BASIC 
 
 A 
 LITTLE ABOUT 
 
 GEOGRAPHY 
 
 BY 
 
 CLAUDE FLIGHT & EDITH LAWRENCE 
 
 PITMAN
 
 IS 
 3EN
 
 A LITTLE 
 ABOUT GEOGRAPHY 
 
 by 
 
 CLAUDE FLIGHT 
 
 and 
 
 EDITH LAWRENCE 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE ORTHOLOGICAL INSTITUTE 
 BY SIR ISAAC PITMAN & SONS, LTD.
 
 NOTE 
 
 It is not possible to put the names of all the places talked of in this book on 
 the small number of very simple maps, done by a process named ' Lino-Cutting,' 
 which go with it ; so here is a list of them, and you may see where they are, from 
 the great books of maps at school, but some of them are not on any map. 
 
 They are in the order in which they come in :— 
 
 Etna, Vesuvius, New Zealand, Pompeii, Herculaneum, 
 
 'Lemuria' (not in the map-books), Pacific Ocean, 'Atlantis' (not in the map-books), 
 Atlantic Ocean, La Rocque Gageac, France, Dordogne River, Java, Sussex, 
 Heidelberg, Europe, Africa, America, 
 
 Avebury, Wiltshire, 
 
 Straits of Gibraltar, Spain, England, Holland, Germany, Baltic Sea, the rivers 
 Rhone, Danube, Dneister, Dnieper, Rhine, Elbe, Vistula, and Niemen, 
 Cornwall, Egypt, Italy, The Channel, Skager Rack, Dardanelles, Black Sea, 
 
 River Nile, Mediterranean Sea, Somaliland, Sahara, China, 
 
 Persian Gulf, the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, Babylon, Arabia, 
 
 Crete, Palestine, Carthage, Rome, India, Treen and Dinas, Land's End, Persia, 
 
 Caspian Sea, Turkestan, 
 
 Asia, Alexandria, Tibet, Northumberland, Australasia, 
 
 Maiden Castle, Dorchester, Russia, Mongolia, Norway, Iceland, Nova Scotia, 
 Main, British Isles, Ceylon, Red Sea, Dead Sea, 
 
 Pekin, China, Canary Isles, Azores, Madiera, Paradise (not in the map-books), 
 Jerusalem, Yangchow, Mexico, Peru, 
 
 Newfoundland, Rocky Mountains, Andes, Cotopaxi, Chimborazo, Aconcagua, 
 Popocatapetl, Missouri, Mississippi, Amazon, 
 
 Cape of Good Hope, Zanzibar, Sumatra, Java, Celebes, Moluccas, 
 
 Portugal, Australia, Tasmania, 
 
 Siberia, Walcheren Island, Hwang-Ho, Austria, Switzerland, 
 
 Canada, Pacific Ocean, Hudson's Bay, London, Edinburgh, 
 
 Botany Bay, South Africa, Egypt, North Pole, South Pole, Bristol, 
 
 Mount Everest, the ' Stratosphere ' (not in the map-books). 
 
 2043613
 
 A LITTLE ABOUT GEOGRAPHY 
 
 The story of this earth on which we are living had its start long, long before 
 there was anybody on it, but stories without persons are not very interesting, so I 
 will not say much about the earliest times— though without some knowledge of 
 those times it is hard to see why the face of the earth, the seas, the lands, the 
 mountains, and the rivers were as they were when the first men and women came 
 into existence. The earth, as you will see in A Little about History, was at the 
 start like a great fire giving off gas and flames, and this fire took a very, very long time 
 getting cold. When the earth became cold on the outside— the earth is what 
 is named an 'oblate spheroid,' that is, almost round, like an orange— by degrees 
 strange animals and plants and trees came into existence and made their living-place 
 on it. The heat down in the middle of the earth is still very great, though 
 you would have to make a hole much deeper than any springs or coal mines to get 
 to those parts, and then it wouldn't be a very pleasing experience. The best way of 
 getting an idea how warm it is inside the earth, is to go and see a burning mountain 
 like Etna or Vesuvius, with the smoke and boiling lava bursting out of it, or to have 
 a bath in one of the warm springs of New Zealand. These burning mountains, or 
 ' volcanos, ' are holes in certain mountain tops which go deep into the earth, and it 
 is a good thing there are not a great number of them, because sometimes, when 
 there is an outburst, all the country and towns round are covered with dust and 
 burning liquid. The destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum came about in that 
 way. Another danger is that earthshocks sometimes take place when the outer part 
 of the earth is moved by the heat in the middle. But it is good to have a wash in 
 the warm springs— only we haven't any near our houses. 
 
 It was such millions and millions and millions of years from the time when the 
 outside of the earth became cold to the birth of the first men and women on it, 
 that the men of science— who have a knowledge of these things— have made a 
 division of this time into long stretches named ' epochs.' In these epochs all 
 the outer part of the earth has been changed from warm to cold in different places ;
 
 here the land has been covered by the sea, and there the sea has been covered by 
 the land ; in some epochs all the land now in existence was covered with ice, even 
 in summer, in others beautiful plants— or, as men of science say, 'luxuriant flora'— 
 came up where now there is nothing at all but ice and snow. 
 
 There are four of these long stretches of time named epochs, and only in the 
 fourth did the first men and women come into being— and it is in the fourth we are 
 living now. But the first men and women had no knowledge of anything which had 
 taken place on the earth before their birth, or of anything about the outside part 
 of the earth other than what they saw with their eyes, because Geography is a 
 science which hadn't at that time come into existence. 
 
 We will now see how Geography got its start. 
 
 I 
 
 In the middle picture we see the earth half in sunlight and half in the dark. 
 
 The thick white lines are the ' parallels of latitude ' and the ' meridians of longitude.' 
 There are no such lines on the earth itself. They are only a way of measuring the position 
 of any place on the earth. 
 
 The top five pictures are of a volcano bursting out. The lava is running down the 
 mountain side and the dust and bits of burned substance are falling into the sea. 
 
 In the other pictures we see parts of the earth when it was covered with ice, and 
 again at a warmer time.
 
 More than once in history parts of the earth have become covered by the sea, 
 and others have come up from the water, forming new lands. 
 
 There is a belief that at one time there were in the Pacific great separate 
 land-masses, on which were living persons like ourselves, and that thousands of 
 years back (it is impossible to say how far back) these great islands went down 
 again into the Pacific. These land-masses are named by us ' Lemuria.' The same 
 thing may have taken place in the Atlantic, and to the islands which may at one 
 time have been there we give the name ' Atlantis.' 
 
 But we have so little knowledge about the geography or history of Lemuria 
 and Atlantis that it will be wiser to give all our attention to those parts of the earth 
 which have been where they are long enough for us to be able to make discoveries 
 about the men and women living there in past times. And so our book will be 
 about the geography of the earth as it is today, or almost as it is, and nothing more 
 will be said about the great lands now no longer in existence. 
 
 Instruments made of sharp stone, stones cut into the forms of men or animals, 
 paintings on the walls of holes in the mountain-sides, broken pots and bones— these 
 are the chief things from which we get our knowledge of how and when the earliest 
 men and women were living. 
 
 Living in natural holes ; or ' caves,' in the side of a slope by a river, the first 
 men (we give them the name of ' Drift Men ') saw that the sun came up in the east 
 and went down in the west every day, but they had no idea why. They saw that 
 the winter was cold and the summer was warm, and that night came after day. 
 But when, once in a great number of years, an ' eclipse ' took place, that is, when 
 the sun was covered by the moon, they were overcome with fear, and certain that 
 the day had gone for ever. In addition, they made the observation that their river 
 was running the same way all the time, but they would have been surprised if any- 
 one had said that theirs was not the only river on the earth. In summer the river 
 had less water in it, or became dry, and in winter it came up over its sides, but 
 they had no idea what made it do this. The common belief was that the ' gods,' or 
 unseen powers, were angry with them when the river got over-full or went dry, or 
 when there was thunder and the sky was forked with light, or when there was more 
 than enough or not enough rain. The Sun was a sort of god, and so was the Moon, 
 and there were gods in all natural forces, and in the trees and woods and mountains 
 and rivers. You see, they had no idea of what Geography is at all. But that is
 
 not surprising, because there were no books in those days to give them the facts; 
 in fact there was no reading and writing at all. And as for doing arithmetic, they 
 probably had no idea that they had ten fingers and ten toes. 
 
 They went about in fear of such animals as the ' mammoth,' the 'cave-bear,' 
 the 'rhinoceros,' and the early 'tiger' with long curving teeth, which went freely 
 over the mountains and down into the lowlands. They were only completely safe 
 in their caves, because these were half-way up the face of the mountains, and the 
 only way to get in and out of them was by thick cords which were pulled up at 
 night. If you go to a place named La Rocque Gageac, in the middle of what is now 
 France, you may go up some steps into one of these caves. It is a good sort of 
 place full of sunlight, with a beautiful view over the Dordogne River. 
 
 The science experts who have to do with these things are able to give us some 
 light on these early times, and they make attempts to say when the different sorts 
 of men were living. But that is very hard, because it is so long back and very little 
 material has come down from those times. Some persons had short heads, and some 
 long heads, but it is quite impossible for the experts to say which came into 
 existence first. The names given to the earliest different sorts of heads have a very 
 interesting sound, specially the last— they are named after the places where these 
 heads were uncovered— Java, Sussex, Heidelberg, Neanderthal. 
 
 Lemuria is seen in the middle picture and Atlantis in one of the little ones. I have 
 made them white, and the Pacific in one, and the Atlantic in the other, are black. Australia 
 and New Zealand as they are today are marked by squares, and so are parts of the 
 edges of Europe, Africa, and America. 
 
 In the top picture I have put some of the gods from Easter Island, to which the 
 Lemurians are offering their respect. Four persons are running away in fear because the 
 shade of the moon is shutting out the sun. 
 
 A short-headed man is having an argument with a long-headed man. A rhinoceros 
 is going after a man, driving him into the water, and later he is more than pleased to 
 get safely up into a friend's cave.
 
 The earliest men and women were living in the ' Paleolithic ' time, or 
 ' Early Stone Age,' so named because they made hammer-heads and knives out of 
 bits of stone, not very expertly. The name is used because no better one has 
 come to mind, and not being able to say in what years these men were living, we 
 have to have some sort of name for them. The Early Stone Age men made use of 
 their hammers and knives for putting to death and skinning animals, which they got 
 by tricking them into holes in the earth. They were dependent on such animals 
 and on fish for their food, and after a time, when they were going from place 
 to place looking for animals, they made the discovery that the river near their 
 living-place came from a number of little rivers, and that there were islands here 
 and there where it got wider, and that at last it went into the sea. All this was the 
 starting-point of Geography. In addition, they came across inland waters and 
 mountains and highlands, and though they would have been unable to give a clear 
 account of it, they saw that the high land between rivers going in different directions 
 was what is now named a ' watershed '—it's something like the roof of a building, 
 isn't it? In the same way, we give the land drained by a river the name of 'river- 
 basin,' only it isn't a very good name, because our basins are round. The high 
 mountains were all rough stone, and full of dangers, so they were no good for living 
 in, and the wet lowlands near the river's mouth— that's a strange word for it, but 
 a river is somewhat like a snake— were unhealthy, and if you didn't take care where 
 you were putting your feet you got pulled down into it. (So ' mouth ' is quite a good 
 name, after all). Early men and women made very little attempt to see where the 
 river came from, because that wasn't important to them in any way ; you see, their 
 only thought was how to get food as quickly and as safely as possible, and then get 
 back to their caves. 
 
 These men had no laws as we have, but the Father of the family said what 
 everyone was to do; and if they didn't do it he gave them a blow on the head. 
 And sometimes, when the Father got ill or old, one of the sons gave him a blow on 
 the head. It is not hard to see that with that sort of thing going on, in addition to
 
 the business of getting animals for food, no one had much time for Geography. On 
 top of their other troubles, they had very unhealthy skins. This was because they 
 didn't have three meals a day, seated round a table, as we do; they had as much 
 food as they were able to take, as frequently as possible, and it was all meat and no 
 bread. Then sometimes they went without food for a very long time. And at certain 
 times of the year they made meals of insects and other animals which seem to us 
 disgusting, such as you see in the two top pictures. They had no ideas about what 
 was good for food as we have, and so their skins were all very unhealthy. 
 
 A Paleolithic man is cutting stones, which are being fixed by a woman to hand-parts 
 of wood or horn with bits of leather. These stone hammers are of great use for getting 
 animals. A thread of water is running down the two sides of the watershed in the top 
 middle picture ; lower down it becomes a river, and later on goes into the sea. There is 
 no one living on the island.
 
 This sort of thing went on for very long time; but by degrees some persons 
 got more expert at making things. They made better stone knives, and pointed 
 heads for the 'arrows' and 'spears' which they sent at animals. They had 'bows' 
 for sending the arrows, and when an animal had been wounded with these from a 
 distance, they were able to get near and put it to death with their spears. They 
 became much better at cutting hard stone by hand than we are, because it was so 
 very important for their instruments to be sharp. The time when the more expert 
 men were living has been named by men of science the ' Neolithic,' or ' Late Stone 
 Age,' and their arrow-heads are still to be seen in the open country in different 
 parts of Europe. These Neolithic men were very good at putting animals to death, 
 and they were very pleased with their invention of bows and arrows. But they did 
 not give all their time to this business ; some of the brightest of them got the idea 
 of making little fields and putting grain-seed in them. Now men who go about the 
 country looking for animals for food get more knowledge of geography in some ways 
 than do those who keep to one place, because they see more things. But frequently 
 in those days there were unhappy surprises, and the animals, very far from being 
 put to death or running away, went after the men and put them to death. For this 
 reason, those who were best at getting animals gave all their attention to this 
 business, and had no thought for any other. The earliest farmers, on the other 
 hand, had to give all their attention to learning about the earth and how to get the 
 land ploughed with wood ploughs, to put seed into the fields, to get in the grain, 
 and, last, to get it crushed in stone machines worked by hand, named 'querns.' 
 
 Small towns, or groups of little houses, took the place of the caves in which men 
 had been living in earlier times. Every group of houses had a wall of wood round it, 
 and outside this, all round, a hole deep enough to have water in it. The towns were 
 put on the tops of slopes, so that it would be possible to keep off the attacks of 
 animals and other men without much trouble— because in those days men were not 
 very different from animals when it came to fighting. 
 
 The strongest and wisest man in the group was chief or king, but he wasn't 
 like our kings today, who haven't much power, or like those rulers named 'Dictators' 
 who don't let anybody but themselves have any. He did his best for everyone, and 
 if he didn't do his work well, or was only interested in what he got out of it himself, 
 It was quite simple to put another man in his place.
 
 These kings had to do certain acts which were said to have the power of 
 producing effects for the good of the group. These acts are what is named ' ritual,' 
 and the existence of the king was a ' ritual existence,' that is, it was ruled by laws 
 handed down from father to son giving detailed directions about what the king had 
 to do or say at certain times. The well-being of all was dependent on this ritual 
 being done in the right way. 
 
 After a time came boats made by hollowing out trees, in which it was possible 
 to go about on the water; and this was the start of longer journeys. 
 
 There were naturally no countries marked off as they are today, because 
 England and France and America were nobody's special property (and anyway the 
 discovery of America had not taken place then) ; there were only different groups 
 of men, some small and dark with long heads, and others tall and light-haired with 
 short heads. And they had dogs. 
 
 Later on cows, goats, and pigs were made the servants of men, and were used 
 for food. And then came the invention of carts, pulled by animals of the cow family, 
 and instruments for making cloth from thread ; and clothing of linen was made from 
 the 'flax* plant. At first they made pots by hand and let them get dry in the sun, 
 but later on they made them as we do, on a wheel, heating them in the fire so that 
 they became hard and did not let water through. 
 
 They had some knowledge about the sun and moon and stars, and their kings 
 were looked on as gods and named Sun Gods, and were made responsible for the 
 growth of the grain. All sorts of strange things were done at the times of planting 
 and cutting, in the Spring and at the New Year, and on other special days. Avebury, 
 the great stone circle in Wiltshire, England, was one of the places of religion. 
 
 Religion and government were all so mixed together that it is hard to make 
 a division between them— it was only later that the church and the government 
 became separate things. A great number of men and women by this time no longer 
 went about with nothing on ; they were dressed something like the Red Indians of 
 the story books. 
 
 The man with the bow at the top, with the cruel-looking animal coming after him. 
 hadn't any time for Geography, but the man with the cart at the foot had quite enough. 
 The Sun God and his woman are dancing one of their ritual dances inside a circle of great 
 stones. 
 
 There is no need to say anything about the rest, is there?
 
 The first men who went on long journeys— we have no knowledge of their 
 names or where they first came from— had trade ways by land and sea. The most 
 important sea-way was through the Straits of Gibraltar and up the sides of Spain, 
 France, England, Holland, and Germany into the Baltic Sea. That by land was up the 
 great rivers which go from the south across Europe, such as the Rhone, the Danube, 
 the Dneister and the Dnieper, and then down the Rhine, the Elbe, the Vistula, and 
 the Niemen. With the help of these rivers men were able to go on long journeys 
 quite safely, and to take their goods for trading with them. 
 
 The chief reason for these journeys was to get 'amber' and gold. There was 
 gold in the beds of rivers, and amber (a beautiful yellow substance which has an 
 attraction for bits of paper if it is rubbed) round the edges of the Baltic Sea. Gold 
 and amber were looked on as having a special power, and were an important part 
 of the ritual and dress of a king, and these two necessary substances were only to 
 be got by these early men in far countries. They went, in addition, as we will see 
 later, to Cornwall for tin, but this was needed for trade purposes, not for religion. 
 
 As far as we have any knowledge— because we are now talking of about six 
 thousand years back, which is a long time— all the different groups, or ' peoples,' on 
 the earth were increasing, and these " sons and daughters of the sun " went from 
 place to place farming new land. They went slowly because they still had no horses 
 for pulling carts or taking men on their backs ; this only came about 2,000 years later. 
 If you have ever had any experience of walking by the side of a cow, you will have 
 an idea of the slow rate at which they had to go. 
 
 Then came the discovery by someone of copper and tin, probably because 
 they were bright and readily seen in the earth. At first they were looked on only 
 as playthings. Later, they were dropped in the fire by someone, and it was 
 seen that they became soft in the heat, and then very hard when they got cold 
 again, so men got the idea of using them in place of wood and stone for ploughs 
 and instruments of war. But copper and tin by themselves were not as good for 
 this purpose as copper and tin mixed, and the second step was to put them
 
 together to make the new metal ' bronze.' When men got metals, existence was 
 greatly changed, because ploughing became better and less hard to do, and they 
 made instruments of war which were much sharper and stronger and simpler to 
 make use of than those of stone and wood. This was the start of those foolish days 
 when fighting came to be looked on as something great and beautiful, and though 
 wars were made only by kings and gods, the common men got used to doing the 
 fighting. Happily, some of us are a little wiser now. 
 
 Everyone was clear about the geography of the place where his group of 
 people were, and the seagoing peoples had a little bit more knowledge ; but 
 common men did not go on journeys as we do now, and there were no maps of 
 other countries, so no one had much idea of where his country was in relation to 
 other parts of the earth. 
 
 If you take the direction of the little ships starting from Egypt, which is to be seen as 
 a small white space in the lower picture on the right, you will see that some of them go south 
 of Italy, through the Straits of Gibraltar, up the English Channel, through the Skager 
 Rack and into the Baltic Sea. Others, starting from the same place, go through the 
 Dardanelles into the Black Sea. 
 
 The men who went across country up the great rivers whose names I have given, 
 had to take their goods over the land from the Rhone to the Rhine, the Danube to the 
 Elbe, the Dneister to the Vistula, and the Dnieper to the Niemen. 
 
 In the two little pictures at the top you will see one boat sailing on the sea, and another, 
 which has no sails, being taken up a river by men working ' oars.'
 
 The first men to get to a high level of development, and who gave much thought to 
 general things were the Egyptians, living on the great river Nile which goes from 
 the middle of Africa to the Mediterranean Sea. Their geography was that of the river 
 basin of the Nile, round which are sand wastes and sea, though later on their ships 
 went to the east end of the Mediterranean, and to the edges of Somaliland. 
 
 The Egyptians had a theory that the sky was resting on four supports, which 
 were the air, and that under the earth were caves in which the dead were living. 
 These men were interested in ' astronomy,' or the science of the skies, and their 
 well-being was dependent on the river Nile coming up over its sides at a certain 
 time so that their fields were made fertile. They saw that the sun and moon 
 and stars had an effect on this river which gave them their food, so they made 
 gods of natural forces, and made up stories about what they did, as if they were 
 men and women. They made Ra and Osiris the gods of the living and the dead, and 
 they made a number of others. 
 
 The Kings, or ' Pharaohs,' of the Egyptians were looked on as gods, and said 
 to be the sons of Ra. 
 
 The Egyptians made great pointed stone structures with three sides named 
 ' pyramids,' In which the dead Pharaohs were put. You may still see them if you go 
 to Egypt, and they are very strange and beautiful, but thousands of poor men gave 
 all their existences to the work of building them, which was very shocking. 
 
 The lower part of Egypt, near the sea, is named the ' Delta' of the Nile, 
 because it is between two mouths of the river, and its form is somewhat like that of 
 the Greek letter of that name. Here all the best earth is washed down when the 
 water is at its highest, and the grain is the best in the country. The unfertile land 
 on the two sides of the Nile is nothing but wastes of sand, and all the pyramids and 
 'temples' (or churches) have been polished and rubbed for hundreds of years by 
 the clouds of sand which come blowing across them from the Sahara, which is the 
 greatest of all the sand-wastes.
 
 Even as early as 6176 years back the Egyptians made calendars, not in the 
 sense of simply painting pictures to put on them, as we do, but in the sense of 
 working out the list of days and months. What is named the ' calendar year ' of 
 365 days was the invention of the Egyptians, and it was a very complex thing to get 
 worked out, because it was all dependent on the sun. We make use of their system 
 even now. 
 
 The discovery of a way of getting to China was made about 2,000 B.C., and it 
 then came to the knowledge of the Egyptians that the Chinese Emperors had a 
 ritual existence like the Pharaohs of Egypt, and were looked on, like them, as Sons 
 of the Sun. 
 
 It is not hard to see why the Delta of the Nile has been given the Greek name for 
 4 D.' It is quite like that letter in form. The two pyramids, which are with the ' Sphinx ' 
 (the great stone form of an animal with a woman's head) in the middle picture, are seen in 
 their true position a little lower down than the Delta. 
 
 One of the ships is sailing down the Nile, and the other is being sent forward by 
 oars. The picture to the right is of a fertile place in the sand waste. The other pictures 
 are of goods being taken off a ship, and fruit and other things being taken to an Egyptian 
 man and woman.
 
 Another group of men, the Sumerians, who had long noses, were living by the 
 Persian Gulf, which is almost an inland sea, and which gets its water from the two 
 great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. When they were not forced into fighting, 
 these men of Sumeria were working hard watering their land and planting seed. 
 
 The two great Empires of Assyria and Babylonia on these two rivers came a 
 little later. It was in Babylon that the noted hanging gardens, which were gardens 
 on stages supported by arches and stone uprights, were made. Great walls were put 
 up round the towns, and horses were used for pulling war-carriages. The Assyrians 
 had a great King with the strange-sounding name of Tiglath Pileser III, and another 
 with the almost equally good one of Assur-Nazir-Pal, whose art experts did the 
 most beautiful designs cut in stone. If you go to the British Museum you will be 
 able to see what an interesting time they had in Assyria in those days— though it 
 was not such a good time for the animals, chiefly ' lions,' they went after. 
 
 All the east of the Mediterranean Sea— Egypt, Arabia, and the Persian Gulf- 
 was now Geography, and if you had been Egyptians, Sumerians, Babylonians, or 
 Assyrians in those days, your experience would not have been limited to the 
 doings of your special group, or town, or countryside, but you would have had some 
 knowledge of the nations round you with whom you had been fighting or trading. 
 
 They would have been only 'outsiders' to you— men from other countries, 
 with strange ways— but it is to be hoped that you wouldn't have had a low opinion 
 of them simply because they were not of your country, which is a very foolish 
 way of looking at things. These 'outsiders ' would have given you stories of other 
 lands, of the sand wastes and woods, and rivers and inland waters, south of the Nile 
 or north of the Tigris and Euphrates; or of the great middle or 'Mediterranean' 
 Sea, and the rough lands round it; and possibly even stranger stories of a greater 
 sea further to the west, which went on and on for ever. Or among those from the 
 east, there would have been talk of a warm sea with land to the south-west, east, 
 and north, fertile and waste land, full of sweet-smelling plants, covered with thick 
 woods, or dry with stone and sand. But these would have been only the stories of
 
 men who make long journeys, which might not be true, and certainly these far-off 
 parts would not have come into the Geography of your time. 
 
 You would have had more knowledge about the stars away up in the sky than 
 about such places as England and America, which were not on the map at that time. 
 The stars would have been in your Geography, but England and America would have 
 had no place there. 
 
 Horses, 'elephants,' 'camels,' and 'donkeys' were the animals used for 
 transport, and though carriages and carts were used, and ships for short sea-journeys, 
 these early men and women did most of their trading inside their Empires, and it 
 was not till later on that long journeys were made, and the discovery of more of 
 the earth took place. 
 
 At the top three Sumerians are making a long, narrow hole in the earth to take water 
 to their fields. 
 
 In the picture by this, the sun is looking down on the River Euphrates on the 
 left and the Tigris on the right. In the middle Assur-Nazir-Pal is going after a lion round 
 the walls of a town, and sending arrows into him with his bow. Is it surprising that I am 
 sad about the poor lions? 
 
 The other pictures are of a horse pulling a carriage, an elephant, two camels, donkeys 
 with goods on their backs, and boats.
 
 8 
 
 The first traders to make regular business journeys, as far as we have any 
 knowledge, were men living round the Mediterranean Sea and on the islands there, 
 and the earliest of all were the Cretans. For hundreds of years they had no walls 
 round their towns, because they were on an island named Crete, and there was no 
 one to make attacks on them. But when their trade got greater they sent colonies 
 to the land near them, and then they had to put up great walls to keep off the other 
 groups, who were ready to go to war with them because they were better off— in the 
 same way as today we have trained armies and sea-forces because of our fears of 
 one another. 
 
 The Cretans had sailing-ships, which had to be moved by oars when there was 
 no wind in the right direction— because in those days sails would only take the ship 
 before the wind. They went up and down the Mediterranean Sea, learning all the 
 Geography of the land near the sea and of the islands, and which rivers it was possible 
 for ships to go up, and where there was trade to be had from the Straits of 
 Gibraltar to Palestine. 
 
 Then came the Phoenicians, who put up the town of Carthage in North Africa 
 in 850 B.C., about 100 years before the building of Rome, and about 500 years before 
 Alexander of Greece took his army into North India. It was the Phoenicians who 
 first went sailing round Africa. This was a great journey of discovery, and the 
 Phoenicians took three years to make it. Every spring they went on land and put 
 seed into the earth, and did not go on again till the grain had been cut and they had 
 enough food for the winter. In addition the Phoenicians went through the Straits of 
 Gibraltar and up the side of Spain, and made the discovery of England— a rough 
 country covered with woods and very wet, but where tin was to be had in the south. 
 If you go to Cornwall you will see great earthworks round a rough headland, which 
 was one of the trading stations of this time. It is at Treen and Dinas, near Land's End. 
 
 When I said they made the discovery of England I was going a little far, because 
 the Phoenicians got no more knowledge of England than they did of Africa, and 
 hundreds of years went by before anything more came to light than the fact that in
 
 the Atlantic were islands where cloth might be exchanged for tin— because the men 
 there had no money, and Woolworth's was a later invention. 
 
 Most important among the Greeks from the point of view of geography was 
 Alexander the Great, who was six years journeying with his army through Persia, by 
 the Caspian Sea, through Turkestan, down into India and back again, sometimes in 
 ships which were made on the way, and sometimes on foot. But he was fighting 
 most of the time, so he didn't get much knowledge about anything but elephants, 
 though one may still come across the stamp of Greek art and learning among the 
 nations he overcame. 
 
 8 
 
 The three top pictures give us some idea of the strange clothing of the Cretans and 
 how small they were round the middle. 
 
 The middle picture is a Cornish trading station, and the Phoenicians are coming 
 to the land in their ships. On the right they are exchanging cloth for tin. On the left they 
 are turning over the earth somewhere in Africa, to get their grain planted. 
 
 Under these you see part of Alexander's army going to India and back.
 
 9 
 
 The Romans, though they took a long time about it, were responsible for the 
 second discovery of Europe, part of Asia, and North Africa. 
 
 A number of very important events took place under Roman kings, the 
 Roman ' Republic* (which was the second stage in their political development, when 
 they had no kings), and the Roman Empire. They made roads, though, strange as it 
 may seem, men had got on quite well without roads before. They made bridges for 
 persons, named ' viaducts,' and bridges of another sort named 'aqueducts ' for taking 
 water to the towns ; and places for their dead named ' catacombs,' and fighting 
 Instruments named 'catapults' (which are quite different things though they have 
 somewhat the same sound); and great walls, and 'circuses' where they had 
 competitions and amusements ; and Roman law and Roman lettering. They had 
 short skirts like Scotch Highlanders, and they were very, very serious about it all. 
 
 In the year 140 A.D. an astronomy expert of Alexandria, named Ptolemy, 
 made the discovery that the earth was a ball (and not an 'oblate spheroid,' like an 
 orange, as present-day experts say), and that it was one-sixth smaller than it in fact is. 
 And for more than fourteen hundred years men took him to be right. This was not 
 Important in Roman times, but we will see later what effect it had on Marco Polo. 
 
 The strangest thing about this time— long, long before the invention of such 
 things as the Post Office, Telegrams, Telephone, or Radio, when books about journeys 
 were very uncommon and not very certain of their facts— was that one half of the 
 earth which gave any thought to things at all was Roman and the other half Chinese. 
 The Roman Empire took in all Europe, North Africa, and part of Asia as far as the 
 Euphrates River; and the Chinese Empire went from the Pacific through Tibet as far 
 west as Turkestan, but they were little more than conscious of the existence of one 
 another. 
 
 They were taken up with their special interests, the Chinese with the organ- 
 ization of a great complex and peace-loving society, in which the arts were more 
 beautiful than ever before or after, and war and military men were looked down 
 on ; the Romans with their strong desire for expansion and Empire, in which 
 fighting and army were the chief things.
 
 Between the farthest limits of these two Empires was a great stretch of 
 rough unfertile country which had no attraction for the one side or the other, so 
 their expansion went on as far as this in the direction of one another, and then came 
 to a stop. And when they got as far as they were able to in other directions they 
 put up great walls to keep out the violent men living to the north. You 
 will probably never see the Great Wall of China, it's a very long way off; but in 
 England you have only to go up to Northumberland to see bits of Hadrian's Wall, 
 which was put up to keep out the Picts, who were the most war-loving group in 
 Britain at the time. 
 
 The discovery of almost all Africa, all of America, north and south, Australasia, 
 and a great part of north Asia had still to be made, because we are talking of almost 
 2,000 years back. 
 
 Here we have an aqueduct, or water-bridge, and a 'circus,' or amusement place, and 
 a viaduct, or high bridge over a river. Have you any idea what sort of amusement place a 
 circus was ? 
 
 Two persons with a light are going down a catacomb, and other persons are walking 
 in the street over them. 
 
 The catapult has let off a net full of stones, and a man in the Roman army is watching 
 where they go. 
 
 Ptolemy is on the left, looking at the stars, and the Great Wall of China is on the 
 right; and in between are a Chinese and a Roman, who have no idea of the existence of 
 one another. 
 
 The map in the middle is of the Roman Roads near Rome, and of the rest-houses.
 
 10 
 
 The Romans had a wider knowledge of Geography than the men they overcame, 
 and the Roman buildings have generally kept up longer. We still see their military 
 stations, or ' camps,' on the tops of slopes with great earthworks round them to keep 
 off attacks. Everywhere you go, when you see great walls of earth against the sky-line 
 on top of a slope, you will probably be right in saying "Ah, that is a Roman camp." 
 Only don't be so certain when, for example, you see ' Maiden Castle ' near 
 Dorchester, England, because it was started long before the Romans. 
 
 Geography, or the position of the land— the great mountains by which the 
 Chinese Empire was shut in, and the thick woods of Germany which put limits to 
 the expansion of the Roman— all these things had their effect on the behaviour 
 and development of man. The great 'steppes' of Russia and Mongolia (which 
 are not the same thing as steps, being flat land without trees, at different levels) 
 were the grasslands of the cows and horses of men who were named ' nomads,' 
 because they kept moving from place to place— only these groups didn't go about 
 trading in cheap ornaments and firewood like the equally nomad 'gypsies' we have 
 in England. 
 
 It was only when the Roman Empire had been undermined by the love of 
 comfort and pleasure, and become feeble, that these nomads, who were still almost 
 like animals, came down on Europe, driving before them everyone who had got to 
 a somewhat higher stage of development. They even went pushing down into China. 
 Their effect on China was to give her a new driving-power and make her stronger 
 than before, because the newcomers saw the attraction of her way of living and 
 came to have a love for it themselves. So the Chinese Empire went on its quiet way 
 making more and more things which were beautiful and of use. But Europe was not 
 united like China by a deeply-rooted love of art and science, and the Goths and 
 Huns, as these incoming groups were named, had everything their way, and a very 
 rough way it was. 
 
 Nomads are so unused to resting that the only time they are seated is when 
 they are on horseback, and they are never in one place long enough to be any good
 
 to anyone; and it's my belief that these Goths and Huns had no idea where they 
 were going to. Anyhow, they were cruel and dirty and disgusting. 
 
 A short time before the Normans overcame England— in 1066, as the history 
 books say— certain Norsemen from Norway and Iceland made a great discovery, 
 possibly the greatest discovery in geography of all time, though no one had any 
 knowledge of it, or if they did it went from their memories in the years which came 
 after. These Norsemen, in little open boats with only one sail and with 16 to 30 oars 
 on a side, went straight across the Atlantic and came to America. They gave it the 
 name of Vineland, and they had colonies near the sea in Nova Scotia and Maine. 
 But there were Red Indians in North America— so named to keep them from getting 
 mixed with the brown Indians who are simply ' Indians.' (We will see why this is, 
 later, when we are talking of Columbus). And because there were only a very small 
 number of Norsemen there, they did not go further into the country, and in time 
 their colonies were given up. And so the discovery of America had to be made 
 again 500 years later. 
 
 10 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon map of the earth in the middle of the page, made about 990 A.D., 
 is all wrong, as you will see later on. The British Isles are up on the left, with 
 Spain pointing up, Italy to the east. All the sea lower down, which is covered with islands, 
 is the Mediterranean. The smaller one near the top is the Black Sea, and the little one with 
 only one island is the Caspian. The island in the middle at the right is Ceylon, with the 
 Persian Gulf and the Red Sea under it. The River Nile is the black thing which goes back 
 and forward like a snake. Over it is the Dead Sea with the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates to 
 the right of it. 
 
 In the smaller pictures we have a Roman camp on the top of a slope, a German wood, 
 and a Russian steppe. Then there are some Goths or Huns burning a town, and a Chinese 
 town and a seat named a 'palanquin'. Under these we have the Norsemen making the 
 discovery of America, which is under the sun going down in the west. 
 
 c
 
 rg^Mwa ^m
 
 II 
 
 The first man to go on a journey from the west to the east and then come 
 back and make a book about it— a thing which is done so frequently now— was 
 Marco Polo, a man from Venice who went to Pekin in China, to the Emperor 
 Kublai Khan, in 1272. This was a very hard journey over waste lands and mountains, 
 taking months and months to do. It took such a long time that Marco Polo got 
 quite mixed about his distances; he had only Ptolemy's measures of 1,132 years 
 before as his guide, and Ptolemy had no more idea than Marco that there was any 
 land between Europe and Asia going west. They had the idea that there were only 
 2,500 miles of sea, because they had not taken America into account, so Marco Polo 
 had to make up the rest of the distance round the earth somewhere, and he simply 
 put it on to his journey. 
 
 Reading Marco Polo's story is like having a strange experience in sleep. He 
 gives accounts of great smiling stretches of fertile country all at peace, of gold 
 and silver, of the beautiful ornaments and clothing of the men and women, and of 
 an unbroken line of towns small and great. 
 
 Marco Polo's experience gave the men of Europe an idea of the possible value 
 of journeys ; it was the first detailed and first-hand news they had had of that great 
 country of China, which up to that time had been to them only a strange, far-off land. 
 
 And then, almost two hundred years later, Christopher Columbus, after 
 reading Marco Polo's book, got the idea of sailing west across the Atlantic to Asia. 
 No one, as far as he had knowledge, had gone farther out into the Atlantic than 
 to the Canary Islands, the Azores, or Madeira. 
 
 After attempting without effect to get support from all the other kings and 
 queens of Europe, he at last got the King and Queen of Spain, who were named 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, to give him three small ships— though much greater than 
 those the Norsemen had had for their journey— and went sailing west. After two 
 months and nine days he came to a land which he naturally took to be India, though
 
 it was, in fact, America. And the saddest thing about it was that the true facts 
 never came to his knowledge, and to the end of his days he went on saying to every- 
 one that India was over there on the other side of the Atlantic. 
 
 II 
 
 The " Hereford Map," made in 1280, is as full of errors as the last, but more inter- 
 esting because it puts in the ' Tower of Babel,' of which we have an account in the Bible. 
 This you will see at the right of the land in the middle, with its top pointing sideways to 
 an island on the outside. This island is Paradise. Jerusalem is marked by a point in a circle, 
 and the British Isles are three separate islands. 
 
 In the first two pictures Marco Polo is about to go on land from a ship, that is, he 
 will if the man is able to send the cord in the right way; and then he will make a start on 
 his long, long journey overland to the town of Pekin, which is seen in one of the pictures, 
 and to Yangchow, which is in another. 
 
 Under these are the three stages in the discovery of America. You may see a bit of 
 the land on the right, at the back of the sail, in the last picture.
 
 CI
 
 12 
 
 The Red Indians living in North America were still at the level of the Stone 
 Age, but in Mexico, which is in the middle, and in Peru, which is south of Mexico 
 to the west, there were peoples named Aztecs and Incas who were at a high stage 
 of development and very well-off, with beautiful towns and works of art. Unhappily 
 for themselves, their mines of gold and silver and jewels were a great attraction to 
 the Spaniards who came after Columbus ; and so the poor Aztecs and Incas were 
 overcome, and in time stamped out, and their beautiful countries were wasted by war. 
 All the gold and silver of the Aztecs and Incas were taken away to Spain, and the 
 Spaniards, becoming better and better off, became at the same time less and less 
 good for anything— because when you have everything money will get, you frequently 
 have no desire to do any work, and become wasters. The country of the Incas, to 
 which we now give the name of Peru, was not naturally fertile, but the men living 
 there had made it so by working hard and cutting waterways through the fields, and 
 putting on them the droppings of sea-birds, which for thousands of years had been 
 falling on the islands near the land. With the help of these droppings, which are 
 named 'guano,' good grain may be produced from even the poorest land. 
 
 The Incas had no horses, because there were no horses in America before the 
 Europeans came, but they had ' llamas.' These llamas, which, like the camel, are able 
 to go without water for weeks and months, took the place of horses as transport 
 animals, and gave beautiful wool and hair for clothing. There were other animals, 
 ' alpacas,' ' huanacos,' and ' vicunas,' all near relations of our farm sheep. 
 
 The Incas had their land planted with ' cocoa,' tobacco, Indian grain, and 
 potatoes, all of which were new to Europeans, because up to this time they had not 
 become smokers, and they didn't have potatoes with their meat as we do now, because 
 the potato was an American plant which was not seen in other countries. 
 
 Even now, though there are about a hundred and fifty thousand families of 
 plants in existence, not more than 300 are produced for general use. It is the same 
 with the animals ; of the 'Mollusca' and the ' Articulata ' (which are the names
 
 given by science to fish with hard coverings and to insects) only the ' oyster ' and 
 his near relation, the ' clam,' from the first, and the bee and a small number of 
 insects which make silk, from the second, have been made use of by man for his needs. 
 
 Like the men of all early societies, those of North and South America were 
 not naturally war-loving, and only became so because of the behaviour of other 
 nations to them. Coming in touch with more complex societies has all through 
 history had the effect of making kind and straightforward men into ready fighters, 
 false and cruel in their behaviour. To me this is a very sad thing, isn't it to you ? 
 
 12 
 
 Here are some oysters with their beds in the distance, because oysters do have beds. 
 Then there is a worker bee and its house, and the different stages of a silkworm's growth. 
 The little pictures are of the sea-birds of Peru, a llama ready for a journey, and some 
 Aztec churches, in one of which a god is seated. After that comes a Spaniard with no love 
 of work smoking a long cigarette, some pots of cooked potatoes, and the Incas running 
 away.
 
 13 
 
 The discovery of North America went on more slowly than that of South 
 America because there was no gold or silver there, and there is no attraction so 
 great as money without work. 
 
 The English and French slowly got colonies planted near the sea, but they did 
 not at first go inland. 
 
 After a time the English saw that the sea near Newfoundland, which is not 
 very deep but is very cold and frequently covered with a thick mist, was very good 
 for fishing, and this fishing was the start of the great British Empire, though that 
 may seem very strange to you. 
 
 It was a long time, naturally, before the discovery of North America was 
 complete, because it is over 3,000 miles from east to west. When the Americans 
 (as the English living in America were now named) did get to the other side, in the 
 covered carts which were all they had to go in, they saw that some of the Spaniards 
 had got there before them, having come up from the South. However, that did 
 not keep them out. 
 
 There were thousands and thousands of ' bison,' great animals of the cow 
 family, whose food was grass, and hundreds and hundreds of Red Indians whose food 
 was the bison, and no one had any other food but grass and bison, and possibly a 
 little fish, because the ploughing of the land and the planting of seed were only 
 started when the Indians and bison had been put to death or forced into other parts 
 of the country. 
 
 The babies of the Red Indians were named ' papooses,' and their mothers were 
 named 'squaws,' and every family had its 'wigwam,' which was a house made of long 
 sticks and skins, and they made journeys by water in 'canoes.' And the Red Indians 
 had a much better knowledge of the geography of their country than the White 
 Men because they went about all over the country living on bison and having a 
 good time. 
 
 I feel quite sad about the Indians, and very, very sad about the bison, which 
 have almost gone out of existence.
 
 America has the longest mountain range, and the longest nver, on the earth, and 
 the Americans have a number of things which, when measured in inches or pounds, 
 are the greatest in existence, but these things aren't very important. The mountains 
 go all the way from the north-west of North America to the south-west of South 
 America. The chief ranges are the Rocky Mountains and the Andes. Some of the 
 highest points have beautiful names, specially if you say them quickly, like Cotopaxi, 
 Chimborazo, Aconcagua, and, best of all, Popocatapetl ; and some of them are 
 volcanoes. The longest river has two names, because to make it the longest we have 
 to take our boats from one river into another. Its two names are the Missouri and 
 Mississippi; but if we don't take the Missouri into account, which is only a branch 
 river, then the Amazon in South America, which is 4,700 miles long, is the longest 
 river on the earth. 
 
 13 
 
 Ortelius's map, made in 1570, has far less errors than the earlier ones, though he 
 went wrong in South America, as you may see. In the top picture are some Amsricans 
 going across America, and the one to the right of it is a part of Britain's sea-power, but the 
 fishing-boats are not clear because of the thick mist. There is no doubt which are the bison 
 and Indians, and the squaw with the papoose, and the two Indians in a canoe. And the 
 pictures under these are of the four mountains I have been talking about, and three and a 
 half others, and the longest river.
 
 14 
 
 Coming back to the journeys of Europeans, a short time after Columbus's 
 great discovery, a man named Vasco da Gama, in 1497, went sailing round Africa, past 
 the Cape of Good Hope, to Zanzibar, and from there to India. A little later journeys 
 were made to Sumatra, Java, Celebes, and the Moluccas, or ' Spice Islands ' as they 
 were named ; and trading stations, which were not at all like railway stations, were 
 started in India and the islands on the other side of it. 
 
 There was little comfort in sailing-ships in those days, or for long enough after. 
 The ships were dependent on any wind which came, the men had for food only salt 
 meat, or ' junk,' and the hard bread named ' ship's biscuit,' which was generally full 
 of worms. From time to time the sailors made violent attacks on their chiefs, 
 or became ill with a disgusting skin disease named ' scurvy.' And journeys took 
 months and months, or even years. 
 
 Men went off to positions in India straight from school, and came back years 
 later with a growth of long white hair on their chins and no hair at all on their heads, 
 full of stories about their great doings, which no one had any belief in. But they had 
 such numbers of black servants and so much money and such a good opinion of them- 
 selves that everyone had a great respect for them. 
 
 The maps which were made at this time were much more beautiful than our 
 maps today, but almost as wrong and out of touch with developments. Our maps 
 frequently have fields and little rivers where great roads and houses now are, because 
 developments take place so quickly that the map-makers are not able to keep up 
 with them. The old maps did not do this sort of thing, but they only gave the outlines 
 of the sea and land as they had an idea they might be, and round about they put the 
 heads of fat little boys blowing violently as a sign of which way the wind went, and 
 strange fish breathing water through their noses. They put in the sun and stars, and 
 they made pictures of ships sailing, and winged fish, and all sorts of strange-looking 
 animals, in the place where the sea came. All round the edges of the land they put 
 names of headlands and towns and harbours, and pictures of great military buildings,
 
 and the land itself was ornamented with snakes and story-book animals, and men 
 fighting or walking about without their heads. It was all very strange and interesting, 
 and had very little to do with Geography. 
 
 The early maps were not very safe guides, but the stories of the men who 
 came back from strange places were even less so. But those who don't go about 
 much are generally ready to give belief to anything. At one time men had no doubt 
 that there were ' unicorns,' though they had never even come across the name of 
 the llama, and if they had seen a 4 giraffe ' looking down on them they would have 
 gone running for miles. The first men who went to the West African woods were 
 greatly troubled by the ' gorillas,' because they weren't certain if these great man- 
 like monkeys were men or not. 
 
 14 
 
 In the top picture a sailor is having a meal with the worms. Then we have Vasco da 
 Gama's ship and a trading station. At the sides you will see the first and last stages in the 
 history of an Englishman in India. 
 
 The three lowest pictures are of a unicorn, a gorilla, and a giraffe. As to the round 
 one, I have said quite enough.
 
 15 
 
 After the discovery of America, journeys across the sea became common, and 
 all sorts of goods from other countries were taken back by ships to Portugal, Spain, 
 France, Holland, and England. Companies were formed for trading in different parts 
 of the earth, and chief among them was the British East India Company, which had 
 its special line of ships and its army, and became so important that in time it was 
 owner of an Empire much greater, and with more persons in it, than that of England. 
 
 One very bad thing which was the outcome of all the new discoveries was the 
 'slave' trade. Someone got the idea of making money by getting poor simple black 
 men in Africa and shipping them across to America for work in the cotton fields 
 which had been started there. The owners of the cotton fields were ready to give 
 high prices for strong and healthy men and women, who then became their property 
 and were made use of like animals. No one at that time saw how cruel and wrong 
 this was, or gave any thought to the feelings of the poor black men who were taken 
 from their countries and families and made slaves in this way. So for almost 250 
 years this shocking trade went on. And when the blacks were not taken off near 
 the sea by a band of Europeans, the Arabs got them inland and made them their 
 slaves. It is not surprising that the black men were all the time running away. 
 
 Then Captain Cook went all the way round the earth in a sailing-ship. In the old 
 days everyone had the belief that the earth was flat— they don't seem to have said 
 anything about what took place if you got to the edge and took a step over it. 
 Captain Cook made the discovery of Australia, or the edge of Australia, because, 
 like America, it was some time before men went deep into the heart of the country. 
 The men and women living in Australia at that time were at a very early stage of 
 development, like the Old Stone men, and their food was chiefly insects and other 
 disgusting things. In Australia there were strange animals which were not to be 
 seen in any other place, such as the ' kangaroo' and the 'duck-billed platypus.' The 
 Australians, who went about with nothing on, made instruments of curved sticks, named 
 ' boomerangs,' which they sent at birds and animals. If the boomerang didn't get 
 anything on the way, it came back again to the person who had sent it, like the little 
 cardboard ones some of you may have made— but ours don't come back every time.
 
 The discovery of Tasmania took place about the same time, and here the men 
 and women were at the same low stage of development as the Australians, and no 
 better-looking. All these Tasmanians and Australians, when they put on clothing like 
 the Europeans, got colds and then chest trouble, and in a short time most of them were 
 dead, so that now there are only a small number in existence. In addition to this, 
 they were poisoned by the early white men who went there, as rats are poisoned 
 by us. 
 
 The New Zealanders were a much better-looking people, with more brains, 
 but though they had natural warm springs in which they might have had baths, as I 
 said in the opening pages of this book, they were happier dirty. 
 
 15 
 
 Mercator was the greatest of all map makers, because he was the first to give a 
 picture of the round earth crushed flat, and the outcome was much truer to facts than 
 ever before. He made the map given here in 1569. The only thing needing to be said about 
 the other pictures is that the Australian ' aborigine ' (which is the name given to the 
 earliest men of any country) has sent his two boomerangs at the duck-billed platypus (on 
 the left) and the kangaroo (on the right) for nothing.

 
 16 
 
 The discovery of a great part of Asia was by this time being made, because the 
 Cossacks, a mixed group of men from different parts, were little by little pushing back 
 the Mongol Tartars from one end of Siberia to the other. The geography of Siberia is 
 flat and uninteresting, and but for the discovery now and then of a ' mammoth ' (an 
 animal no longer in existence) which had been dead for thousands of years, fixed in 
 the ice-hard earth of an old river-bed, they came across nothing much to put in a 
 letter. Anyhow men didn't send letters very frequently in those days, because there 
 was no safe post-office system. 
 
 In Europe the only changes in geography which took place were caused by the 
 fight against the North Sea made by the Dutch, and by the draining of the ' polders,' 
 as the new land taken from the sea was named. If you have a long week-end and 
 some money in the bank, go to Walcheren Island— it is not an island at all— which was 
 at one time under the sea ; that will give you some idea of the great undertakings of 
 the Dutch and the hard work they put into them. Another good idea is to go and 
 have a look at the walls for keeping back the water at Hwang-Ho, but that may 
 seem a little far off. 
 
 With the numbers of persons increasing everywhere, specially in Europe, woods 
 were cut down and poor land was ploughed and food forced from it, rivers were 
 shut into narrower beds, and wet land, such as that in Lincolnshire and other river- 
 basins, was drained and farmed. All the different sorts of grain, such as 'wheat,' 
 ' barley,' maize,' and rice, were now to be seen covering a great part of the earth. 
 Some of them were quite new in certain places, though wheat has been planted for at 
 least 6,000 years, as has been made clear by uncovering old towns and fields. 
 
 Transport of goods from one place to another, which was only possible at first 
 in ships, now slowly became common on land, where roads had become necessary, 
 and horses and carts were taking the place of the more natural and common man- 
 power. Even now in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and France, men and women take
 
 great masses of grain on their backs; and the harbour-workers or porters in all 
 great sea-towns take as much as 220 pounds again and again over short distances, 
 though generally not more than fifty to seventy-five over long ones. 
 
 16 
 
 A Cossack is pushing back a Tartar in two of the top pictures and in the third the 
 Tartar has come across a mammoth almost covered by the earth. 
 
 In the middle picture you see the way in which the sea has been pushed back by the 
 Dutch, and how they have made walls of sand supported by sticks and stones, and how they 
 are getting the new land drained. The wind machine is for pumping out the water which 
 comes draining through. 
 
 The other pictures are of land being ploughed and grain being transported.
 
 17 
 
 Frequent attempts were made at the discovery of the north-west sea-way, 
 which was said to go across the north of Canada into the Pacific, and to make possible 
 shorter journeys from Europe to China. But there was, in fact, no such way, so the 
 men who went looking for it were rewarded only by the discovery of Hudson Bay. 
 
 It is hard for us to have any idea of the surprise and interest caused by these 
 early discoveries, because we are used today to getting our news from all parts of the 
 earth by radio, to seeing pictures in our newspapers of far-off events only two or 
 three hours after they have taken place, to going in great steamships for a week or 
 two's pleasure through what were at this time seas full of dangers, where outlaws 
 and great sea-animals might come into view at any minute. It is hard to put ourselves 
 in the place of a Spaniard or Dutchman, a Portuguese, or an Englishman, living in the 
 sixteen hundreds and starting off to make the discovery of new land in a little five- 
 hundred-ton sailing-ship, with very poor maps and no one to get help from but 
 himself, and no good harbour, safe from wind and weather, at every stopping place. 
 At times the base of his ship got covered with a green growth, and had to be taken 
 up on to the sands— if there were any— to have the green coating taken off. And while 
 this was being done, he might be attacked by aborigines, or get some disease. 
 
 The Europe of those days was all farm land and woods, with only very small 
 towns. There were no railways, and only a small number of public carriages pulled by 
 horses, so that the journey from, say, London to Edinburgh, which now takes about 
 eight hours, then took an equal number of days. 
 
 Most persons never went further than to the nearest town, and every part of 
 the country had its special form of the language, which was like a strange tongue to 
 anyone coming from a distance. The workers still went about with nothing on their 
 feet, or in shoes of wood. There were almost no drains, and no one ever had a 
 bath or made use of a toothbrush.
 
 17 
 
 The first and third of these pictures are a little sad, because a man who was looking 
 for the North-west Sea-Way has only come across a * Polar bear,' and because being made 
 to go walking off a board into the sea isn't a very happy ending. The second one is of two 
 sea outlaws, or ' pirates,' as they are commonly pictured. 
 
 Then we have a little sea-side walled town, and a ship being made clean while three 
 Indians are watching from a distance. The London to Edinburgh carriage is going slowly 
 through the three lower pictures. 
 
 The middle picture is of a ship sailing through unmapped seas full of unseen masses 
 of sharp stone in addition to the ones of which you see the points coming up out of the sea.
 
 D2
 
 18 
 
 The Earth had become a much wider place in the sixteen and seventeen 
 hundreds. And it was going on getting wider, because men had given up looking on 
 their special mountain-side, or town, or country, as the only one; and though 
 their kings and rulers did their best to keep them from using their heads very 
 much, they were interested in meeting men who had been about, and in hearing 
 stories of other lands across the seas. A great number of their friends and relations 
 had gone from England to other countries, like those who went to America in the 
 "Mayflower," or had been sent there by the government, like the prisoners who 
 were taken to Botany Bay ; and some of the men who had been overseas came back 
 again with a new air of being free and independent which was somewhat troubling to 
 those who had not been away. Further, they were able, or seemed to be able, to 
 make money much more quickly and with less work— though this was not true of 
 all of them. 
 
 A number of the Dutch had made a place for themselves in South Africa, which 
 was healthy and had good land for farming ; and the French had done the same in 
 Canada, though only on the east side. The Red Indians had been pushed back by the 
 French, and the South Africans by the Dutch. These first colonies, together with 
 those in America, Australia, India, and New Zealand, were not all made at the same 
 time, but came into existence between 1600 and 1800. 
 
 In the year 1800 discovery had still to be made of a great part of North and 
 South America, of which only the Indians had any knowledge. Almost all of Africa 
 but Egypt, South Africa, and one or two places near the sea had still never seen a 
 European, and Australia was still in the same sad condition— at least, that was the 
 European idea of the poor Africans and Australians who had not had the chance of 
 learning our ways. 
 
 So far no one had got to the North and South Poles, which are not ' poles ' 
 (or upright rods) at all, but places in the snow on the top and base of the earth. 
 The only way of being certain when you get to them is by looking at certain stars 
 through a special instrument.
 
 18 
 
 The three top pictures are of the first white men in Canada. The railing is to keep off 
 the animals and Red Indians. In the three lowest pictures some white men in South Africa 
 are troubled by smoke signs made by Africans, so they have made their animals get down 
 at the back of their carts. 
 
 The three middle pictures are of Bristol, and the man landing from his journey has 
 put on his best coat for the event.
 
 19 
 
 Between 1800 and 1900 came the discovery of all the rest of the earth. Rail- 
 ways were made between all great towns, and a network of ' telegraph ' and telephone 
 wires were stretched over the land ; great steamships went ploughing through the 
 sea from harbour to harbour. Men came across gold first in America, and then in 
 Australia, and then in America again, and went running from this place to that in the 
 hope of making money quickly. Coal and iron were taken in great amounts from 
 mines under the earth, chiefly in Europe and America. Works were put up, and 
 round them great, dirty, unbeautiful towns came into being, and those who were 
 well-off became very well-off, and those who were poor became very poor. 
 
 Great inland waters came to light in the middle of Africa, and great rivers 
 and woods in which were strange little men, named ' pygmies,' and animals which 
 no one had ever seen before. All this country was full of animals, from the 
 African elephant, which was the greatest, to the ' dik-dik,' which was about the 
 size of a cat, only its legs were longer. A great number of animals were put to death 
 by sportsmen, and the ' quagga ' (which was somewhat like a horse but with bands of 
 black and white) went quite out of existence, as that strange bird, the 'dodo,' had 
 done a short time before. But for one or two not very important parts, all Africa 
 was taken up by different European nations. 
 
 Thousands of Europeans went from their countries to North and South America 
 and made colonies all over the land. The black slaves, of whom there were a great 
 number in the south of North America, were made free by law, and the slave trade 
 was stopped. Englshmen went out to Australia, though there was so much room 
 in the country that they took up only a very small part of it. 
 
 The Kings, who had been a trouble everywhere because they wouldn't have 
 any changes, were forced to give up their positions in a number of countries, and 
 became simple Mr.'s, and new governments named Republics were formed, in which 
 Presidents took the place of Kings. And even when the Kings weren't pushed out, 
 their power was taken away, so that they no longer did any ruling but only went
 
 round opening hospitals and such things. This was the start of ' Democracy,' or the 
 government " of all by all for all," but it was only the start. 
 
 All the time science was taking great steps, some back and some forward. 
 Darwin made the discovery that we are a branch of the monkey family, and that Adam 
 and Eve, if there ever were such persons, were not at all beautiful, being covered with 
 hair all over. Pasteur made us safe from dogs with ' rabies ', which go running about 
 biting everybody ; and there were great discoveries in astronomy, zoology, geology, 
 and botany— the sciences of the stars, of animals, of metals, and of plants. My father 
 made discoveries about ' meteorites,' or small parts of other stars which sometimes 
 come falling down on the earth. 
 
 The invention of the camera took place at this time, and of the ' bicycle '; and 
 all sorts of things were made in great numbers by machines, and sent all over the 
 earth by railway and steam-boat. And every day the newspapers gave everyone the 
 news of what was taking place everywhere. 
 
 19 
 
 The middle picture is of a man journeying in Africa ; his African porters have food 
 in boxes on their heads and all the animals and the pygmies, are most surprised. On the left 
 a king is taking off his king's clothing and becoming only Mr. So-and-So. On the other side, 
 some miners are going down to the mine with their special lights in their hands. 
 
 In the lowest picture on the left, a man is having his picture taken by a camera-man ; 
 
 his ears are fixed in a sort of grip so that he is unable to make a move. The camera-man 
 
 has a black cloth over his head. In the middle is one of the first bicycles, with a very high 
 
 front wheel and a little back one. These machines were much harder to keep your balance 
 
 on. 
 
 At the right you will see three men reading an early newspaper. The little boy is 
 very interested, but the men are not letting him have a look.
 
 20 
 
 Then came the present time, and there were no more discoveries of new land 
 to be made, and men had to do their best with what they had. So they made 
 automobiles in which they went driving violently about the roads, and airplanes 
 which went like the wind through the skies; and the invention of radio gave them 
 the chance of hearing talks and music from all over the earth seated by their firesides ; 
 and the motion pictures took them in masses to dark theatres where there was no 
 air, to see foolish goings-on which weren't at all important and were frequently in 
 bad taste. And then someone got to the North Pole, and some other person got to 
 the South Pole, and a number of persons made attempts to get to the top of Mount 
 Everest, which is the highest mountain on the earth, and wasn't made for men to go up ; 
 and someone made the discovery of the 'stratosphere,' which is a band of air miles 
 up in the sky keeping the full force of the sun from us. Then came Einstein, with his 
 theory of ' Relativity,' and Dunne with his new theory of time, and everyone said 
 " What great discoveries! " and took their heads in their hands ; because Einstein said 
 that a straight line isn't a straight line at all, and Dunne said that it is possible to see 
 today what is going to take place the day after tomorrow as clearly as what took place 
 last Friday. And Einstein said that space and time are not two independent things, 
 as they had been taken to be, but so dependent on one another that for purposes of 
 science they have to be looked on as one— which is possibly a little hard to get 
 clear about, but of great use. 
 
 But though science and the invention of machines had made so much head- 
 way that there was more than enough food and clothing and other things for every 
 man and woman and boy and girl in existence, though there were more than enough 
 ships on the sea and trains and automobiles on the land, all the nations of the earth 
 still kept the old idea of competition, and the old desire to get everything for 
 themselves, and were still full of the old fear of other nations. So, without any 
 thought for those who were in need, fish which had been taken out of the sea 
 were put back into it, and stores of coffee and grain were burned, and the
 
 fruits of the earth were ploughed back into the land, for fear that if there was 
 over-much of them on the market they would become cheap, and somebody would 
 not make as much money. 
 
 And though the old slave system had been put an end to, a new sort had 
 come into existence by which millions of persons were not given a chance of working 
 and getting a living, but were kept in disgusting, dirty houses, with nothing to do 
 and nothing to keep their minds interested, and were not even able to go about and 
 get a knowledge of the geography of their country. 
 
 20 
 
 It's not possible to see the automobiles clearly because they are going so quickly, 
 but it is possible to see the airplanes though they are going even more quickly. I have put 
 in the radio waves, though you don't see them when you are hearing the radio. 
 
 The picture under this is the sort you frequently see at the moving pictures. It's 
 a foolish business kissing in public. 
 
 The man in the picture after this has made the discovery of the North Pole and is 
 planting a flag where no one will see it. The other man was the first to get to the South 
 Pole ; he is in no danger of falling off the edge, though it's hard to see why not. 
 
 I have only put in the lower slopes of Everest because I hadn't room for the top. 
 
 The poor persons in the picture after this are out of work ; they haven't anything 
 to do and nothing to give them interesting thoughts, and no chance of seeing other places. 
 
 The middle picture is the Earth seen from over the North Pole— the lines up and down 
 and from side to side are only there to give you an idea of the distances.
 
 21 
 
 And then— but we still haven't come to it— something was seen to be very 
 wrong with the different governments, and Dictators were seen to be quite as bad 
 as Kings, if not worse. And those who had great property and great power became 
 poorer and their power became less, and the poor became better-off; and everyone 
 saw that persons with white, yellow, black, or brown skins were all brothers and 
 sisters, and all the earth became one great country, as it was designed to be from 
 the start ; and no one did much work but everyone did a little for the good of all. 
 
 Then Geography became interesting to everyone, so much so that everyone 
 went all over the earth in airplanes and ships and trains and automobiles and on 
 bicycles ; and some persons who had a desire for more detailed knowledge of certain 
 places went on horses or donkeys, and a number went on foot. 
 
 And all the different languages which had made journeys so hard before, and 
 which boys and girls had had to put so much time on at school, gave place to one 
 language which schools everywhere were teaching, in place of Latin and Greek, for 
 the purpose of making it possible to go about the earth freely. And there were no 
 more taxes on goods going into other countries, and no passports necessary in going 
 from one country to another, because there was no more need for them. 
 
 And maps became living things because they were pictures of new countries 
 to be seen or old countries which we had been to before to be seen again. 
 
 And foolish wars, which were no good to anyone and did damage to everything, 
 as wars have done all through history, became things of the past; and men and 
 women gave up desiring the goods of others and caring only for themselves, and 
 everyone was free to go all over the earth, and to have months of free time 
 in beautiful places and to make friends of those from other countries.
 
 21 
 
 Here is a map of the Earth as it is in fact, only it had to be made flat to be printed 
 on flat paper, because I was unable to get an oblate spheroid between the covers of this 
 book. 
 
 Everyone is having a good time and going all over the earth, as I am hoping they will 
 be doing before long. Two persons are going up into the stratosphere, but I haven't had 
 room to put in the gas-bag which will take them up, or the persons on the earth to whom 
 they are waving. 
 
 If you had the chance, which of these ways of journeying would you take ? I myself 
 go in an automobile, but it's such an old one that I haven't put it in this picture.
 
 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN 
 BY K. I. SEVERS, CAMBRIDGE
 
 "P I 'ill II III 
 
 000