ASIA. 



England ; and in it deciduous trees, meadow- 

 grasses, and the European cereals are cultivated 

 with success. It includes on the east the Desert 

 of Gobi, and on the west the parched steppes of 

 Northern Turkestan. The warm temperate zone 

 from 60 to 70 Fahr. lies south of the Caucasus 

 and the Desert of Gobi. It includes Northern 

 Arabia, the south of Persia; and the Punjab 

 and Northern China. It is the climate of Spain 

 and Italy, of the orange and fig, the vine and 

 the tea-plant. In it the grains usually cultivated 

 are rice and millet. It occupies on the west 

 the arid region of Asia, including the Syrian, 

 Persian, and Bactrian and Indian deserts ; but on 

 the east, it receives copious showers. Its driest 

 districts are traversed by great rivers. Tibet, 

 which is in the latitude of Cairo, is thrown by 

 its high elevation into the colder zones. The 

 tropical belt temperature from 72 to 82 in 

 Asia occupies a comparatively limited space. It 

 includes the Arabian sea-board, the greater part of 

 India, the Indo-Chinese peninsula, and that part 

 of China which lies south of the Nan-ling chain. 

 It is the zone of the palm, the banana, and the 

 sugar-cane. Within this belt, forests of flowering 

 trees, infinite in their variety, and interlaced with 

 lianas and parasitic plants in all places where 

 the atmosphere is moist, overshadow the soil with 

 an almost impenetrable covering of vegetation. 

 Central, Northern, and Western Asia are, in short, 

 characterised by deserts and scanty meadows, 

 the forests being confined to Southern Siberia, and 

 the mountain-ranges exposed to the southern 

 winds. In the promontories of South-eastern Asia, 

 on the other hand, is displayed all the tropical 

 luxuriance of vegetation which characterises Cen- 

 tral America. 



With this distribution of the zones of climate 

 and of vegetation is connected that of animal 

 life. In Northern Siberia, where there is almost 

 perpetual ice and snow, and little more than a 

 scanty vegetation of lichens and mosses, the rein- 

 deer finds its proper food, and supports whole 

 tribes of men. In Central Asia, the horse and 

 the ox are the chief domestic animals of the Tatar 

 population. The Bactrian camel enables them 

 to cross the inhospitable deserts of Mongolia and 

 Turkestan. Farther to the south, it is replaced by 

 the Arabian camel, in the Persian and Syrian 

 deserts. In India, the buffalo and the elephant 

 are the characteristic beasts of burden. In the 

 tropical woods of South-eastern Asia, reptiles and 

 beasts of prey become dangerous enemies to man. 

 The reports given of the destruction of human life 

 by snake-bites and tigers in Indo-China, have 

 been pronounced exaggerated ; but the statistics 

 annually collected in India confirm the most 

 startling of them. An official notice gives the 

 number of persons killed in British India in 1881 

 at the frightful total of 18,670; while 2757 were 

 slain by wild animals. In the same year, 43,609 

 head of cattle were reported killed by snakes and 

 wild animals; while 254,968 snakes and 15,274 

 wild animals were destroyed, 103,000 rupees being 

 paid by government for their destruction. In 

 Madras province, 1195 were killed by snakes and 

 wild animals in 1882 920 by snakes, 206 by tigers, 

 28 by panthers and leopards. In 1873, a single 

 tigress caused the destruction of thirteen villages, 

 and threw 256 square miles of country out of cul- 

 tivation. In the Central Provinces, in three years 



the deaths of 946 persons had been ascertained 

 to have been caused by tigers. It is scarcely 

 possible to believe that Mr Markham is not 

 talking ironically when he enumerates among 

 the difficulties in the way of getting rid of these 

 'gigantic cats,' that their wholesale destruc- 

 tion is objected to by Englishmen in India, as 

 that of a kind of game which affords excellent 

 sport when shot with the rifle ; and by the native 

 population, on the ground, that the ' man-eating 

 tiger ' is a kind of incarnate divinity, and that it 

 would be dangerous to offend it ! 



In the number devoted to ANTHROPOLOGY, 

 enough has been said of the distribution of man 

 in Asia ; while the rise and course of the chief 

 streams of civilisation have been traced in the 

 HISTORY OF ANCIENT NATIONS. It may be 

 well, however, to remind the reader of the events 

 occurring in the twelfth century which were 

 destined to influence the whole continent. The 

 Mongols who dwelt on the border of the Great 

 Eastern Desert, under the lead of Genghis Khan, 

 then penetrated into Siberia, attacked and took 

 possession of China on the east, and Turkestan 

 and Persia on the west. The sons of Genghis 

 continued his conquests, destroying the califate 

 of Bagdad, and advancing into India. His grand- 

 son, Kublai Khan, ruled over the greatest empire 

 that ever existed, extending as it did from the 

 Baltic to the Pacific, and from the Arctic zone 

 to the Indian Ocean. It was in the reign of the 

 Great Khan that Marco Polo, the Venetian, tra- 

 velled through Asia, and recorded his observation 

 in a wonderful narrative, which has been of ines- 

 timable value in guiding and stimulating geogra- 

 phical research, and which, as recently done into 

 English by Colonel Yule, is one of the most read- 

 able and fascinating of books. Towards the 

 end of the i4th century little remained of the 

 empire of the Great Khan. A new conqueror 

 then made his appearance Timur the Tatar, 

 or Tamerlane, who, after invading Persia, Egypt, 

 and India, made Samarcand the seat of his 

 empire, and a chief centre of Mohammedan 

 piety or learning, the position it has ever since 

 retained in the Mohammedan East, a fact which 

 it is important to remember in connection with 

 the recent conquests of Russia. The empire of 

 Timur was soon broken up ; but his descendant, 

 Baber, in the early part of the i6th century, still 

 ruled at Samarcand over countries extending 

 south and westward to the Indus. Baber invaded 

 India in 1525, and taking Delhi and Agra, founded 

 the empire of the Great Moguls. The modern 

 history of the continent is that of the English con- 

 quest of India, the Russian conquest of Siberia 

 and Turkestan, and the growth of English com- 

 merce in China and Japan. Before we refer to 

 these subjects, it is desirable to describe separ- 

 ately the different countries into which Asia is 

 divided. 



GREAT DIVISIONS OF ASIA. 



A line running through the steppes north of the 

 Caspian and Aral Seas, and along the northern 

 edge of the Desert of Gobi and Shamo to the 

 north of Corea and the Japanese islands, divides 

 Asia into northern and southern parts. Southern 

 Asia is, in turn, divided into a western and 

 eastern section by the mountains of Eastern 



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