

36 AGRICULTURE IN THE TROPICS [PT. I 



In very early times there was a small trade, at first chiefly 

 overland, later in Moorish or Persian ships across the Indian 

 ocean, in the products of eastern countries, chiefly spices, for 

 which high prices used to be given, but this trade was extremely 

 small, and most of the spices were not cultivated, but obtained 

 from wild plants. 



Though the early practices of agriculture yet survive in 

 many eastern and other countries, the whole conditions have 

 been altered by the appearance in the tropics of the white races 

 of the north. Apart from their direct influence upon agriculture, 

 their presence, and the settled government which they have 

 brought with them, and which would seem to be a thing out- 

 side the capacity of the tropical races, has enabled the simple 

 village agriculture of former times to extend and spread t in all 

 directions with the growth of population, until now, in Java, 

 India, and Ceylon, for instance, there is far more of it than there 

 ever was in primitive times. 



From very early times, the existence of the nations of 

 Europe, as above explained, has caused a slight trade mainly in 

 spices, but the want of proper transport facilities, among other 

 things, checked the development of any large or important 

 trade. Transport by water was of course the first to become 

 important, and hence the first places in the tropics to be opened 

 up were the islands, such as Ceylon and the West Indies, coast 

 places, such as Madras, and the valleys of the great rivers, such 

 as the Amazon. 



When the sailors of Portugal and other European nations 

 had found the way to India and the East, and to the West 

 Indies, they brought the markets of the north for the first time 

 really within the reach of the people of the tropics. Very 

 much the same process went on in all places, and is going on 

 to-day, as the recent history of the West African coast illus- 

 trates. 'The first stage is the establishment of factories and 

 trading settlements at the river mouths, which buy the produce 

 grown in the interior by the natives, and export it. The general 

 inefficiency of the natives and their methods, and the insecurity 

 and dangers to which the traders are exposed next leads to the 

 conquest and opening up of the country. Nowadays such work 



