THE GREAT WORLD'S FARM 



CHAPTER I 



INTRODUCTORY 



What would the learned writer of the old Eton geog- 

 raphy of sixty years ago say to the statement that the whole 

 earth is one great farm or garden, almost everywhere 

 covered with vegetation, and ''bringing forth crops of the 

 most luxuriant and varied kind"? This was certainly 

 very far from being his own idea, for he informed his 

 students that at least one of the ''quarters" of the world 

 was little more than "a vast, sandy desert." 



Such was his description of the great continent of 

 Africa, where, according to him, there was no cultiva- 

 tion except in the immediate neighborhood of a river or 

 spring, "all the rest being one wide tract of utter desola- 

 tion"; and he went on to say: "These cultivated places, 

 appearing like islands or oases in the great desert, caused 

 some of the ancients to compare the whole continent to a 

 panther's skin, dotted, as it were, with spots of fertility 

 surrounded by a brown and burning desert." 



As a matter of fact, nothing could "more wildly mis- 

 represent the truth" than this description; but it was 

 written before the interior of Africa had been explored, 

 and the old geographers, feeling, it would seem, obliged 



