His ruddy spike, unsheathed among the THE thrushes sing in every tree;

The stately hemlock towers above them Sweet Sleep, the night-time's fairest child,

Their wings shall veil the sky with swiftly Then softly may the spirit glide passing night.

From The Contemporary Review.
EAST AND WEST.

BY ELISEE RECLUS.

I.

plied by the mariners of the "Ponent" to all the ports of the seas that bathe the coasts of Asia, came to mean more particularly Smyrna and the other On the surface of this round earth ports of the Asiatic peninsula. So, the cardinal points have no precise again, the "Eastern Empire" emmeaning except in relation to partic-bracing fully half the Roman world, ular places. The Greenwich observer included in its vast domain the terrimay point to his north and his south, tory of the Ravennate, belonging to his east and his west; but the astron- that Italian peninsula which was the omers of Paris, of Washington, of Sau- ancient Hesperia, "the going down of tiago, and direction-seeking mankind the sun.” Thus the phrases "East" generally, will look for theirs in other and "West' were bound to change directions. The lines traced by the their meaning, even in the popular meridians and the equator are purely acceptation, and it became necessary to artificial. Nevertheless the attempt gain precision by introducing subdivihas been made to give to the geograph-sions "Eastern Europe,' "Eastern ical terms of orientation a common Asia," the "Far East," 1 just as, in the meaning that should be accepted by United States, they distinguish between all. Thus Carl Ritter, taking into "East," "West," and "Far West." account the idea of heat and of blindFrom an historical point of view, ing light which Europeans associate however, it may be useful to try to with the "South," reserved the name determine approximately the normal of "South" for the Sahara and the line of separation between the two other deserts of the torrid zone which halves of the ancient world which lie between the northern and the south-best deserve the names of East and ern hemisphere. In the same way the West. Just as every surface has its expressions" East" and "West" have diagonal, and every body its axis, so been used for thousands of years as the total mass of the continents has its synonymous with "Asia" and "Eu-median line, where the contrasts of rope; " and indeed the very names of soil, climate, and history poise themthe two continents, in their original selves over against each other. Taking tongues, meant precisely "the Rising as a whole the regions in which manSuu " and "the Setting Sun." To the kind has spent its life, and reached at Assyrians the land of Assú-i.e., Asia last the consciousness of its collective was the region lit by the earliest personality, what is this median line, morning rays, and the land of Ereb, this watershed of human history? or Europe, included all the countries Africa may be left out, for its developlying west of them, towards the even- ment appears to have taken place ing purple. The Arabs took up the almost independently; and that masword again, and applied it to the west-sive continent, four-fifths of whose ern extremity of their conquests in surface lies within the southern temMauritania and the Iberian peninsula perate ΟΙ the torrid zone the -"El Gharb," "Maghreb," the South " par excellence - belongs to Algarves." our common world of early history

to

In current speech the expressions only by its Mediterranean littoralEast and West must necessarily apply Egypt, Cyrenaica, Mauritania. But, to regions whose boundary shifts from on the other hand, we must restore to age with the march of civil- the ancient world the isles of the Inage ization. Thus Asia Minor, the "West "dian Ocean which form the retinue of par excellence to the Assyrians, became the Gangetic peninsulas, and all the to the Byzantines the land of the sun- island groups that people the immense rising (Anatolia, Natolie, Anadoli); stretch of sea eastward towards Amerand later, along the shores of the Mediterranean, the word "Levant," ap-nois," ""Extrême Orient."

1 "Orient Slave," "Orient Grec," "Orient Chi

ica, for, by the migrations and counter-southern Beloochistan, scattered with migrations of their inhabitants, by rare oases. Between India and Aftheir legends and traditions, and by ghanistan it stretches north and norththe whole testimony of historic evolu- east along the rugged escarpments of tion, these ocean territories do indeed the Suleiman Dagh and other ranges, form part of the same circle as Farther whose hidden basins and narrow gorges Asia. give shelter to mountain tribes living It might seem, at first sight, as if far from the haunts of other men, exthe true and natural partition between cept when the martial fury seizes them East and West must be indicated by and brings them to blows with their the watershed which separates the neighbors of the lower tableland or the eastward slope towards the Indian and plains. To the north-west of HindosChinese seas from the slope that drains tan the folds of the soil become deeper into the Atlantic through the Mediter- and more numerous, sharply dividing ranean and other European waters. the world with their countless walls. But this boundary, purely artificial The high summits of the Hindooafter all, as it winds from the Taurus Koosh, inferior only to those of the to the Caucasus, crosses populations Himalaya of Nepaul, tower above subject to the same influences of soil these ridges and spread their glaciers and climate, participators in the same to enormous distances. Beyond these, historical movements, aud composed to again, the immense mass of almost ima great extent of elements of the same passable highlands which have been ethnological origin. The true frontier called the "Roof of the World" conbetween the Eastern and Western tinue the line of demarcation very world must be so shifted as to throw effectually between Hindoo-Koosh and off upon the Western side the whole watershed of the great twin streams, Tigris and Euphrates, as well as the chief summits of Iran. This whole region of Persia and Media, of Assyria and Chaldæa, is intimately associated in its history with the countries of the Mediterranean, while its relations with the Eastern world were always less active and more frequently interrupted.

Thian-Shan, and the ill-watered adjacent plains broaden at many points the median zone of separation between East and West. Finally, farther north, in the great Siberian depression, the salt borders of Lake Balkash and the barren reaches of Semipalatinsk and the "Hungry Steppe " stretch between the Obi and the Yenisei along a band of thinly inhabited country which The line of separation, then, is to be loses itself in the frozen tundras. The found farther East, and it is well researches of Gmelin and other natumarked, not by the outlines of the con- ralists have established the fact that tinent of Asia, but by a space of terri- the true separation between Europe tory distinguished at once by the high and Asia lies here, in these low and relief of the soil and the comparative arid regions, and not along the green sparseness of the population. Be-heights of the Ural Mountains. tween Mesopotamia, where the swarm- The ancient world, then, is clearly ing human race reared its tower of divided into two distinct halves, their Babel, and the western plains of Hinmasses being of nearly dostan, with their teeming populations equal size. The broad zone of separa-in some parts two thousand or more tion is formed, along half its length, of to the square mile—a transverse zone, a chain of eminences which includes containing less than two inhabitants to the central knot of the mountain system the same surface, runs from north to of Eurasia, and is broken only at rare south between the Gulf of Oman and intervals by passes which have served the icy Arctic Sea. This almost un-as roadways for war and merchandise. inhabited zone begins just west of the Narrow exceedingly and difficult of plains of the lower Indus and its fron-access were these few highways, which tier mountains, in the desert tracts of afforded the only means of commu

continental

uication between the populations on | of the earth, the isolation and unconeither side, the only junction between sciousness of the populations which the different civilizations of the east- had been left outside the cycle of uniern and western slopes ! Just as a fall versal history prevented their concernof earth may suddenly choke the cur- ing themselves with the great contrast rent of a stream, so an incursion of between the separated halves of humountain tribes might suddenly close manity; but in the ancient world, from the transit between East and West, the very beginnings of national life in and the world be thus sharply cut in the historic nations, as they are pretwo again. This, as a matter of fact, served to us in legends and annals, has happened many times. To open the distinction between East and West the passage and to keep it open has already existed in full force. The needed from age to age the marshalling evolution of humanity was worked out of enormous forces such as those of differently on the two sides of the line, the great conquerors, Alexander, Mah- and every century increased the origimoud the Ghaznavid, Akbar the Great.nal divergence of the separate civilizaIn our own day, the mountainous part tions. Which of these two evolutions of the dividing line still opposes seri--taking place, the one around the ous obstacles to the march of man, in spite of roads and railways, caravanserais and forts of refuge; but how much more dangerous was the mountain barrier in historic times, when it rose before him bare and formidable, without roads or cities !

shores of the great ocean, the other chiefly on the Mediterranean seaboard

was destined to produce the mightier results, to contribute the larger share to the common education of humanity ? There can be no hesitation as to the answer. In the struggle for existence the championship remains with the West. It is the peoples of the West who have shown that they possess both the initiative to advance and the power of recovery.

And yet it seemed at first as if the East were the privileged half of the planet. History indeed proves to demonstration that, taken as a whole, the nations of the East had their period of real superiority. Without entering on

In that sense, the general meaning of the expressions East and West is clearly determined for the rest of the earth's circuit. On the one side lies all that part of Asia which leans toward the Indian Ocean and the PacificIndia, Ceylon, the Malay peninsula, and the great islands and island groups which stud the vast stretch of waters almost to the American coast. On the other hand lies the Asiatic peninsula which reaches out into the Mediter- a problem which it would now be imranean world- Egypt and Morocco, Europe, and, beyond the Atlantic, the whole American continent. For that double continent, facing eastward by its estuaries, by the valleys of its great rivers and the spread of its fertile plains, belongs incontestably, by its history no less than by its geographical orientation, to the European cosmos.

possible to solve, that of assigning a priority of civilization to one country or another, without inquiring whether the ground was first tilled on the banks of the Nile and the Euphrates or on those of the Indus and the Yang-tsekiang, or whether ships were sailing the Mediterranean Sea before the Indian Ocean was known to the mariner, we may assuredly say that, three thousand years ago, the races sufficiently THUS delimited, the two halves of advanced to be aware of their own the world, East and West-including place in history occupied a far wider their inland seas and the oceans that region east of the diaphragm of Asia bathe them-occupy a surface of such than west of it. The ravines and extent that, up to a few centuries ago, tablelands occupied by the Medes and their boundaries were unknown to Persians, the plains of Assyria and their own inhabitants. At the far ends Chaldæa, the countries of the Hittites,

II.

and the the seashore offer their choicest woods

and sheltered havens break the outline of the islands; innumerable ports of call present themselves on every side, directing the voyage of the navigator. Gradually, the Malays became the nat

of the children of Israel children of Ishmael, the coasts of the to the boat-builder. Wide roadsteads Phoenicians and the mountains of the Himyarites, the islands of Cyprus and Crete, and finally the frontier lands of Asia where germinated the civilization which was to blossom in Greece, on the other side of the Ægean Sea―allural intermediaries between the various these countries form but a small do- countries of eastern Asia, from India main compared with the vast tract of to Japan; and, favored by the tradesouth-eastern Asia, from the Indus to winds which carried them across the the Yellow River. And to this great Indian Ocean from shore to shore, sucAsiatic territory, together perhaps with ceeded in turning the flank of the great southern Siberia, so rich in inscriptions barrier that separated the two worlds, of a vanished age, wo must add a great and even gained the coast of Africa. part of the Malay archipelago, whose Madagascar was included within their civilization is certainly of very ancient area of navigation and of conquest, and date. And finally, the lands of Ocea- their civilization radiated almost to the nia, scattered eastward over a liquid opposite extremity of the earth's surexpanse not less in extent than the face, within a little distance of the whole continental mass of the ancient American continent. The system of world, appear to have formed part of numeration which obtains in all the an area whose historical development Polynesian languages is proof sufficient was superior to that of the European of the wide spread of this Malay civilpopulations at the time of the Pelas-ization. Even in our own day, notgians. withstanding the great superiority that As far back as history goes towards science and industry have given to the the origin of the Eastern world, we European navigator, a great part of the find traces of the very considerable carrying trade of the Far East is still share of influence exercised by the conducted by the Malays with their group of nations which has been in- fleets of praus. No literature is richer cluded under the general name of Ma- than theirs in stories of the sea; and lay, taken from a district of Sumatra, it was the Malay seaman who gave to one of the large islands partly popu- the Arab the Thousand and One Nights lated by them. No region in this that still charm our children. world was better furnished than this The Polynesians, again, like the Mawith the facilities for transit and ex-lays scattered over their hundred change; if the word "predestined" islands, their ocean rocks and coral could be applied to any part of the banks - took to the sea by natural earth's surface, it might justly be ap-compulsion, and thus contributed to plied to these islands and peninsulas of the spread of geographical knowledge Malaysia. They abound in products of in the ancient East. The great diverevery sort and kind, minerals and sity of types to be met with in a single precious gems, bark and gums, plants group, or even on a single island, the and fruits; every island has its riches; innumerable legends of native migranowhere is there a greater diversity of tions, and, finally, indisputable historliving forms, vegetable or animal; two ical documents, prove that the Pacific floras, two faunas, men of different Ocean was traversed from the earliest nationality and race, confront each times, not only from East to West, in other across a narrow arm of sea. the direction of the trade-winds, but Great trunks of floating trees supply also in the opposite direction, with the the riverside populations with ready-set of the counter-currents. All this made rafts, only needing to be dis- was long ago understood. It is well branched and solidly lashed together known that the equatorial zone strictly with liana ropes; while the forests of so called, embracing a space of about