The Forest* 



Of the many obstacles the human race has had to contend 

 with to maintain its existence, increase in number of individ- 

 uals and ultimately gain mastery, not the least one was the 

 woods, where they in overwhelming expanse spread over con- 

 tinental regions. They offered more adequate shelter, and 

 more copious and better adapted food to the mightier animals 

 than to him, hemmed in his steps, and prevented his gathering 

 into larger groups. This circumstance governed for long 

 periods the fate of our ancestors in the northern latitudes of 

 the Eastern Continent. After the retreat of the Glacial period 

 we find him following the shore lines from the Baltic to the 

 Biscayan Gulf as a shell and fish devouring savage, or cave- 

 inhabiting troglodyte. 



In the highlands of Central Asia he first multiplied in such 

 numbers that he commenced to direct his migrations west- 

 ward into the deep forests, upon paths which, perhaps, the 

 woolly rhinoceros and herds of woolly elephants had broken 

 and tramped out for him. The extension southward found a 

 barrier in the ice-glittering ranges of the Himalayas and 

 Hindu Kooh. At this time, when thousands of years before 

 our era this first westward movement began into the Sar- 

 matian plains, into the regions of the Danube and Wolga, em- 

 pires had commenced to form in the deltas of the Nile, Eu- 

 phrates, and Tigris, and all around the great Mediterranean 

 Gulf. With a benign and generous smile nature invited him to 

 groves where the date palm bore weighty clusters of its lus- 

 cious fruit, offering a delicious meal ; fruit-laden carob trees, 

 with spreading limb, gave nutritious food for him and his 

 herds; groves of olives, chestnuts, and walnuts alternated 

 in the scenery in the wide territory from the banks of the 

 Ganges to the shores of Lusitania, where the rosemary 

 mingles with the noble grape and the granate apple; Ceres 

 had thought to strew the nutritious barley on the overflowed 

 waters of the Nile and Euphrates, and the rich harvests were 



