Part 63

To the west of China lies India, also drained by two great rivers, the Indus and the Ganges, which rise among the slopes of the Himalayas and flow in different directions to the sea. These two countries--China and India--stood nearly alone in ancient times, separated from the peoples of western Asia by the wide, dry plateau of Iran, and hence these countries did not exercise a great influence upon the ancient world, or come into historical view until much later.

EGYPT WAS A GIFT TO MANKIND FROM THE NILE

The Nile is one of the longest rivers of the world; rising in the distant lakes of central Africa, it pursues a course of about four thousand miles on its way to the sea. But the part of the valley occupied by the Egyptian people extended only about six hundred miles from the mouth of the river--to the rapids called the “first cataract,” on the borders of Ethiopia. The valley is inclosed on either side by low ranges of mountains, which furnish stone suitable for building; and it should be noticed that this abundant supply of stone gave to the Egyptians a great advantage over the Babylonians, who were obliged to use the less durable materials, clay and brick, for building.

The valley of the Nile is only about seven or eight miles in width--except at the delta, where it spreads out into an open plain. Not only has this valley been cut by the Nile, but its fertility was anciently due to the annual overflow of the river, for the climate is dry and rain rarely falls. This river was also the great highway of Egypt, affording a ready means of communication from one part of the country to another. The fertile soil of Egypt was especially suitable for the raising of vegetables and grain. Rice, oats, barley, and wheat grew there in great abundance, so that the country became the granary of the ancient world.

THE DIVISIONS OF UPPER AND LOWER EGYPT

Egypt may be divided into two principal parts. (1) The lower, or northern, part includes the extended plain about the delta, where the soil is most fertile, and where the earliest civilization was developed. It was here that the first empire was established, with its center at Memphis. (2) The upper, or southern, part includes the remainder of the valley as far as the “first cataract.” This formed a second area of civilization, with its center at Thebes. In either direction from these two centers the banks of the Nile became dotted with a multitude of towns and villages, each one of which was a seat of industry and art.

THE MOST HISTORIC SEA IN THE WORLD

But the most important center of ancient civilization was the Mediterranean Sea. This body of water formed the world’s greatest highway, and was possessed successively by the Phœnicians, the Greeks, and the Romans, who made it an important factor in the development of a wider world commerce and a higher world culture.

=Known World about B. C. 450.=--About this period the decadence of the great Persian Empire had already begun. Greece was becoming a strong power, and had flourishing colonies all round the Mediterranean and Black Seas, at Syracuse in Sicily, on the southern shores of Italy, at Massilia (the present Marseilles), on the coast of Spain, at Cyrene in North Africa, at Cypress, at Byzantium (Constantinople), and at many points between these.

Carthage had already risen from its condition of a colony to that of a great independent state, which held practically all the north African coast. The Carthaginians had come in contact with the Greeks in Sicily, and in their first trial of strength the Carthaginian army under Hamilcar had been defeated. Rome had been founded for perhaps three hundred years. Already the Romans had taken the lead in Latium, and the Republic was in constant warfare with its neighbors on all sides--the southern Etruscans, the Volscians, and the Æqui.

Thus the great events of this period were clustered round the Mediterranean shores. As yet the unknown peoples of the west and north beyond these were vaguely called the Hyperboreans by the Greeks, “the dwellers behind the north wind;” and eastward, beyond Persia and the Indies, Herodotus could only mark “unknown deserts” on his map.

=World About B. C. 325.=--This little map represents the short-lived Macedonian empire of Alexander, at the date of his return to Persia, when his power was at its height. To his victorious career the world owed a vast increase of geographical knowledge; all eastern Asia had been unveiled, and the road to India, with its boundless wealth, was disclosed to Europeans.

Westward also, about Alexander’s time, the geography of the Greeks was greatly extended by Pytheas, a bold navigator of the Greek colony of Massilia (Marseilles), who, from Gadiera (Cadiz), coasted Iberia and the country of the Celts (France), and reached Britain. He followed the southern and eastern shores of the islands, and, after six days’ sail from the Orcades (Orkney Islands), discovered Thule, a land of fogs in the north, which has been variously identified as the Shetland Islands, the Norwegian coast, or even Iceland.

In Italy the Romans were continuing their struggles with the neighboring nations. The whole of southern Etruria had yielded to their supremacy, and was kept in check by Roman garrisons; while towards the south, at this time, a terrible conflict was in progress with the heroic Samnite highlanders. Of Sicily the Carthaginians held the western, the Greek colonists the eastern half, a brief lull having taken place in the fierce wars which had been waging between these powers for the possession of the island, during which the prosperity of the great fortified city and seaport of Syracuse was rapidly reviving.

=World About A. D. 300.=--Almost six hundred years has elapsed, and the Great Roman Empire is already in its decline. A special map of the Roman Empire at its height will be found later on. This little map represents the empire in the time of Constantine.

Under Constantine the Great two great changes took place--the introduction of Christianity as the religion of the State, and the transference of the seat of government from Rome to Byzantium (A. D. 330), which was re-named after the emperor, Constantinople.

Persia at this time, under the Sassanian dynasty, attained a height of prosperity and power such as it had never before reached, and against it even the veteran Roman legions could gain no lasting laurels.

In China authentic history begins with the Chow dynasty (1122-255 B. C.) when Confucius and Mincius flourished (600 B. C). In the next (Tsin) dynasty Shih Hwang Ti (221-209 B. C.) reduced the independent petty states, and built the Great Wall as a protection against the barbarous Hiong-non (Huns) or Tartars of the north. Shortly after the beginning of the Christian era the Chinese seem to have begun intercourse with the Parthians and to have known the Roman Empire as Ta-tsin; and about the time of Constantine’s establishment of his new capital the Chinese emperor’s court was fixed at Nanking, the southern capital.

The increase of geographical knowledge during the period in which Rome was spreading out its power in all directions could not fail to be very considerable. Already in the latter part of the first century B. C., a general survey of the Roman Empire had been begun by the collection and arrangement of the itineraries of the roads to places in the empire. One of these traces the main roads of all the region stretching from Britain to the mouth of the Ganges in India.

=World About A. D. 500.=--For more than two centuries prior to this map, the whole of northern Europe, had begun to pour forth wave after wave of barbarian hordes, against the Roman Empire. By the invasions of the tribes of Goths, Franks, Vandals, etc., the western emperors lost their power outside of Italy, and the empire itself ceases to exist in 476, when it is nominally joined to the Eastern Empire. The Vandals had established their rule along north Africa; the Visigoths ruled in Spain; the Ostrogothic monarchy of Theodoric the Great extended over Italy, France, and all the countries round the Alps as far as the middle Danube; and the Franks, under Clovis, had possession of the whole of Gaul between the Loire and Somme.

Persia, still under the energetic Sassanian dynasty, not only maintained its integrity as an empire, but had begun to repel the Roman or Byzantine power in Asia, and had added part of Armenia. Westward, however, the arms of the Byzantine Empire were triumphant, the reign of the Emperor Justinian having been rendered famous by the expedition of his great general Belisarius to Africa, where, after a campaign of two years, he completely overthrew the Vandals and led their king captive to Constantinople. In a second war, Belisarius wrested all southern Italy from the Ostrogoths, pursuing them northward to Rome and Ravenna, and thus began the re-conquest of the peninsula, which was completed by his successor, the imperial general Narses, after which the Ostrogoths disappear as a distinct nation.

At this time, under Khosru, the greatest of the great monarchs of the Sassanian dynasty, the Persian Empire stretched from the Red Sea to the Indus, and from Arabia far into central Asia.

=World About A. D. 800.=--The end of this century finds three great empires in Europe and eastern Asia: the Mohammedan or Saracenic Empire, the Eastern or Byzantine Empire, and the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne. The Mohammedan Empire had spread itself out to central Asia and to Spain, and had already passed the zenith of its greatness. The dynasty of the Ommiades of Damascus had given place to that of the Abassides in the east, though a branch from it had set up an independent Califate at Cordova, in Spain. The Abbaside Haroun-al-Rashid, whose praises are sung by eastern poets, had his capital at Bagdad, on the Tigris, a city which had been founded by his predecessor in 762.

Charlemagne had consolidated and extended the Frankish Empire, received the ambassadors sent from the court of Bagdad to salute him, and had been crowned by the Pope at Rome. Irene, the mother of the Byzantine emperor, Constantine VI., had conceived the bold plan of uniting the east and west of Europe in one great empire, by marrying the Frankish emperor, a scheme which was frustrated by her overthrow and her banishment to the Isle Lesbos in the Ægean Sea (802).

Britain, so far as occupied by the Angles and Saxons, was divided into seven (or eight) little kingdoms, known as the Saxon Heptarchy.

=World About A. D. 1000.=--Germany, or the Eastern Franks, becomes at this time the greatest power in Europe, uniting to itself Upper Italy and Lotharingia.

France, or the Western Franks, early in this century is invaded by the Norsemen or Normans,--bold seafaring adventurers from Denmark and other northern lands, from whom the name Normandy is derived. The kingdom of France, however, began in 987.

The Saracen Empire was divided at the beginning of this century into no less than seven independent califates, of which the most distinguished was that of the Fatimites. The Saracenic civilization in Spain is now at its height. By the end of the century the power of the Saracens in the East is of but little account politically.

The Magyars, or Hungarians, before the end of the century have established a strong kingdom in the southeast of Europe; and to the north the Slavonic states of Poland and Bohemia are planted.

Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are powerful kingdoms by the close of this century and England, now one kingdom, is engaged in struggles with the Danes.

The hardy Scandinavian seamen had pushed back the clouds of ignorance over the vast region of the north Atlantic, and had reached the shores of the American continent nearly five centuries before Columbus. About the year 994 an expedition under Leif, son of Erik the Red, set sail for this new country. The regions discovered were named Helluland (Slateland), supposed to be Labrador; Markland, or Woodland, probably Southern Labrador; and Vinland, a country named from the wild vine growing there, which some identify with Newfoundland, while others transfer it to the New England coast, opposite the island of Martha’s Vineyard.

=World About A. D. 1300.=--Before the middle of the thirteenth century the vast Mongol Empire, under Ghengis Khan, had stretched out from China to Poland and Hungary, over all Asia except India and Asia Minor--an empire which far surpassed in extent any that had yet been known on the surface of the globe.

The great Mongol expansion forced the removal of the Ottoman Turks, who retreated from the steppes east of the Caspian to the mountains of Armenia. Othman or Osman, a chief of the tribe, on the destruction of the Seljuk power, obtained possession of Bithynia, attacked the Asiatic portion of the sinking Byzantine empire with success and founded there (1299) the subsequently great empire of the Ottoman or Osmanli Turks, as they are named from him.

In the course of his conquest Genghiz Khan had carried off multitudes of western Asiatics as slaves. Twelve thousand of these, mostly Turks and Circassians, were bought by the Sultan of Egypt (a successor of Saladin), who formed them into a body of troops. From being servants these well-armed slaves rose to be masters in Egypt, and placed one of their own number in the sultanate (1254), thus founding the Mameluke (or slave) dynasty in Egypt, which lasted for nearly three centuries, bringing the country again into great prosperity and power.

Thus, about the year 1300 the once great Mohammedan Empire had been restricted to its original seat, and to the western region of north Africa, all else having fallen into the hands of the Turks. The Calif of Bagdad had taken refuge under the protection of the Mamelukes of Egypt, retaining his spiritual power only; the Ommiade califate in Spain had long fallen.

The English, under Edward I., had incorporated Wales after ten years’ contest; Scotland was fighting for independence, led by Wallace and Bruce; and long wars engaged England and France, leading finally to a great increase in French territory and power. Denmark, Sweden and Norway were separate states. In central Europe, Poland and Hungary had been brought to the verge of ruin by the Mongol invasions, which had swept away for the time the divided principalities of Russia. In the south, the old Greek Empire was fast sinking through the assaults on it by the Turks.

The German Empire in this century both loses and gains territory, without material change.

Italy is still divided into independent commonwealths, which more and more fall under the power of princely families or tyrants.

In the Spanish Peninsula there are few geographical changes in this century, but Spain is steadily consolidating into a great power.

The Venetian, Marco Polo, the greatest of medieval travelers, passed seventeen years in exploring the kingdoms of Asia, and opened up to accurate knowledge not only the vast region of the central Asiatic continent, but also the disclosure of the existence of Japan, which he called Zipangu. While Venice opened up new paths to commerce towards the east, Genoa looked westward, sought to open up a new road to India by sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar and round the southern extremity of Africa. It was Genoese who first, in modern times, ventured upon the Atlantic; discovered the Canaries, Madeira, and the Azores; and who first felt their way along the west coast of Africa.

=World About A. D. 1500.=--Previous to this century the nations with which we have been concerned has been restricted to Europe, a little of western Asia, and a small part of northern Africa. An immense enlargement of these bounds now suddenly occurs in consequence of the application of the compass to navigation. From this time dates the period of greatest maritime enterprise and discoveries.

The Portuguese took the lead in bold projects of adventure by sea. The Cape of Good Hope was discovered and doubled by Bartholomew Diaz in 1487, and in 1498 the feat of reaching India by water was accomplished by Vasco da Gama, who, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, reached Calicut in Malabar.

The general excitement about maritime discovery among the Portuguese suggested to Columbus the bold plan of reaching India, not by way of Africa, but by steering to the west across the Atlantic. The result of his voyage was the final discovery of the American continents. India he did not reach, but discovered instead, the island of Guanahani or San Salvador, in 1492, the main continent being discovered a few years later (June 24, 1497) by John Caboto, or Cabot, a Venetian sailor.

In the far east China had recovered its independence under the Ming dynasty, and its supremacy was acknowledged over Mongolia and eastern Turkestan, though the states of Tonquin and Cochin China, in the southern peninsula beyond India, had assumed a political independence. Western Asia had been reconquered by Timur, or Tamerlane, of western Turkestan. The Ottoman Turks had extended their European territory to its widest limit over the ruins of the Greek Empire; and Russia had become a united kingdom under Ivan the Great, and threw off the Tartar yoke.

In western Europe, the Swiss mountaineers had secured their independence. France was recovering from the calamities inflicted on it by the English, who had all but lost their hold on the land. In the south the reaction of Christendom against Mohammedanism had begun. The Christian kingdoms of Spain and Portugal had driven back the Moors across the Straits into Africa, and had consolidated their strength over the whole Peninsula. The Moors in turn settled along the north African coast. Morocco at this time had been formed into a monarchy, and enjoyed great prosperity.

=World About A. D. 1600.=--Spain is the chief power at this time. Besides vast continental dominions in the New World, its European possessions comprised the whole of the Spanish Peninsula, the Netherlands and other lands of the House of Austria, the Sicilies, Sardinia, and Milan. But, by the revolt of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, Spain loses a considerable portion of her territory before the end of the century.

The German Empire continues, but more as a dignity than as an independent power. The emperors are uniformly chosen from the princes of the House of Austria, which now by its hereditary possession becomes one of the chief powers of Europe. In the person of the Emperor Charles V., who united the crown of Spain with the sovereignty of Austria, the imperial power reached its greatest extent.

France is engaged in wars civil and religious and foreign, but without much change of territory, except in America, where some colonies were established. England makes some attempts at colonization in America during this century, but the real settlements begin in the next.

Italy, during this period, is a battle-field of contention among the rival princes of Europe. The peninsula was made up of principalities and commonwealths, some of which were independent, but the most of which, during the greater part of this century, were under the dominant influence of Austria and of Spain. The northern provinces of the Netherlands throw off the yoke of Spain, and are united in a federal commonwealth. The union of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden ceases in the early part of this century, by the independence of Sweden, which now plays an important part in European history. Poland is an important state in this century, with extensive possessions.

The Turkish or Ottoman Empire is largely extended in this century by the annexation of Syria, Egypt, a great part of the northern coast of Africa, and the conquest of a large part of Hungary.

In Asia the Chinese Empire remained unshaken; Persia had again become an independent empire; the Mohammedan Moguls had begun to reign in northern India; the once great Tartar empire had been reduced to the states east of the Caspian. In the north, Russia was spreading eastward over Asia, and had come in contact with the Ottoman Empire, now expanding to its greatest extent in the South, and with Sweden in the northwest. The great Reformation had passed over Europe, separating its Catholic states of the south from the Protestants of the north, and giving rise to fierce wars and many political changes. Maritime discovery and adventure and commerce were being eagerly extended by the nations of western Europe. Four times the world had been circumnavigated--by the Portuguese Magellan, by the English Drake and Cavendish, and lastly by the Dutchman Van Noort. Spain had extended her conquests to Mexico, Peru, and Chile, which were now ruled by Spanish viceroys. The Portuguese had established themselves firmly on the African shores; their possessions and settlements in the East Indies included the Malabar coast of India, Ceylon and Malacca; and their traffic reached to all the islands of the Asiatic archipelago, to China and Japan.

The English and Dutch, after vainly seeking an independent highway to the northeast or northwest through the ice-fields of the Arctic region, had become formidable rivals of the Spaniards and Portuguese in their own lines, both in the West Indies and round the Cape of Good Hope to the eastward.

=World About A. D. 1700.=--In Europe, France under Louis XIV., now becomes the leading power, and makes great accessions of territory. England also becomes one of the important nations, and, besides being engaged in civil and foreign wars, was planting colonies in America and in India. Austria had increased her power in Italy and Hungary. The Spanish monarchy is broken up, and Spain sinks to an inferior position. Prussia has risen into prominence under the great elector, Frederick William. The United Provinces held a high place and had been engaged in a long struggle with France. Italy had fallen to a low condition. Savoy was slowly gaining in power, and Venice was engaged in wars with the Turks. Sweden was at the height of its power and possessions. Russia is rapidly rising, and Poland is declining. The Turks press forward into Austria, from which they are driven out, and make some important conquests in other parts; but their power is on the decline.

In Asia, this was the period at which the Mohammedan Empire in India was raised to its highest point of splendor and greatness by Shah Jehan, the “King of the World,” and by his son, the famous Aurungzeb, the crafty and ambitious “reviver of religion.” It was during these reigns that the English began to gain a hold on India.

Outside of Europe it cannot fail to be observed how completely the spread of knowledge on the outer borders of the known world was controlled by events which took place in western Europe. Chief of these was the gradual crippling and decay of the maritime supremacy of Spain and Portugal, and the rise of that of the Dutch and British into strength. Maritime enterprise had passed to Holland, England, and France.

In America the British dominion was extended by the formation of the Hudson Bay Company. In 1690 this fur company had built several forts and factories on the coasts, whence from time to time their operations extended inland.

The French also, after La Salle first descended (1682) the great river, Mississippi, “the father of waters,” invaded Spanish claims by settling in Louisiana, about the mouth of the great river, in 1699.