Asia- Europe — Theatre of History. 353 



We may then expect to see the great facts of the Hfe of the na- 

 tions connect themselves essentially with these differences of soil and 

 climate, with these contrasts that nature herself presents in the in- 

 terior of the continents, and whose influence on the social develop- 

 ment of man, although variable according to the times, is no less 

 evident in all the periods of his history. 



Let us commence our inquiry with the true theatre of history — ■ 

 with Asia-Europe. 



We have already had occasion to call attention to the unity of 

 plan exhibited in this great triangular mass, which authorises us to 

 consider it as forming, in a natural point of view, a single continent, 

 the subdivisions of which bear the imprint of only secondary differ- 

 ences. We have also indicated, as the most remarkable trait of its 

 structure, that great dorsal ridge, composed of systems of the loftiest 

 mountains, traversing it from one end to the other in the direction 

 of the length, which may even be regarded as the axis of the conti- 

 nent. It is, in fact, on the two sides of this long line of more than 

 5000 miles, on the north and south of the Himalaya, of the Cau- 

 casus, of the Balkan, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, that the high 

 lands of the interior of the continent extend. It splits Asia-Europe 

 into two portions, unequal in size, and differing from each other in 

 their configuration and their climate. On the south, the areas are 

 less vast ; the lands are more indented, more detached, — on the 

 whole, perhaps, more elevated ; it is the maritime zone of penin- 

 sulas. On the north, the great plains prevail ; the peninsulas are 

 rare, or of slight importance ; the ground less varied. 



But what chiefly distinguishes one of the two parts from the other, 

 what gives to each a peculiar nature, is the climate. Those lofty 

 barriers which we have just named, almost everywhere separate the 

 climates, as well as the areas. The gradual elevation of the ter- 

 races towards the south, up to this ridge of the continent, by pro- 

 longing in the southern direction the frosts of the north, augments 

 still further, in Eastern Asia and in Europe, the difference of tem- 

 perature between their sides, and renders it more sensible. Thus, 

 almost everywhere, the transition is abrupt, the two natures wide 

 apart. These high ridges arrest at once the icy winds of the poles, 

 and the softened breezes of the south, and separate their domains. 

 The Italian of our days, like the Roman of former times, boasts of 

 his blue sky and his mild climate, and speaks with an ill-concealed 

 contempt of the frosts and the ice of the countries beyond the Alps. 



To the father of the Grecian poets, to Homer, who only knows 

 the Ionian sky, the countries beyond the Haemus are the regions of 

 darkness, where rugged Boreas reigns supreme. At the northern 

 foot of the Caucasus, the dry steppes of the Manytsch are swept by 

 the frozen winds of the north ; on the south, the warm and fertile 

 plains of Georgia and of Imereth feel no longer their assaults. In 

 eastern Asia, finally, the contrast is pushed to an extreme. The 



