I06 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



top, twenty-five hundred miles from north to south, and three thou- 

 sand miles in length along its eastern face. Very little, compara- 

 tively, is known about it by anybody except the Russians, who an- 

 nexed the major part of it in the last century but have only got 

 around to examining it in what detail they can devise during the 

 past quarter century. 



In many respects the seaboard of this subcontinent is startlingly 

 like that of western Europe, but in reverse, or, rather, mirrored. At 

 the top in both is a dependent peninsula: Kamchatka in Asia, Scan- 

 dinavia in Europe; each enclosing a sea: Okhotsk in the former case, 

 the Baltic in the latter. South of each, stretches an indented continen- 

 tal coast Hne, that of Amuria, Manchuria, and China in Asia; that 

 of Germany, the Low Countries, France, and Portugal in Europe. 

 To seaward of both lies an archipelago — that of Nippon in the 

 East, that of Britain in the West. Finally, each has a most significant 

 peninsula pointing to these island groups. In Asia we have Korea 

 pointing to Nippon and giving it much of its population and culture; 

 in Europe we have Brittany pointing to Britain and providing 

 throughout history a similar steppingstone to that country. In both 

 cases, moreover, the populations of the mainland, the peninsulas, and 

 the archipelagoes have always been distinct. Then again, another 

 parallel may be seen in the histories of the two areas. The southern 

 parts of the continental masses have always been areas of confusion, 

 strife, and cultural progress — China in the East, France, Spain, Italy, 

 and the other Mediterranean countries in the West— while in both 

 cases the northern hinterland has remained a vast bucolic amorphism 

 — Russia on the one hand. Outer Siberia on the other. As archaeo- 

 logical and anthropological researches proceed, we now come to 

 find that the past histories of the two areas appear also to have been 

 similar for much vaster stretches of time than we had previously sup- 

 posed. In fact, the so-called prehistory of Far East Asia is strangely 

 similar to that of western Europe, and the time schedule is not 

 too far out either. 



When the neolithic peoples of Scandinavia were pursuing whales 

 of all kinds in skin boats, or kayaks, about 6000 b.c. at one side of 

 Eurasia, a certain obscure people were apparently doing likewise 

 at the other end of that continent in similar latitudes, and specifically 

 on the island of Sakhalin. The former recorded their actions on 



