572 MIGRATIONS OF RACES OF MEN CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 



new region where the beasts of chase are more inimerous, or the pas- 

 tures are not exhausted, or a more coi)ious rain-fall favors agriculture.* 

 Another is that of a tribe increasing so fast that the pre-existing means 

 of subsistence no longer suffice for its wants. Anda third is that where, 

 whether or not famine be present to spur its action, a people conceives 

 the desire for life in a richer soil or a more genial climate. To one or 

 other of these cases we may refer nearly all the movements of popula- 

 tions in primitive times, the best known of which are those which 

 brought the Teutonic and Slavonic tribes into the Roman Empire. 

 They had a hard life in northern and eastern Europe; their natural 

 growth exceeded the resources which their pastoral or village area sup- 

 plied, and when once one or two had begun to press upon their neigh- 

 bors, the disturbance was felt by each in succession until some, pushed 

 up against the very gates of theEmj)ire, found those gates undefended, 

 entered the tempting countries thatlay towards the Mediterranean and 

 the ocean, and drew others on to follow. Of modern instances the most 

 remarkable is the stream of emigratiou which began to swell out of Ire- 

 land after the great famine of 1846-'47, and which has not yet ceased 

 to flow. 



Among civilized peoples the same force is felt in a slightly differ- 

 ent form. As population increases the competition for the means of 

 livelihood becomes more intense, while at thesametiuie the standard of 

 comfort tends to rise. Hence, those on whom the pressure falls heav- 

 iest (if they are not too shiftless to move), and those who have the 

 keenest wish to better their condition, forsake their homes for lauds 

 that lie under another situ. It is thus that theRussian peasantry have 

 been steadily moving from the north to the south of European Russia, 

 till they have now occupied the soil down to the very foot of the Cau- 

 casus tor some 500 miles from the jjoint they had reached a century and 

 a half ago. It is thus that, on a smaller scale, the (xreek-speaking pop- 

 ulation of the west coast of Asia Minor is creeping eastward up the 

 river valleys, and beginning to re-colonize the interior of that once pros- 

 ])erous region. It is thus that North America and Australasia have 

 been tilled by the overflow of Europe during the last sixty years, for 

 before that time thegrowthof the United Statesand of Canadahad been 

 maiidy a home growth from the small seeds jilauted two hundred years 

 earlier. That the mere spirit of enterprise, apart from the increase of 

 l)opulation, counts for little as a cause of migration, seems to be shown 

 not only by the slight outflow from Europe during last century, but by 

 the fact that France, where the population is practically stationary, 

 sends out no emigrants save a few to Algeria, while the steady move- 

 meut from Norway and Sweden does little morethan relieve the natural 

 growth of the population of those countries. As regards Euroi>ean 



* A succession of dry seasons, which may merely diminish the harvests of those 

 who inhabit tolerably humid regions, will produce such a famine in the inner parts 

 of a continent like Asia as to force the people to seek some better dwelling-place. 



