358 Comparative Physical Geography. 



frozen and barren plain of Siberia, with the streams of the Obi, the 

 Jenisey, the Lena; on the east the low country of China, where meet 

 and unite the two giant rivers of the Old World, — those two twia 

 rivers, which, born in the same cradle, flow on to die in the same 

 ocean; on the south the plain of Hindostan, moistened by the fresh 

 and abundant waters of tiie Himalaya, and the sacred streams of 

 the Indus and the Ganges ; on the west, finally, the plain of Turan, 

 with the two rivers of Gilion and Sihon, and its salt seas, to which 

 Western Asia already lays claim. It is in these plains, with fruitful 

 alluvial soil, and on the banks of these blessed rivers, that were de- 

 veloped the earliest, almost the only, civilized nations belonging to 

 this continent. But the warm and mai'itinie region of the east and 

 the south, connected with the rich peninsulas of India, is by far the 

 most favoured of all. China and India, therefore, have given birth 

 to the two great cultivated nations of Eastern Asia. 



Nevertheless, as the great central ridge swerves obliquely towards 

 the south, this warm and fortunate region fonns only a narrow strip, 

 not to be compared in extent with the cold, and steril, and bar- 

 barous world of the North. This predominates, and gives its cha- 

 racter. 



Such are the distinctive features of Eastern Asia. What strikes 

 us in this world of the remotest East, is its gigantic propoi'tions. 

 The loftiest mountains of the earth, the most massive table-lands, 

 the most extensive plains, peninsulas which are small continents, 

 rivers which have no rivals in the Old World, give to it a character 

 of grandeur and majesty nowhere else to be foinid. But it is easily 

 understood ; nowhere are the differences also so strongly drawn, so 

 huge, so invincible. Nowhere is the contrast between the high lands 

 and the low lands, between the heat and the cold, between the mois- 

 ture and the dryness, abundance and stei'ility, presented on so vast a 

 scale. See, by the side of the low, burning, and productive plains 

 of Hindostan, 10,000 or 15,000 feet higher up, the cold and arid 

 high land plain of Thibet and Tangout ; by the side of China and 

 its populous cities, the elevated deserts and the tents of the nomades 

 of Mongolia. The differences are every where pushed to their utmost 

 limit. 



Furthermore — and this characteristic completes the picture — the 

 communications from one region to another are always difficult. 

 One thoroughfare alone, the valley of the Peschawer, leads from Per- 

 sia to India, and has been the highway of all the conquerors from 

 Alexander to Babur rnd the English. No practicable road for ar- 

 mies or for regular commerce unites India and China ; the peninsu- 

 las communicate only by sea. The passes of the Himalaya are at 

 an elevation of from 10,000 to 18,000 feet; those of the Bolor are 

 frozen in the middle of summer. At all times the passage of the 

 plateau is a difficult and tedious undertaking, and at certain points 

 almost impossible. 



