KuTLAND. — History of the Pacific. 35 



cultivation of the soil. A little milk is too often the only 

 addition the ryots of India and the labouring people of Ireland 

 have to their miserable diet of rice and potatoes. When and 

 bow the pastoral and agricultural industries became united 

 would, if accurately determined, form one of the most instruc- 

 tive chapters in the history of civilization. 



Prom the very commencement of their history the 

 Egyptians seem to have carried on these combined industries, 

 cattle being their only domesticated animals during a long 

 period. "= As these cattle and their cultivated plants belonged 

 originally to the Euro-Asiatic region, we must conclude that 

 the first intermingling of pastortil and agricultural tribes took 

 place in some other portion of the world, and prior to the 

 colonisation of the Nile Valley. 



In equatorial and southern Africa we still find tribes 

 depending exclusively on the cultivation of the soil, and 

 others on the produce of their flocks and herds, but generally 

 these two are found united within the same tribe ; but in all 

 cases the herdsmen form a distinct class, and affect a superi- 

 ority over the agriculturists, or hoemen,f as they style them. 

 From the knovv'ledge we possess, it is evident that the pastoral 

 industry was introduced subsequent to agriculture, and by a 

 conquering people.]; There can be little doubt that it entered 

 the continent from the north-east. But whence was the art of 

 agriculture derived? The presence of the manioc, maize, and 

 sweet potatoes in parts of the continent where Europeans 

 have only very lately penetrated renders the solution of this 

 question extremely difficult, for they show how rapidly useful 

 plants are disseminated amongst the negro races. Still, the 

 very general cultivation of the banana and the colocasia, taken 

 in connection with the bark cloth referred to in former 

 chapters, favours the supposition that the art may have been 

 introduced from some of the countries bordering on the Indian 

 Ocean. 



From what has come down to us of Asiatic history we may 

 confidently conclude that the domestic ruminants made their 

 first appearance in the south-eastern portion of the continent 

 more than four thousand years ago, a period to which history 

 also enables us to trace back many of our cultivated plants. 

 Whether the domestic animals made their way at the same 

 time into any portion of the great island region cannot be 

 positively determined, but their complete absence from Poly- 

 nesia, coupled with what we know of the Japanese, makes it 

 extremely improbable, for, were they in the Malay Islands 



* " Ancient Egypt." Canon Rawliuson. 

 t " Darker Africa." H. M. Stanley, 

 t " Emin Pasha in Central Africa." 



