384: INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



increased distribution having resulted from better channels, 

 and better channels having caused further increase of dis 

 tribution. 



To people living on its banks a river serves as a ready- 

 made highway, and even in early stages much traffic has 

 sometimes been developed by it. With the Sea-Dyaks in 

 Borneo this has happened, and it has happened among Afri 

 cans. On the Niger, &quot; the intercourse and trade between 

 the towns on the banks is very great. 7 Between Jenni and 

 Timbuctoo &quot; little flotillas of sixty or eighty boats are fre 

 quently seen all richly laden with various kinds of produce.&quot; 

 But where Nature has not provided them, channels of com 

 munication are at first nothing but paths formed by contin 

 ual passing. Speaking of Eastern Africa, Burton says: 



&quot; The most frequented routes are foot-tracks like goat- walks, one to 

 two spans broad, trodden down during the travelling season by man 

 and beast. ... In open and desert places four or five lines often run 

 parallel for short distances.&quot; 



Of such paths on the Gold Coast, Bosnian writes: &quot; A road 

 which need not be above two miles in length, frequently 

 becomes three by its crookedness and unevenness.&quot; So, too, 

 is it in many parts of the Sandwich Islands. &quot; The paths 

 from one village to another were not more than a foot wide, 

 and very crooked.&quot; In these cases, as in the case of our own 

 footpaths, we see how traffic makes the road, and the road, 

 in proportion as it is more used, facilitates traffic. 



Among some slightly civilized peoples, as the Dyaks, 

 definite paths are made by laying single trees end to end, 

 and sometimes two trees side by side. In New Guinea, 

 similar artificial paths are required to prevent sinking into 

 the mud. By various peoples who have reached this stage 

 Negroes, Dyaks, New Zealanders streams are crossed on 

 trunks of trees (probably at first trees that had accidentally 

 fallen), having even in some cases hand-rails. When we 

 read in Raffles that on account of the difficulty of transport, 

 the price of rice in Java varies greatly in the different dis- 



