MIGRATfONS OF RACES OF MEN CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 577 



may be t'ound in tbe occupation and goveniiiient of Paraguay by the 

 Jesuits. Finally, we sometimes tind religious feeling' tbe cause of 

 peaceful emigrations. The case which has proved of most historical 

 significance is that of the Puritan settlement in Massachusetts and 

 Connecticut; among those of less note may be reckoned the flight of 

 the Persian fire worshippers to Western India; the Huguenot set- 

 tlements in Brazil and on tlie southeastern coast of North America, 

 destroyed soon after their foundation by the Portuguese and Spaniards, 

 and tlie later flight of the French Protestants after the revocation of 

 the edict of Nantes; the emigration of the Ulster Presbyterians to the 

 United States in last century; the foundation of various German 

 colonies at Tiflis and other places in the Russian dominions.* Nor 

 ought we to forget one striking instance of expatriation for tlie sake 

 of freedom — that of the petty chieftains of Western Norway, who set- 

 tled Iceland in the ninth century to escape the growing power of King 

 Harold the Fairhaired. 



in. — CHANNELS OF MIGRATION. 



From this political side of our subject we return to its physical 

 aspects iu considering the lines which m'gration has tended to follow. 

 These have usually been the lines of least resistance, L e., those in 

 which the fewest natural obstacles in the way of mountains, deserts, 

 seas, and dense forests have had to be encountered. The march of 

 warlike tribes in early times and the movements of groups of emi- 

 grants by land in modern times have generally been along river valleys 

 and across the lowest and easiest passes in mountain ranges. The 

 valley of the lower Danube has for this reason, from the fourth century 

 to the tenth, an immense historical importance, for it was ah)ng its 

 levels that the Huns, Avars, and Magyars, besides several of the 

 Slavonic tribes, moved in to occupy the countries between the Adriatic 

 and the Theiss. While the impassable barrier of the Himalaya has at 

 all times prevented any movements of population from Tibet and 

 Eastern Turkistan, the passes to the west of the Indus, and especially 

 the Khaiber and the Bolan, have given access to many invading or 

 immigrating masses, from the days of the primitive Aryans to those 

 of Ahmed Shah Durani in last century. So in Europe, the Alpine 

 passes have had much to do with directing the course of streams of 

 invaders to Italy. So in North America, while the northern line of 

 settlement was indicated by the valley of St. Lawrence and the Great 

 Lakes, the chief among the more southerly lines was that from Vir- 

 ginia into Tennessee and Kentucky over the Cumberland Gap, long 

 the only practicable route across the middle Alleghanies. 



*The Tiflis Germans left Wiirtemberg iu order to avoid the use of an obnoxious 

 Iiymn book. The Mennonites went to Southern Russia to escape military service, 

 but the promise made to them by Catherine II has recently beeu broken, and they 

 have lately been depiirtinti; to America lest they should be compelled to serve in the 

 Russian army. 



SM 93 37 



