Chapter 3

The effect of scenery upon the mind of man has often been noticed and much has been written about it. Illustrations of this are generally drawn from the historic lands and from the ancient people of the East. The civilized races, such as the Greeks, Romans and other nations who formerly dwelt on the coast of the Mediterranean, are taken as examples. The Greeks are said to have owed their peculiar character and their taste for art to the varied and beautiful scenery which surrounded them. Their mythology and poetry are full of allusions to the scenes of nature. Mountains and springs, rivers and seas all come in as the background of the picture which represents their character and history. The same is true of the Romans, Egyptians, Phenicians, Syrians, Hebrews, the ancient Trojans and Carthaginians. Each one of these nations seems to have been affected by scenery. They were all, with the exception of the Carthaginians, confined within the limits of a narrow territory, and remained long enough in it to have partaken fully of the effect of their surroundings.

The Romans were warlike at the beginning, and bore the air of conquerors, but their taste for art and literature resembled that of the Greeks. The Egyptians were sensuous and luxurious people. Their character bore the stamp of the river Nile with its periodical overflow, its rich soil and mild climate. The type of their religion was drawn from the gods who inhabited the same river valley. The Phenicians were a maritime people; they were the first navigators who reached the great seas. Their gods resembled those of the Assyrians and Chaldeans, but their character resembled the seas over which they roved; they did not originate, but they transported the products and inventions of the ancient world.

The Hebrews had a national character which seemed to have been narrowed down to a small compass by their isolation and by their history, but their religion was as grand as the mountains of the desert, and their poetry as beautiful as the scenery along the river Jordan, which ran as a great artery through their land. It was a holy land which gave impress to the Holy Book. The effect of scenery upon human character is also illustrated in the case of the ancient inhabitants of America. This land was isolated from the rest of the world for many centuries--perhaps for thousands of years. It is supposed that up to the time of the discovery the tribes were permanent in their seats.

Each tribe had its own habitat, its own customs, its own mythology and its own history. The effect of scenery must be considered, if we are to understand the peculiarities which mark the different tribes. Some imagine that the Indians are all alike, that they are all cruel savages, all given to drunkenness and degradation and only waiting their opportunity to wreak their vengeance upon helpless women and children. Those who know them, however, are impressed with the great variety which is manifest among them, and are especially convinced that much of this comes from the scenery amid which they have lived. The Eastern tribes may have had considerable sameness, yet the Algonquins, who were the prairie Indians, and the Iroquois, who dwelt in the forest and amid the lakes of New York, differed from one another in almost every respect, and the Sioux and Dakotas, who were also prairie Indians, differed from both of these. They were great warriors and great hunters, but had a system of religion which differed from that of any other tribe.

The Sioux were cradled amid the mountains of the East, and bear the same stamp of their native scenery. They resemble the Iroquois in many respects. The same is true of the Cherokees, who were allied to the Iroquois in race and language. They were always mountain Indians; but the Southern tribes were very different from either. They were a people who were well advanced in civilization so far as the term can be applied to the aborigines. Their skulls are without angles and differ greatly from the keel-shaped skulls. They were dolichocephalic rather than kumbocephalic. They resemble the Polynesians, while the northern tribes resembled the Mongolians. Whatever their original home was, their adopted habitat was in accord with their tastes and character. It did not change them but rather made their traits more permanent and stable.

The tribes of the northwest coast were seafarers; they inhabited the forest and worshiped the animals which were peculiar to the forest and took as their totems the eagle, wolf and raven, but they drew their subsistence in great part from the sea. They worshiped the animals of the seas, such as the shark, the whale and the sculpin. Their skill and courage as navigators have never been equaled. Taking their families and the few articles of commerce gathered from the forest they entered the symmetrical and beautifully carved canoes and breasted the storms and waves of the great sea near which they lived. There was a wildness in the waves which just suited them. The sea brought out the best traits and developed the heroic character. They were the "sea kings" of the Northwest. They were great navigators and great hero worshipers.

The tribes of the interior, the Pueblos, the Zunis, differed from all other tribes. They were surrounded by wild tribes, such as the Apaches, Comanches and Navajoes. Whatever their origin, they had remained long enough in this territory to be affected by the scenery and surroundings. They were mild, luxurious, given over to religious ceremonies, made much of mythology and had many secret societies. They built their terraced houses, taking the cliffs and mesas as their patterns, and made them so similar to the rock and cliffs that it was difficult to recognize them at a distance. They did not mould the mountains into villages as the Mayas did, but they made their houses to conform to the mountains, and took the mountain gods and their nature divinities as chief objects of worship.

The contrast between the ancient tribes of this region and the wild tribes which intruded upon them was very great. The Navajoes were a mountain people and drew their religion from the mountains. They borrowed many myths and customs from the ancient Pueblos, and like them, settled down to an agricultural life; but their sand paintings and their ceremonies reveal a taste for art and a poetical imagination which are very remarkable. The lone Indian who places his wigwam in the midst of the mountains seems to be always a stranger. The scenery has no effect upon him. It makes his spirit sad and his music plaintive, for he breathes out his spirit in his music. He never has had and never will have the character which some of his ancestors cultivated amid the wild scenes. His race is doomed; his fate is sealed. He can never catch up with the progress of the time.

The railroad is bound to take the place of the Indian trail; the miners' cabin must supplant the Indian wigwam. Great cities will rise near where ancient villages stood, but the savage fails to appreciate the thought or the character of the people who have supplanted him. The wigwam amid the mountains is a symbol of what he is, but the locomotive at its side is an emblem of progress and of promise to those who will use their opportunities. The mountains are in the background--they suggest the possibilities which are before the settler. They interpose barriers, but the barriers themselves are fraught with good influences. Freedom has always dwelt among the mountains. Reverence for the Almighty has also prevailed. The leveling process must cease and man become more elevated in his thoughts as he rises to the altitude of these great heights.--The American Antiquarian.

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A NOVEL WAY OF RIDING A BICYCLE.

"Artists" of the variety stage and the circus are always trying to find something new, for the same old trapeze performances, trials of strength, performances of rope dancers, etc., have been presented so many times that anyone who invents an entirely new trick is sure of making a large amount of money out of it; the more wild and dangerous it is, the better. Anything that naturally stands on its feet but can be made to stand on its head will be well received in the latter attitude by the public. Some such thought as this must have been in the mind of the man who conceived the idea of riding a bicycle on the ceiling instead of on the floor. The "trick" originated with the Swiss acrobat Di Batta, who, being too old to undertake such a performance himself, trained two of his pupils to do it, and they appeared with their wheel in Busch Circus in Berlin. The wheel, of course, ran on a track from which it was suspended in such a way that it could not fall, and the man who operated it used the handle bar as he would the cross bar of the trapeze. One would think that the position of the rider was sufficiently dangerous to satisfy any public, but the inventor of the trick sought to make it appear more wonderful by having the rider carry between his teeth a little trapeze from the crosspiece of which another man hung.

Different colored lights were thrown on the performers as they rode around the ceiling, and at the end of the performance first one and then the other dropped into the safety net which had been placed about sixty feet below them. We are indebted to the Illustrirte Zeitung for the cut and article.

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REQUIREMENTS OF PALESTINE EXPLORER.

Lieut.-Col. Conder says that the requirements for exploration demand a knowledge not only of Syrian antiquities, but of those of neighboring nations. It is necessary to understand the scripts and languages in use, and to study the original records as well as the art and architecture of various ages and countries. Much of our information is derived from Egyptian and Assyrian records of conquest, as well as from the monuments of Palestine itself. As regards scripts, the earliest alphabetical texts date only from about 900 B. C., but previous to this period we have to deal with the cuneiform, the Egyptian, the Hittite and the Cypriote characters.

The explorer must know the history of the cuneiform from 2700 B. C. down to the Greek and Roman age, and the changes which occurred in the forms of some 550 characters originally hieroglyphics, but finally reduced to a rude alphabet by the Persians, and used not only in Babylonia and Assyria, but also as early as 1500 B. C. in Asia Minor, Syria, Armenia, Palestine and even by special scribes in Egypt. He should also be able to read the various Egyptian scripts--the 400 hieroglyphics of the monuments, the hieratic, or running hand of the papyri, and the later demotic.

The Hittite characters are quite distinct, and number at least 130 characters, used in Syria and Asia Minor from 1500 B. C. or earlier down to about 700 B. C. The study of these characters is in its infancy. The syllabary of Cyprus was a character derived from these Hittite hieroglyphics, and used by the Greeks about 300 B. C. It includes some fifty characters, and was probably the original system whence the Phenician alphabet was derived. As regards alphabets, the explorer must study the early Phenician and the Hebrew, Samaritan and Moabite, with the later Aramean branch of this alphabet, whence square Hebrew is derived. He must also know the Ionian alphabet, whence Greek and Roman characters arose, and the early Arab scripts--Palmyrene, Nabathean and Sabean, whence are derived the Syriac, Cufic, Arabic and Himyaritic alphabets.

As regards languages, the scholars of the last century had to deal only with Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Coptic and Greek, but as the result of exploration we now deal with the ancient Egyptian whence Coptic is derived, and with various languages in cuneiform script, including the Akkadian (resembling pure Turkish) and the allied dialects of Susa, Media, Armenia and of the Hittites; the Assyrian, the earliest and most elaborate of Semitic languages; and Aryan tongues, such as the Persian, the Vannic and the Lycian.

The art and architecture of Western Asia also furnish much information as to religious ideas, customs, dress and history, including inscribed seals and amulets, early coins and gems. The explorer must also study the remains of Greek, Roman, Arab and Crusader periods, in order to distinguish these from the earlier remains of the Canaanites, Phenicians, Hebrews, Egyptians and Assyrians, as well as the art of the Jews and Gnostics about the Christian era, and the later pagan structures down to the fourth century A.D.--Nature.

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THE NEUTRAL USE OF CABLES.

Eleven submarine cables traverse the Atlantic between 60 and 40 degrees north latitude. Nine of these connect the Canadian provinces and the United States with the territory of Great Britain; two (one American, the other Anglo-American) connect France. Of these, seven are largely owned, operated or controlled by American capital, while all the others are under English control and management. There is but one direct submarine cable connecting the territory of the United States with the continent of Europe, and that is the cable owned and operated by the Compagnie Francais Cables Telegraphiques, whose termini are Brest, France, and Cape Cod, on the coast of Massachusetts.

All these cables between 60 and 40 degrees north latitude, which unite the United States with Europe, except the French cable, are under American or English control, and have their termini in the territory of Great Britain or the United States. In the event of war between these countries, unless restrained by conventional act, all these cables might be cut or subjected to exclusive censorship on the part of each of the belligerent states. Across the South Atlantic there are three cables, one American and two English, whose termini are Pernambuco, Brazil, and St. Louis, Africa, and near Lisbon, Portugal, with connecting English lines to England, one directly traversing the high seas between Lisbon and English territory and one touching at Vigo, Spain, at which point a German cable company has recently made a connection. The multiplication under English control of submarine cables has been the consistent policy of Great Britain, and to-day her cable communications connect the home government with all her colonies and with every strategic point, thus giving her exceptional advantages for commercial as well as for political purposes.

The schedule blanks of rates of the English companies contain the following provisions: "The dispatches of the imperial government shall have priority when demanded. The cable must not, at any station, employ foreigners, and the lines must not pass through any office or be subject to the control of any foreign government. In the event of war, the government (of Great Britain) may occupy all the stations on English territory or under the protection of Great Britain, and it may use the cable by means of its own employes."

It is not a pleasing reflection that in the actual situation the United States is at a great and embarrassing disadvantage. Meanwhile it would seem to be the policy of the United States to overcome this disadvantage by the multiplication of submarine cables under American or other than English competing foreign ownership and control.

Although somewhat indeterminate, the policy of the United States in respect to the landing of foreign submarine cables, so far, at least, as the executive branch of the government is concerned, appears to be based chiefly upon considerations that shall guard against consolidation or amalgamation with other cable lines, while insisting upon reciprocal accommodations for American corporations and companies in foreign territory. The authority of the executive branch of the government to grant permission is exercised only in the absence of legislation by Congress regulating the subject, and concessions of the privileges heretofore have been subject to such further action by Congress in the matter as it may at any time take. Several bills are now pending in Congress relating to the landing of foreign submarine telegraph cables within the United States, and regulating the establishment of submarine telegraphic cable lines or systems in the United States. As this article is going to press, it is reported that the President has refused permission to a foreign cable company to renew a cable terminus within the territory of the United States, and that the question raised as to the power of the federal government to deny admission to the cable will be referred to the Attorney-General for an opinion. Meanwhile, the executive branch of the government holds to the doctrine that, in the absence of legislation by Congress, control of the landing and operation of foreign cables rests with the President. The question of the landing of foreign cables received some consideration from the late Attorney-General, in connection with an injunction suit brought by the United States against certain corporations engaged in placing on the coast of New York a cable having foreign connection. And he suggested for the consideration of Congress whether it would not be wise to give authority to some executive officer to grant or withhold consent to the entry of such foreign enterprises into this country on such terms and conditions as may be fixed by law.

The principal and most important submarine cables traversing or connecting the great oceans are owned and operated by private corporations or companies. They are in number 310, and their length in nautical miles is 139,754. The length of cables owned or operated by state governments is, in nautical miles, 18,132.

The policies of states, the movements of fleets and armies, and the regulation of the markets of the commercial world, depend upon devices, communications and orders that are habitually transmitted through the agency of submarine cables. In this view, the first aim is to safeguard from wanton destruction the delicate and expensive mechanism of these cables; the second is to restrain within the narrowest limits practicable interruptions in the operation of cables, even in the midst of hostilities; and the third is to encourage the establishment and extension of submarine cables owned and operated by American capital. All these ends may be advanced by the agreement of the powers to neutralize absolutely the submarine cable systems of the world. To do this will be a step in the direction of extending international jurisdiction, which is to be a controlling feature of the new periodical about to be established at Berlin, and to be printed in German, French and English, under the name of "Kosmodike." --Alexander Porter Morse in The Albany Law Journal.

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PARK MAKING.

Those who make public parks are apt to attempt too much and to injure not only the beauty, but the practical value of their creations by loading them with unnecessary and costly details. From the time when landscape gardening was first practiced as a fine art to the present day, park makers have been ambitious to change the face of nature--to dig lakes where lakes did not exist and to fill up lakes where they did exist, to cut down natural hills and to raise artificial ones, to plant in one place and to clear in another, and generally to spend money in construction entirely out of proportion to the value of the results obtained.

The best art is simple in its expression, and the highest form of art in gardening is perhaps that which, taking advantage of such natural conditions as it finds, makes the best of them with the smallest expenditure of labor and money. Simplicity of design means not only economy of construction, but, what is of even more importance, economy of maintenance. The importance of making it possible to keep a great park in good condition without excessive annual expenditures for maintenance is a simple business proposition which would not seem to require much demonstration. Yet park makers, with their unnecessary walks and drives; with their expensive buildings which are always getting out of repair; their ponds, in which there is rarely water enough to keep them fresh; their brooks, which are frequently dry; their elaborate planting schemes, often ill suited to the positions where they are wanted, make parks expensive to construct and impossible to maintain in good condition, especially in this country, where the cost of labor is heavy and there is difficulty in obtaining under existing municipal methods skilled and faithful gardeners to keep anything like an elaborate garden in good condition. The most superficial examination of any of our large urban parks will show that wherever elaborate construction and planting have been attempted they have failed from subsequent neglect to produce the effects expected from them, and that broad, quiet, pastoral and sylvan features are the only permanent and really valuable ones we can hope to attain in our great city parks.