THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 249 



dreds of feet, by tossing them from one to another, standing ten feet 

 apart. It is a simple step from this to the shovel, the fork, the hoe, or 

 the rake, used on every farm and in connection with almost every busi- 

 ness in the world.* In the oldest forms of embankment the laborers 

 doubtless carried the dirt in sacks or baskets. To this day the fellaheen 

 of Egypt follow the primitive method. f But in all military operations, 

 canal and railroad work, excavation in cities, the shovel is the vehicle 

 of transportation, and the navvy, or his technical representative, is the 

 beast of burden. 



17. Caravans. — It is only a step from the single carrier to the organ- 

 ized train under the direction of a leader performing in common a task 

 which would be dangerous to one, or in which mutual help is needed. 

 No one supposes that the caravans of historic times were invented at 

 a single effort. The caravansaries, the wells, the armed guard, the 

 joining of forces at difficult places, are complicated affairs which are 

 the resultants of many trials of much simpler character. 



In the old slave-hunting days in Africa the same method was prac- 

 ticed with slaves. A lot of negroes would be captured and driven to 

 the coast for sale, but to save freight each individual was loaded with 

 ivory, gold-dust, and other commodities. On arriving at the coast the 

 trader sold out the whole concern and returned to repeat the process.^ 

 In Southern Mexico and Central America the trade from the interior 

 is brought to the coast on the backs of peons marching en traine under 

 a leader. 



18. In all the ear]y accounts of settlements in our country trails are 

 not only mentioned as the veritable war-path, but commercial trails 

 were also known. This introduces us to the whole subject of roads, the 

 series being paths marked by stakes or blazed trees, unkept roads, high- 

 ways, turnpikes, plank roads, paved streets, tramways. In these rude 

 trails or paths are many obstacles — declivities, streams, chasms. To 

 overcome these, inventive genius has devised bridges, fords, steps, 

 graded ways, tunnels, etc., part of the outcome of the packman's in- 

 dustry^ 



* Dr. Samson reports a curious combination of the spade with traction. "In spad- 

 ing up the ground a fellah pressed the spade into the earth, while a woman on each 

 side, by means of a rope attached to the handle, raised the spade with its load and 

 turned it over." 



t u I saw in the Delta of Egypt a common occurrence, young women and girls dig- 

 ging in the canals, shoveling the black, dripping mud with a bit of wood and their 

 hands into palm-leaf baskets, putting the dripping baskets on their heads so that 

 their hair and faces were all matted with slime, toiling up the sides of the canal to 

 empty their loads, while a taskmaster with a whip would cut their bare legs as they 

 passed if in Aveariness they loitered." — Dr. G. TV. Samson. 



t See reference to selling boat and cargo in Herodotus, vol. I, p. 194. 



§ Mommsen's "Rome," New York, 1869, I, 177. For an excellent account of the 

 swinging bridges of Peru, cf. Squier, Incidents of Travel, etc., New York, 1877, 544- 

 547. 



