The Great World's Farm 



I. 



INTRODUCTORY 



What would the learned writer of the old Eton 

 geography, 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 neighbourhood of a river 

 or spring, ' all the rest being one wide tract of utter 

 desolation '; 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, 



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