the Little St. Bernard wagon road leading over to +Lugdunum or Lyons, regularly plundered or taxed all who attempted to +cross their mountains. On one occasion they levied a toll of a drachm +per man on a Roman army, and on another plundered the treasure of Cæsar +himself. After a protracted struggle they were crushed by Augustus, who +founded Aosta and garrisoned it with a body of Praetorian cohorts to +police the highway.[1247] The Iapodes in the Julian Alps controlled the +Mount Ocra or Peartree Pass, which carried the Roman wagon road from +Aquileia over the mountains down to the valley of the Laibach and the +Save. This strategic position they exploited to the utmost, till +Augustus brought them to subjection as a preliminary to Roman expansion +on the Danube.[1248] + +Turning to another part of the world, we find that the Afghan tribes +commanding the passes of the Suleiman Mountains have long been +accustomed to impose transit duties upon caravans plying between +Turkestan and India. The merchants have regularly organized themselves +into bands of hundreds or even thousands to resist attack or exorbitant +exactions. The Afghans have always enforced their right to collect tolls +in the Khaibar and Kohat passes, and have thus blackmailed every Indian +dynasty for centuries. In 1881 the British government came to terms with +them by paying them an annual sum to keep these roads open.[1249] Just to +the south the Gomal Pass, which carries the main traffic road over the +border mountains between the Punjab and the Afghan city of Ghazni, is +held by the brigand tribe of Waziris, and is a dangerous gauntlet to be +run by every armed caravan passing to and from India.[1250] The Ossetes of +the Caucasus, who occupy the Pass of Dariel and the approaching valleys, +regularly preyed upon the traffic moving between Russia and Georgia, +till the Muscovite government seized and policed the road.[1251] + +[Sidenote: Strategic power of pass states.] + +The strategic importance of pass peoples tends early to assume a +political aspect. The mountain state learns to exploit this one +advantage of its ill-favored geographical location. The cradle of the +old Savoyard power in the late Middle Ages lay in the Alpine lands +between Lake Geneva and the western tributaries of the Po River. This +location controlling several great mountain routes between France and +Italy gave the Savoyard princes their first importance.[1252] The autonomy +of Switzerland can be traced not less to the citadel character of the +country and the native independence of its people, than to their +political exploitation of their strategic position. They profited, +moreover, by the wish of their neighbors that such an important transit +region between semi-tropical and temperate Europe should be held by a +power too weak to obstruct its routes. The Amir of Kabul, backed by the +rapacious Afridi tribes of the Suleiman Mountains, has been able to play +off British India against Russia, and thereby to secure from both powers +a degree of consideration not usually shown to inferior nations. +Similarly in colonial America, the Iroquois of the Mohawk depression, +who commanded the passway from the Hudson to the fur fields of the +Northwest and also the avenue of attack upon the New York settlements +for the French in Canada, were early conciliated by the English and used +by them as allies, first in the French wars and afterward in the +Revolution. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER XV + +[1186] For physical effects, see Angelo Mosso, Life of Man on the High +Alps. Translated from the Italian. London, 1898. + +[1187] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 463-465. New York, 1899. + +[1188] Strabo, Book IV, chap. VI, 3. + +[1189] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 31-32. New York, 1899. + +[1190] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, pp. 32-33. London, 1905. + +[1191] W.Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe, Map p. 439. New York, 1899. + +[1192] Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. I, pp. 294-295. Oxford, 1907. +Sir Thomas Holdich, India, relief map on p. 171 compared with linguistic +map p. 201. London, 1905. + +[1193] Census of India for 1901, Risley and Gait, Vol. I, Part I, p. 2. +Calcutta, 1903. B.H. Baden-Powell, The Indian Village Community, pp. 40, +130, 131. London, 1896. + +[1194] Count Gleichen, The Egyptian Sudan, Vol. I, pp. 184, 185, 190. +London, 1905. + +[1195] Gustav Nachtigal, _Sahara und Sudan_, Vol. III, pp. 178, 188-192. +Leipzig, 1889. + +[1196] Spencer and Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, pp. +6, 13. London, 1904. + +[1197] W. Deecke, Italy, p. 365. London, 1904. + +[1198] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, pp. 295-296. London, 1905. G.W. +Steevens, In India, pp. 202-204. New York, 1899. + +[1199] Francis Younghusband, The Heart of a Continent, pp. 138, 140, +145, 272-273. London, 1904. + +[1200] E. Huntington, The Pulse of Asia, p. 87. Boston, 1907. + +[1201] E.C. Semple, American History and Its Geographic Conditions, pp. +184-185. Boston, 1903. + +[1202] Isabella Bird Bishop, The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, Vol. II, pp. +70-72, 88, 91. London, 1900. + +[1203] Francis H. Nichols, Through Hidden Shensi, pp. 170-171. New York, +1902. + +[1204] Otis T. Mason, Primitive Travel and Transportation, pp. 450-454, +474-475. _Smithsonian Report_, Washington, 1896. + +[1205] Col. George E. Church, The Acre Territory and the Caoutchouc +Regions of Southwestern Amazonia, _Geog. Jour_. May, 1904. London. + +[1206] M. Huc, Journey through the Chinese Empire, pp. 39-40. New York, +1871. + +[1207] Perceval Landon, The Opening of Tibet, pp. 54-55. New York, 1905. + +[1208] Jean Baptiste Tavernier, Travels in India. Vol. II, p. 264. +Translated from the French of 1676. London, 1889. + +[1209] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, pp. 231, 274, 276, +286-289. London, 1897. + +[1210] Census of the Philippine Islands, Vol. I, p. 544. Washington, +1905. + +[1211] Joseph Partsch, Central Europe, p. 134. London, 1903. + +[1212] M.S.W. Jefferson, Cæsar and the Central Plateau of France, +_Journal of Geog._, Vol. VI, p. 113. New York, 1897. + +[1213] P. Vidal de la Blache, _Tableau de la Géographie de la France_, +p. 276. Paris, 1903. + +[1214] E.A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, p. 450-453. +London, 1882. + +[1215] William Morris Davis, Physical Geography, p. 183. Boston, 1899. + +[1216] P. Vidal de la Blache, _Tableau de la Géographie de la France_, +p. 260, map p. 261. Paris, 1903. + +[1217] Indian Census for 1901, Risley and Gait, Vol. I, Part I, pp. 1, +2, Calcutta, 1905. + +[1218] Hans Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. IV, p. 479. New York, +1902. + +[1219] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, p. 67, cartogram of Hindu Kush +orography. London, 1905. + +[1220] _Ibid._, pp. 102-104. + +[1221] _Ibid._, p. 26. + +[1222] J. Partsch, Central Europe, p. 27. London, 1903. + +[1223] B.H. Baden-Powell, The Indian Village Community, pp. 40-45, 111, +116. London, 1896. + +[1224] H.R. Mill, International Geography, pp. 394-395. New York, 1902. + +[1225] Gottfried Merzbacher, _Aus den Hochregionen des Kaukasus_, pp. +73-78. Leipzig, 1901. + +[1226] W.Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe, p. 438. New York, 1899. + +[1227] _Ibid._, Maps pp. 143, 147, text p. 148. + +[1228] E. Huntington, The Pulse of Asia, pp. 106-109. Boston, 1907. + +[1229] W.Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe, pp. 249-253. New York, 1899. + +[1230] _Ibid._, p. 282 and cartogram, p. 284. + +[1231] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, p. 201. London, 1905. Imperial +Gazetteer of India, Vol. I, p. 295. Oxford, 1907. + +[1232] Census of India, 1901, Ethnographic Appendices, Vol. I, p. 60, by +H. H. Risley, Calcutta, 1903. C. A. Sherring, Western Tibet and the +British Borderland, pp. 341-353. London, 1906. + +[1233] B. Lavisse, _Histoire de France_, Vol. II, Part 1, p. 294. Paris, +1903. + +[1234] George Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, pp. +383, 384, 391-400, 407, 409. New York, 1897. + +[1235] Wilhelm Deecke, Italy, pp. 20, 21. London, 1904. + +[1236] Francis Younghusband, The Heart of a Continent, pp. 150, 194, +199. London, 1904. + +[1237] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, pp. 12, 88, 157-159, 231. +London, 1897. + +[1238] _Ibid._, pp. 173, 177. + +[1239] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, map p. 85, pp. 86, 89. London, 1905. + +[1240] Vambery, _Reise in Mittelasien,_ pp. 371-375. Leipzig, 1973. + +[1241] C.A. Sherring, Western Tibet and the British Borderland, p. 136. +London, 1906. + +[1242] O.P. Crosby, Tibet and Turkestan, pp. 112-116. New York, 1903. + +[1243] Elisée Reclus, Asia, Vol. II, pp. 50-51. C.A. Sherring, Western +Tibet and the British Borderland, pp. 146-148, 152, 157, 300-303. +London, 1906. + +[1244] _Ibid._, pp. 326-327. + +[1245] _Ibid._, pp. 4, 61-64, 310-311. + +[1246] _Bella Gallico,_ Book III, chap. I. + +[1247] Strabo, Book IV, chap. VI, 1, 11. + +[1248] Strabo, Book IV, chap. VI, 10. + +[1249] Sir Thomas Holdich, The Indian Borderland, p. 48. London, 1909. + +[1250] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 467. New York, 1902. + +[1251] Pallas, Travels Through the Southern Provinces of Russia, Vol. I, +p. 431. London, 1812. + +[1252] E.A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, pp. +286-287. London, 1882. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +INFLUENCES OF A MOUNTAIN ENVIRONMENT + + +[Sidenote: Zones of altitude.] + +There are zones of latitude and zones of altitude. To every mountain +region both these pertain, resulting in a nice interplay of geographic +factors. Every mountain slope from summit to piedmont is, from the +anthropo-geographical standpoint, a complex phenomenon. When high +enough, it may show a graded series of contrasted complementary +locations, closely interdependent grouping of populations and +employments, every degree of density from congestion to vacancy, every +range of cultural development from industrialism to nomadism. The +southern slope of the Monte Rosa Alps, from the glacier cap at 4500 +meters to the banks of the Po River, yields within certain limits a +zonal epitome of European life from Lapland to the Mediterranean. The +long incline from the summit of Mount Everest (8840 meters) in the +eastern Himalayas, through Darjeeling down to sea level at Calcutta, +comprises in a few miles the climatic and cultural range of Asia from +Arctic to Tropic. + +[Sidenote: Politico-economic value of varied relief.] + +For the state, a territory of varied relief is highly beneficial, +because it combines manifold forms of economic activity, a wide range of +crops, areas of specialized production mutually interdependent. It +induces a certain balance of urban and lief, rural life, which +contributes greatly to the health of the state.[1253] The steep slopes of +Dai Nippon, fertile only under spade tillage, will forever insure Japan +the persistence of a numerous peasantry. For geological and geographical +reasons, as from national motives, therefore, Japan will probably never +sacrifice its farmer to its industrial class, as England has done. On +the other hand, contrasted reliefs on a great territorial scale tend to +invade political solidarity. Tidewater and mountain Virginia were poor +running-mates for a century before the Civil War, and then the mountain +region broke out of harness. Geographical contrasts made the unification +of Germany difficult, and yet they have added to the economic and +national strength of the Empire. The history of Switzerland shows the +high Alpine cantons always maintaining a political tug of war with the +cantons of the marginal plain, and always suffering a defeat which was +their salvation. + +[Sidenote: Relief and climate.] + +The chief effect of a varied relief is a varied climate. This changes +with altitude in much the same way as with latitude. Heat and absolute +humidity diminish, generally speaking, as height increases, while +rainfall becomes greater up to a certain level. The effect of ascending +and descending currents of air is to diminish the range of temperature +on mountain slopes and produce rather an oceanic type of climate. The +larger and more uniform a climatic district, the more conspicuously do +even slight elevations form climatic islands, like the Harz Mountains in +the North German lowlands. A land of monotonous relief has a uniform +climate, while a region rich in vertical articulations is rich also in +local varieties of climate.[1254] A highland of considerable elevation +forms a cold district in the Temperate Zone, a temperate one in the +Tropics, and a moist one in a desert or steppe. Especially in arid and +torrid belts does the value of elevation for human life increase. + +[Sidenote: Altitude zones of economic and cultural development.] + +The highlands of Mexico, South America and the Himalayan rim of India +show stratified zones of tropical, temperate, and arctic climate, to +which plant, animal and human life conform. The response is conspicuous +in the varying density of population in the successive altitude zones. +Central Asia shows a threefold cultural stratification of its +population, each attended by the appropriate density, according to +location in steppe, piedmont and mountain. The steppes have their +scattered pastoral nomads; the piedmonts, with their irrigation streams, +support sedentary agricultural peoples, concentrated at focal points in +commercial and industrial towns; the higher reaches of the mountains are +occupied by sparse groups of peasants and shepherds, wringing from +upland pasture and scant field a miserable subsistence. The same +stratification appears in the Atlas Mountains, intensified on the +southern slope by the contrast between the closely populated belt of the +piedmont and the wandering Tuareg tribes of the Sahara on the one hand, +and the sparse Berber settlements of the Atlas highlands on the other. +The long slope of Mount Kilimanjaro in German East Africa descends to a +coastal belt of steppe and desert, inhabited by Swahili cattle-breeders. +Its piedmont, from 1000 feet above the plain up to 2400 feet, +constitutes a zone of rich irrigated plantations and gardens, densely +populated by peaceful folk of mingled Bantu and Hamitic blood. At 6000 +feet, where forests cease, are found the kraals, cattle, sheep and goats +of the semi-nomadic Masai of doubtful Hamitic stock, who raid the +coastal lowlands for cattle, and purchase all their vegetable food from +the tillage belt.[1255] [See maps page 105 and 487.] + +[Illustration: DENSITY OF POPULATION IN ITALY.] + +This stratification assumes marked variations in the different +geographical zones. In Greenland life is restricted to the piedmont +coastal belt; above this rises the desert waste of the ice fields. +Norway shows a tide-washed piedmont, containing a large majority of the +population; above this, a steep slope sparsely inhabited; and higher +still, a wild plateau summit occupied in summer only by grazing herds or +migrant reindeer Lapps. Farther south the Alps show successive tiers of +rural economy, again with their appropriate density of settlement. On +their lower slope is found the vineyard belt, a region of highly +intensive tillage, large returns upon labor, and hence of closely +distributed settlement. Above that is the zone of field agriculture, +less productive and less thickly peopled. Higher still is the wide zone +of hay farming and stock-raising, supporting a sparse, semi-nomadic +population and characterized by villages which diminish with the +altitude and cease beyond 2000 meters. On Aetna, located in the tropical +Mediterranean, three girdles of altitude have long been recognized,--the +girdle of agriculture, the forest belt, and the desert summit. But the +tourist who ascends Aetna, passes from the coast through a zone of +orange and lemon groves, which are protected by temporary matting roofs +against occasional frosts; then through vineyards and olive orchards +which rise to 800 meters; then through a belt of summer crops rising to +1550 meters, and varied between 1400 and 1850 meters elevation by +stretches of chestnut groves, whose green expanse is broken here and +there by the huts of the forest guards, the highest tenants of the +mountain. From these lonely dwellings down to the sea, density of +population increases regularly to a maximum of over 385 to the square +mile (150 to the square kilometer) near the coast. + +[Sidenote: Altitude and density belts in tropical highlands.] + +In the tropical highlands of Mexico, Central and South America, on the +other hand, concentration of population and its concomitant cultural +development begin to appear above the 2000 meter line. Here are the +chief seats of population. Mexico has three recognized altitude zones, +the cold, the temperate and the hot, corresponding to plateau, high +slopes and coastal piedmont up to 1000 meters or 3300 feet; but the +first two contain nine-tenths of the people. While the plateau has in +some sections a population dense as that of France, the lowlands are +sparsely peopled by wild Indians and lumbermen. Ecuador has +three-fourths of its population crowded into the plateau basins (mean +elevation 8000 feet or 2500 meters), enclosed by the ranges of the +Andes. Peru presents a similar distribution, with a comparatively dense +population on a plateau reaching to 11,000 feet (3500 meters) or more, +though its coastal belt, being healthful, dry, and fairly well supplied +with irrigation streams from the Andes, is better developed than any +other similar district in tropical America.[1256] In Bolivia, 72 per cent +of the total population live at an altitude of 6000 to 14,000 feet, +while five out of the nine most densely peopled provinces lie at +elevations over 11,000 feet.[1257] [See map page 9.] + +From Mexico to central Chile, the heavy rains from the trade-winds +clothe the slopes with dense forests, except on the lee side of the high +Andean wall of Peru and Chile, and reduce much of the piedmont to +malarial swamp and jungle. The discouragement to primitive tillage +found in the unequal fight with a tropical forest, the dryer, more +bracing and healthful climate of the high intermontane basins, their +favorable conditions for agriculture by irrigation, and their naturally +defined location stimulating to early cultural development, all combined +to concentrate the population of prehistoric America upon the high +valleys and plateaus. In historic times these centers have persisted, +because the civilized or semi-civilized districts could be best +exploited by the Spanish conquerors and especially because they yielded +rich mineral wealth. Furthermore, the white population which has +subsequently invaded tropical America has to a predominant degree +reinforced the native plateau populations, while the imported negroes +and mulattoes have sought the more congenial climatic conditions found +in the hot lowlands. + +[Sidenote: Increasing density with motive of protection.] + +The relativity of geographical advantages in different historical +periods warns us against assuming in all times a sparsity of population +in mountains, even when the adjoining lowlands offer many attractions of +climate and soil. In ages of incessant warfare, when the motive of +safety has strongly influenced distribution of population, protected +mountain sites have attracted settlement from the exposed plains, and +thus increased the relative density of population on the steep slopes. +The corrugated plateau of Armenia and Kurdistan, located on the uneasy +political frontier of Russia, Persia and Asiatic Turkey, exposed for +centuries to nomadic invasion from the east, shows a sparser population +on its broad intermontane plains than on the surrounding ranges. +Security makes the latter the choicer places of residence. Hence they +are held by the overbearing and marauding Kurds, late-comers into the +land, while the older and numerically weaker Armenians cower down on the +lower levels.[1258] Here is an inversion of the usual order. The militantly +stronger intruders, with no taste for agriculture, have seized the safer +and commanding position on the hills, descending in winter with their +cattle and horses to pasture and prey upon field and granary of the +valley folk, whose better soil is a questionable advantage. + +[Sidenote: Motive of protection in primitive peoples.] + +Instances of this sort, rare in modern times, because of of general +economic and social progress, multiply when we go into the history of +primitive or ancient peoples. The Cherokee Indians of the Southern +Appalachians, surrounded by powerful neighbors in the Chickasaws, Creeks +and the encroaching whites of the seaboard colonies, attacked by war +parties of Shawnees and Iroquois from the north, located the bulk of +their nation in the mountains. The Overhill and Middle towns, numbering +together thirty-three and situated wholly in the mountains, comprised +four-fifths of their fighting force in 1775, while the nine towns +distributed in the flat lands of Georgia and South Carolina were small +and unimportant. The Indians themselves distinguished these two +divisions of their country, the one as _Otarre_ or mountainous, and the +others as _Ayrate_ or low.[1259] Similarly in ancient Gaul the three +strongest tribes, the Sequani, Aedui, and Arverni, all had a large +mountain nucleus. The Sequani held the Jura range with part of the Saône +Valley; the Aedui held the northeast corner of the Central Plateau and +some lands on the Saône, while the Arverni inhabited the western and +central portion of the same highland. In a period of constant tribal +migrations and war, the occupants of these high, protected locations +were better able to defend themselves, and they maintained an adequate +food supply by holding some of the adjoining lowland. Archaeologists +generally agree that in central and southern Italy settlement first took +place in the mountains, gradually extending thence down into the plains. +The superiority of the upland climate, the more abundant rainfall, the +greater security against attack offered by mountain sites, and the +excellent soil for agriculture resulting from the geological make-up of +the Apennines, all combined to draw thither primitive and later +settlement.[1260] [See map page 559.] Similarly in Britain of the Bronze +Age, before the peoples of Aryan speech began to swarm over the island, +the primitive inhabitants, involved in constant clan or tribal warfare, +placed their villages on the hills, and left in the indestructible +terraces on their slopes the evidences of a vanished race and an +outgrown social order.[1261] + +[Sidenote: Geographic conditions affecting density of mountain +population.] + +The advance of civilization, which brought the ancient pirate-ridden +city from the inner edge of the coastal zone down to the wave-washed +strand, also drew the hill town down to the plain, and the mountain +population from their inaccessible strongholds to the more accessible +and productive valleys. These facts contain a hint. The future +investigation of archaeological remains in high mountain districts may +reveal at considerable elevations the oldest and hence lowest strata of +prehistoric development, strata which, in the more attractive valleys, +have been obliterated or overlaid by later invasions of peoples and +cultures. Ignoring this temporary attraction of population to protected +mountain locations in ages of persistent warfare, we find that a +comparison of many countries reveals a decreasing food supply and +decreasing density of population, with every increase of height above a +certain altitude, except in favored mining regions and in some tropical +lands, where better climatic conditions and freedom from malaria +distribute settlements far above the steaming and forest-choked +lowlands. The density of population in mountains is influenced also by +the composition of the soil, which affects its fertility; by the grade +and exposure of the slopes, which determine the ease and success of +tillage; by the proximity of the highlands to teeming centers of lowland +population, and by the general economic development of the people. + +In Great Britain, the sparsest population is found in the sterile +highland moors of Scotland, where the county of Sutherland has only 11 +inhabitants to the square mile, Inverness only 20.[1262] These figures +reveal also the remoteness of a far northern location. In the southern +half of the island the sparsest populations are found in the Welsh +county of Radnor, with 49 to the square mile, and in English +Westmoreland with 85, both of them mountain regions, but reflecting in +their larger figures their close proximity to the teeming industrial +centers of South Wales and Lancashire respectively. In France the most +thinly settled _départements_ are Basses-Alpes with 43 to the square +mile and Hautes-Alpes with 50, which again owe even these figures in +part to their situation on the margin of the densely populated valley of +the middle Rhone. [See map page 559.] Norway, almost wholly a mountain +country, averages only 18 souls to the square mile. Less than a thousand +square miles of its territory are under cultivation, and these are +distributed in small deltas at the heads of the fiords, in low strips +here and there along its western coasts, or in the openings of its +mountain valleys to the southeast. Here too is massed the larger part of +its inhabitants. A barren granitic soil, unfavorable zonal location, +excessive rainfall, paucity of level land, leaving the "upright farm" +predominant, and remoteness from any thickly settled areas, together +with the resulting enormous emigration, have combined to keep down +Norway's population. + +[Sidenote: Sparsity of population in the Alps.] + +If we turn to Switzerland, a country poor in the resources of its land +but rich in the resourcefulness of its people, we find a high average +density, 218 to the square mile; but this is due to the surprising +industrial development of the marginal plains, which show in the Canton +of Geneva 1356 to the square mile, and in Canton Zurich 705, while the +rugged upland of Graubünden (Grisons) shows only 38 to the square mile, +Uri only 48, and Wallis (Valais) only 59. How limited is the food supply +of the country is evident from the fact that only 2400 square miles, or +fifteen per cent. of its area, can be ranked as arable land, fit for +garden, orchard or grain field, while a larger proportion, or +twenty-eight per cent. is made wholly useless by watercourses, glaciers, +rock and detritus. One half of the entire country lies above the region +where agriculture is possible. In the Cantons of Uri and Valais, more +than half the area is absolutely unproductive, scarcely less in the +Grisons, and a third even in sunny Ticino.[1263] The three strictly Alpine +provinces of Austria, Tyrol, Salzburg and Carinthia, reproduce +approximately these geographic conditions. Nearly half of their area is +uninhabited, and only one-seventh consists of arable land. In +consequence they support only 75 inhabitants to the square mile, while +just outside the mountains, in the piedmont or Alpine foreland, this +density is doubled.[1264] Many tracts of the Carpathians, especially about +the sources of the Theiss and Pruth and the wooded mountain borders of +Transylvania, are among the most sparsely inhabited parts of Europe.[1265] +Japan, ridged by steep volcanic ranges, drenched by mountain-born rains, +strewn with detritus from plunging torrents, can cultivate only 15.7 per +cent. of its area, and is forced to leave 59 per cent. in forest +reserves.[1266] + +[Sidenote: Terrace agriculture.] + +These figures tell of the hard conditions of life characteristic of most +mountain regions. Population under normal circumstances settles in the +narrow valleys between the ranges and along the borders of their +drainage stream. Soon, however, the food supply becomes inadequate for +the growing numbers, so that artificial means have to be employed to +expand the area of arable land. The soil on the mountain slopes is so +thin that it yields only a scanty return to the labor of tillage. +Moreover, under the operations of ploughing and harrowing, it is exposed +to the danger of washing; so that after a few croppings the underlying +rock of the mountain side may be laid bare, and all that was valuable in +the quondam field deposited in the valley as silt or swept away to +enrich the distant delta of the nearest trunk river. + +To obviate this difficulty and to secure the desired increase of arable +land, mountain peoples the world over have resorted to terrace +agriculture. This means hand-made fields. Parallel walls, one above the +other, are constructed on horizontal lines across the face of the steep +slopes, and the intervals between are filled with earth, carried thither +in baskets on the peasants' backs. The soil must be constantly renewed +and enriched by manure in the same way, and the masonry of the retaining +walls kept in repair. Whenever possible these costly terraced fields are +located by preference on southward facing slopes, where the tilt of the +land makes the fields catch the rays of the sun almost at right angles +and thus counteracts the chill of the higher altitude, while the +mountain behind protects the growing crops from cold northern winds. +Good arable land, being limited in amount, commands a high price; and +especially do choice terraced fields in vine-growing countries, since +they make the best vineyards. Such fields in Switzerland will bring from +$300 to $2,000 an acre, and are estimated to produce annually two +bottles of wine for every square foot.[1267] + +[Sidenote: Geographical distribution.] + +Terrace agriculture, rare in new countries, in the more densely +populated Old World is widely distributed in mountainous areas. In +Germany, where it is nearly identical with the culture of the vine, it +is found along the steep slopes overlooking the valley of the Moselle +and the Rhine; also in the Vosges Mountains, the Black Forest and the +Swabian Jura, to the limited altitude in which the vine will flourish in +these northern regions. In the Alps it is widespread, and not confined +to the culture of the vine. The traveler passing along the upper Rhone +through the sunny Canton of Valais follows these terraced fields almost +as far as Fiesch (altitude 3458 feet), beyond which agriculture proper +becomes more and more restricted on account of the elevation, and passes +rapidly into the mere hay-making of a pastoral community. Between Leak +and Sierre, not only the mountain sides, but also the steep gravel hills +constituting the old terminal moraine deposited by the receding Rhone +glacier across the valley floor, are terraced to their very tops. + +Terrace cultivation prevails in the mountains of Italy; it is utilized +not only for the vine, but for olives, maize, oats, hemp, rye and flax. +On the gentler declivities of the Apennines, the terraced walls are +wider apart and lower than on the steep slopes of the Ligurian Apennines +and along the Riviera of the Maritime Alps, where the mountains rise +abruptly from the margin of the sea.[1268] Careful and laborious terrace +cultivation has produced in Italy a class of superior gardeners. The +Genoese are famous for their skill in this sort of culture. The men from +the Apennine plateau of the Abruzzi readily find positions in the +lowlands as expert gardeners.[1269] + +[Sidenote: Terrace culture of the Saracens.] + +The Saracens of Spain in the tenth century converted every mountain +slope into a succession of green terraces. They built walls of heavy +masonry, and brought water, loam, and fertilizing materials from great +distances. The slopes of Granada back of Malaga and Almeria were covered +with vineyards. Every foot of land susceptible of cultivation was turned +to account, every drop of water from the ill-timed winter rains was +conserved for the growing season. The application of intelligence and +labor to tillage enabled the Hispano-Arab provinces to support a dense +population.[1270] These Saracen cultivators had come from the severest +training school in all Eurasia. Where the arid tableland of Arabia is +buttressed on the southwestern front by high coast ranges (6000 to +10,500 feet or 2000 to 3200 meters) is Yemen, rich in its soil of +disintegrated trap rock, adequately watered by the dash of the southwest +monsoons against its towering ridges; but practically the whole country +is atilt. Consequently the mountains have been terraced from the base +often up to 6000 feet. The country presents the aspect of vast +agricultural amphitheaters, in which the narrow paths of ancient paving +zigzag up and up through successive zones of production. Here is a wide +range of fruits--oranges, lemons, figs, dates, bananas and coffee; then +apricots, apples, plums, grapes, quinces, peaches, together with grains +of various zonal distribution, such as millet, maize, wheat and barley. +The terrace walls are from five to eight feet high, but toward the top +of the mountains they often increase to fifteen feet. Though laid +without mortar, they are kept in perfect repair. Reservoirs filled with +water from the two rainy seasons, supply the irrigation channels.[1271] In +the narrow valleys of the Nejd plateau in central Arabia and on the +mountain slopes of Oman are found the same irrigated gardens and +terraced plantations. This laborious tillage underlay the prosperity of +the ancient Sabaean monarchy of Yemen, as it explains the population of +35,000 souls who occupy the modern capital of Sanaa, located at an +altitude of 7600 feet (2317 meters).[1272] + +[Sidenote: In the Himalayas.] + +Turning eastward, we find terrace agriculture widely distributed in +Himalayan lands. The steep mountain sides of the Vale of Kashmir are +cultivated thus to a considerable height. The terraces are irrigated by +contour channels constructed along the hillsides, which bring the water +for miles from distant snow-fed streams. Their shelf-like fields are +green with fruit orchards and almond groves, with vineyards and grain +fields.[1273] The terraced slopes about the Himalayan hill-station of +Simla (elevation 7100 to 8000 feet) feed the summer population of +English, who there take refuge from the deadly heat of the plains. The +mountain sections of the native states of Nepal and Bhutan present the +view of slopes cut into gigantic stairs, each step a field of waving +rice kept saturated by irrigating streams from abundant mountain +springs. Farther north, where Himalayas and Hindu Kush meet, terrace +agriculture is combined with irrigation in the high Gilgit valleys, and +farther still along that mere gash running down from the Pamir dome, +called the Hunza Valley. Here live the once lawless robber tribes of +the Hunzas and Nagaris, whose conquest cost the British a dangerous and +expensive campaign in 1892, but whose extensive terraces of irrigated +fields and evidences of skillful tillage gave the whole country an +appearance of civilization strangely at variance with the barbarous +character of its inhabitants.[1274] + +[Sidenote: In Tibet and China.] + +North of the outer Himalayan range, near the sources of the Indus and +Sutlej rivers in Ladak or Western Tibet, this same form of cultivation +has been resorted to by the retarded and isolated Mongolian inhabitants. +Here at an altitude of 11,000 feet or more (3354 meters), along mountain +ranges of primitive rock yielding only a scant and sterile soil, +terraces are laboriously constructed; their surfaces are manured with +burnt remains of animal excrements, which must first serve as fuel in +this timberless land before they are applied to the ground. In this +stronghold of Buddhism almost every lamasery has its terraced fields +yielding good crops of grain and fruit.[1275] In the densely populated Sze +Chuan province of western China, cultivation has climbed from the +fertile basins of the Min and upper Yangtze rivers far up the +surrounding mountains, where it is carried on terraces to the foot of +vertical cliffs.[1276] Farther north where the mountain province of Shensi +occupies the rise of land from the Chinese lowlands to the central +highlands of Asia, terraces planted with wheat or other grains cover the +mountain slopes.[1277] + +[Sidenote: In ancient Peru.] + +Terrace tillage is rare in new countries of extensive plains, like the +United States and Canada, where the level lands still suffice for the +agricultural needs of the people; but in the confined mountain basins +and valleys which made up the Inca's territory in ancient Peru, every +available natural field was utilized for cultivation, and terraces +brought the obstinate mountain sides under the dominion of the Andean +peasant. They were constructed, a hundred or more in number, rising 1000 +or 1500 feet above the floor of the highland valley, contracting in +width as they rose, till the uppermost one was a narrow shelf only two +feet broad. These were extended by communal labor year after year, with +increase of population, just as to-day in Java and the neighboring +islands, and became the property of the Inca. Streams from the higher +slopes were conducted in canals and distributed from terrace to terrace, +to irrigate and fertilize. These terraces therefore yielded the best +crops of potatoes, maize and pulse. The cultivable area was further +extended by floating gardens, consisting of rafts covered with earth, +which floated on the surface of lakes.[1278] They existed in ancient +Mexico also,[1279] and are used to-day in the lakes and streams of Tibet +and Kashmir[1280] and the rivers of overcrowded China. + +[Sidenote: Terrace agriculture in mountainous islands.] + +Mountainous islands, born of volcanic forces or the partial submergence +of coastal ranges, have steep surfaces and scant lowlands. Their +inhabitants command limited area at best. Driven to agriculture by their +isolation, drawn to it by the favorable oceanic climate, such islands +develop terrace tillage in its most pronounced form. On the precipitous +pitch of Teneriffe, every particle of alluvial soil is collected to make +gardens. Long lines of camels, laden with boxes of earth, may be seen +coming almost daily into the town of Santa Cruz, bringing soil for the +terraces.[1281] This is desperate agriculture. Irrigated terraces scar the +steep slopes of many Polynesian islands.[1282] They are highly developed +among the Malay Battaks of Sumatra, especially for rice culture.[1283] In +Java, Bali and Lombok they reach a perfection hardly equalled elsewhere +in the world. In Java they begin at an altitude of 1000 feet, cutting +main and branch valleys into amphitheaters, and covering hundreds of +square miles.[1284] On the volcanic slopes of Lombok the terrace plots +vary from many acres to a few square yards, according to the grade, +while a complete system of irrigation uses every brook to water the +terraces. Here as in Java the work began at a very early period, when it +was probably introduced among the native Malays by Brahmans from +India.[1285] Japan, two-thirds of whose area is mountainous, has terraced +its steep valley walls often up to 2000 feet or more, and utilized every +patch of ground susceptible of tillage.[1286] + +[Sidenote: Among mountain savages.] + +A mountain environment often occasions a forced development in the form +of agriculture among peoples who otherwise still linger in a low stage +of barbarism or savagery. The wild, head-hunting Igorots, inhabiting the +Cordilleras of north central Luzon, have levelled the face of their +mountains into a series of platforms, held by retaining walls from +twenty to thirty feet high. On these they cultivate upland rice at an +altitude of 5000 feet. The Igorot province of Bontoc contains valleys in +which every available foot of land is terraced for rice, and which +present artificial landscapes vividly recalling Japan. Labor is the +heritage of each inhabitant. Every man, woman and child down to ten +years of age shares in the work of providing food.[1287] Africa shows +parallel cases. The Angoss people, a savage negro tribe who occupy part +of the Murchison Range in northern Nigeria, have mapped out all their +sloping land into little terraces, sometimes only a foot or two wide. +One of their peaks, 4135 feet high, has its plateau top covered with +populous villages, owing to the protection of the site, and every inch +of its slope cut into terraces planted with millet and guinea corn.[1288] +A more primitive form of this tillage is found in the country of the +Marunga negroes, who occupy the steep western face of the rift valley +filled by Lake Tanganyika. Here Cameron found the surface not regularly +terraced, but retaining walls of loose stones disposed at intervals, +which served to hold the soil in place, without greatly altering the +natural slope. The scene recalled the terraced heights of Switzerland, +and the people working there looked like flies on a wall.[1289] In the +semi-arid country of Sudanese Darfur, where only the mountain districts +are well watered and thickly populated, small terraces for grain and +melons cover all the slopes.[1290] + +[Sidenote: Fertilizing] + +Mountain agriculture is necessarily laborious. The paucity of arable +land precludes the possibility of letting fields lie fallow. These, to +prevent exhaustion, must be constantly and abundantly fertilized, all +the more as conditions of excessive subaërial denudation found in the +steep slope and usual heavy rainfall of mountains, as well as possible +glacial scouring of the land in the past, have greatly attenuated the +layer of soil called upon to support plant life. The Swiss or Tyrolese +farmer cherishes his manure pile as at once source and badge of his +wealth. After harvest it is carted or carried in baskets not only to +the terraces, but also to the wide alluvial fan that grows his oats and +rye, to his meadows and hay fields. Both in Mexico and Peru the soil +received a dressing of poudrette. Manuring was most extensive where +population was densest, as in the isolated mountain valleys opening out +upon the desert coast of Peru. Every kind of organic refuse was +utilized, and fish was buried with the kernels of maize as a fertilizer. +The deposits of guano found on the headlands and off-shore islands were +used from the remotest times. Different guano beds were assigned to the +several provinces, and the breeding places of the birds were protected +by law.[1291] Ashes and decayed wood were employed for the same purpose, +or plants were dug into the soil, while human manure was in Mexico a +marketable commodity as in China.[1292] + +[Sidenote: Economy of level land for houses and villages.] + +In all mountain regions where population has begun to press upon the +meager limits of subsistence, level land and soil are at a premium. In +ancient Peru space was begrudged for the dead.[1293] Cities covered +considerable space on the roomy intermontane plateaus; but in the narrow +lateral valleys, houses and temples were built on rocks, in order to +reserve every fertile spot for agriculture.[1294] The traveler notices the +same thing throughout the Alps. Compact villages cling to the mountain +sides, leaving the alluvial hem of the stream or level glacial terrace +free for the much needed fields. Only in broad longitudinal valleys, +like that of Andermatt, do the settlements complacently spread out their +skirts, or on wide alluvial fans where transverse valleys debouch upon +the plains. The mountaineers of the Crimea construct their houses +against the precipices, excavating into their face and building up the +front, with stones, and thus reserve the gentler slopes for vineyards +and gardens.[1295] In the Kangra, Kumaon, and Garhwal districts of the +British Himalayas, the large Indian villages of the plains give place to +small hamlets or detached homesteads, scattered here and there wherever +occasional patches of soil on a hillside or in a narrow valley offer +hope of sustenance. These hamlets or dwellings are located on the sides +of the mountains, because level spots which can be irrigated must be +reserved for rice fields.[1296] The high site is also freer from malaria. + +[Sidenote: Perpendicular villages] + +In the high Himalayan province of Ladak or Western Tibet, this principle +of land economy reaches a climax. All settlement is on the +perpendicular. The abrupt mountain sides are honey-combed with tombs, +villages and Buddhist lamaseries in the detached localities where +population occurs. A pleasure walk through one of these Tibetan towns +means a climb by steep flights of steps hewn out of the rock, varied by +a saunter up ladders, where the sheer face of a cliff must be surmounted +to reach the houses on a ledge above.[1297] Pictures of these recall +forcibly the cliff-dwellings of the Pueblo Indians. Even the important +market city of Leh covers the lower slope of the mountain at an altitude +of 11,500 feet, and from its height overlooks the cultivated fields in +the sandy valley bed below, made fertile by irrigating streams from +debouching cañons.[1298] The Ladak villages always shun the plains. The +desire to economize level arable land does not alone dictate this choice +of sites, however; the motive of protection against inundation, when the +snows melt and the streams swell, and also, to some degree, against +hostile attack, is an additional factor. In the mountainous parts of +overcrowded China, again, the food problem is the dominant motive. In +the rugged highland province of Shensi, a village of several hundred +people covers only a few acres, and rises in closely packed tiers of +houses against the mountain side.[1299] In the wilder, half-conquered +parts of Sze Chuan the villages crown the lower peaks, cling to the base +of the mountains, or are perched on ledges of rock overlooking the +gorges. Among the steep cliffs bordering the upper Yangtze, occupied +chiefly by the timid, displaced Mantze aborigines, at an altitude of +10,000 feet, small platforms resting on beams projecting from the sheer +mountain face support minute houses, whose backs burrow into the cliff +behind. The small children are tied to the door post, to keep them from +falling into the millet field below. The house is accessible only by +bolts driven into the cliff. Above and below is the farm--small patches +of tilled soil, often not larger than a bath towel, to which the +cultivator lowers himself by a rope.[1300] Here life hovers on the brink +of death and despair. + +[Sidenote: Mountain pastures and stock-raising.] + +Paucity of arable land in mountain regions leads to the utilization of +the untillable slopes for stock grazing. This industry is always a +valuable ally to mountain agriculture on account of the manure which it +yields; but in high altitudes, where the steepness or rockiness of the +soil, cold and the brevity of the growing season restrict or eliminate +cereal crops, it becomes the dominant occupation of the inhabitants, +while agriculture takes a subordinate place, limited to the production +of hay and fodder for the winter feeding of the stock. Above the line of +tree growth flourish the natural summer pastures up to the border of +perpetual snow; and just below lies a zone which, if cleared of its +forests, supports a thick carpet of grass and herbage, though too cold +to ripen grain. + +The high pastures are particularly nourishing. Cows feeding here in the +Alps give better milk than the "home" or valley cows, though a smaller +quantity. Sheep and goats do equally well, but swine are profitable only +as a by-product, to utilize the refuse of the cheese and butter +industry. The area of these pastures far exceeds that of arable land in +mountain regions. In Switzerland they comprise about 27 per cent. of the +total productive area; hay meadows 24 per cent., but fields and gardens +only 20 per cent.[1301] In the Austrian province of Salzburg, pastures +make up 13.3 per cent., hay meadows 34.5 per cent., and tilled fields +only 11.7 per cent. of the total productive area. In the Tyrol the +figures are much the same.[1302] Since Norway has over 67 per cent. of its +total area in bare mountains, snow fields, bogs and lakes, it is not +surprising to find only 7.6 per cent. in pastures, 2.2 per cent. in +meadows, and 0.7 per cent. in grain fields; but here the pastures are +ten times the arable area.[1303] The season of the summer feeding on the +grass lands is short. In the so-called High Alps it frequently lasts +only six or seven weeks, in the Grisons at most thirteen weeks[1304] and +in Norway from two to three months.[1305] + +High mountain regions, practically restricted to this _Graswirthschaft_, +soon reach their maximum of prosperity and population. The amount of hay +secured for the winter feeding limits the number of cattle, and the +number of the cattle, through their manure, fixes the valley hay supply. +Alpine pastures cannot be enlarged, and they may be reduced by +accidents of nature, such as landslides, devastating torrents, or +advance of ice fields or glaciers. They cannot be improved by capital +and labor, and they may deteriorate chemically by exhaustion. The +constant export of butter and cheese from Alpine pastures in recent +times, without substitution by any fertilizer beyond the local manure, +has caused the diminution of phosphoric acid in the soil and hence +impoverishment. Canton Glarus has shown a steady decline since 1630 in +the number of cows which its mountain pastures can support.[1306] Many +other Alpine districts show the same deterioration. + +[Sidenote: Mountain herdsman and shepherds.] + +The remoteness of these highland pastures from the permanent villages +necessitates _Sennenwirthschaft_, or the maintenance of out-farms and +shepherds on the mountains during the grazing season. This involves a +semi-nomadic existence for such inhabitants as serve as herdmen. In +June, as soon as the high pastures begin to grow green, cattle, sheep +and goats ascend step by step in the wake of summer, as she climbs the +slope, and they return in autumn to the valleys. There they feed on the +stubble of hay and grain fields, till the increasing cold confines them +to their low stables. The hut of the _Senner_ or _Saeter_, as the +herdsman is variously called in Switzerland and Norway, consists of a +living room and a smaller apartment for making butter and cheese, while +against the steep slope is a rude stone shelter for the cattle and +goats. The predominance of summer pastures has made cattle-raising a +conspicuous part of agriculture in the Alps and in Norway. In many parts +of Switzerland, cattle are called "wares" and the word cheese is used as +a synonym for food, as we use bread. A Swiss peasant who has a +reputation for cheese making is popular with the girls.[1307] Here even +Cupid turns dairy expert. + +[Sidenote: Communal ownership of mountain pastures.] + +Since it is scarcely practicable to divide these highland pastures, they +have generally remained communal property, whether in Norway,[1308] +Switzerland, the Bavarian Alps, the British Himalayan districts,[1309] +Nepal and Bhutan,[1310] or Kashmir.[1311] In Europe their use is generally +regulated. As a rule, a Swiss villager may keep on the _Allmende_ during +the summer as many head of cattle as he is able to stall-feed during +the winter. Any in excess of this number must be paid for at a fixed +rate to the village or commune treasury.[1312] Hay-sheds and herdsmen's +huts mark these districts of temporary occupation near the altitude +limits of human life throughout Europe. In Asia, likewise, are to be +found small villages, inhabited only in summer by herdsmen tending their +flocks. Such is the hamlet of Minemerg, located at an altitude of about +8000 feet at the southern entrance to the Borzil Pass over the Western +Himalayas, and Sonamerg (altitude 8650 feet or 2640 meters) just below +the Zogi La Pass, both of them surrounded by rich meadows on the +northern rim of the Vale of Kashmir.[1313] + +The utilization of mountain pastures for stock raising is almost +universal. In the arid highlands of Central Asia, it is the essential +supplement to the pastoral nomadism of the steppes and deserts, and to +the limited sedentary agriculture found along the irrigated piedmont +slopes. Here and elsewhere the animal raised varies widely-the llama and +vicuna in Peru, which thrive best at 10,000 to 13,000 feet elevation, +and multiply rapidly on the _ichu_ or coarse grass which clothes the +slopes of the higher Andes up to snow line; sheep, goats, yaks and herds +of dzo, a useful hybrid between yak and cow, in the highland districts +of Sze Chuan. Here the Mantze mountaineers lock their houses and leave +their villages deserted, while they camp with their herds on the high +pastures at 10,000 feet or more.[1314] Only economical, ingenious Japan +has failed to develop stock raising, though mountains comprise +two-thirds of its area. The explanation has often been sought in +Buddhism, which inhibits the use of animal food; but this religious rule +probably found ready acceptance in Japan, just because the paucity of +animal food made its observance easy, for the fish industry of the +Empire never suffered from the inhibition. The reason is probably to be +sought elsewhere. The native grass of Japan, which relentlessly crowds +out all imported grazing crops, is a bamboo grass with sharp, hard, +serrated edges, and is said to cut the entrails of horses and sheep.[1315] + +[Sidenote: Haymaking in high mountains.] + +While the high pastures are ample for the summer feeding, the chief +problem of mountain stock-farmers is to secure feed for the winter +support of their animals. This taxes their industry and ingenuity to the +utmost. While the herdsmen are away tending their charges on the +heights, the rest of the population are kept busy at home, getting +fodder for the six or seven months of stall-feeding. This includes the +cultivation of hardy crops like oats, rye and barley, which will mature +at a great altitude, hay-making and collecting twigs and even leaves for +the less fastidious goats. In Switzerland as in Norway the art of mowing +has reached its highest pitch. Grass only three inches high is cut +thrice yearly. The Norwegian peasant gathers a small hay harvest from +the roofs of his house and barns, and from the edges of the highways. In +Switzerland not a spear of grass escapes. In places inaccessible to +cattle and goats, the peasant gathers hay by the handful with crampons +on his feet, generally from the ledges of cliffs. He stacks it in one +spot, and brings it down to the valley by sledge in winter. He is the +_Wildheuer_ or wild hay gatherer. His life is so dangerous, that the law +permits only one _Wildheuer_ to a family.[1316] In high Alpine cantons +this office is the privilege of the poor.[1317] The traveler in Norway +frequently sees huge bundles of hay sliding down to the valley on wires +stretched from some high point on the precipitous fiord wall. This +represents the harvest from isolated spots or from the field of the +summer shepherd. In the vicinity of every _saeter_ hut, a plot of ground +is fenced in, enriched with the manure gathered during the summer, and +utilized to grow fine nourishing grass, which is mown and transported +down to the valley farm.[1318] Here economy of vegetative resources +reaches its climax. + +[Sidenote: Methods of curing hay in mountains.] + +In mountain regions of heavy rainfall, thick dew and numerous cloudy +days, it becomes a problem to get the hay dried and stored before a +drenching shower comes. In many parts of Switzerland, therefore, the +peasant on a clear morning cuts a limited amount of grass. This, with +the help of his wife and children, he diligently turns and tosses at +short intervals all day long, thus subjecting it to a rapid curing +process by the action of the wind and the sun, whose rays are doubly +effective in the rarefied air of the heights. In the evening the hay is +made up into bundles and carried on his back to the barn. In other parts +of Switzerland the green hay is hung on horizontal poles arranged +against the sunny side of the chalet and under its projecting roof, thus +exposed to the heat and protected from the rain till cured. In Norway +the same purpose is achieved by setting up in the fields racks +supporting long horizontal bars, over which the newly cut grass is hung. +There it is exposed to the gentle fanning of the wind and penetrated by +the warmth of the sun, in the short intervals when the sky is not +overcast; and during a shower it sheds the water immediately, so that a +minimum of harm is done. In the mountains of Germany, the hay is stacked +on cone-shaped racks made of poles, with lateral projections which +support the grass; thus the air can circulate freely inside the hollow +cone, which is lifted well above the ground. Elsewhere sharpened stakes +provided with cross bars are simply driven into the ground, and on these +the hay is draped till cured. + +Mountain hay-making leaves nothing to chance; too much depends upon the +crop. In fact, at high altitudes it becomes the only crop. Cereal +culture drops off with every increase of elevation. Norway has few +fields above 1600 feet;[1319] even barley fails to ripen above 2600 feet. +In the mountains of Würtenberg we find pure _Graswirthschaft_ at 3000 +feet elevation, with only a small garden patch near the dwelling.[1320] It +is interesting to take a tramp up one of the longitudinal or lateral +valleys of the Alps, and observe the economic basis of life gradually +change from agriculture to hay-making, till in some high-laid Alpine +cirque, like Bad Leuk or Barmaz at the head of the Val d'Ilez, one sees +only meadows and an occasional potato patch, which impresses the +lowlander as a last despairing effort in the struggle for existence. + +[Sidenote: Winter industries of mountain peoples.] + +Where climate and soil do so little for the support of life, man must do +much. Work must in some way be made to compensate for an ungenerous +Nature. The closely housed existence necessitated by the long severe +winters of high altitudes stimulates industries in the home. The winter +feeding of the stock involves little labor, so the abundant leisure +would otherwise be wasted. Hence it is no accident that we find almost +everywhere native mountain industries in a high state of development, +and often characterized by an artistic beauty which seems to be the one +flower of this barren environment. They are naturally based upon the +local raw materials of the mountains, such as wood, metals, clays, and +especially the wool of sheep and goats. Moreover, their products are +articles of small bulk and large value, adapted to costly mountain +transportation. Those of Kashmir are typical-carved wood, artistic metal +work in silver and copper, puttoo cloth, carpets and the famous Kashmir +shawls.[1321] The stark life of Tibet shows in its industries an +unexpected richness and beauty. The men spin and weave wool into puttoo +cloth of all grades; some of it is extraordinarily fine in texture and +color, and is exported by caravan in considerable quantity to northern +China and Mongolia. Pastil sticks, made of aromatic wood and impregnated +with musk and gold-dust, are a conspicuous commodity in the trade with +Peking. Tibet is rich in metals, especially silver and gold. Even the +nomad shepherds of the tablelands know how to purify gold-dust over a +fire of argols; hence it is not surprising that the settlements in the +irrigated mountain valleys should develop real artists in +metallurgy.[1322] The province of Dèrgè, which excels in metal work, +produces swords, guns, teapots, bells and seals of extremely artistic +design and perfect finish.[1323] The jewelry of Tibet suggests Byzantine +work. It includes ear-rings and charm boxes of gold and carved +turquoise, and is marked by the same delicate finish. But whether the +Tibetan is working in wood, gold, brass, or wool, he uses native designs +of real merit, and shows the expert craftsman's hand.[1324] His activities +recall the metal work of the Caucasus and the famous rugs of Daghestan. + +Turning to Europe we find watch and clock making in the Black Forest and +the Jura, wood-carving in the Swiss and Norwegian mountains, bobbin lace +in the Erz range and in Alpine Appenzell, and the far more beautiful +Italian product of the rugged Abruzzi and the Frioulian Alps. The +Slovaks of highland Hungary are expert in wire-drawing,[1325] and the +peasant of the central Apennines makes from the gut of his goats the +finest violin strings in the world, the so-called Roman strings.[1326] The +low Thuringian and Franconian Forests, which harbor denser populations, +have by a minute subdivision of labor turned their local resources to +the making of dolls, which they supply to the markets of the world. +Here too the manufacture of glass articles, porcelains, majolica and +terra-cotta flourishes.[1327] Most of these mountain industries merely +supplement the scant agricultural resources; they represent the efforts +of industrious but hard pressed people to eke out their meager +subsistence. + +[Sidenote: Overpopulation and emigration.] + +The application of steam to industry has converted mountain regions of +abundant mineral wealth into centers of production for the markets of +the world. But this is the history of only the last century, and of only +favored mountain regions. The utilization of waterpower for electricity +in factories is transforming the piedmont belts of the Alps and +Apennines; but life in the interior of these ranges remains unaltered by +the denser population at their base, except for the increased demand for +the butter, milk and cheese of the highland pastures. For the world at +large, therefore, the obvious and persistent fact of mountain economy is +a scanty food supply secured by even the most intelligent and untiring +labor, and a fixed tendency to overpopulation. The simplest remedy for +this evil is emigration, a fact which Malthus observed.[1328] Hence +emigration is an almost universal phenomenon in highland regions. +Sometimes it is only seasonal. It takes place in the fall after the +field work is over, and is due to the paucity of industries possible in +the mountains during the winter. It seems to be a recurrence of that +nomadic note in the _motif_ of mountain life--that migration in summer +upward to the borders of the snow, in winter downward to the sun-warmed +plains. In autumn the Swiss descend from the Jura and Alps in great +numbers to cities, seeking positions as servants or pastry-cooks. The +Auvergnats leave their home by the thousand in the fall, when snow +covers the mountains, to work in the cities as hewers of stone and +drawers of water, then return in summer to resume their tasks in field +and pasture, bringing back sums of money which noticeably enrich the +home districts.[1329] + +[Sidenote: Forms of temporary emigration.] + +This seasonal emigration often assumes the form of peddling, in order to +dispose of small home-made wares. From the Basilicata and Modena +Apennines the young men follow the pedler's trade, but the Basilicata +village of Viggiano furnishes Italy with many wandering musicians.[1330] +The Kabyles of the Atlas Mountains go out in parties of two or three in +the fall, and hawk every kind of goods, bringing back from their journey +quantities of wool for home weaving.[1331] The emigration may last for +several years, but finally the love of home generally calls the +mountaineer back to his rugged hills. The Galicians of the Cantabrian +Mountains of northern Spain leave their poor country for a time for the +richer provinces of Portugal and Spain, where they become porters, +water-carriers and scavengers, and are known as boorish, but industrious +and honest. The women from the neighboring mountain province of Asturias +are the professional wet-nurses of Spain. They are to be seen in every +aristocratic household of Madrid, but return to the mountains with their +savings when their period of service ends.[1332] In mountainous +Basutoland, the Kaffir Switzerland of South Africa, arable land and +pastures are utilized as completely as local methods of husbandry +permit; and yet the native Kaffirs go in large numbers--28,000 out of a +total population of 220,000 in 1895--to work in the mines of Kimberley +and the Witwatersrand. They also return in time with their savings.[1333] +Similarly the Battaks of the rugged mountain-rimmed plateau of western +Sumatra emigrate in increasing numbers to the lowlands, and hire +themselves out for a term of years on the Dutch plantations.[1334] + +Another interesting and once rather widespread phase of this temporary +emigration appears in the mercenary troops formerly drawn from mountain +regions. After the Burgundian wars of the fifteenth century, the Swiss +became the mercenaries of Europe, and in 1503 were first employed as +papal life-guards. They served the kings of France from Louis XL till +the tragedy of the Tuileries in 1792; and in that country and elsewhere +they made the name "Switzer" a synonym for guard or attendant,[1335] till +in 1848 the mercenary system was abolished. The pressure of population +at home and the military spirit of the Scotch Highlanders once led the +young Gaels to seek their fortunes in military service abroad, as in the +army of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.[1336] Gurkhas from Himalayan Nepal, +an independent state, are employed in considerable numbers in the Indian +army to-day, and constitute one of the most reliable divisions of the +native troops. In January, 1901, there were 12,797 Gurkhas drawing pay +from the Indian government as soldiers, besides 6000 more employed as +military police, porters, and in other capacities.[1337] Similarly ancient +Arcadia, the mountain core of Peloponnesus, was a constant hive of +mercenaries. + +[Sidenote: Permanent emigration.] + +Often, however, permanent emigration is the result, robbing the mountain +population of its most enterprising element, Piedmontese, Bergamese, and +Frioulians from the Italian Alps leave their country in large numbers. +Many of them find work in Marseilles and other towns of southern France, +infusing an Italian strain into the population there and making serious +competition for the local French. A proverb says there is no country in +the world without sparrows and Bergamese.[1338] Geneva, once the citadel +of Calvinism, is to-day a Catholic town, owing to the influx of Catholic +laborers from Alpine Savoy. The overflow of the redundant population of +this mountain province has given the Swiss canton a character +diametrically opposed to its traditions.[1339] The Chinese provinces of +Chili and Manchuria have been largely populated by immigrants from the +barren mountain peninsula of Shantung; Manchuria has thereby been +converted from an alien into a native district.[1340] + +Emigration on so large a scale exercises far reaching economic and +historical influences. Norse colonization contributed interesting +chapters to the history of Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries. +Norwegians who have flocked to America have made a deep impress upon our +Northwestern States. Switzerland in 1902 and 1903 gave as 9500 of its +subjects, a valuable contribution. Scotchmen of Highland birth are +scattered over the whole world, carrying with them everywhere their +sturdy qualities of character. Even the stay-at-home French lose +emigrants from their mountain districts. The people of the Basses-Alps +go to Mexico, and the Basques from the French Pyrenees seek +Argentine.[1341] The honesty, industry, and frugality of these mountain +emigrants make them desirable elements in any colonial population, and +insure their success when they seek their fortunes in the uncrowded +western world. + +The alternative to overpopulation and its remedy emigration is found in +preventive checks to increase. These sometimes take the form of +restricted or late marriages, as Malthus found to be the case in Norway +and Switzerland in 1799,[1342] before the introduction of steam or +electric motive power had stimulated the industries of these countries +or facilitated emigration thence. The same end is achieved by the +widespread religious celibacy which sometimes characterizes mountain +communities. In the barren Auvergne Plateau of France, the number of +younger sons who become priests is extraordinary. Many daughters become +nuns. Celibacy, seconded by extensive emigration, clears the field for +the eldest son and the system of primogeniture which the poverty of this +rugged highland has established as a fixed institution in the +Auvergne.[1343] A careful statistical investigation of the geographical +origins of the Catholic priesthood in Europe might throw interesting +light on the influences of environment. The harsh conditions of mountain +life make the monastery a line of least resistance, while geographical +isolation nourishes the religions nature and benumbs the intellectual +activities. + +It is in the corrugated highland of Tibet, chilled to barrenness by an +elevation of 12,000 feet or more (4000 meters), sterile and treeless +from aridity, carved by cañon-cutting streams into deep gorges offering +a modicum of arable soil for irrigation, that monasticism has developed +into an effective system to keep down population. Buddhism, with its +convents and lamaseries, naturally recommended itself to a country where +asceticism was obviously expedient. The world shows nowhere else so +large a celibate class. In Tibet, monks are estimated at 175,000 to +500,000 in a total population of three millions. Archibald Little +estimates their number at one-third of the total male population.[1344] +Derge, which is the most productive district both agriculturally and +industrially of eastern Tibet and is also most densely inhabited, counts +at least 10,000 lamas in a total population of about 42,000.[1345] Not +less than one-sixth of the inhabitants of Ladak are in religious houses +as monks and nuns.[1346] Families in Tibet are small, yet each devotes one +or more children to convent or monastic life.[1347] In western Tibet, +especially about Taklakot in the Himalayan border, one boy in every +family is invariably devoted to the priesthood, and one or more +daughters must become nuns. But the nun generally resides with her +family or lives in some monastery--with unspeakable results.[1348] + +[Sidenote: Polyandry.] + +The Tibetans seem to be enthusiastic Malthusians, with all the courage +of their convictions. Religious celibacy among them is only an adjunct +to another equally effective social device for restricting population. +This is the institution of polyandry, which crops out in widely +distributed mountain regions of limited resources, just as it appears +not infrequently in primitive island societies. Its sporadic occurrence +in extensive lowlands, as among the Warraus of Guiana and certain tribes +of the Orinoco, is extremely rare, as also its occasional appearance +among pastoral steppe-dwellers, like the Hottentots and Damaras.[1349] It +is often associated with polygamy where wealth exists, and is never the +exclusive form of marriage, yet its frequency among mountain peoples is +striking. Strabo describes fraternal polyandry as it existed in +mountainous Yemen. There among a Semitic people, as to-day in Mongolian +Tibet and among the aboriginal Todas of the Nilgiri Hills in peninsular +India, the staff of one husband left at the door of the house excluded +the others.[1350] In modern times the institution is found throughout +Tibet, and in the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan districts adjoining it, as +in Ladak, Kunawar, Kumaon, Garhwal, Spiti, Sirmur, among the Miris, +Daphlas, Abors and Bhutias occupying the southern slope of the +Himalayans eastward from Sikkim, and the Murmese tribes of the Khasia +Hills just to the south. The same practice occurs among the Coorgs of +the Western Ghats, among the Nairs at the coastal piedmont of this +range, among the Todas of the mountain stronghold known as the Nilgiri +Hills (peaks 8000 feet or 2630 meters), and it crops out sporadically +among certain mountain Bantu tribes of South Africa.[1351] + +[Sidenote: Female infanticide.] + +There seems little doubt that polyandry, as Herbert Spencer maintains, +has been adopted as an obvious and easy check upon increase of +population in rugged countries.[1352] It is generally coupled with other +preventive checks. In the Nilgiri Hills, as we found also to be the case +on many Polynesian islands, it is closely associated with female +infanticide.[1353] The Todas in 1867 showed a proportion of two men to +one woman, but later, with the decline of infanticide under British +rule, a proportion of 100 men to 75 women, and a resulting modification +of the institution of polyandry.[1354] It may well be that the paucity of +women suggested this form of marriage, whose expediency as an ally to +infanticide in checking population later became apparent. The Todas are +a very primitive folk of herdsmen, living on the produce of their +buffaloes, averse to agriculture, though not inhibited from it by the +nature of their country, therefore prone to seek any escape from that +uncongenial employment,[1355] and relying on the protected isolation of +their habitat to compensate for the weakness inherent in the small +number of the tribe. + +Throughout Tibet and Ladak polyandry works hand in hand with the +lamaseries in limiting population. The conspicuous fact in Tibetan +polyandry is its restriction to the agricultural portion of the +population. The pastoral nomads of the country, depending on their yaks, +sheep and goats, wandering at will over a very wide, if desolate +territory, practice monogamy and polygamy.[1356] The sedentary +population, on the other hand, is restricted to tillable lands so small +that each farm produces only enough for one family. Subdivision under a +divided inheritance would be disastrous to these dwarf estates, +especially owing to possible complications growing out of irrigating +rights.[1357] Polyandry leaves the estate and the family undivided, and +by permitting only one wife to several fraternal husbands restricts the +number of children. It does this also in another way by diminishing the +fertility of the mothers; for all travelers comment upon the paucity of +children in polyandrous families. + +Westermarck lays stress upon the fact that polyandry prevails chiefly in +sterile countries. He regards it less as a conscious device to check +increase of population than a result of the disproportion of males to +females in polyandrous communities. The preponderance of male births he +attributes to the excessive endogamy bordering on inbreeding which tends +to prevail in all isolated mountain valleys; and also, as a possibility, +to the undernourished condition of the parents caused by scanty food +supplies, which Düsing found to be productive of a high percentage of +male births in proportion to female.[1358] The motive of restricting +population seems entitled to more weight than Westermarck concedes to +it; for he slurs over the fact that in Tibet polyandry gives rise to a +large number of superfluous women who fill the nunneries,[1359] while in +the Nilgiri Hills redundant females were eliminated by infanticide. The +fact seems to be that in the institution of polyandry we have a social +and psychological effect of environment, reinforced by a physiological +effect. + +[Sidenote: Effects of polyandry and polygamy.] + +A comparison of social conditions in the adjoining provinces of +Baltistan and Ladak, which together comprise the Himalayan valley of the +Indus, reveals the character of polyandry as a response to geographic +environment. Both provinces are inhabited by a Mongolian stock, but the +Ladaki living on the uppermost stretch of the basin near Tibet are +Buddhists and polyandrists, while the Baltis farther down the valley are +Mussulmen and polygamists. The Baltis, with their plurality of wives and +numerous children, are wretchedly poor and live in squalor on the verge +of starvation; but as the elevation of their valley ranges only from +4000 to 8500 feet, they are inured to heat, and therefore emigrate in +large numbers to the neighboring Mohammedan province of the Punjab, +where they work as coolies and navvies. The Ladakis, on the other hand, +living 9000 to 13,000 feet above the sea, die of bilious fever when they +reach the lowlands. Cut off from emigration, they curtail population by +means of polyandry and lamaseries. Consequently they show signs of +prosperity, are well fed, well clothed and comfortably housed.[1360] +Baltistan's social condition illustrates in a striking way the power of +an idea like an alien creed, assimilated as the result of close vicinal +location, to counteract for a time the influences of local geographic +conditions. + +[Sidenote: Marauding tendencies in mountaineers] + +The less civilized mountain peoples, whose tastes or low economic status +unfit them for emigration, solve the problem of a deficient food supply +by raiding the fields and stores of their richer neighbors. Predatory +expeditions fill the history of primitive mountain peoples, and of the +ancient occupants of highland regions which are now devoted to honest +industry. The ancient Alpine tribes were one and all, from the +Mediterranean to the Danube, "poor and addicted to robbery," as Strabo +says. He analyzes their condition with nice discrimination. "The greater +part [of the Alps], especially the summits of the mountains inhabited by +robbers, are barren and unfruitful, both on account of the frost and the +ruggedness of the land. Because of the want of food and other +necessaries, the mountaineers have sometimes been obliged to spare the +inhabitants of the plains, that they might have some people to supply +them."[1361] The freebooters usually descended into the lowlands of +Italy, Gaul and Helvetia, but the pass peoples lay in wait for their +prey on the mountain roads. Strabo described the same marauding habits +arising from the same cause among the mountaineers of northern +Spain,[1362] the Balkan range,[1363] and the highlands encircling the +Mesopotamian plains.[1364] + +Hunger is usually the spur. The tribesmen who inhabit the Hunza gorge +were notorious robbers till their recent conquest by the British. +Despite the most careful terrace tillage, their country was much +overpopulated. The supply of grain was so inadequate, that during the +summer the people subsisted wholly on fruit, reserving the grain for +winter use. Therefore, when early summer opened the passes of the +Karakorum and Himalayan ranges, and caravans began to move over the +trade route between Kashmir and Yarkand, when the Kirghis nomads from +the plains sought the pastures of the Pamir, the Hunza tribesmen found +raiding caravans and herds, and pillaging the Gilgit Valley of Baltistan +the easiest means of supplementing their slender resources. Hardy +mountaineers as they were, and born fighters, they always conducted +their forays successfully, and returned to the shelter of their +fastnesses, laden with plunder and driving their captive flocks before +them. The perpetual menace of these Hunza raids caused large districts +in the Gilgit Valley to be abandoned by their inhabitants, and +cultivated land to lapse into wilderness,[1365] while the Chilas to the +south pillaged the Astor Valley of Baltistan, carrying away crops and +cattle, enslaving women and children.[1366] + +[Sidenote: Cattle-lifting.] + +Marauding propensities are marked among all retarded mountain peoples of +modern times. The cattle-lifting clans of the Scotch Highlands, who +preyed upon the Lowlands, have their counterpart in the Pathans of the +Suleiman and Baluch mountain border who, till curbed by the British +power in India, systematically pillaged the plains of the Sind.[1367] The +forest Bhils of the Vindhyan and Satpura ranges are scarcely yet married +to agriculture; so when in time of drought their crops fail and the game +abandons the hill forests to seek water in the lowland jungles, the +Bhils cheerfully revert to their ancestral habit of cattle-lifting.[1368] + +The Caucasus was long a breeding place for robber tribes who made their +forays into the pastures and fields of southern Russia. Robbery was part +of the education of every Circassian prince, while one group of the +Abassines conferred their chieftainship upon the most successful robber +or the man of largest family.[1369] The Kurdish hillmen of the Armenian +ranges descend with their herds of horses in winter to the warmer +plains, where they exhaust the pastures and subject the Armenian +villages to a regular system of blackmail.[1370] The wide grassy plains +about Koukou Nor Lake, near the Chinese border of Tibet, attract +numerous Mongol nomads with their herds; but these rich pastures are +exposed to the depredation of Si Fan brigand tribes, who have their +haunts in the deep, impenetrable gorges of the neighboring mountains, +and carefully guard all the approaches to the same. They are Buddhists, +but worship a special Divinity of Brigandage, to whom their lamas offer +prayers for the success of every foray.[1371] Hence, among mountain as +among desert peoples, robbery tends to become a virtue; environment +dictates their ethical code. + +[Sidenote: Historical results of mountain raiding.] + +These depredations reflect to a great degree the complementary relation +of highlands and lowlands. The plains possess what the mountains lack. +This is a fundamental fact of economic geography, and inevitably leads +to historical results. The marauding expeditions of mountain peoples +first acquire historical importance, either when the raids after long +continuance end in the conquest of the lowlands, and thus augment the +resources and population of the highland state; or, as is often the +case, the raiders call down upon themselves the vengeance of the +plainsmen, are subdued, and embodied in the lowland state. The conquest +of ancient Assyria and the destruction of Nineveh by the mountain Medes +seems to have been a process of this kind. Long before their descent +upon Mesopotamia, they were known as the "dangerous Medes," were +constantly threatening the Assyrian frontiers and occupying isolated +tracts.[1372] The predatory incursions of the Samnites of the Apennines +into the fertile fields of Campania eventuated in the conquest of +ancient Capua and other cities, and greatly strengthened the Samnite +Confederacy. But this encroachment of the mountain tribes upon the +plains aroused the cupidity and alarm of the Romans, who in turn bent +their energies toward the final subjugation of the Samnites.[1373] +Himalayan Nepal, after the unification of its petty Rajah states by the +Gurkha conquest between 1768 and 1790, began encroachments and ravages +upon the Indian Terai or fertile alluvial lowland at the foot of the +mountains; and finally by 1858 had acquired title to a considerable +strip of it, which by its rice fields and forests greatly strengthened +the geographic and economic base of the highland state.[1374] The Malay +Hovas, inhabiting the central plateau of Madagascar, braced to effort by +its temperate climate and not over-generous soil, have almost everywhere +subdued the better fed but sluggish lowlanders of the coast.[1375] There +can be little doubt that the beneficent effects of an invigorating +mountain climate, especially in tropical and subtropical latitudes, have +helped the hardy, active hill people to make easy conquest of the +enervated plainsmen. + +[Sidenote: Conquest of mountain regions] + +It is more often the case, however, that the scant resources, small +number, and divided political condition of the mountain tribes make such +conquest impossible. Their depredations provoke reprisals from the +stronger states of the plain, who bring the mountain region under +subjection, merely to police their frontier. Strabo makes it clear that +the Romans, having secured certain passes over the Alps, neglected the +conquest of the ranges, till the increase of Roman colonies along the +piedmont rim excited the cupidity of the mountaineers. Muscovite +dominion was extended over the Caucasus, both in order to check the +persistent raids of its tribes into the Russian plains, and to secure +control of its passes. The state of Kashmir, guided by a purely local +policy, for years tried to conquer the robber tribes on its northwestern +frontier, merely to protect its own border provinces. Then the British +authorities of the Indian Empire began the same process, but from a +radically different motive. They saw the Gilgit and Hunza valleys, like +the Chitral to the west, as highways through a mountain transit land, +whose opposite approaches were held by the Russians.[1376] + +Such conquests, whatever be their motive, profit the vanquished in the +end more than the victor. They result in the systematic and intelligent +development of the mountain resources, and the maintenance of ampler +social and economic relations between highland and lowland through the +construction of roads, which must always represent the reach of the +governing authority. The conquest of mountain peoples means always +expensive and protracted campaigns. The invader has always two enemies +to fight, Nature and the armed foe. There is a saying in India that "In +Gilgit a small army is annihilated and a large army starves to death." +Hunger is king in high altitudes, and comes always to the defense of +mountain independence. Moreover, the inaccessibility of such districts, +the difficulty of maintaining lines of communication, ignorance of +by-paths and trails which forever offer strategic opportunities to the +natives or escape at a crisis, all serve to protract the war. The +independent spirit of the mountaineer, his endurance of hardships, his +mastery of mountain tactics, and his obstinate resistance after repeated +defeat, give always a touch of heroism to highland warfare. +Consequently, history abounds in examples of unconquered mountain +peoples, or of long sustained resistance, like that which for sixty +years under the heroic leadership of Kadi Mulah and Shamyl used up the +treasure and troops of Russia in the impregnable defiles of the +Caucasus. In the end, however, the highland tribes succumb to numbers +and the road-making engineer. + +[Sidenote: Political dismemberment of mountain peoples.] + +Political dismemberment, lack of cohesion due to the presence of +physical barriers impeding intercourse, is the inherent weakness of +mountain peoples. Political consolidation is never voluntary. It is +always forced upon them from without, either by foreign conquest or by +the constant menace of such conquest, which compels the mountain clans +to combine for common defense of their freedom. The combination thus +made is reluctant, loose, easily broken, generally short-lived. It +becomes close and permanent only under a constant pressure from without, +and then assumes a form allowing to the constituent parts the greatest +possible measure of independence. The Swiss canton and commune are the +result of a segregating environment; the Swiss Republic is the result of +threatened encroachments by the surrounding states. It owed its first +genuine federal constitution to Napoleon. + +A report on the situation in the Caucasus, addressed to Czar Nicholas in +1829, contains an epitome of the history of mountain peoples. It runs as +follows: "The Circassians bar out Russia from the south, and may at +their pleasure open or close the passage to the nations of Asia. At +present their intestine dissensions, fostered by Russia, hinder them +from uniting under one leader; but it must not be forgotten that, +according to traditions religiously preserved among them, the sway of +their ancestors extended as far as to the Black Sea. * * * The +imagination is appalled at the consequence which their union under one +leader might have for Russia, which has no other bulwark against their +ravages than a military line, too extensive to be very strong."[1377] +Here we have the whole story--a mountain people pillaging the lowlands, +exercising a dangerous and embarrassing control over the passes, and +thereby calling down upon themselves conquest from without; weakened by +a contracting territory within the highlands and a shrinking area of +plunder without, doomed to eventual defeat by the yet more ominous +weakness of political dismemberment. + +[Sidenote: Individualism and independence] + +Mountain tribes are always like a pack of hounds on the leash, each +straining in a different direction. Wall-like barriers, holding them +apart for centuries, make them almost incapable of concerted action, and +restive under any authority but their own. Clan and tribal societies, +feudal and republican rule, always on a small scale, characterize +mountain sociology. All these are attended by an exaggerated +individualism and its inevitable concomitant, the blood feud. Mountain +policy tends to diminish the power of the central authority to the +vanishing point, giving individualism full scope. Social and economic +retardation, caused by extreme isolation and encouraged by protected +location, tend to keep the social body small and loosely organized. +Every aspect of environment makes against social integration. + +The broken relief of ancient Greece produced the small city state; but +in the rugged mountains of Arcadia the principle of physical and +political subdivision went farther. Here, for four centuries after the +first Olympiad, the population, poorest and rudest of all Greece, was +split up into petty hill villages, each independent of the other.[1378] +The need of resisting Spartan aggression led for the first time, in 371 +B.C., to the formation of a _commune Arcadum_, a coalescence of all the +fractional groups constituting the Arcadian folk;[1379] but even this +union, effected only by the masterly manipulation of the Theban +Epaminondas, proved short-lived and incomplete. What was true of the +Arcadian villages was true of the city states of Greece. The geography +of the land instilled into them the principle of political aloofness, +except when menaced by foreign conquest. Cooperation is efficient only +when it springs from a habit of mind. Greek union against the Persians +was very imperfect; and against the Roman, the feeble leagues were +wholly ineffective. The influence of this dismembering environment still +persists. As ancient Greece was a complex of city states, modern Greece +is a complex of separate districts, each of which holds chief place in +the minds of its citizens, and unconsciously but steadily operates +against the growth of a national spirit in the modern sense.[1380] + +[Sidenote: Types of mountain states.] + +A mountain environment encourages political disunion in several forms. +Sometimes it favors the survival of a turbulent feudal nobility, based +upon clan organization, as among the medieval Scotch, who were not less +rebellious toward their own kings than toward the English +conquerors.[1381] Feudal rule seems congenial to the mountaineer, whose +conservative nature, born of isolation, clings to hereditary chiefs and +a long established order. Feudal communities and dwarf republics exist +side by side in the northern Caucasus,[1382] attended by that primitive +assertion of individual right, the blood feud.[1383] Often the two forms +of government are combined, but the feudal element is generally only a +dwindling survival from a remote past. The little Republic of Andorra, +which for a thousand years has preserved its existence in the protection +of a high Pyrenean valley, is a self-governing community, organized +strictly along the lines of a Tyrolese or Swiss commune; but the two +_viguiers_ or agents, who in some matters outrank the president, are +official appointments tracing back to feudal days, when Andorra was a +seigneurie of the Comté of Urgel.[1384] Tyrol offers a striking parallel +to this. In its local affairs it has in effect a republican form of +government, enjoying as high degree of autonomy as any Swiss canton; but +the great Brenner route, which could confer both power and wealth on its +possessor, made the Tyrol an object of conquest to the feudal nobles of +the early Middle Ages. Their hereditary dominion is now vested in the +archdukes of Austria, to whom the Tyrolese have shown unfailing +fidelity, but from whom they have exacted complete recognition of their +rights.[1385] + +Tyrol's neighbor Switzerland illustrates the pure form of commune, +canton and republic, which is the logical result of a rugged mountain +relief. Here commune and canton are the real units of government. In +the federal power at Bern the Swiss peasant takes little interest, +often not even knowing the name of the national president. In the +highest ranges a canton coincides with a mountain-rimmed +valley--Valais with the basin of the upper Rhone, Glarus with the +upper Linth, Uri with the Reuss, Graubünden with the upper Rhine, to +which is joined by many pass routes the sparsely peopled Engadine, +Ticino with the drainage basin of upper Lake Maggiore, Unterwalden +with the southern drainage valleys of Lake Lucerne. Where the +mountains are lower, or where passes connect valleys of high levels, +cantonal boundaries may overstep geographical barriers. A commune +generally consists of the villages strung along a narrow lateral +valley, isolated and sufficient unto itself politically. A close +parallel to the Alpine commune is found among the Kabyles of the Atlas +Mountains. Their political structure is based upon the _Jemaa_ or +commune, a small sovereign republic whose independence is fiercely +defended. It enjoys complete local autonomy, is governed by an +assembly of all the adult male inhabitants, and grants this body the +usual functions except the administration of justice, which, +characteristically, is replaced by blood feuds as the inalienable +right of the individual. Romans, Arabs, Turks and French have in turn +exercised over these mountain Berbers only nominal control, except +when their internal dissensions made them vulnerable.[1386] + +[Sidenote: Significance of their small size.] + +The mountains, by the segregating power of their ridges and ranges, +first produce these little independent communities, and then, throwing +around them strong protecting arms, enfold them in an embrace which long +provides security to them in their weakness. These minute mountain +states, therefore, tend to reflect in their size the isolation of their +environment, and indirectly the weakness of the surrounding nations. The +original Swiss _Eidgenossensschaft_ of the four forest cantons, embedded +in the high Alps, braced against a mountain wall, held its own against +the feeble feudal states of Austria and Germany. The rugged relief of +Graubünden and the spirit of freedom cradled there enabled its peasants +in the Middle Ages to overthrow the feudal lords, and to establish a +federal republic. This typical mountain state was a league composed of +three other leagues. Each component league consisted of a group of +districts, having the power of sovereign states, and consisting in turn +of a group of communes, which were quite independent in local affairs. +This triune league formed in time an alliance with the Swiss +Confederation, but did not become a member of it till the Vienna +adjustment of 1815. Similar is the story of the mountain shepherds of +Appenzell, who formed a little peasant republic, despite their bishop +overlord of St. Gall; and who later during the Reformation, on the +ground of religious differences, divided into two yet smaller +states.[1387] The relation between size and inaccessibility is most +strikingly illustrated in the high Himalayan ranges west of Kashmir and +north of the Punjab. Here is the Shinaka district, which includes the +Chilas, Darel, Tanger and other valleys branching off from the Indus, +and which is inhabited by Dards of Indo-European stock. Each Shinaka +valley is a small cantonal republic, and each village of each republic +is a commune managing its own affairs by an assembly. One settlement of +only twelve houses enjoys complete autonomy. Besides the village +assemblies there is a state parliament handling questions of general +policy, to which each village sends representatives. One dissentient +vote can defeat a measure. The majority cannot control the minority; for +if one village of a state disagrees with the others, it is free to carry +out its own policy, even in the matter of foreign alliances.[1388] Here +is home rule run to seed. + +[Sidenote: Slight power of mountain chiefs.] + +Small size is sometimes coupled with monarchical rule, degenerating +occasionally into despotism among aggressive robber tribes. The +inaccessible Hunza Valley is occupied on opposite sides of its deep +gorge by two rival states, the Hunzas and the Nagaris, whose combined +population amounts to scarcely 25,000 souls. Hostile to each other, they +unite only to resist an invading force. While the Hunza Thum is a +tyrant, the Nagari ruler has little voice in the government. The +Tibeto-Burman hill folk of the eastern Himalayas are divided into clans, +and concede a mild authority to a chief who rules a group of clan +villages, but only rarely is able to secure power over a larger +district. The Khasia Hills of Assam are broken up into twenty-three +petty states, each under its own Rajah or chief, who has, however, +little authority beyond the administration of justice.[1389] + +Everywhere in mountain regions appears this repugnance to centralized +authority. Protection by environment obviates the necessity of +protection through combination. The spirit of clan exclusiveness, the +absence of a common national sentiment, characterize equally the +tribesmen of mountainous Albania, of Persian Luristan,[1390] and highland +Kurdistan. Along the rugged upheaved area which forms the western +boundary of India from the Khaibar Pass to the sea, British officials +have had to negotiate with the native Pathan and Baluch "jirgahs," +assemblies of the chief men of the countless clans into which the tribes +are divided, as the only visible form of authority tolerated.[1391] +Combination must be voluntary and of a type to exact a modicum of +submission. These requirements are best answered by the confederation, +which may gradually assume a stable and elaborate form among an +advanced people like the Swiss; or it may constitute a loose yet +effective union, as in the famous Samnite confederacy of the central +Apennines; or a temporary league like that of the ancient Arcadians, or +the group of confederated sheiks of Bellad el Kobail, the "Country of +the Highlanders" in mountainous Yemen, who in 1790 established a +republican form of union for defense against their more powerful +neighbors.[1392] + +[Sidenote: Mountain isolation and differentiation.] + +The power of mountains to protect makes them asylums of refuge for +displaced peoples. This fact explains the confused ethnology which often +characterizes these isolated regions, especially when they lie near or +across natural highways of human migration. As a tide of humanity sweeps +around or across the mountains, a branch stream turns into a side +valley, where it is caught and held. There it remains unaltered, +crystallizing in its seclusion, subjected for ages to few modifying +influences from without. Its people keep their own language and customs, +little affected by a totally different race stock similarly placed in a +neighboring alcove of the mountains. Lack of communication engenders an +endless multiplication of dialects, as we find them in the Alps, the +Caucasus, in Kafirstan of the Hindu Kush and in Nepal. Diversity of +speech, itself a product of isolation, reacts upon that political and +social aloofness of mountain folk, to emphasize and fix it. + +[Sidenote: Survival of primitive races in mountains.] + +From this principle it follows that the same highland region shows +strong differentiation and marked social individuality from one district +to another, and from one valley to the next, despite a prevailing +similarity of local geographic conditions. In fact, the very similarity +of those conditions, strong in their power to isolate, present the +conditions for inevitable variation. A mountain region gets its +population from diverse sources, or, which is quite as important, at +different times from the same source. For instance, Nepal received +contingents of Rajput conquerors, dislodged from the Punjab, in the +seventh century, the eleventh, and finally the dominant Gurkhas at the +end of the eighteenth. To-day these represent different degrees of +amalgamation with the local Tibetan stock of Nepal. They are +distinguished from each other by a diversity of languages, and a +multiplicity of dialects, while the whole piedmont of the country shows +a yet different blend with the Aryan Hindus of the Ganges valley, who +have seeped into the Terai and been drawn up, as if by capillary +attraction, into the hill valleys of the outer range. The Vindhyan Range +and its associated highlands, long before the dawn of Indian history, +caught and held in their careful embrace some of the fragile aboriginal +tribes like the Kolarian Ho, Santals and Korkus. Centuries later the +Dravidian Bhils and Gonds sought refuge here before the advancing +Indo-Aryans, and found asylums in the secluded valleys.[1393] Finally +those same northern plains whence the Dravidians had come, after the +Mohammedan conquest of central India in the sixteenth century, sent +flying to the refuge of the hills a large contingent of Hindus of +mingled Dravidian and Aryan stocks, but stamped with the culture of the +Ganges basin. These occupied the richer valleys and the more accessible +plateaus of the highlands, driving the primitive Gonds and Bhils back +into the remoter recesses of the mountains.[1394] Dravidians and +aboriginal Kolarians survive in their purity in the wilder and more +inaccessible regions, but in the lower valleys their upper classes show +signs of mixtures with the Rajput invaders, while the lower classes +betray little Aryan blood.[1395] + +[Sidenote: Diversity of peoples and dialects.] + +Afghanistan, of disordered relief, set as a transit region between the +plains of Mesopotamia, the Oxus and the Indus, has a confused ethnology +in keeping with the tangle of dissected plateaus and mountain systems +which constitute its surface. Here we find three distinct branches of +the Indo-European race, divided up into various peoples of diverse +tongues and subdivided further into countless tribes; and two branches +of Mongol-Tartars scattered, as if out of a pepper box, from the Helmund +to the Oxus, tossed in among diverse peoples of Iranic and Galcha origin +in hopeless confusion. The various Afghan tribes, separated from each +other by natural barriers and intervening alien stocks, though similar +in physical type, speech, religion and culture, have no sense of unity, +no common political aims, while the appalling list of tribes +constituting the population of the country[1396] offers little hope of +Afghanistan ever developing national cohesion. Kafiristan alone, which +lies in the Hindu Kush range for the most part at an altitude of 12,000 +feet or more, harbors in its recesses many remnants of primitive +peoples, speaking various languages and dialects, strangers alike to any +native affinity or political union. It is a mere agglomeration of ethnic +fragments, in which the people of one village are often unable to +converse with those of the next.[1397] Relief has fashioned the ethnology +of the Caucasus in the same way. No other equally small area in the +world contains such a variety of peoples and tongues, differing from one +another in race, language, and customs so fundamentally as the Caucasus. +From the heterogeneous survivals of extremely old ethnic stocks, lodged +in the high valleys, to the intrusive Russians of the lower piedmont, +the Caucasus might be called an ethnographical sample card.[1398] + +The rugged configuration of the Alps, from the Rhone to the Danube, has +preserved the broad-headed Alpine race, which was perhaps the primitive +stock of Central Europe. The great river valleys leading into this +massive highland, like the Rhine, Aar, Inn and Adige, show the intrusion +of a long-headed race from both north and south; but lofty and remote +valleys off the main routes of travel, like the Hither Rhine about +Dissentis, the little Stanzerthal of the upper Inn, and the Passierthal +of the upper Adige above Meran, show the race preserved in its purity by +the isolating environment.[1399] Here each segregated lateral valley +becomes an area of marked linguistic and social differentiation; only +where it opens into the wider longitudinal valleys are its peculiarities +of speech and custom diluted by the intrusive current of another race. +Switzerland has received three different streams of language, and broken +them up into numerous rivulets of dialect. On its small area of 16,125 +square miles (41,346 square kilometers) thirty-five dialects of German +are spoken, sixteen of French, eight of Italian and five of Romansch, a +primitive and degenerate Latin tongue, surviving from the ancestral days +of Roman occupation.[1400] The yet smaller territory of the Tyrol has all +these languages except French, whose place is taken by various forms of +Slavonic speech, which have entered by the western tributaries of the +Danube.[1401] + +[Sidenote: Constriction of mountain areas of ethnic survivals.] + +Rarely is a polyglot mountain population able to work out its own +political salvation, as the Swiss have done. More often political union +must be forced upon them from without. Oftener still, when the +highlanders are primitive survivals, ill-matched against the superior +invaders from the plain, they are doomed to a process of constriction of +territory and deterioration of numbers, which proceeds slowly or rapidly +according to the inaccessibility of their environment and the energy of +the intruders. Deliberate, unenterprising nations, like the Chinese, +Turks and Indo-Aryans long tolerate the presence of alien mountain +tribes, who remain like enemies brought to bay in their isolated +fortresses. The conquerors throw around them at their leisure a cordon +of settlement, which, slowly ascending the piedmont, draws closer and +closer about the mountaineers. The situation of many mountain tribes +reminds one of a besieged stronghold. Russian wars against the Caucasus +have rightly been described as protracted sieges. The heroic history of +Switzerland in relation to its neighbors has been that of a skillfully +conducted defense, both military and diplomatic. The territory of China +is dotted over with detached groups of aborigines, who have survived +wherever a friendly mountain has offered them an asylum. Variously known +as Lolos, Mantze or Miaotse, they have preserved everywhere a +semi-independence in pathless mountains, whither Chinese troops do not +dare to follow them;[1402] but the more numerous and patient Chinese +agriculturalists are in many sections slowly encroaching upon their +territories, driving them farther and farther into the recesses of their +highlands. The same process goes on in Formosa, where the Chinese have +gradually forced the native Malays into mountain fastnesses among the +peaks which rise to 14,000 feet (4500 meters). There, split up by +internecine feuds into numberless clans and tribes, ignorant of one +another's languages, raiding each other's territories and the coastal +plains tilled by Chinese colonists, they await their doom, while the +piedmont zone between has already given birth to a typical border race +of halfbreeds, more Chinese than Malay.[1403] + +[Sidenote: Isolation and retardation of mountain regions.] + +"To have and to hold" is the motto of the mountains. Like remote +islands, they are often museums of social antiquities. Antiquated races +and languages abound. The mountaineers of the Southern Appalachians +speak to-day an eighteenth century English. Their literature is the +ballad poetry of old England and Scotland, handed down from parent to +child. Clan feuds settle questions of justice, as in the Caucasus and +the Apennines. Religion is orthodox to the last degree, sectarianism is +rigid, and Joshua's power over the sun remains in some lonely valleys +undiscounted.[1404] These are all the marks of isolation and retardation +which appear in similar environments elsewhere. Especially religious +dogmas tend to show in mountains a tenacity of life impossible in the +plains. The Kafirs, inhabiting the high Hindu Kush Mountains of +Badakshan, and apparently of Pelasgic, early Greek, or Persian origin, +have a religion blended of paganism, Zoroastrianism and Brahmanism.[1405] +One intruding faith has been unable to dislodge the previous incumbent, +so the three have combined. The great historical destiny of the small, +barren, isolated Judean plateau was to hold aloof the chaste religion of +the desert-bred Jews from the sensuous agricultural gods of the +Canaanites; to conserve and fix it; if need be, to narrow it to a +provincial tribal faith, to stamp it with exclusiveness, conservatism, +and formalism, as its adherents with bigotry,[1406] for this is always +the effect of geographical seclusion. But when all these limitations of +Judaism are acknowledged, the fact remains that that segregated mountain +environment performed the inestimable service for the world of keeping +pure and undefiled the first and last great gift of the desert, a +monotheistic faith. + +Buddhism, once the official religion of Korea but disestablished three +centuries ago, has taken refuge in the Diamond Mountains, far from the +main roads; there a dull, moribund form of the faith dozes on in the +monasteries and monastic shrines of these secluded highlands.[1407] +Driven out of India, Buddhism survives only in the Himalayan border of +the country among the local Tibeto-Burman peoples, and in Ceylon, whose +mountain city of Kandy is its stronghold. The persecuted Waldenses, a +heretic sect who fled in 1178 from the cities of France to the Alps, +took refuge in the remote valleys of the Pellice, Chisone, and Augrogne +some thirty miles southwest of Turin. There, protected equally against +attack and modification, the Waldenses have maintained the old tenets +and organization of their religion.[1408] + +[Sidenote: Conservatism of mountain peoples.] + +The mountain-dweller is essentially conservative. There is little in his +environment to stimulate him to change, and little reaches him from the +outside world. The "spirit of the times" is generally the spirit of a +past time, when it has penetrated to his remote upland. He is strangely +indifferent to what goes on in the great outstretched plains below him. +What filters in to him from the outside has little suggestion for him, +because it does not accord with the established order which he has +always known. Hence innovation is distasteful to him. This repugnance to +change reaches its clearest expression, perhaps, in the development and +preservation of national costumes. _Tracht,_ which is crystallized style +in dress, appears nowhere so widespread and so abundantly differentiated +as in mountain districts. In Switzerland, every canton has its +distinctive costume which has come down from a remote past. The peasants +of Norway, of the German and Austrian Alps, of the Basque settlements in +the Pyrenees, of mountain-bound Alsace and Bohemia, give local color to +the landscape by the picturesqueness of their national dress. + +[Sidenote: Mental and moral qualities.] + +With this conservatism of the mountaineer is generally coupled suspicion +toward strangers, extreme sensitiveness to criticism, superstition, +strong religious feeling, and an intense love of home and family. The +bitter struggle for existence makes him industrious, frugal, provident; +and, when the marauding stage has been outgrown, he is peculiarly honest +as a rule. Statistics of crime in mountain regions show few crimes +against property though many against person. When the mountain-bred man +comes down into the plains, he brings with him therefore certain +qualities which make him a formidable competitor in the struggle for +existence,--the strong muscles, unjaded nerves, iron purpose, and +indifference to luxury bred in him by the hard conditions of his native +environment. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER XVI + +[1253] Heinrich von Treitschke, _Politik,_ Vol. I, p. 218. Leipzig, +1897. + +[1254] For full discussion, see H.R. Mill, International Geography, pp. +79-81. New York, 1902. + +[1255] J. Thomson, Through Masai Land, pp. 78-82, 113-115, 122, 140-141, +163-167, 406-407. London, 1885. + +[1256] J. Russell Smith, Plateaus in Tropical America, in Report of +Eighth International Geographical Congress, pp. 829-831. Washington, +1905. + +[1257] Isaiah Bowman, The Distribution of Population in Bolivia, +_Bulletin American Geographical Society,_ pp. 74-78, Vol. VII. 1909. + +[1258] D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, p. 157. London, 1902. + +[1259] Roosevelt, Winning of the West, Vol. I, pp. 52-56. New York, +1895. C.C. Royce, The Cherokee Nation of Indians, Fifth Annual Report of +Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 140-143. Washington, 1887. + +[1260] W.Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe, pp. 253-254. New York, 1899. + +[1261] G.L. Gomme, The Village Community, pp. 72, 75-95. New York, 1890. + +[1262] H.R. Mill, International Geography, pp. 148, 154, 155. New York, +1902. + +[1263] J. Partsch, Central Europe, pp. 204, 207. London, 1903. + +[1264] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 304. New York, 1902. + +[1265] J. Partsch, Central Europe, p. 221. London, 1903. + +[1266] Alfred Stead, Japan by the Japanese, p. 425. London, 1904. Henry +Dyer, Dai Nippon, p. 241. New York, 1904. + +[1267] Boyd Winchester, The Swiss Republic, pp. 307-308. Phila., 1891. + +[1268] Wilhelm Deecke, Italy, pp. 190, 358-361. London, 1904. + +[1269] Elisée Reclus, Europe, Vol. I, p. 284. New York, 1882. + +[1270] S.P. Scott, History of the Moorish Empire in Spain, Vol. III, pp. +610-613. Philadelphia, 1904. + +[1271] M. Niebuhr, Travels Through Arabia, Vol. I, pp. 290-291, 300. +Edinburgh, 1792. S.M. Zwemer, Arabia the Cradle of Islam, pp. 57, 68, +69, 415. New York, 1900. + +[1272] D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, pp. 75, 140, 267. London, 1902. + +[1273] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, p. 10. London, 1897. + +[1274] _Ibid._, pp. 312, 460, 463, 468, 475. + +[1275] _Ibid._, 118, 119, 160, 200. + +[1276] Isabella Bird Bishop, The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, Vol. I, pp. +176, 183, 294; Vol. II, p. 107. New York and London, 1900. + +[1277] F.H., Nichols, Through Hidden Shensi, pp. 51, 54. New York, 1902. + +[1278] E.J. Payne, History of the New World, Vol. I, pp. 375-378. +Oxford, 1892. + +[1279] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, p. 162. London, 1896-1898. + +[1280] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, pp. 86-87. London, 1897. + +[1281] A.B. Ellis, West African Islands, p. 248. London, 1885. + +[1282] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 254. London, 1896-1898. + +[1283] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 426-428. + +[1284] A.E. Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, p. 122. New York, 1869. + +[1285] _Ibid._, 174. + +[1286] W.E. Griffis, The Mikado's Empire, Vol. I, p. 90. New York, 1903. + +[1287] Census of the Philippine Islands, Vol. I, pp. 458, 541, 543; and +Vol. IV, pp. 88-89. Washington, 1905. Gazetteer of the Philippine +Islands, photographs, pp. 352-353. Washington, 1902. + +[1288] Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, Vol. I, pp. 96-97. +London, 1907. + +[1289] V.L. Cameron, Across Africa, p. 221. London, 1885. + +[1290] Count Gleichen, The Egyptian Sudan, Vol. I, p. 190. London, 1905. + +[1291] Prescott, Conquest of Peru, Vol. I, pp. 134-136. New York, 1848. + +[1292] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, p. 176. London, 1896-1898. + +[1293] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 176. + +[1294] E.J. Payne, History of the New World, Vol. I, p. 377. Oxford, +1892. + +[1295] Pallas, Travels Through the Southern Provinces of Russia, Vol. +II, p. 346. London, 1812. + +[1296] B.H. Baden-Powell, The Indian Village Community, pp. 57, 58, 61. +London, 1896. + +[1297] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, pp. 148, 151, 154, 163, +203, 238 _et passim_. London, 1897. + +[1298] _Ibid._, 70-73. + +[1299] F.H. Nichols, Through Hidden Shensi, p. 52. New York, 1902. + +[1300] Isabella Bird Bishop, The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, Vol. I, pp. +163, 176; Vol. II, pp. 126, 147. New York and London, 1900. + +[1301] Boyd Winchester, The Swiss Republic, p. 307. Philadelphia, 1891. + +[1302] Wilhelm Roscher, _National-oekonomik des Ackerbaues_, p. 656, +Note 1. Stuttgart, 1888. + +[1303] Norway, Official Publication, p. 307. Christiania, 1900. + +[1304] Roscher, _National-oekonomik des Ackerbaues_, p. 656, Note 4. +Stuttgart, 1888. + +[1305] Norway, Official Publication, p. 325. Christiania, 1900. + +[1306] Roscher, _National-oekonomik des Ackerbaues,_ p. 657, Note 7. +Stuttgart, 1888. + +[1307] _Ibid.,_ p. 655, Note 1. + +[1308] Norway, Official Publication, p. 310. Christiania, 1900. + +[1309] B.H. Baden-Powell, The Indian Village Community, pp. 58-59. +London, 1896. + +[1310] McCullough, Geographical Dictionary, Article Nepal. J.O. White, +Journeys in Bhutan, _Geographical Journal,_ Vol. 35, p. 33. London, +1910. + +[1311] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, p. 10. London, 1897. + +[1312] Boyd Winchester, The Swiss Republic, p. 310. Philadelphia, 1891. +A. von Miaskowski, _Die schweizerische Allmend,_ pp. 88-89, 155, 178, +179, 198. _Staats- und socialwissenschaftliche Forschungen,_ Vol. II, No. +4, Leipzig, 1879. + +[1313] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, pp. 98, 248, 329. London, +1897. + +[1314] Isabella Bird Bishop, The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, Vol. II, +pp. 181, 187, 224. London and New York, 1900. + +[1315] Carter Harrison, A Race with the Sun, p. 63. New York, 1889. + +[1316] Boyd Winchester, The Swiss Republic, pp. 325-327. Phila. 1891. + +[1317] A von Miaskowski, _Die schweizerische Allmend,_ pp. 164-166. +_Staats- und socialwissenschaftliche Forschungen,_ Vol. II, No. 4. +Leipzig, 1879. + +[1318] Norway, Official Publication, p. 325. Christiania, 1900. + +[1319] _Ibid.,_ p. 59. + +[1320] Roscher, _National-oekonomik des Ackerbaues,_ p. 655, Note 1. +Stuttgart, 1888. + +[1321] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, pp. 40, 41, 77. London, +1897. + +[1322] M. Hue, Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China in 1846, Vol. II, +pp. 151-156. Chicago, 1898. + +[1323] W.W. Rockhill, The Land of the Lamas, p. 228. New York, 1891. + +[1324] Perceval Landon, The Opening of Tibet, pp. 110, 111, 205-206. New +York, 1905. + +[1325] J. Partsch, Central Europe, pp. 197, 248. London, 1903. + +[1326] Wilhelm Deecke, Italy, p. 220. London, 1904. + +[1327] J. Partsch, Central Europe, pp. 269-270. London, 1903. + +[1328] Malthus, Essay on Population, Book II, chap. V. + +[1329] Cliffe Leslie, Auvergne, _Fortnightly Review,_ p. 741, Vol. XVI. +1874. + +[1330] Wilhelm Deecke, Italy, pp. 243, 409. London, 1904. + +[1331] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, p. 252. London, 1896-1898. + +[1332] L. Higgin, Spanish Life in Town and Country, pp. 27, 29, 292-293. +New York, 1902. + +[1333] James Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, p. 350. New York, 1897. + +[1334] Von Bremer, Land of the Battaks, _Geographical Journal,_ Vol. +VII, pp. 76-80. London, 1896. + +[1335] B. Winchester, The Swiss Republic, pp. 229-232. Phila., 1891. + +[1336] James Logan, The Scottish Gael or Celtic Manners, p. 78. +Hartford, 1849. + +[1337] Indian Census for 1901, Vol. I, Part I, p. 93, by Risley and +Gait. Calcutta, 1903. + +[1338] Elisée Reclus, Europe, Vol. I, p. 219. New York, 1882. + +[1339] Heinrich von Treitschke, _Politik_, Vol. I, p, 228. Leipzig, +1897. + +[1340] Archibald Little, The Far East, pp. 47, 167. Oxford, 1905. + +[1341] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 243. New York, 1902. + +[1342] Malthus, Essay on Population, Book II, chap. I. + +[1343] Cliffe Leslie, Auvergne, _Fortnightly Review_, Vol. XVI, pp. +741-742. 1874. + +[1344] Oscar P. Crosby, Tibet and Turkestan, pp. 153, 156. London and +New York, 1905. A. Little, The Far East, p. 217. Oxford, 1905. + +[1345] W.W. Rockhill, The Land of the Lamas, p. 227. New York, 1891. + +[1346] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, p. 218. London, 1897. + +[1347] W.W. Rockhill, The Land of the Lamas, p. 212. New York, 1891. + +[1348] G.A. Sherring, Western Tibet and the British Borderland, p. 188. +London, 1906. + +[1349] Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, pp. 451, 452. London, +1891. + +[1350] Strabo, Book XVI, chap. IV, 25. + +[1351] For authorities, see Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, pp. +452-455. London, 1891. McLennan, Primitive Marriage, pp. 178-179, +184-189. Edinburgh, 1865. G.A. Sherring, Western Tibet and the British +Borderland, pp. 14, 15, 88-89, 177, 305. London, 1906. + +[1352] Spencer, Principles of Sociology, Vol. 1, pp. 646-649. New York, +1887. + +[1353] W.H.R. Rivers, The Todas, incorporated in W. I. Thomas' Source +Book for Social Origins, pp. 485-486. Chicago, 1909. + +[1354] Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 463. London, 1891. + +[1355] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, pp. 216, 217. London, 1905. + +[1356] W.W. Rockhill, The Land of the Lamas, pp. 211-212. New York, +1891. + +[1357] Oscar P. Crosby, Tibet and Turkestan, pp. 148-151. New York and +London, 1905. + +[1358] Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, pp. 470-483, 547-548. +London, 1891. + +[1359] Perceval Landon, The Opening of Tibet, p. 193. New York, 1905. + +[1360] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, pp. 137-141. London, 1897. + +[1361] Strabo, Book IV, chap. VI, 6, 7, 8, 10. + +[1362] _Ibid._, Book III, chap. III, 5, 7, 8. + +[1363] _Ibid_, Book VII, chap. VI, 1. + +[1364] _Ibid_, Book XI, chap. XII, 4; chap. XIII, 3, 6. + +[1365] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, pp. 346-349, 460-464. +London, 1897. + +[1366] _Ibid_, 280-282. + +[1367] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, p. 33. London, 1905. + +[1368] _Ibid_, 219-221. + +[1369] Pallas, Travels Through the Southern Provinces of Russia, Vol. I, +pp. 386-390, 406-407. London, 1812. + +[1370] D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, p. 246-249. London, 1902. + +[1371] M. Hue, Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China in 1846, Vol. II, +pp. 90-93, 100-101, 129-132. Chicago, 1898. + +[1372] Hans Helmolt, History of the World, Vol. III, pp. 131, 133-135. +New York and London, 1902-1906. + +[1373] Strabo, Book V, chap. IV, II. + +[1374] Article Nepal, Encyclopædia Britannica. + +[1375] C. Keller, Madagascar, pp. 24-26, 72, 85. London, 1901. + +[1376] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, pp. 280, 288-289. London, +1897. + +[1377] Walter K. Kelly, History of Russia, Vol. II, p. 392. London, +1881. + +[1378] Grote, History of Greece, Vol. II, p. 441. New York, 1859. + +[1379] _Ibid._, Vol. X, pp. 208, 215, 224-225. + +[1380] D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, p. 235. London, 1902. + +[1381] Henry Buckle, History of Civilization in England, Vol. II, pp. +125, 136-137. New York, 1871. + +[1382] W.K. Kelly, History of Russia, Vol. II, p. 394. London, 1881. + +[1383] Pallas, Travels Through the Southern Provinces of Russia, Vol. I, +pp. 391, 404-405. London, 1812. + +[1384] H. Spencer, A Visit to Andorra, _Fortnightly Review_, Vol. 67, +pp. 53-60. 1897. + +[1385] Article Tyrol, Encyclopædia Britannica. + +[1386] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, pp. 253-254. London, +1896-1898. + +[1387] H.J. Mackinder, The Rhine, pp. 27-31, 47-49, 56, 57. London, +1908. + +[1388] E.P. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, pp. 305-306. London, 1897. + +[1389] B.H. Baden-Powell, The Indian Village Community, pp. 136, +143-146. London, 1896. + +[1390] D.G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, pp. 229-231, 248, 252-253. London, +1902. + +[1391] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, pp. 243-244. London, 1905. + +[1392] Niebuhr, Travels Through Arabia, Vol. II, pp. 50-51. Edinburgh, +1792. + +[1393] B.H. Baden-Powell, The Indian Village Community, pp. 40, 47, 110, +121, 151-154, 159. London, 1896. + +[1394] Captain J. Forsythe, The Highlands of Central India, pp. 10-15, +23-24, 123-125. London, 1889. + +[1395] _Ibid._, 6, 7, 10-12, 141-147. + +[1396] Angus Hamilton, Afghanistan, pp. 262-268. New York, 1906. + +[1397] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, pp. 98-99. London, 1905. + +[1398] Merzbacher, _Aus den Hochregionen des Kaukasus_, Vol. I, pp. +55-56, 156. Leipzig, 1901. + +[1399] W.Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe, pp. 281-283, 289-290, map p. +285. New York, 1899. + +[1400] _Ibid._, 282. + +[1401] Article Tyrol, Encyclopædia Britannica. + +[1402] Archibald Little, The Far East, 131-132. Oxford, 1905. Isabella +Bird Bishop, The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, Vol. II, 132-133, 146-147, +166, 174, 207-210. New York and London, 1900. S. Wells Williams, The +Middle Kingdom, Vol. I, p. 43, New York, 1904. J. Naken, _Die Provinz +Kwangtung und ihre Bevölkerung, Petermanns Geographische Mittheilungen_, +Vol. 24, p. 421. 1878. + +[1403] Archibald Little, The Far East, pp. 307-308. Oxford, 1905. + +[1404] E.C. Semple, The Anglo-Saxons of the Kentucky Mountains, +_Geographical Journal_, Vol. XVII, pp. 588-623. London, 1901. + +[1405] Sir Thomas Holdich, The Origin of the Kafir of the Hindu Kush, +_Geographical Journal_, Vol. VII, p. 42. London, 1896. + +[1406] George Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, pp. +259-261. New York, 1897. + +[1407] Isabella Bird Bishop, Korea and Her Neighbors, pp. 21, 134-135, +140, 142. New York, 1897. + +[1408] Article Waldenses, Encyclopædia Britannica. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE + + +[Sidenote: Importance of climatic influences.] + +Climate enters fundamentally into all consideration of geographic +influences, either by implication or explicitly. It is a factor in most +physiological and psychological effects of environment. It underlies the +whole significance of zonal location, continental and insular. Large +territorial areas are favorable to improved variation in men and animals +partly because they comprise a diversity of natural conditions, of which +a wide range of climates forms one. This is also one advantage of a +varied relief, especially in the Tropics, where all the zones may be +compressed into a small area on the slopes of high mountains like the +Andes and Kilimanjaro. Climate fixes the boundaries of human habitation +in Arctic latitudes and high altitudes by drawing the dead-line to all +organic life. It dominates life in steppes and torrid deserts as in +sub-polar wastes. It encourages intimacy with the sea in tropical Malays +and Polynesians, and like a slave-driver, scourges on the fur-clad +Eskimo to reap the harvest of the deep. It is always present in that +intricate balance of geographic factors which produces a given +historical result, throwing its weight now into one side of the scales, +now into the other. It underlies the production, distribution and +exchange of commodities derived from the vegetable and animal kingdoms, +influences methods of agriculture, and the efficiency of human labor in +various industries.[1409] Hence it is a potent factor in the beginning and +in the evolution of civilization, so far as this goes hand in hand with +economic development. + +[Sidenote: Climate in the interplay of geographic factors.] + +The foregoing chapters have therefore been indirectly concerned with +climate to no small degree, but they have endeavored to treat the +subject analytically, showing climate as working with or against or in +some combination with other geographic factors. This course was +necessary, because climatic influences are so conspicuous and so +important that by the older geographers like Montesquieu[1410] and others, +they have been erected into a blanket theory, and made to explain a wide +range of social and historical phenomena which were properly the effect +of other geographic factors. + +[Sidenote: Direct and indirect effects of climate.] + +For a clear understanding of climatic influences, it is necessary to +adhere to the chief characteristics of the atmosphere, such as heat and +cold, moisture and aridity, and to consider the effect of zonal +location, winds and relief in the production and distribution of these; +also to distinguish between direct and indirect results of climate, +temporary and permanent, physiological and psychological ones, because +the confusion of these various effects breeds far-fetched conclusions. +The direct modification of man by climate is partly an _a priori_ +assumption, because the incontestable evidences of such modification +are not very numerous, however strong the probability may be. The +effect of climate upon plant and animal life is obvious, and immediately +raises the assumption that man has been similarly influenced. But there +is this difference: in contrast to the helpless dependence upon +environment of stationary plants and animals, whose range of movement is +strictly determined by conditions of food and temperature, the great +mobility of man, combined with his inventiveness, enables him to flee or +seek almost any climatic condition, and to emancipate himself from the +full tyranny of climatic control by substituting an indirect economic +effect for a direct physical effect. + +The direct results of climate are various, though some are open to the +charge of imperfect proof. Even the relation of nigrescence to tropical +heat, which seems to be established by the geographical distribution of +negroid races in the Old World, fails to find support from the facts of +pigmentation among the American Indians from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. +Nevertheless climate undoubtedly modifies many physiological processes +in individuals and peoples,[1411] affects their immunity from certain +classes of diseases and their susceptibility to others, influences their +temperament, their energy, their capacity for sustained or for merely +intermittent effort, and therefore helps determine their efficiency as +economic and political agents. + +While producing these direct effects, climate also influences man +indirectly by controlling the wide range of his life conditions +dependent upon the plant and animal life about him. It dictates what +crops he may raise, and has it in its power to affect radically the size +of his harvest. It decides which flocks and herds are best suited to his +environment, and therefore directs his pastoral activities, whether he +keeps reindeer, camels, llamas, horses or horned cattle. By interdicting +both agriculture and stock-raising, as in Greenland whose ice cap leaves +little surface free even for reindeer moss, it condemns the inhabitants +forever to the uncertain subsistence of the hunter. Where it encourages +the growth of large forests which harbor abundant game and yield +abundant fruits, as in the hot, moist equatorial belt and on rainy +mountain slopes, it prolongs the hunter stage of development, retards +the advance to agriculture. Climate thus helps to influence the rate and +the limit of cultural development. It determines in part the local +supply of raw material with which man has to work, and hence the +majority of his secondary activities, except where these are expended on +mineral resources. It decides the character of his food, clothing, and +dwelling, and ultimately of his civilization. + +[Sidenote: Effect of climate upon relief.] + +The very ground under man's feet, moreover, feels the molding hand of +climate. In one region a former age of excessive cold has glaciated the +surface and scoured off the fertile loam down to the underlying rock, or +left the land coated with barren glacial drift or more productive clays. +In another, the cold still persists and caps the land with ice and snow, +or, as in the tundra, underlays it with a stratum of frozen earth, which +keeps the surface wet and chilled even in the height of summer. In yet +other regions, abundant moisture combined with heat covers the ground +with a pad of fertile humus, while some hundred miles away drying trade +winds parch and crack the steppe vegetation, convert most of its organic +substance into gases, and leave only a small residue to enrich the soil. +Rain itself modifies the relief of the land, and therefore often decides +in a slow, cosmic way what shall be the ultimate destination of its +precious store of water. A heavy precipitation on the windward side of a +mountain range, by increasing the mechanical force of its drainage +streams, makes them bite their way back into the heart of the system and +decapitate the rivers on the leeward side, thus diminishing the volume +of water left to irrigate the rainless slope. Thus the hydra-headed +Amazon has been spreading and multiplying its sources among the Andean +valleys, to the detriment of agriculture on the dry Pacific slope; thus +the torrents of the Western Ghats, gorged by the monsoon rains from the +Indian Ocean, are slowly nipping off the streams of the ill-watered +Deccan, [See map page 484.] All these direct and indirect effects of +climate may combine to produce ultimate politico-geographical results +which manifest themselves in the expansion, power and permanence of +states. + +[Sidenote: Climate limits the habitable area.] + +Climatic conditions limit the habitable area of the earth. This is +their most important anthropo-geographic effect. At either pole lurks an +invincible foe, with whom expanding humanity must always reckon, and who +brooks little encroachment upon his territory. His weapon is the +restriction of organic life, without which man cannot exist. The +geographical boundaries of organic life, however, are wider than those +of human life. The consequence of this climatic control, therefore, is +not only a narrowed distribution of the human race, but a concentration +which intensifies the struggle for existence, forces the utilization of +all the available area, and thereby in every locality stimulates +adaptation to environment. + +[Sidenote: Adaptability of man to climatic extremes.] + +Man ranks among the most adaptable organic beings on the earth. No +climate is absolutely intolerable to him. Only the absence of food +supply or of all marketable commodities will exclude him from the most +inhospitable region. His dwellings are found from sea level up to an +altitude of 5000 meters or more, where the air pressure is little over +one half that on the coast.[1412] Seventeen per cent. of the towns and +cities of Bolivia are located at an elevation above 13,000 feet (4000 +meters), while Aullagas occupies a site 15,700 feet or nearly 5000 +meters above the sea.[1413] Mineral wealth explains these high Bolivian +settlements, just as it draws the Mexican sulphur miners to temporary +residence in the crater of Popocatepetl at an altitude of 17,787 feet +(5420 meters), from their permanent dwellings a thousand meters +below.[1414] The laborers employed in the construction of the Oroya +railroad in Peru became rapidly accustomed to work in the rarefied air +at an elevation of 4000 to 4800 meters. The trade routes over the Andes +and Himalayan ranges often cross passes at similar altitudes; the +Karakorum road mounts to 18,548 feet (5,650 meters). Yet these great +elevations do not prevent men going their way and doing the day's work, +although the unacclimated tenderfoot is liable to attacks of mountain +sickness in consequence of the rarefied air.[1415] + +Man makes himself at home in any zone. The cold pole of the earth, so +far as recorded temperatures show, is the town of Verkhoyansk in +northeastern Siberia, whose mean January temperature is 54 F. below zero +(-48 Centigrade). Massawa, one of the hottest spots in the furnace of +Africa is the capital of the Italian colony of Eritrea. However, +extremes both of heat and cold reduce the density of population, the +scale and efficiency of economic enterprises. The greatest events of +universal history and especially the greatest historical developments +belong to the North Temperate Zone. The decisive voyages of discovery +emanated thence, though the needs of trade and the steady winds of low +latitudes combined to carry them to the Tropics. The coldest lands of +the earth are either uninhabited, like Spitzenbergen, or sparsely +populated, like northern Siberia. The hottest regions, also, are far +from being so densely populated as many temperate countries.[1416] [See +maps pages 8, 9, and 612.] The fact that they are for the most part +dependencies or former colonial possessions of European powers indicates +their retarded economic and political development. The contrast between +the Mongol Tunguse, who lead the life of hunters and herders in Arctic +Siberia, and the related Manchus, who conquered and rule the temperate +lands of China, shows how climates help differentiate various branches +of the same ethnic stock; and this contrast only parallels that between +the Eskimo and Aztec offshoots of the American Indians, the Norwegian +and Italian divisions of the white race. + +[Illustration: MEAN ANNUAL ISOTHERMS AND HEAT BELTS [_Centigrade_] +0°C = 32°F. 20°C = 68°F. 30°C = 86°F.] + +[Sidenote: Temperature as modified by oceans and winds.] + +The zonal location of a country indicates roughly the degree of heat +which it receives from the sun. It would do this accurately if +variations of relief, prevailing winds and proximity of the oceans did +not enter as disturbing factors. Since water heats and cools more slowly +than the land, the ocean is a great reservoir of warmth in winter and of +cold in summer, and exercises therefore an equalizing effect upon the +temperature of the adjacent continents, far as these effects can be +carried by the wind. The ocean is also the great source of moisture, and +this, too, it distributes over the land through the agency of the wind. +Where warm ocean currents, like the Gulf Stream and Kuro Siwa, penetrate +into temperate or sub-polar latitudes, or where cool ones, like the +Peruvian and Benguela Currents wash the coasts of tropical regions, they +enhance the power of the ocean and wind to mitigate the extremes of +temperature on land. The warm currents, moreover, loading the air above +them with vapor, provide a store of rain to the nearest wind-swept +land. Hence both the rainfall and temperature of a given country depend +largely upon its neighboring water and air currents, and its +accessibility to the rain-bearing winds. If it occupies a marked +central position in temperate latitudes, like eastern Russia or the +Great Plains of our semi-arid West, it receives limited moisture and +suffers the extreme temperatures of a typical continental climate. The +same result follows if it holds a distinctly peripheral location, and +yet lies in the rain-shadow of a mountain barrier, like western Peru, +Patagonia and Sweden north of the sixtieth parallel. [See map page 484.] + +[Sidenote: Effect of the westerlies.] + +Owing to the prevalence of westerly winds in the Temperate Zones and +particularly in the North Temperate Zone, the mean annual temperature is +high on the western face of the northern continents, but drops rapidly +toward the east.[1417] This is especially true of winter temperatures, +which even near the eastern coast show the severity of a continental +climate. Sitka and New York, Trondhjem and Peking have the same mean +January temperatures, though Peking lies in about the latitude of +Madrid, over twenty-three degrees farther south. + +Europe's location in the path of the North Atlantic westerlies, swept by +winds from a small and narrow ocean which has been super-heated by the +powerful Gulf Stream, secures for that continent a more equable climate +and milder winters than corresponding latitudes on the western coasts of +North America, whose winds from the wide Pacific are not so warm.[1418] +Moreover, a coastal rampart of mountains from Alaska to Mexico restricts +the beneficial influences of the Pacific climate to a narrow seaboard, +excludes them from the vast interior, which by reason of cold or aridity +or both must forever renounce great economic or historical significance, +unless its mineral resources developed unsuspected importance. In +Europe, the absence of mountain barriers across the course of these +westerly winds from Norway to central Spain, and the unobstructed avenue +offered to them by the Mediterranean Sea during fall and winter, enable +all the Atlantic's mitigating influences of warmth and moisture to +penetrate inland, and temper the climate of Europe as far east as St. +Petersburg and Constantinople. Thus several factors have combined to +give the western half of Europe an extraordinarily favorable climate. +They have therefore greatly broadened its zone of historical intensity +toward the north, pushed it up to the sixtieth parallel, while the +corresponding zone in eastern Asia finds its northern limit at the +fortieth degree. + +[Sidenote: Rainfall.] + +Moisture and warmth are essential to all that life upon which human +existence depends. Hence temperature and rainfall are together the most +important natural assets of a country, because of their influence upon +its productivity. The grazing capacity and wheat yield of southern +Australia increase almost regularly with every added inch of +rainfall.[1419] The map of population for the Empire of India clearly +shows that a high degree of density accompanies a high and certain +rainfall. Exceptions occur only where hilly or mountainous tracts offer +scant arable areas, or where plains and valleys are sparsely populated +owing to political troubles or unhealthiness. Nearly three-tenths of the +population are found crowded together on the one-tenth of India's level +territory which is blessed with a rainfall above the average for the +country.[1420] Deserts which yield nothing are purely climatic phenomena. +Steppes which facilitate the historical movement, and forests which +block it, are products of scant or ample precipitation. The zonal +distribution of rainfall, with its maxima in the Tropics and the +Temperate Zones, and its minima in the trade-wind belts and polar +regions, reinforces and emphasizes the influence of temperature in +determining certain great cultural and economic zones. + +In equatorial regions, which have an abundant rainfall throughout the +year, agriculture is directed toward fruits and roots; only in certain +districts can it include cereals, and then only rice and maize. The +temperate grains demand some dry summer weeks for their maturity. +Excessive moisture in Ireland has practically excluded wheat-growing, +which in England and Scotland also is restricted chiefly to the drier +eastern counties.[1421] It thrives, on the other hand, in Manitoba and the +Red River region even with a short season of scant rainfall, because +this comes in the spring when moisture is most needed.[1422] Most +important to man, therefore, is the question how and when the rainfall +is distributed, and with what regularity it comes. Monsoon and +trade-wind districts labor under the disadvantage of a wet and dry +season, and a variability which brings tragic results, since it easily +reduces a barely adequate rainfall to disastrous drought. These are the +lands where wind and weather lord it over man. If the rains hold off too +long, or stop too soon, or withhold even a small portion of their +accustomed gift, famine stalks abroad. + +[Sidenote: Temperature and zonal location.] + +Temperature, the other important element of climate, depends primarily +upon zonal location, which has far different historical results from +central and peripheral location, continental and insular. It determines +the amount of heat received from the sun, though air and ocean currents +may redistribute that heat within certain limits, and humidity or +aridity modify its effects. Still zonal distinctions remain. The great +climatic regions of the earth, like the hot, wet equatorial belt or the +warm, dry trade-wind belts or the cool, well-watered temperate zones, +constitute, through the medium of their economic products and their +climatically imposed methods of production, so many socio-political +areas, regardless of ethnic and political boundaries. The Berber nomads +of the northern Sahara live much as the Semitic Bedouins of the Syrian +desert or the Turkoman stock of arid Turkestan. They have the same +tribal government, the same scattered distribution in small groups, the +same economic basis of subsistence, though of different races and +dominated respectively by France, Turkey and Russia. The history of the +tropical Antilles has in both its economic and political features +paralleled that of the East Indies since the early 16th century. +Temperate South America promises to follow in the historical footsteps +of temperate North America, South Africa in those of Europe and +temperate Australia. + +[Sidenote: Reactions of contrasted zones.] + +While people of the same latitude live approximately under the same +temperature conditions, those of contrasted zones are subjected to +markedly different influences. They develop different degrees of +civilization, wealth, economic efficiency, and density of population; +hence they give rise to great historical movements in the form of +migration, conquest, colonization, and commerce, which, like convection +currents, seek to equalize the differences and reach an equilibrium. +Nature has fixed the mutual destiny of tropical and temperate zones, for +instance, as complementary trade regions. The hot belt produces numerous +things that can never grow in colder countries, while a much shorter +list of products, coupled, however, with greater industrial efficiency, +is restricted to the Temperate Zone. This explains the enormous +importance of the East Indian trade for Europe in ancient and medieval +times, the value of tropical possessions for commercial countries like +England and Holland. It throws light upon the persistence of the +tropical plantation system in the Dutch East Indies and republican +Mexico, as formerly in the sugar and cotton fields of the Southern +States, with its relentless grip upon the throat of national life in hot +lands. + +[Sidenote: Temperate products from tropical highlands.] + +Tropical regions, however, may profit by the fact that their mountains +and plateaus permit the cultivation of temperate crops. India during the +last century has introduced tea culture extensively on the Assam and +Nilgiri Hills, and in the Himalayan valleys up to an altitude of 7000 +feet.[1423] Besides this temperate product, it has put large areas into +cotton, chiefly in the peninsular plateau of the Deccan, and by means of +these two crops has caused a considerable readjustment in world +commerce.[1424] Nevertheless, here the infringement of the principle of +tropical production in the torrid zone is after all slight. In tropical +America, on the other hand, the case is quite different; this region +presents an interesting paradox in relation to its foreign commerce. +Here the highlands are the chief seats of population. They contain, +moreover, the most industrious and intelligent native stock, due to +geographical and historical causes running back into the ancient +civilizations, as well as the largest proportions of immigrant +Europeans. This is true not only of the Cordilleran states from northern +Mexico to the borders of Chile, but also of Brazil, whose center of +population falls on the plateau behind Rio de Janeiro and Santos. The +isolation of these high plateaus excludes them to a serious extent from +foreign trade, while their great altitude permits only temperate +products, with the exception of sub-tropical coffee, which is their only +crop meeting a great demand. The world wants, on the other hand, the +long list of lowland tropical exports which torrid America furnishes as +yet in inadequate amounts, owing to the lack of an industrious and +abundant lowland population. Commerce will eventually experience a +readjustment in these localities to the natural basis of tropical +production; but how soon or how effectively this change will take place +depends upon the question of immigration of foreign tropical peoples, or +the more difficult problem of white acclimatization.[1425] + +[Sidenote: Isothermal lines in anthropo-geography.] + +Despite some purely climatological objections, anthropo-geography finds +the division of climatic zones according to certain isothermal lines of +mean annual temperature the most expedient one for its purpose. The hot +zone may be taken as the belt north and south of the equator enclosed +between the annual isotherms of 20° C. (68° F.) These hold a course +generally far outside the two tropics, and in the northern continents +frequently reach the thirty-fifth parallel. The temperate climatic zones +extend from the annual isotherm of 20° C. to that of 0° C. (32° F.), +which bears little relation to the polar circles forming the limits of +the solar Temperate Zone. The north temperate climatic zone has been +further sub-divided along the annual isotherm of 5° C. (41° F.), +distinguishing thus the warmer southern belt, which forms preëminently +the zone of greatest historical intensity. The areas beyond the annual +isotherms of 0°C. belong to the barren cold zones. [See map page 612.] + +[Sidenote: Historical effect of compressed isotherms.] + +This isothermal division of the climatic zones is abundantly justified, +because the duration of a given degree of heat or cold in any region is +a dominant factor in its human, animal, and plant life. A map of the +mean annual isotherms of the earth is therefore eloquent of the relation +between historical development and this one phase of climate. Where the +lines run far apart, they enclose extensive areas of similar +temperature; and where they approach, they group together regions of +contrasted temperatures. The compression of climatic differences into a +small area enlivens and accentuates the process of historical +development. It produces the same sort of effect as the proximity of +contrasted reliefs. Nowhere else in the world do the tropical and +frigid climatic areas, as defined on the north and south by the annual +isothermal lines of 20°C. and 0°C. respectively, lie so near together as +in Labrador and northern Florida. Separated here by only twenty degrees +of latitude, on the opposite side of the Atlantic they diverge so +sharply as to include the whole western face of Europe, from Hammerfest +and the North Cape down to the Canary Islands and the crest of the Atlas +Mountains in Africa, a stretch of forty-two degrees of latitude. This +approximation of contrasted climatic districts in North America was an +immense force in stimulating the early economic development of the +Thirteen Colonies, and in maturing them to the point of political +autonomy. It gave New England commerce command of a nearby tropical +trade in the West Indies, of sub-tropical products in the southern +colonies, in close proximity to all the contrasted products of a cold +climate--dense northern forests for naval stores and lumber, and an +inexhaustible supply of fish from polar currents, which met a strong +demand in Europe and the Antilles. The sudden southward drop of the 0°C. +annual isothermal line toward the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes +brought the northwestern fur trade to the back gate of New York, where +it opened on the Mohawk and upper Hudson, and brought prosperity to the +young colony. Even to-day the center of collection for the Canadian fur +fields is Quebec, located at 47° north latitude, while the corresponding +point of concentration in Europe for the furs of Russia and Siberia is +Nizhni-Novgorod, which lies ten degrees farther north.[1426] + +[Sidenote: Effect of slight climatic differences.] + +This compression of the isotherms emphasizes the differences of national +characters produced in part by dissimilar climatic conditions. Contrasts +in temperament, manner of life, and point of view, like that between the +New Englander and Virginian, Chilean and Bolivian in the Americas, +Breton and Provençal in France, Castilian and Andalusian in Spain, +Gurkha and Bengali in India, seem to bleach out when they are located +far apart, owing to many grades of transition between; but they become +striking, stimulating, productive of important economic and political +results, when close juxtaposition enables them to react sharply one upon +the other. In effecting these nice differentiations of local types, +climate is nearly always one of the factors at work, emphasizing perhaps +an existing ethnic difference. Even the slight variations of +temperature to be found in the same zone or the same climatic region +produce distinct results, especially where they are harnessed, as is +usually the case, with some other geographic condition of relief, area +or soil, pulling in the same direction. Mexico, Peru, Italy, +Switzerland, Greece and Asia Minor, with its high plateau interior and +its contrasted Euxine and Aegean coasts, represent each a complex of +climatic differences, which, reinforced by other geographic factors, +have made in these regions a polychrome picture of national life. + +[Sidenote: Effect of climate upon distribution of immigration] + +Climatic contrasts aid differentiation also by influencing both natural +and artificial selection in the distribution of peoples. This effect is +conspicuous in the distribution of immigrants in all colonial lands like +Africa, South America and in every part of the United States.[1427] The +warm, moist air of the Gulf and South Atlantic States is attracting back +to the congenial habitat of the "black belt" the negroes of the North, +where, moreover, their numbers are being further depleted by a harsh +climate, which finds in them a large proportion of the unfit. The +presence of a big negro laboring class in the South, itself primarily a +result of climate, has long served to exclude foreign immigration, which +sought therefore the unoccupied lands and the congenial climate of the +more bracing North. Hence it is both a direct and indirect effect of +climate that the North shows a large proportion of aliens, and the white +population of the South an almost unadulterated English stock. + +[Sidenote: Climate and race temperament.] + +The influence of climate upon race temperament, both as a direct and +indirect effect, can not be doubted, despite an occasional exception, +like the cheery, genial Eskimos, who seem to carry in their sunny +natures an antidote to the cold and poverty of their environment. In +general a close correspondence obtains between climate and temperament. +The northern peoples of Europe are energetic, provident, serious, +thoughtful rather than emotional, cautious rather than impulsive. The +southerners of the sub-tropical Mediterranean basin are easy-going, +improvident except under pressing necessity, gay, emotional, +imaginative, all qualities which among the negroes of the equatorial +belt degenerate into grave racial faults. If, as many ethnologists +maintain, the blond Teutons of the north are a bleached out branch of +the brunette Mediterranean race, this contrast in temperament is due to +climate. A comparison of northern and southern peoples of the same race +and within the same Temperate Zone reveals numerous small differences of +nature and character, which can be traced back directly or indirectly to +climatic differences, and which mount up to a considerable sum total. +The man of the colder habitat is more domestic, stays more in his home. +Though he is not necessarily more moderate or continent than the +southerner, he has to pay more for his indulgences, so he is economical +in expenditures. With the southerner it is "easy come, easy go." He +therefore suffers more frequently in a crisis. The low cost of living +keeps down his wages, so that as a laborer he is poorly paid. This fact, +together with his improvidence, tends to swell the proletariat in warm +countries of the Temperate Zone; and though here it does not produce the +distressing impression of a proletariat in Dublin or Liverpool or +Boston, it is always degrading. It levels society and economic status +downward, while in the cooler countries of the Temperate Zone, the +process is upward. The laborer of the north, owing to his providence and +larger profits, which render small economies possible, is constantly +recruited into the class of the capitalist. + +[Sidenote: Contrasted temperaments in the same nation.] + +Everywhere a cold climate puts a steadying hand on the human heart and +brain. It gives an autumn tinge to life. Among the folk of warmer lands +eternal spring holds sway. National life and temperament have the +buoyancy and thoughtlessness of childhood, its charm and its weakness. +These distinctions and contrasts meet us everywhere. The southern +Chinese, and especially the Cantonese, is more irresponsible and +hot-blooded than the Celestial of the north, though the bitter struggle +for existence in the over-crowded Kwangtung province has made him quite +as industrious; but on his holidays he takes his pleasure in singing, +gambling, and various forms of dissipation. The southern Russian is +described as more light-hearted than his kinsman of the bleaker north, +though both are touched with the melancholy of the Slav. In this case, +however, the question immediately arises, how far the dweller of the +southern wheat lands owes his happy disposition to the easy conditions +of life in the fertile Ukraine, as opposed to the fiercer struggle for +subsistence in the glaciated lake and forest belt of the north. Similar +distinctions of climate and national temperament exist in the two +sections of Germany. The contrast between the energetic, enterprising, +self-contained Saxon of the Baltic lowland and the genial, spontaneous +Bavarian or Swabian is conspicuous, though the only geographical +advantage possessed by the latter is a warmer temperature attended by a +sunnier sky. He contains in his blood a considerable infusion of the +Alpine stock and is therefore racially differentiated from the northern +Teuton,[1428] but this hardly accounts for the difference of temperament, +because the same Alpine stock is plodding, earnest and rather stolid on +the northern slope of the Alps, but in the warm air and sunshine of the +southern slope, it abates these qualities and conforms more nearly to +the Italian type of character. The North Italian, however, presents a +striking contrast to the indolent, irresponsible, improvident citizens +of Naples, Calabria and Sicily, who belong to the contrasted +Mediterranean race, and have been longer subjected to the relaxing +effects of sub-tropical heat. + +[Sidenote: Complexity of the geographic problem.] + +Where the climatic difference is small, it is nevertheless often +conspicuous enough to eclipse other concomitant factors which are at +work, and hence to encourage the formation of some easy blanket theory +of climatic influences. But just because the difference is slight, all +attending geographic and ethnic circumstances ought to be scrutinized, +to insure a correct statement of the geographical equation. The contrast +between the light-hearted, gracious peasants of warm, sunny Andalusia +and the reserved, almost morose inhabitants of cool and cloudy Asturias +is the effect not only of climate but of the easy life in a fertile +river plain, opposed to the bitter struggle for existence in the rough +Cantabrian Mountains. Moreover, a strong infusion of Alpine blood has +given this group of Spanish mountaineers the patience and seriousness +which characterizes the race in other parts of continental Europe.[1429] +The conditions which have differentiated Scotch from English have been +climate, relief, location, geologic composition of the soil, and ethnic +composition of the two peoples. The divergent development of Northerners +and Southerners in America arose from contrasts in climate, soil and +area. It was not only the enervating heat and moisture of the Southern +States, but also the large extent of their fertile area which +necessitated slave labor, introduced the plantation system, and resulted +in the whole aristocratic organization of society in the South.[1430] + +[Sidenote: Monotonous climatic conditions.] + +When one type of climate extends monotonously over a vast area, as in +Russia. Siberia, Central Asia or immense tracts of Africa, the +differences of temperature which prick and stimulate national endeavor +in small climatic districts here lose much of their force. Their effects +flatten out into insignificance, overwhelmed by the encounter with too +large a territory. All the southern continents are handicapped by the +monotony of their zonal location. The map of annual isotherms shows +Africa quite enclosed between the two torrid lines of 20° Centigrade, +except for a narrow sub-tropical belt along the Barbary coast in the +north, and in the south an equally narrow littoral extending east and +north from the Cape of Good Hope. At first glance, the large area of +South Africa lying on the temperate side of the Tropic of Capricorn +raises hopes for a rich economic, social and cultural development here; +but these are dashed by an examination of the isotherms. Excessive heat +lays its retarding touch upon everything, while a prevailing aridity +(rainfall less than 10 inches or 25 centimeters), except on the narrow +windward slope of the eastern mountains, gives the last touch of +climatic monotony. The coastal belt of Cape Colony and Natal raise +tropical and sub-tropical products[1431] like all the rest of the +continent, while the semi-arid interior is committed with little +variations to pastoral life. [See maps pages 484 and 487.] Climatic +monotony, operating alone, would have condemned South Africa to poverty +of development, and will unquestionably always avail to impoverish its +national life. South African history has been made by its mines and by +its location on the original water route to India; the first have +dominated its economic development, and the latter has largely +determined its ethnic elements--English, Dutch, and French Huguenots, +while the magnet of the mines has drawn other nationalities and +especially a large Jewish contingent into the urban centers of the +Rand.[1432] In the background is the native Kaffir and Hottentot stocks, +whose blood filters into the lower classes of the white population. The +diversity of these ethnic elements may compensate in part for the +monotony of climatic conditions, which promise to check differentiation. +However, climatic control is here peculiarly despotic. We see how it has +converted the urban merchants of Holland and the skillful Huguenot +artisan of France into the crude pastoral Boer of the Transvaal. + +In contrast to South Africa, temperate South America has an immense +advantage in its large area lying outside the 20°C. isotherm, and in the +wide range of mean temperatures (from 20°C. to 5°C.) found between the +Tropic of Capricorn and Tierra del Fuego. Climate and relief have +combined to make the mouth of the La Plata River the site of the largest +city of the southern hemisphere. Buenos Ayres, with a population of over +a million, reflects its large temperate hinterland. + +[Sidenote: The effects of Arctic cold.] + +Frigid zones and the Tropics alike suffer from monotony, of Arctic the +one of cold and the other of heat. The Arctic climatic belt, extending +from the isotherm of 0°C. (32°F.) to the pole, includes inhabited +districts where the mean annual temperature is less than -15°C. (or +5°F.), as at the Greenland village of Etah on Smith's Sound and the +Siberian town of Verkhoyansk. Here the ground is covered with, ice or +snow most of the year, and permanently frozen below the surface. Animal +and plant life are reduced to a minimum on the land, so that man, with +every poleward advance of his thin-strung settlements, is forced more +and more to rely on the sea for his food. Hence he places his villages +on narrow strips of coast, as do the Norse of Finmarken, the Eskimo and +the Tunguse inhabiting the Arctic rim of Asia. Products of marine +animals make the basis of his domestic economy. Farther inland, which +means farther south, all tribes live by hunting and fishing. The +Eurasian Hyperboreans find additional subsistence in their reindeer +herds, which they pasture on the starchy lichen (Cladonia rangiferina) +of the tundra. [See maps pages 103, 153.] + +[Sidenote: Similarity of cultural development.] + +Though these Arctic folk are sprung from diverse race stocks, close +vicinal location around an enclosed sea has produced some degree of +blood relationship. But whatever their origins, the harsh conditions of +their life have imposed upon them all a similar civilization. All +population is sparse and more or less nomadic, since agriculture alone +roots settlement. They have the same food, the same clothing, the same +types of summer and winter dwellings, whether it is the earth hut of the +Eskimo or of the coast Lapp, the Siberian Yukagirs of the Kolima River, +or the Samoyedes of northeastern Russia.[1433] The spur of necessity has +aroused their ingenuity to a degree found nowhere in the drowsy Tropics +of Africa. Dread of cold led the Yakuts of the Lena Valley to glaze the +windows of their huts with slabs of ice, which are better nonconductors +of heat and cold, and can be made more perfectly air-tight than glass. +Hence these windows have been adopted by Russian colonists. The Eskimo +devised the oil lamp, an invention found nowhere else in primitive +America, and fishing tackle so perfect that white men coming to fish in +Arctic waters found it superior to their own. + +Owing to the inexorable restriction of their natural resources, contact +with European commerce has impoverished the Hyperborean natives. It has +caused the rapid and ruthless exploitation of their meager resources, +which means eventual starvation. So long as the Ostyaks, before the +coming of the Russians, were sole masters of the vast forests of the Obi +Valley, they commanded a supply of fish and fur animals which sufficed +for their sparse population. But the greed of the Russian fish dealers +and fur traders, and the devastating work of the lumbermen have made +double war upon Ostyak sources of subsistence.[1434] The appearance of the +white man in Alaskan waters was the signal for the indiscriminate +killing of seal and other marine animals, till the Eskimo's supply of +food and furs has been seriously invaded, from Greenland to the +outermost Aleutian Islands. In all this wide territory, climatic +conditions forbid any substitute for the original products, except the +domesticated reindeer on the tundra of the mainland; but this would +necessitate the transformation of the Eskimo from a hunting to a +pastoral people. This task the government at Washington has undertaken, +but with scant success. + +[Sidenote: Cold and health] + +In contrast to the numerous indirect effects of a frigid climate, no +direct physiological effect can be positively ascribed to intense cold. +It lays no bodily handicap on health and energy, as does the excessive +heat of the Tropics. The coldest regions where tillage is possible are +tolerable places of residence, because their winters are intensely dry. +That of central Siberia, which is drier than the driest desert, makes +tent life comfortable in the coldest season, provided the tenter be clad +in furs. The low temperatures of the Canadian Northwest for the same +reason have not repelled settlers even from the Southern States. +Negroes, however, meet a climatic barrier in America at the isotherm of +5° Centigrade (41° F.). They are found in New England and Nova Scotia, +generally with a large admixture of white blood; but there and farther +north where the climate is moist as well as cold, they show a fatal +tendency to pulmonary diseases. + +[Sidenote: The small amount of tropical emigration] + +The acclimatization of tropical people in temperate regions will never +be a question of widespread importance. The negroes were involuntary +immigrants to America, under conditions that can never recur. Their +concentration in the "black belt," where they find the heat and moisture +in which they thrive, and their climatically conditioned exclusion from +the more northern states are matters of local significance. Economic and +social retardation have kept the hot belt relatively underpopulated. The +density map shows much the largest part of it with a population less +than 25 to the square mile. Only the small portion contained in India, +southernmost China, and Java shows a density over 125 to the square mile +(or 50 to the square kilometer). This density has to rise to 500 or more +to the square mile before emigration begins. The would-be exiles then +have a wide choice of new homes in other tropical lands, where they find +congenial climate and phases of economic development into which they +will fit. East Indian coolies are found in Cape Colony, Natal, Zanzibar, +Trinidad, and British Guiana, where they constitute 38 per cent. of the +population. + +[Sidenote: Effects of tropical climate.] + +The redundant population of crowded western and southern Europe also +seek these sparsely inhabited Tropics, but they come heavily handicapped +by the necessity of acclimatization. They leave their homes from +Trondhjem and Stockholm in the north to the Mediterranean in the south, +where the mean annual temperatures vary from 5° to 17° C, (41° to 63° +F.), to seek the Torrid Zone which averages 25° C. or 77° F. over most +of its territory. The effects of a tropical climate are due to intense +heat, to its long duration without the respite conferred by a bracing +winter season, and its combination with the high degree of humidity +prevailing over most of the Torrid Zone. These are conditions +advantageous to plant life, but hardly favorable to human development. +They produce certain derangements in the physiological functions of +heart, liver, kidneys and organs of reproduction. Bodily temperature +rises, while susceptibility to disease and rate of mortality show an +increase ominous for white colonization. The general effect is intense +enervation; this starts a craving for stimulants and induces habits of +alcoholism which are accountable for many bodily ills usually attributed +to direct climatic influences. Transfer to the Tropics tends to relax +the mental and moral fiber, induces indolence, self-indulgences and +various excesses which lower the physical tone.[1435] The social control +of public opinion in the new environment is weak, while temptation, due +to both climatic and social causes, is peculiarly strong. The presence +of an inferior, more or less servile native population, relaxes both +conscience and physical energy just when both need a tonic. The result +is general enervation, deterioration both as economic and political +agents. + +[Sidenote: Historical significance of deterioration] + +This is the effect of climate which has had the most far-reaching and +persistent historical consequences. Our study of the historical +movements of peoples in the northern hemisphere revealed a steady influx +from colder into tropical and sub-tropical lands, followed always by +enervation and loss of national efficiency, due partly to the +debilitating heat of the new habitat, partly to its easier conditions of +living, whether the intruders came as conquerors and appropriated the +fat of the land, or as immigrant colonists who dropped into slack +methods of agriculture, because rain and sun and soil made their +reluctant labor scarcely necessary. Everywhere in the Tropics the +enervating effects of heat, moisture, and abundance make not only the +natives averse to steady work, but start the energetic European +immigrant down the same easy descent to Avernus. Passing over the +deterioration of the Aryans in India, the Persians in Mesopotamia, and +the Vandals in Africa, we find that modern instances show the +transformation to be very rapid. The French who since 1715 have occupied +the islands of Réunion and Mauritius have lost much of their thrift and +energy, though their new homes lie just within the southern tropic, and +are blessed with an oceanic climate. Yet the volunteer troops sent by +Réunion to aid in the recent subjugation of the Hovas in Madagascar +proved to be utterly useless.[1436] The Spaniards who come to-day to +Mexico have great energy, born of their former hard conditions of life +in Spain. But their children are reared in a country whose mean annual +temperature, even on the plateau, exceeds that of Spain by 10°C. (or +18°F.), a difference equal to that between Mobile and New York, or +Madrid and Christiania. Hence they are less energetic and vigorous, +while the third generation are typical Mexicans in their easy-going way +of life.[1437] The Germans who recently have colonized southern Brazil in +great numbers show a similar deterioration under similar increase of +mean annual temperature, combined with somewhat greater humidity, which +intensifies the debilitating effects of the heat. An investigation made +in 1900 by the International Harvester Company of America revealed the +fact that the German farmer in the State of Santa Catharina rarely +cultivated over one acre of grain.[1438] Much of the iron in the blood and +conscience of the New England missionary stock which went to Hawaii two +generations ago has been dissolved out by the warm rain and balmy air of +the islands. + +[Sidenote: The problem of acclimatization.] + +In all these instances the white race has been successfully +transplanted. It has domiciled itself on the borders of the Tropics and +has propagated its kind, though it has abated some of the vigorous +qualities which characterized it in its temperate fatherland. In the +real Tropics like India, Cochin China, the Malay Archipelago, and +Central Africa, the whole perplexing and urgent problem of European +colonization turns on the difficulty or impossibility of +acclimatization; and this in turn affects the whole economic, ethnic and +political destiny of present colonial holdings. If acclimatization is +impossible, the alternative is an imported ruling class, constantly +invalided and as constantly renewed, aided by a similar commercial body +acting as superintendents of labor; the whole machine of government and +economic exploitation is supported by a permanent servile native +population, doing the preeminently tropical work of agriculture, which +is so fatal to the white man in a torrid climate. This means that the +conquering white race of the Temperate Zone is to be excluded by adverse +climatic conditions from the productive but undeveloped Tropics, unless +it consents to hybridization, like the Spaniards and Portuguese of +tropical America. In that national struggle for existence which is a +struggle for space, it means an added advantage for the Mediterranean +peoples, that they are more tolerant of a torrid climate than the blond +Teutons, whose disability in this regard is pronounced; it means that +the aptitude of the Chinese for a wide range of climatic accommodation, +from the Arctic circle to the equator, lends color to "the yellow +peril." + +[Sidenote: Historical importance of the temperate zones.] + +In contrast to the monotonous extremes of climate in the hot and cold +zones, temperate lands are characterized by the intermediate degrees of +annual temperature and marked seasonal diversity which are so favorable +to human development. In Arctic lands labor is paralyzed by cold as it +is by heat in the enervating and overproductive Tropics. In one, the +growing season is too short and ill-favored; in the other, too long to +stimulate man to sustained industry. Hence the Temperate Zones, whose +climate avoids both these extremes and abounds in contrasts, whose +summers are productive enough to supply food for the winter, and whose +winters give both motive and energy for the summer's work, are richer in +cultural possibilities and hence in historical importance. + +[Sidenote: Effects of contrasted seasons.] + +The advantage of the Temperate Zone is not only its moderate and +adequate allowance of heat, but its contrast of seasons. Beyond the +range of a vertical sun, grades of temperature change rapidly from +latitude to latitude and from summer to winter. The seasons bring +variety of activities, which sharply react upon one another. +Manufactures were in their origin chiefly winter industries, as they +still are in small isolated communities. The modern factory system +flourishes best in cooler parts of the Temperate Zone, where the +agricultural demands of the summer, spreading over a shorter period, +leave a longer time for winter work, and where that once long winter of +the Glacial Period, by the scouring action of the ice cap, has reduced +the fertile area of the northern fields. The factory system is also +favored, as Heinrich von Treitschke maintains, by the predominance of +cool or cold weather, which facilitates the concentration of numerous +workmen in large buildings, and renders possible long labor hours the +year round,[1439]--conditions unthinkable in a warm climate. The iron and +steel industries which have grown up about Birmingham, Alabama, find +that the long hot summers and mild winters reduce the efficiency of +their skilled labor imported from the North. + +[Sidenote: Effects of length of seasons.] + +[Sidenote: Effect of long winters.] + +The length of the seasons is of conspicuous importance. It determines, +for instance, whether a given climate permits continuous field work with +summer and winter crops, whether field work is possible at all, and how +long it is interrupted by excessive cold. Buckle maintains that climate +not only enervates or invigorates man, but affects also the constancy of +his work and his capacity for sustained labor throughout the year. He +considers "that no people living in a very northern latitude have ever +possessed that steady and unflinching industry for which the inhabitants +of temperate regions are remarkable" and assigns as a reason "that the +severity of the weather, and, at some seasons, the deficiency of light, +render it impossible for the people to continue their usual out-of-door +employments." The result of this he finds to be desultory habits of +work, which help to make the national character fitful and capricious. +He cites in illustration of his principle the people of the Scandinavian +and Iberian peninsulas, whom he finds marked "by a certain instability +and fickleness of character," owing to the fact that in Norway and +Sweden agricultural labor experiences long interruptions, due to the +severity of the winter and the shortness of the days; in Spain and +Portugal owing to the heat and drought of summer.[1440] The extreme +continental climate of northern of Russia with its violent contrast of +the seasons, its severe and protracted winters, enables Leroy-Beaulieu +to make a safer application of this principle to the empire of the +Czars, which, unlike Scandinavia, feels no ameliorating effect from the +mild Atlantic winds and commands no alternative industries like dairy +farming, fisheries, and maritime trade.[1441] Hence Leroy-Beaulieu +attributes the unsystematic, desultory habits of work prevailing among +the northern peasants to the long intermission of labor in winter, and +to the alternation of a short period of intense activity with a long +period of enforced idleness. He finds them resembling southern peoples +in their capacity for sudden spurts of energy rather than sustained +effort, thinks them benumbed by the sloth of the far north, which is not +unlike the sloth of the south.[1442] + +The dominant continental and central location of Russia enables its +climatic extremes to operate with little check. The peripheral location +of Scandinavia in the path of the Atlantic winds modifies its climate to +a mild oceanic type, and its dominant maritime situation gives its +people the manifold resources of a typical coast land. Hence Buckle's +estimate of national character in the Scandinavian Peninsula has little +basis as to fact or cause. Irregularity of agricultural labor does not +mean here cessation of all labor, and hence does not produce the +far-reaching effect ascribed to it. Only about one-third of the +Norwegian population is engaged in agriculture. The restriction of its +arable and meadow land to 3 per cent. of the whole territory, and the +fact that a large proportion of the people are employed in shipping and +the fisheries,[1443] are due to several geographic factors besides +climate. The same thing is true of Sweden in a modified degree. + +[Sidenote: Complexity of climatic effects.] + +Caution should be exercised in drawing conclusions from climate alone or +from only one phase of its influence. The duration and intensity of the +seasons affects not only the manner of work, but the whole mode of life +of a people. On the Yukon, in Iceland, and the high mountain valleys of +the Alps, winter puts a check not only upon out-of-door labor, but upon +all public or community life. Intercourse stops or is greatly +restricted. The outside world drops away. In Iceland, the law courts are +in session only in summer when the roads by sea and land are open. In +the Kentucky mountains the district schools close before Christmas, when +the roads become impassable from rain and snow; the summer is the gala +time for funeral services, for only then can the preacher or +"circuit-rider" reach the graves made in the winter. Therefore the +funerals in one community accumulate, so to speak, and finally, when +leisure comes after the August harvest, they make the occasion for +important social gatherings. Much of the influence of winter lies in its +power to isolate. + +It is the economic effects of such periods of enforced idleness which +are most obvious, both in their power to restrict national wealth and +keep down density of population. When long, they limit subsistence to +the products of a short growing season, except where local mining adds +considerable sources of revenue. In the Russian government of Yaroslaf, +located on the northernmost bend of the Volga within the agricultural +belt, and containing the chief inland wheat market of the Empire, the +field labor of four months must support the population for the remaining +eight months of the year. The half of Russia included in the cold forest +zone of the north maintains meagerly a sparse population, and can hope +for an increase of the same only by the encouragement of Industrial +pursuits. Here the long winter leisure has created the handicrafts on +which so many villages rely, and which in turn have given rise to +peddling,[1444] as we have seen it do in high mountain regions where +altitude intensifies and prolongs the winter season. Agricultural and +industrial life are still undivorced, just as in primitive communities. +The resulting population has also the primitive mark of great sparsity, +so that modern industry, which depends upon a concentrated labor force, +is here inhibited. Hence Russian manufactures, which are so active in +the governments of Vladimir, Moscow, and St. Petersburg, cease beyond +the sixtieth parallel, which defines the northern limit of the +agricultural belt and the beginning of the forest and the fur zone.[1445] +[See maps pages 8 and 612.] + +[Sidenote: Social effects of long winters.] + +The rigorous climate of Russia was undoubtedly one cause for the +attachment of the peasants to the soil in 1593. This measure was +resorted to at a time when the Muscovite dominion from its center in +Great Russia had recently been extended at the expense of the Tartars, +and had thus embraced fertile southern lands, which tempted the northern +peasant away from his unfruitful fields.[1446] This attraction, coupled +with the free and hopeful life of the frontier, met the migrant instinct +bred in the peasant by the wide plains and far horizon of Russia, so +that the north threatened to be left without cultivators. Later, the +harsh climatic conditions of the north were advanced as an argument +against the abolition of serfdom, on the ground that this system alone +secured to the landed proprietor a steady labor supply, and guaranteed +to the peasant his maintenance during the long, idle winter. + +The duration and severity of the cold season has put a drag upon the +wheel of enterprise in Canada, as opposed to the warmer United States. +The prairies of the Canadian Northwest, whose fertile soil should early +have attracted settlement, were a closed land till railroads could pour +into it every summer from the warmer south and east a seasonal tide of +laborers. These follow the harvest as it advances from point to point, +and then withdraw in autumn either to the lumber camps of eastern +Canada, Minnesota and Wisconsin, or to seek other forms of out-door +labor in the more southern states, thus lifting from the Canadian farmer +the burden of their winter support. + +In the lower latitudes of the Temperate Zones, where the growing season +is long and the dormant period correspondingly short and mild, we find +agriculture based upon clearly distinguished winter and summer crops, as +in the northern Punjab (30° to 34° N. L.);[1447] or producing a quick +succession of valuable crops, where the fertility of the soil can be +maintained by manures or irrigating streams, as in many of the warmer +Southern States and in Spain[1448] respectively. In Argentine, where +tillage is extensive, land abundant, and population sparse, where, in +fact, "skimp farming" is the rule, the shrewd cultivator takes advantage +of the long growing season to stretch out his period of sowing and +reaping, and thus tills a larger area. The International Harvester +Company of America, investigating the reason for the small number of +reaping machines employed in Argentine in proportion to the area under +cultivation, found that the simple climatic condition of a long growing +season enabled one reaper to serve about twice the acreage usual in the +United States, because it could work twice as long.[1449] + +[Sidenote: Zones of culture.] + +Over and beyond slight local variations of climate and season within the +same zone, which contribute their quota to economic and historical +results, it is the fundamental differences between the hot, cold and +temperate climatic zones that produce the most conspicuous and abiding +effects. These broad belts, each with its characteristic climatic +conditions and appropriate civilization, form so many girdles of culture +around the earth. They have their dominant features of heat and cold, +variously combined with moisture and aridity, which give a certain zonal +stamp to human temperature and development. + +The two cold belts have little claim to the name of cultural zones, +since their inability to support more than an insignificant population +has made them almost a negligible factor in history. [Compare maps pages +8, 9, and 612.] The discoveries and settlements of the Northmen in +Greenland remained a barren historical event, though the vikings' ships +reached a new hemisphere. Iceland is the only land in this sub-arctic +region which ever figured upon the stage of history; and its rôle was +essentially passive. Such prominence as it acquired was due to its +island nature and its situation in a swirl of the Gulf Stream, which +ameliorates the worst climatic effects of its far northern location, and +brings it just within the upper limit of the temperate belt. The wide +sub-arctic lowlands of Russia and Siberia, which, from the Ural +Mountains to the lower Amur River, stretch the cold zone well below the +sixtieth parallel, have at times in the last three centuries and +especially in the past decade thrown their great mass into the scale of +eastern Asiatic history. This has been possible because the hot summer +characteristic of continental climates forces the July isotherm of 20°C. +northward over the vast heated surface of Asia nearly to the sixtieth +parallel, well within the borders of Siberia. It gives that belt the +short but warm growing season with protracted hours of sunshine which +is so favorable to cereals, lending to Omsk, Tomsk, Vitimsk and all the +stretch of Russian settlements in Siberia, an admirable summer climate +like that of the Canadian Northwest.[1450] + +[Sidenote: The cradle of civilization.] + +The North Temperate Zone is preëminently the culture zone of the earth. +It is the seat of the most important, most steadily progressive +civilizations, and the source of all the cultural stimuli which have +given an upward start to civilization in other zones during the past +three centuries. It contains the Mediterranean basin, which was the +pulsing heart of ancient history, and all the modern historically +important regions of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. The temperate +belt of the southern hemisphere also is following its lead, since +European civilization has been transplanted to other parts of the world. +This is the zone which least suffers from the drawbacks of climatic +monotony or extremes, and best combines, especially in the northern +hemisphere, the wide range of annual and seasonal variety so favorable +to economic and cultural development, with the incalculable advantage of +large land area. + +Man grew in the temperate zone, was born in the Tropics. There, in his +primitive, pre-civilized state, he lived in a moist, warm, uniform +climate which supplied abundantly his simple wants, put no strain upon +his feeble intellect and will. That first crude human product of +Nature's Pliocene workshop turned out in the steaming lowland of Java, +and now known to us as the _Pithecanthropus erectus_, found about him +the climatic conditions generally conceded to have been necessary for +man in his helpless, futile infancy. Where man has remained in the +Tropics, with few exceptions he has suffered arrested development. His +nursery has kept him a child. Though his initial progress depended upon +the gifts which Nature put into his hands, his later evolution depended +far more upon the powers which she developed within him. These have no +limit, so far as our experience shows; but their growth is painful, +reluctant. Therefore they develop only where Nature subjects man to +compulsion, forces him to earn his daily bread, and thereby something +more than bread. This compulsion is found in less luxurious but more +salutary geographic conditions than the Tropics afford, in an +environment that exacts a tribute of labor and invention in return for +the boon of life, but offers a reward certain and generous enough to +insure the accumulation of wealth which marks the beginning of +civilization.[1451] + +Most of the ancient civilizations originated just within the mild but +drier margin of the Temperate Zone, where the cooler air of a short +winter acted like a tonic upon the energies relaxed by the lethargic +atmosphere of the hot and humid Tropics; where congenial warmth +encouraged vegetation, but where the irrigation necessary to secure +abundant and regular crops called forth inventiveness, coöperation, and +social organization, and gave to the people their first baptism of +redemption from savagery to barbarism. Native civilizations of limited +development have arisen in the Tropics, but only where, as in Yemen, +Mexico and Peru, a high, cool, semi-arid plateau, a restricted area of +fertile soil, and a protected location alternately coddled and spurred +the nascent people. + +As the Tropics have been the cradle of humanity, the Temperate Zone has +been the cradle and school of civilization. Here Nature has given much +by withholding much. Here man found his birthright, the privilege of the +struggle. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER XVII + +[1409] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, p. 15. London, 1904. + +[1410] Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, Vol. I, Book XIV. London, 1906. + +[1411] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 574-578. New York, 1899. + +[1412] Julius Hann, Handbook of Climatology, Part I, pp. 223-224. New +York, 1903. + +[1413] Isaiah Bowman, Distribution of Population in Bolivia, _Bulletin +of Geographical Society of Philadelphia_, Vol. VII, pp. 40, 41. + +[1414] Ratzel, _Aus Mexico_, p. 415, Note 14. Breslau, 1878. + +[1415] Julius Hann, Handbook of Climatology, Part I, pp. 224-227. New +York, 1903. + +[1416] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, p. 23. London, 1904. + + +[1417] Julius Hann, Handbook of Climatology, Part I, pp. 171-173. New +York, 1903. + +[1418] _Ibid_., pp. 188-189. + +[1419] _Ibid_., pp. 57-58. + +[1420] Risley and Gait, Census of India for 1901, Vol. I, Part 1, pp. +14-21, map p. 4. Calcutta, 1903. + +[1421] H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, pp. 173-174. +London, 1904. + +[1422] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, pp. 65-66. London, 1904. + +[1423] _Ibid_., 126-128. Holdich, India, p. 259. London, 1905. + +[1424] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, pp. 114, 382. London, 1904. + +[1425] J. Russell Smith, The Economic Importance of the Tropical +Plateaus in America, House Doc. 460, 58-3--53, pp. 829-835. Washington, +1904. + +[1426] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, p. 160. London, 1904. + +[1427] E.C. Semple, American History and Its Geographic Conditions, +Chap. XV. Boston, 1903. + +[1428] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 215-238. New York, 1899. + +[1429] _Ibid_., p. 276, Map p. 274. + +[1430] E.C. Semple, American History and Its Geographic Conditions, p. +280-283. Boston, 1903. + +[1431] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, pp. 434, 436. London, 1904. + +[1432] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 1009. New York, 1902. + +[1433] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, pp. 218-225. London, +1896-1898. + +[1434] _Ibid_., Vol. II, p. 217. + +[1435] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, Chap. XXI. New York, 1899. + +[1436] Dr. C. Keller, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Other East African +Islands, pp. 172-175. London, 1901. + +[1437] Matthias Romero, Mexico and the United States, Vol. I, p. 79. New +York, 1898. + +[1438] From a personal interview with the supervising agent for South +America. + +[1439] Heinrich von Treitschke, _Politik_, Vol. I, p. 212 et seq. +Leipzig, 1897. + +[1440] Henry Buckle, History of Civilization in England, Vol. I, p. 32. +New York, 1884. + +[1441] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, pp. 320-324. London, 1904. + +[1442] Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, Empire of the Tsars, Vol. I, pp. 6, +139-144. New York, 1893. + +[1443] Norway, Official Publication, p. 308. Christiania, 1900. + +[1444] A. Leroy-Beaulieu, Empire of the Tsars, Vol. I, pp. 19, 142, 327. +New York, 1893. + +[1445] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, pp. 214, 315. London, 1904. + +[1446] A. Leroy-Beaulieu, Empire of the Tsars, Vol. I, pp. 412-413. New +York, 1893. + +[1447] Holdich, India, pp. 255-257. London, 1905. + +[1448] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, p. 329. London, 1904. + +[1449] From an interview with the supervising agent for South America. + +[1450] G.G. Chisholm, Commercial Geography, p. 356. London, 1904. + +[1451] Henry Buckle, History of Civilization in England, Vol. I, pp. +31-33. New York, 1884. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Influences of Geographic Environment +by Ellen Churchill Semple + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INFLUENCES OF GEOGRAPHIC *** + +***** This file should be named 15293-8.txt or 15293-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/2/9/15293/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Charlene Taylor, Joshua +Hutchinson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(https://www.pgdp.net). + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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