290 The National Geographic Magazine 



with accounts of conquest over earlier 

 peoples and with great eras* which must 

 have begun far earlier still ; the sacred 

 books of India summarize several mil- 

 lenniums of history from the days when 

 ' ' the noble races had to struggle with 

 the low-caste tribes, people of black 

 complexion and flat nose, and even with 

 the Anasikas, demons, and monkeys," 

 up to modern centuries — and even at this 

 beginning there were long eras, like the 

 Kali-yug, implying traditional preser- 

 vation of observations for millenniums 

 already past; and throughout south- 

 western Asia and Egypt ruin is super- 

 posed on ruin, and the later ruins are 

 so identified by records of fifty centu- 

 ries and more of history as to indicate 

 an occupation of certainly 80 to 100, 

 and probably 150 to 200, centuries from 

 the beginning to the present. The his- 

 torical record of human Asia is long, 

 very long ; the archeologic record runs 

 a long way farther into the past through 

 a succession of relics and ruins beyond 



* Chinese chronologers reckon their history 

 by dynasties running back to the era of Yao, 

 beginning B. C. 2397. Still more impressive 

 are their natural time units ; for not only were 

 the Chinese astronomers familiar with the luni- 

 solar period (or eclipse cycle) of 7,421 luna- 

 tions or 600 years, known as the Chaldean 

 naros, long before the cycle was recognized in 

 the west, but they conjoined this with an 

 arbitrary period of 60 days to form the Chinese 

 Great Year of 57,105 lunations, or 4,617 years 

 (Bibliographie generale de I'Astronomie, par 

 J. C. Houzeau et A. Lancaster, tome premier, 

 premiere partie, 1887 [Introduction], p. 95 ; 

 cf. "Comparative Chronology," American 

 Anthropologist, vol. v, 1892, pp. 327-330). 



compare in Europe or Africa, immeas- 

 urably beyond the earliest human traces 

 of the western world. 



So, it is just to consider Asia the 

 cradle of humanity; within her ample 

 borders the earliest races sprang, over 

 her shorelands and uplands the earlier 

 culture-stages were developed, and from 

 her plains and mountains all other lands 

 were at least partly peopled. More than 

 this ; Asia witnessed, within her own 

 borders the natural growth of nations 

 from crude confederacy at the beginning 

 of barbarism to brilliant empire. Yea, 

 and still more ; A sia illumined the world 

 with its brightest examples of ennob- 

 ling faith, from the crude shamanism 

 and Shintoism that did good service in 

 their time, through higher and higher 

 stages to the Golden Rule of Confucius in 

 the Far East, to the Eight of Asia in the 

 great midland, and at last to the Eight 

 of the World in far western Palestine. 



THE WORLD'S DEBT TO ASIA 



On the whole, when the Continent of 

 continents is fairly viewed in her length 

 and fullness of history as in her breadth 

 and wealth of land, Asia must be held 

 at once the cradle of humanity, the 

 birthplace of nations, the nursery of the 

 world' s religions ; and all right-thinking 

 men must hope that the debt of the 

 western world to the queenly continent 

 .will be paid in full measure, and in peace 

 and good-will to the men of ancient lin- 

 eage, whether their skins be brown or 

 yellow. 



