[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 Curacao 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 Foehr.[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. Abbe 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 Hansestaedte und Koenig Waldemar von Daenemark, 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] Elisee 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 Daenemark, 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] Elisee 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] Elisee 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 Voelkerwanderung 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.



[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.