ASIA, the name of one of the
great continents into which the earth's surface is divided,
embracing the north-eastern portion of the great mass of land which
constitutes what is generally known as the Old World, of which
Europe forms the northwestern and
Africa the south-western
region.
Much doubt attaches to the origin of the name. Some of the
earliest Greek geographers divided their known world into two
portions only, Europe and Asia, in which last
Libya (the Greek name for Africa) was included.
Herodotus, who ranks
Libya as one of the chief divisions of the world, separating it
from Asia, repudiates as fables the ordinary explanations assigned
to the names Europe and Asia, but confesses his inability to say
whence they came. It would appear probable, however, that the
former of these words was derived from an Assyrian or Hebrew root,
which signifies the west or setting sun, and the latter from a
corresponding root meaning the east or rising sun, and that they
were used at one time to imply the west and the east. There is
ground also for supposing that they may at first have been used
with a specific or restricted local application, a more extended
signification having eventually been given to them. After the word
Asia had acquired its larger sense, it was still specially used by
the Greeks to designate the country around
Ephesus. The idea of Asia as originally formed
was necessarily indefinite, and long continued to be so; and the
area to which the name was finally applied, as geographical
knowledge increased, was to a great extent determined by arbitrary
and not very precise conceptions, rather than on the basis of
natural relations and differences subsisting between it and the
surrounding regions.
Geography The
northern boundary of Asia is formed by the
Arctic Ocean; the coast-line falls between 70°
and 75° N., and so lies within the Arctic circle, having its
extreme northern point in Cape Sivero-Vostochnyi (i.e. north-east)
or Chelyuskin, in 78° N. On the south the coast-line is far more
irregular, the
Arabian
Sea, the
Bay of
Bengal, and the
China Sea
reaching about to the northern tropic at the mouths of the
Indus, of the
Ganges and of the
Canton river; while the great peninsulas of
Arabia, Hindostan and
Cambodia descend to about 10°
N., and the
Malay peninsula extends within a degree
and a half of the
equator.
On the west the extreme point of Asia is found on the shore of the
Mediterranean, at Cape Baba, in 26° E., nor far from the
Dardanelles. Thence the
boundary passes in the one direction through the Mediterranean, and
down the
Red Sea to the
southern point of Arabia, at the strait of
Bab-el-Mandeb, in 45° E.; and in the
other through the Black Sea, and along the range of
Caucasus, following
approximately 4 0° N. to the Caspian, whence it turns to the north
on a line not far from the 60th
meridian, along the
Ural Mountains, and meets the Arctic
Ocean nearly opposite the island of
Novaya Zemlya. The most easterly point of
Asia is East Cape (Vostochnyi,
i.e. east, or Dezhnev), in
190 E., at the entrance of
Bering Strait. The
boundary between this point and the extremity of the Malay
Peninsula follows the coast of the Northern Pacific and the China
Sea, on a line deeply broken by the
projection of the peninsulas of
Kamchatka and
Korea, and the recession of the
Sea of Okhotsk,
the Yellow Sea, and the Gulfs of
Tongking and
Siam.
.^ Islam in South and South-east Asia.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
^ The architecture of South-East Asia through travellers' eyes.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
^ Gowing, Peter G (1973), “Muslim Filipinos between integration and seccession,” South East Asia Journal of Theology, 14(2): 64-77.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
The Kurile Islands, the Japanese group, Luchu,
Formosa and the Philippines, may be regarded as
unquestionable outliers of Asia.
.^ Pre-colonial state systems in Southeast Asia: the Malay Peninsular, Sumatra, Bali-Lombok, South Celebes.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
^ Miyazaki, Koji (2000), “Javanese-Malay: between adaptation and alienation,” Sojourn: Social Issues in Southeast Asia (Singapore) 15(1): 76-99 (Apr).- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
^ Johns, A.H. (1981), “From coastal settlement to Islamic school and city: Islamization of in Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula and Java.” Hamdard Islamicus (Karachi) 4, no.4 (Win) 3-28 .- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
.^ Hadi, A. (1985), “The contribution of Islam to Indonesian culture and the challenge of modernism,” Prisma: the Indonesian indicator, 35: 120-130.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
and
.^ Desker, B. (2002), “Islam and society in South-East Asia after 11 September,” Australian Journal of International Affairs, 56 (3): 383-394 Nov.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
To this boundary has
been given the name of Wallace's line, after the eminent
naturalist, A. R. Wallace, who first indicated its existence.
Owing to the great extent of Asia, it is not easy to obtain a
correct conception of the actual form of its outline from ordinary
maps, the distortions which accompany projections of great and
misleading. Turning, therefore, to a globe, Asia, viewed as a
whole, will be seen to have the form of a great isosceles spherical
triangle, having its
north-eastern
apex at East Cape
(Vostochnyi), in Bering Strait; its two equal sides, in length
about a quadrant of the sphere, or 6500 m., extending on the west
to the southern point of Arabia, and on the east to the extremity
of the Malay peninsula; and the base between these points occupying
about 60° of a
great
circle, or 4 500 m., and being deeply indented by the Arabian
Sea and the Bay of
Bengal on
either side of the Indian peninsula. A great circle, drawn through
East Cape and the southern point of Arabia, passes nearly along the
coast-line of the Arctic Ocean, over the Ural Mountains, through
the western part of the Caspian, and nearly along the boundary
between
Persia and Asiatic
Turkey.
Asia Minor and the north-western half of
Arabia lie outside such a great circle, which otherwise indicates,
with fair accuracy, the north-western boundary of Asia.
.^ Huff TE (2001), “Globalization and the Internet: Comparing the Middle Eastern and Malaysian experiences,” Middle East journal 55 (3): 439-458 Summer.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
Asia is divided laterally along the parallel of 40° north by a
depression which, beginning on the east of the
desert of
Gobi,
extends westwards through
Mongolia to Chinese
Turkestan. To
General the west of
Kashgar the central depression
is limited by
physio- the meridional range of Sarikol and
the great elevation
graphs* of the Pamir, of which the
Sarikol is the eastern face. The level of this depression (once a
vast inland sea) between the mountains which enclose the sources of
the
Hwang-ho and the
Sarikol range probably never exceeds 2000 ft. above sea, and modern
researches tend to prove that in the central portions of the Gobi
(about Lop Nor) it may be actually below sea-level. A vast pro
portion of the continent north of this central line is but a few
hundred feet in
altitude.
Shelving gradually upward from the low flats of
Siberia the general continental level rises to
a great central waterparting, or divide, which stretches from the
Black Sea through the
Elburz
and the
Hindu Kush to
the
Tian-shan mountains
in the Pamir region, and hence to Bering Strait on the extreme
north-east. This great divide is not always marked by well-defined
ranges facing steeply either to the north or south. There are
considerable spaces where the strike, or axis, of the main ranges
is transverse to the water-parting, which is then represented by
intermediate highlands forming lacustrine regions with an
indefinite
watershed.
Only a part of this great continental divide (including such ranges
as the Hindu Kush, Tian-shan,
Altai or Khangai) rises to any great height, a
considerable portion of it being below 5000 ft. in altitude. South
of the divide the level at once drops to the central depression of
Gobi, which forms a vast interior, almost waterless space, where
the local drainage is lost in deserts or swamps.
.^ Ptak, Roderich (1992), “The northern trade route to the Spice Islands: South China Sea-Sulu Zone-North Moluccas (14th to early 16th century),” Archipel (Paris) 43: 27-56.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
^ Anonymous (2001), “South Sea trouble; The Philippines.” (The politics of separatism in the Philippines)(issue of autonomy for island of Mindanao) Economist, , 2001 pNA August 11 .- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
This second barrier is one of the most
mighty upheavals in the world, by reason both of its extent and its
altitude. Starting from the
Amur river and reaching along the eastern
margin of the Gobi desert towards the sources of the Hwangho, it
merges into the
Altyn-tagh and the
Kuen-lun, forming the northern face of the
vast Tibetan highlands which are bounded on the south by the
Himalaya. The Pamir highlands
between the base of the Tian-shan mountains and the eastern
buttresses of the Hindu Kush unite these two great divides,
enclosing the Gobi depression on the west; and they would again be
united on the east but for the transverse valley of the Amur, which
parts the
Khingan mountains
from the
Yablonoi system
to the east of Lake
Baikal.
If we consider the whole continent to be divided into three
sections, viz. a northern section with an average altitude of less
than 5000 ft. above sea, where all the main rivers flow northward
to the Mediterranean, the Arctic Sea, or the Caspian; a central
section of depression, where the drainage is lost in swamps or
hamuns, and of which the average level probably does not
exceed 2000 ft. above sea; and a southern section divided between
highly elevated table-lands from 15,000 to 16,000 ft. in altitude,
and lowlands of the Arabian, Indian, Siamese and Chinese
peninsulas, with an ocean outlet for its drainage; we find that
there is only one direct connexion between northern and southern
sections which involves no mountain passes, and no formidable
barrier of altitudes. That one is afforded by the narrow valley of
the
Hari Rud to the west
of
Herat. From the Caspian to
Karachi it is possible to pass
without encountering any orographic obstacle greater than the
divide which separates the valley of the Hari Rud from the
Helmund hamun basin,
which may be represented by an altitude of about 4000 ft. above
sea-level. This fact possesses great significance in connexion with
the development of Asiatic
railways.
|
Sq. m.
|
|
Area of Arctic river basins .
|
4,367,000
|
|
„ Aralo-Caspian basin
|
1,759,000
|
|
„ Mediterranean
|
268,500
|
|
Total
|
6,394,500
|
|
The southern division is nearly equal in extent
|
|
If we examine the hydrographic basins of the three divisions of
Asia thus indicated we find that the northern division, including
the drainage falling into the Arctic Sea,the Aralo-
Hydro-
Caspian depression, or the Mediterranean, embraces an graphs area
of about 6,394,500 sq. m., as follows: - Pacific drainage
Indian Ocean. Total.
..
.^ Matthew, Bruce (1995), “Religious minorities in Myanmar: hints of the shadow,” Contemporary South Asia, 4(3): 299.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
m. or about half the extent of the other two.
By far the largest Asiatic river basin is that of the
Ob, which exceeds 1,000,000 sq. m. in
extent.
.^ Suthasasna, Arong (1989) Thai society and the Muslim minority South East Asian Review (Bihar, India) 14, nos.1-2 (Jan) 91-112 .- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
m., the Yang-tsze-kiang including 685,000, the Ganges
409,500, and the Indus 370,000 sq. m.1 The lakes of Asia are
innumerable, and vary in size from an inland sea (such as Lakes
Baikal and Balkash) to a highland loch, or the indefinitely
extended swamps of Persia. Many of them are at high elevations
(Lake
Victoria, 13,400
ft., being probably the most elevated), and are undoubted vestiges
of an ancient period of glaciation. Such lakes, as a rule, show
indications of a gradual decrease in size. Others are
relics of an earlier geological
period, when land areas 1 Authorities differ in their methods and
results of computation of these and other similar measurements.
Sq. m.. 3,641,000 2,873,000 large spherical areas on a flat
surface being necessarily
continent. recently upheaved
from the sea were spread at low levels with alternate inundations
of
salt and fresh water. Of these
Lop Nor and the Helmund
hamuns are typical. Such lakes (in common with all the
plateau
hamuns of south-west
Baluchistan and Persia)
change their form and extent from season to season, and many of
them are impregnated with saline deposits from the underlying
strata. The
kavirs, or salt depressions, of the Persian
desert are more frequently widespread deposits of mud and salt than
water-covered areas.
Although for the purposes of geographical nomenclature,
boundaries formed by a coast-line - that is, by depressions of the
earth's solid crust
below the ocean level - are most
easily recog-
Political nized and are of special
convenience; and although such
divisions. boundaries, from
following lines on which the continuity of the land is interrupted,
often necessarily indicate important differences in the conditions
of adjoining countries, and of their political and physical
relations, yet variations of the elevation of the surface
above the sea-level frequently produce effects not less
marked. The changes of temperature and climate caused by difference
of elevation are quite comparable in their magnitude and effect on
all organized creatures with those due to differences of
latitude; and the relative
position of the high and low lands on the earth's surface, by
modifying the direction of the winds, the fall of
rain, and other atmospheric phenomena, produce
effects in no sense less important than those due to the relative
distribution of the land and sea. Hence the study of
the mountain ranges
of a continent is, for a proper
apprehension of its physical conditions
and characteristics, as essential as the examination of its extent
and position in relation to the equator and poles, and the
configuration of its coasts.
From such causes the physical conditions of a large part of
Asia, and the history of its population, have been very greatly
influenced by the occurrence of the mass of mountain above de
Iiima- scribed, which includes the Himalaya and the whole
tayan elevated area having true physical connexion with
that
boundary. range, and occupies an area about 2000 m.
in length and varying from too to 500 m. in width, between 65°and
too°east and between 28° and 35° north.
.^ Vatikiotis, M. and J. McBeth (2001), “From chaos to despair,” Far Eastern Economic Review 164(6): 16-19 Feb 15 .- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
above the sea.
Peaks of 20,000 ft. abound along the whole chain, and the points
that exceed that elevation are numerous. A mountain range such as
this, attaining altitudes at which
vegetable life ceases, and the support of
animal life is extremely difficult, constitutes an almost
impassable barrier against the spread of all forms of living
creatures. The mountain mass, moreover, is not less important in
causing a complete separation between the atmospheric conditions on
its opposite flanks, by reason of the extent to which it penetrates
that stratum of the
atmosphere which is in contact with the
earth's surface and is effective in determining climate. The
highest summits create serious obstructions to the movements of
nearly three-fourths of the mass of the
air resting on this part of the earth, and of
nearly the whole of the moisture it contains; the average height of
the entire chain is such as to make it an almost absolute barrier
to one-half of the air and three-fourths of the moisture; while the
lower ranges also produce important atmospheric effects, one-fourth
of the air and one-half of the watery vapour it carries with it
lying below 9000 ft.
This great mass of mountain, constituting as it does a complete
natural line of division across a large part of the continent, will
form a convenient basis from which to work, in proceeding, as will
now be done, to give a general view of the principal countries
contained in Asia.
The summit of the great mountain mass is occupied by
Tibet, a country known by its
inhabitants under the name of
Bod or
Bodyul.
Tibet. Tibet is a rugged table-land, narrow as compared with
its length, broken up by a succession of mountain ranges, which
follow as a rule the direction of the length of the table-land, and
commonly rise into the regions of perpetual snow; between the
flanks of these lie valleys, closely hemmed in, usually narrow,
having a very moderate inclination, but at intervals opening out
into wide plains, and occupied either by rivers, or frequently by
lakes from which there is no outflow and the waters of which are
salt. The eastern termination of Tibet is in the line of snowy
mountains which flanks China on the west, between the 27th and 35th
parallels of latitude,
and about 103° east. On the west the table-land is prolonged beyond
the political limits of Tibet, though with much the same physical
features, to about 70°east, beyond which it terminates; and the
ranges which are covered with perpetual snow as far west as
Samarkand, thence rapidly
diminish in height, and terminate in low hills north of
Bokhara.
The mean elevation of Tibet may be taken as 15,000 ft. above the
sea. The broad mountainous slope by which it is connected with the
lower levels of Hindostan contains the ranges known as the
Himalaya; the name Kuen-lun is generally applied to the northern
slope that descends to the central plains of the Gobi, though these
mountains are not locally known under those names, Kuen-lun being
apparently a Chinese designation.
The extreme rigour of the climate of Tibet, which combines great
cold with great drought, makes the country essentially very poor,
and the chief portion of it little better than desert. The
vegetation is everywhere most scanty, and scarcely anything
deserving the name of a
tree is to
be found unless in the more sheltered spots, and then artificially
planted. The population in the lower and warmer valleys live in
houses, and follow
agriculture; in the higher regions they are
nomadic shepherds, thinly scattered over a large area.
China lies between the eastern flank of the Tibetan plateau and
the North Pacific, having its northern and southern limits about on
40° and 20° N. respectively. The country, though generally broken
up with mountains of moderate elevation, China. possesses
none of very great importance apart from those of its western
border. It is well watered, populous, and, as a rule, highly
cultivated, fertile, and well wooded; the climate is analogous to
that of southern Europe, with hot summers, and winters everywhere
cold and in the north decidedly severe.
.^ Sullivan, Michael (1992), “Raja Bersiong's Flagpole Base: a possible link between ancient Malaya and Champa,” In: Sullivan, Michael, Studies in the art of China and South-east Asia, Vol.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
^ Wilson, H. E. (1989), “Imperialism and Islam: the impact of ‘modernization’ on the Malay Muslims of South Thailand,” South East Asian review.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
Chinese
Between these ranges, which are probably permanently
region. snowy to about 27° N., flow the great rivers of
the Indo-Chinese peninsula, the
Mekong, the
Menam, the
Salween, and the
Irrawaddy, the valleys of which form the main
portions of the states of CochinChina (including Tongking and
Cambodia), of Siam (including Laos) and of
Burma. The people of Cochin-China are called
Anam; it is probably from a corruption of their name for the
capital of Tongking, Kechao, that the Portuguese Cochin has been
derived. All these countries are well watered, populous and
fertile, with a climate very similar to that of
eastern Bengal. The geography
of the region in which the mountains of Cochin-China and Siam join
Tibet is still imperfectly known, but there is no ground left for
doubting that the great river of eastern Tibet, the Tsanpo,
supplies the main stream of the
Brahmaputra.
.^ Forbes, Andrew D.W. (1988), “The Yunnanese (Ho•) Muslims of north Thailand,” South East Asian Review (Bihar, India) 13, nos.1-2 (Jan) 87-104.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
The main stream of this last is called
Dichu in Tibet, and its chief feeder is the Ya-
lung-kiang, which rises not far from the Hwang-ho,
and is considered the territorial boundary between China and
Tibet.
British India comprises approximately the area between the 95th
and 10th meridians, and between the Tibetan table-land and the
Indian Ocean.
.^ Thomas, M. Ladd (1989), “Thai Muslim separatism in south Thailand,” South East Asian Review (Bihar, India) 14(1-2): 25-32 (Jan).- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
as a maximum and 1000 ft.
From the
delta of the Ganges
and Brahmaputra on the east to that of the Indus on the west, and
intervening between the tableland of the peninsula and the foot of
the Himalayan slope of the Tibetan plateau, lies the great plain of
northern India, which rises at its highest point to about moo ft.,
and includes altogether, with its prolongation up the valley of
Assam, an area of about 500,000 sq.
m., comprising the richest, the most populous and most civilized
districts of India. The great plain extends, with an almost
unbroken surface, from the most western to the most eastern
extremity of British India, and is composed of deposits so finely
comminuted, that it is no exaggeration to say that it is possible
to go from the Bay of Bengal up the Ganges, through the
Punjab, and down the Indus again
to the sea, over a distance of 2000 m. and more, without finding a
pebble, however small.
The great rivers of northern India - the Ganges, the Brahmaputra
and the Indus - all derive their waters from the Tibetan mountain
mass; and it is a remarkable circumstance that the northern
water-parting of India should lie to the north of the Himalaya in
the regions of central Tibet.
The population of India is very large, some of its districts
being among the most densely peopled in the world. The country is
generally well cleared, and forests are, as a rule, found only
along the flanks of the mountains, where the fall of rain is most
abundant. The more open parts are highly cultivated, and large
cities abound. The climate is generally such as to secure the
population the necessaries of life without severe labour; the
extremes of heat and drought are such as to render the land
unsuitable for pasture, and the people everywhere subsist by
cultivation of the soil or commerce, and live in settled villages
or towns.
.^ Knodel J, Gray RS, Sriwatcharin P, Peracca S (1999), “Religion and reproduction: Muslims in Buddhist Thailand,” Population studies.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
The highest point in Ceylon rises to
about 9000 ft. above the sea, and the mountain slopes are densely
covered with forest. The lower levels are in climate and
cultivation quite similar to the regions in the same latitude on
the Malay peninsula.
Of the islands in the Bay of Bengal the Nicobar and
Andaman groups
are alone worth notice. They are placed on a line joining the north
end of Sumatra and Cape Negrais, the south-western extremity of
Burma. They possibly owe their existence to the volcanic agencies
which are known to extend from Sumatra across this part of the
Indian Ocean.
The Laccadives and Maldives are groups of small
coral islands, situated along the 73rd meridian,
at no great distance from the Indian peninsula, on which they have
a political dependency.
The portion of Asia west of British India, excluding Arabia and
Syria, forms another extensive
plateau covering an area as large as that of Tibet, though at a
much lower altitude. Its
The Nearer southern border runs
along the Arabian Sea, the Persian
East. Gulf, the
Tigris, and thence westward to
the north-east angle of the
Levant; on the north the high land follows
nearly 36° N. to the southern shore of the Caspian, and thence to
the Black Sea and
Sea of Marmora.
Afghanistan, Baluchistan,
Iran or Persia,
Armenia and the provinces of Asia Minor occupy
this high region, with which they are nearly conterminous. The
eastern flank of this tableland follows a line of hills drawn a
short distance from the Indus, between the mouth of that river and
the Himalaya, about on the 72nd meridian; these hills do not
generally exceed 4000 or 5000 ft. in elevation, but a few of the
summits reach 10,000 ft. or more.
.^ Turner, Mark (1995), “Terrorism and Seccession in Southern Philippines: the rise of the Abu Sayyaf,” Comtemporary Southeast Asia 17(1): 10.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
.^ Tasker, Rodney (1980), “Keeping Islam in balance: the government acts as extremists endanger delicate equilibrium in Malaysia,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 110: 34-36 Nov 28 .- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
The north-eastern portion of this range is of great
altitude, and separates the headwaters of the
Oxus, which run off to the
Aral Sea, from those of the Indus and its
Kabul tributary, which, uniting
below
Peshawar, are thence
discharged southward into the Arabian Sea. The western part of the
range, which received the name of
Paropamisus Mons from the ancients,
diminishes in height west of the 65th meridian and constitutes the
northern face of the Afghan and Persian plateau, rising abruptly
from the plains of the
Turkoman desert, which lies between the Oxus
and the Caspian. These mountains at some points attain a height of
to,000 or 12,000 ft. Along the south coast of the Caspian this line
of elevation is prolonged as the Elburz range(not to be confused
with the Elburz of the Caucasus), and has its culminating point in
Demavend, which rises to 19,400 ft. above the sea; thence it
extends to the north-west to
Ararat, which rises to upwards of 17,000 ft.,
from the vicinity of which the
Euphrates flows off to the south-west, across
the high lands of Armenia.
.^ Gowing, Peter G (1973), “Muslim Filipinos between integration and seccession,” South East Asia Journal of Theology, 14(2): 64-77.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
West of
Ararat high hills extend along the Black Sea, between which and the
Taurus range lies the plateau of Asia Minor, reaching to the
Aegean Sea; the mountains
along the Black Sea, on which are the
Olympus and
Ida
of the ancients, rise to 6000 or 7000 ft.; the Taurus is more
lofty, reaching 8000 and 10,000 ft.; both ranges decline in
altitude as they approach the Mediterranean.
This great plateau, extending from the Mediterranean to the
Indus, has a length of about 2500 m. from east to west, and a
breadth of upwards of 600 m. on the west and nowhere of less than
250 m. It lies generally at altitudes between 2000 ft. and 8000 ft.
above the sea-level. Viewed as a whole, the eastern half of this
region, comprising Persia, Afghanistan and Baluchistan, is poor and
unproductive. The climate is very severe in the winter and
extremely hot in summer. The rainfall is very scanty, and running
waters are hardly known, excepting among the mountains which form
the scarps of the elevated country. The population is sparse,
frequently nomadic and addicted to
plunder; progress in the arts and habits of
civilization is small. The western part of the area falls within
the Turkish empire. Its climate is less hot and arid, its natural
productiveness much greater, and its population more settled and on
the whole more advanced.
The peninsula of Arabia, with Syria, its continuation to the
northwest, has some of the characteristics of the hottest and
driest parts
Arabia. of Persia and Baluchistan. Excepting
the northern part of this tract, which is conterminous with the
plain of
Mesopotamia
(which at its highest point reaches an elevation of about 700 ft.
above the sea), the country is covered with low mountains, rising
to 3000 or 4000 ft. in altitude, having among them narrow valleys
in which the vegetation is scanty, with exceptional regions of
greater fertility in the neighbourhood of the coasts, where the
rainfall is greatest. In northern Syria the mountains of
Lebanon rise to about to,000
ft., and with a more copious
water supply the country becomes more
productive. The whole tract, excepting south-eastern Arabia, is
nominally subject to Turkey, but the people are to no small extent
practically independent, living a nomadic,
pastoral and freebooting life under petty
chiefs, in the more arid districts, but settled in towns in the
more fertile tracts, where agriculture becomes more profitable and
external commerce is established.
The area between the northern border of the Persian high lands
and the Caspian and Aral Seas is a nearly desert low-lying plain,
extending to the foot of the north - western extremity of the great
Tibeto-Himalayan mountains, and prolonged east-
Trans- ward up the valleys of the Oxus
(Amu-Darya) and
Caspian Jaxartes (Syr-Darya), and
northward across the country
re ior, and of the
Kirghiz to the south-western
border of Siberia.
central It includes Bokhara,
Khiva and Turkestan proper, in
Asia. which the Uzbeg
Turks are dominant, and for the most part is
inhabited by nomadic tribes, who are marauders, enjoying the
reputation of being the worst among a race of professed robbers.
The tribes 'to the north, subject to
Russia, are naturally more peaceable, and have
been brought into some degree of discipline. In this tract the
rainfall is nowhere sufficient for the purposes of agriculture,
which is only possible by help of
irrigation; and the fixed population (which
contains a non-Turkish element) is comparatively small, and
restricted to the towns and the districts near the rivers.
The north-western extremity of the elevated Tibeto-Himalayan
mountain plateau is situated about on 73° E. and 39° N. This region
is known as Pamir; it has all the characteristics of the highest
regions of Tibet, and so far fitly receives the
Russian designation of
steppe; but it seems to have no special
peculiarities, and the reason of its having been so long regarded
as a geographical
enigma is
not obvious. From it the Oxus, or Amu, flows off to the west, and
the Jaxartes, or
Syr, to the north,
through the
Turki state of
Khokand, while to the east the
waters run down past Kashgar to the central desert of the Gobi,
uniting with the streams from the northern slope of the Tibetan
plateau that
traverse the
principalities of
Yarkand
and
Khotan, which are also
Turki.
.^ Asian security handbook: an assessment of political-security issues in the Asia-Pacific region.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
.^ Tasker, R. (1997), “Border Breakthrough: Malaysia and Thailand team up to battle insurgents,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 161: 18 Feb 12 .- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
^ Hamilton Asia HC411 .F191 Far Eastern quarterly.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
^ Far Eastern Quarterly) Hamilton Asia- DS501 .J68 Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
.^ Bacho, Peter (1987), “The Muslim secessionist movement,” (The Pacific Basin) Journal of International Affairs, 41(1):153-164 Summer-Fall .- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
From the north of Manchuria the Khingan range stretches
southward to the Chinese frontier near
Peking, east of which the drainage falls into
the Amur and the Yellow Sea, while to the west is an almost
rainless region, the inclination of which is towards the central
area of the continent, Mongolia.
From the western end of the Yablonoi range, on the 115th
meridian, a mountainous
belt
extends along a somewhat irregular line to the extremity of Pamir,
known under various names
Mongolia. in its different
parts, and broken up into several branches, enclosing among them
many isolated drainage areas, from which there is no outflow, and
within which numerous lakes are formed. The most important of these
ranges is the Tian-shan or Celestial Mountains, which form the
northern boundary of the Gobi desert; they lie between 40° and 43°
N., and between 75° and 95° E., and some of the summits are said to
exceed 20,000 ft. in altitude; along the foot of this range are the
principal cultivated districts of central Asia, and here too are
situated the few towns which have sprung up in this barren and
thinly peopled region. Next may be named the
Ala-tau, on the prolongation of the Tian-shan,
flanking the Syr on the north, and rising to 14,000 or 15,000 ft.
It forms the barrier between the
Issyk-kul and
Balkash lakes, the elevation of which is about
5000 ft. Last is the Altai, near the 50th parallel, rising to
10,000 or 12,000 ft., which separates the waters of the great
rivers of western Siberia from those that collect into the lakes of
northwest Mongolia, Dzungaria and Kalka. A line of elevation is
continued west of the Altai to the Ural Mountains, not rising to
considerable altitudes; this divides the drainage of south-west
Siberia from the great plains lying north-east of the Aral Sea.
The central area bounded on the north and north-west by the
Yablonoi Mountains and their western extension in the Tian-shan, on
the south by the northern face of the Tibetan plateau, and on the
east by the Khingan range before alluded to, forms the great desert
of central Asia, known as the Gobi. Its eastern part is nearly
conterminous with south Mongolia, its western forms Chinese or
eastern Turkestan. It appears likely that no part of this great
central Asiatic desert is less than 2000 ft. above the sea-level.
The elevation of the plain about Kashgar and Yarkand is from 4000
to 6000 ft. The more northern parts of Mongolia are between 4000
and 6000 ft., and no portion of the route across the desert between
the Chinese frontier and
Kiakhta is below 3000 ft. The precise positions
of the mountain ridges that traverse this central area are not
properly known; their elevation is everywhere considerable, and
many points are known to exceed 10,000 or 12,000 ft.
In Mongolia the population is essentially nomadic, its wealth
consisting in herds of horned
cattle,
sheep, horses and camels. The Turki tribes,
occupying western Mongolia, are among the least civilized of human
beings, and it is chiefly to their extreme barbarity and
cruelty that our
ignorance of central Asia
is due. The climate is very severe, with great extremes of heat and
cold. The drought is very great; rain falls rarely and in small
quantities. The surface is for the most part a hard stony desert,
areas of blown
sand occurring but
exceptionally. There are few towns or settled villages, except II.
24 along the slopes of the higher mountains, on which the rain
falls more abundantly, or the melting snow supplies streams for
irrigation. It is only in such situations that cultivated lands are
found, and beyond them trees are hardly to be seen.
The portion of Asia which lies between the Arctic Ocean and the
mountainous belt bounding Manchuria, Mongolia and Turkestan
Siberia. on the north is Siberia. It includes an immense
high and broken plateau which spreads from south-west to
north-east, losing in width and altitude as it advances north-east.
It is fringed on either side by high border ridges, which -subside
on the north-west into a stretch of high plains, 1500 to 2000 ft.
high, finally dropping to lowlands a few hundred feet above
sea-level. The extremes of heat and cold are very great. The
rainfall, though not heavy, is sufficient to maintain such
vegetation as is compatible with the conditions of temperature, and
the surface is often swampy or peaty. The mountain-sides are
commonly clothed with
pine
forests, and the plains with
grasses or shrubs. The population is very
scanty; the cultivated tracts are comparatively small in extent and
restricted to the more settled districts. The towns are entirely
Russian. The indigenous races are nomadic
Mongols, of a peaceful character, but in a very
backward state of civilization. The Ural Mountains do not exceed
2000 or 3000 ft. in average altitude, the highest summits not
exceeding 6000 ft., and one of the passes being as low as 1400 ft.
In the southern half of the range are the chief
mining districts of Russia. The Ob,Yenisei and
Lena,which traverse Siberia, are among the largest rivers in the
world.
.^ From coastal settlement to Islamic school and city: Islamization in Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula and Java In: Indonesia: Australian perspectives.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
^ John, A. H. (1981), “From coastal settlements to Islamic school and city: Islamization in Sumatra, the Malay Peninsular and Java,” Hamdard Islamicus, 4(4): 3-28.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
^ Johns, Anthony H. (1981), “From coastal settlement to Islamic school and cities: Islamization in Sumatra, the Malay peninsular and Java,” Hamdard Islamacus, 4(4): 3-28 .- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
still active, the summits frequently rising to
10,000 ft.
pe/ago or more.
Sumatra, the largest of the islands, is but thinly peopled; the
greater part of the surface is covered with dense forest, the
cultivated area being comparatively small, confined to the low
lands, and chiefly in the volcanic region near the centre of the
island. Java is the most thickly peopled, best cultivated and most
advanced island of the whole Eastern archipelago. It has attained a
high degree of wealth and prosperity under the Dutch government.
The people are peaceful and industrious, and chiefly occupied with
agriculture. The highest of the volcanic peaks rises to 12,000 ft.
above the sea. The eastern islands of this group are less
productive and less advanced.
.^ McBeth, J. (1996), “Coming together: new groupings point to widespread political unease, Far Eastern Economic Review, 159: 24 Feb 15.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
The population is small, rude and uncivilized; and the
surface is rough and mountainous and generally covered with forest
except near the coast, to the alluvial lands on which settlers have
been attracted from various surrounding countries. The highest
mountain rises to nearly 14,000 ft., but the ordinary elevations do
not exceed 4000 or 5000 ft.
Of Celebes less is known than of Borneo, which it resembles in
condition and natural characteristics. The highest known peaks rise
to 8000 ft., some of them being volcanic.
New Guinea extends almost to the same meridian as the eastern
coast of Australia, from the north point of which it is separated
by Torres Straits. Very little is known of the interior. The
Pacific Islands. mountains are said to rise to 20,000 ft.,
having the appear ance of being permanently covered with snow; the
surface seems generally to be clothed with thick wood. The
inhabitants are of the Negrito type, with curly or crisp and bushy
hair; those of the west coast have come more into communication
with the traders of other islands and are fairly civilized.
Eastward, many of the tribes are barbarous savages.
.^ Combes, Francisco S. J. (1903-19), The natives of the southern Islands,” in E. H. Blair and J.A. Robertson (eds) The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, 55 vols.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
The highest land
does not rise to a greater height than 10,250 ft.; the climate is
well suited for agriculture, and the islands generally are fertile
and fairly cultivated, though not coming up to the standard of Java
either in wealth or population.
Formosa, which is situated under the northern tropic, near the
coast of China, is traversed by a high range of mountains, reaching
nearly 13,000 ft. in elevation. On its western side, which is
occupied by an immigrant Chinese population, are open and
well-cultivated plains; on the east it is mountainous, and occupied
by independent indigenous tribes in a less advanced state.
The islands of Japan, not including
Sakhalin, of which half is Japanese, lie
between the 30th and 45th parallels. The whole group is traversed
by a line of volcanic mountains, some of which are in activity, the
highest point being about 13,000 ft. above the sea. The country is
generally well watered, fertile and well cultivated. The Japanese
people have added to their ancient civilization and their
remarkable artistic faculty, an
adaptation of Western methods, and a
capacity for progress in war and commerce, which single them out
among Eastern races as a great modern world-force.
Ex Ploration The progress of geodetic surveys in Russia had long
ago extended across the European half of the great empire, St
Petersburg being
connected with
Tiflis on the
southern slopes of the Caucasus by a direct system of triangulation
carried out with the highest scientific precision. St Petersburg,
again, is connected with
Greenwich by European systems of
triangulation; and the Greenwich meridian is adopted by Russia as
the
zero for all her
longitude values. But
beyond the eastern shores of the Caspian no system of direct
geodetic measurements by first-class triangulation has been
possible, and the surveys of Asiatic Russia are separated from
those of Europe by the width of that inland sea. The arid nature of
the trans-Caspian deserts has proved an insuperable obstacle to
those rigorous methods of geodetic survey which distinguish Russian
methods in Europe, so that Russian geography in central Asia is
dependent on other means than that of direct measurement for the
co-
ordinate values in
latitude and longitude for any given point. The astronomical
observatory at
Tashkent is adopted for the
initial starting-point of the trans-Caspian triangulation of
Russia; the triangulation ranks as second-class only, and now
extends to the Pamir frontier beyond
Osh. The longitude of the Tashkent observatory has
been determined by
telegraph differentially with Pulkova as
follows: H. M. S.
In 1875 via
Ekaterinburg and
Omsk. 2 35 52.151 „ 1891 „
Saratov „
Orenburg. 2 35 52.228 „ 1895 „
Kiev „
Baku.. 2
35 51.997 With these three independent values, all falling within a
range of os.25, it is improbable that the mean value has an error
as large as os.10.
Exact surveys in Russia, based upon triangulation, extend as far
east as Chinese Turkestan in longitude about 75° E.
Extent
of of Greenwich.
.^ Jayasankaran, S. (1995), “Close encounter” [Muslim leader denies violating religious law] Far Eastern Economic Review, 158: 20 Feb 16 .- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
^ Jayasankaran, S. (1995), “About face: Mahathir backs Islamic ‘rehabilitation’ center Far Eastern Economic Review, 158: 16 Jul 6 .- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
^ Farouk, Omar (1988), “The Muslims of Thailand: a survey,” South East Asian Review (Bihar, India) 13(1-2): 1-30 (Jan).- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
Further geodetic connexion with the European systems
remains to be accomplished. Since 1890 further and more rigorous
application of the telegraphic method of determining longitudes
differentially with Greenwich has resulted in a slight correction
(amounting to about 2" of arc) to the previous determination by the
same method through
Suez. This
last determination was effected through four arcs as follows: I.
Greenwich -
Potsdam.
IV. Bushire - Karachi.
Each arc was measured with every precaution and a multitude of
observations. The only element of uncertainty was caused by the
retardation of the current, which between Potsdam and Teheran (3000
m.) took 0 8.20 to travel; but it is probable that the final value
can be accepted as correct to within os 05.
The final result of this latest determination is to place the
Madras observatory 2' 27" to the
west of the position adopted for it on the strength of absolute
astronomical determinations.
But while we have yet to wait for that expansion of principal
triangulation which will bring Asia into connexion with Europe by
the direct process of earth measurement, a topobetween graphical
connexion has been effected between Russian
Russ/an and
Indian surveys which sufficiently proves that the
and
deductive methods employed by both countries for the
Indian determination of the co-ordinate values of fixed
points so
surveys. far agree that, for all practical
purposes of future Asiatic cartography, no difficulty in
adjustment between Indian
and Russian mapping need be apprehended.
In connexion with the Indian triangulation minor extensions
carried out on systems involving more or less irregularity have
been pushed outwards on all sides. They reach through
Extension Afghanistan and Baluchistan to the eastern
districts of
o ofge: Persia, and along the coast of
Makran to that of Arabia.
graphical They have long ago included the farther mountain
surveys. peaks of
Nepal, and they now branch outwards towards
western China and into Siam. These far extensions furnish the basis
for a vast amount of exploratory survey of a strictly geographical
character, and they have contributed largely towards raising the
standard of accuracy in Asiatic geographical surveys to a level
which was deemed unattainable fifty years ago. There is yet a vast
field open in Asia for this class of surveys. While at the close of
the 19th century western Asia (exclusive of Arabia) may be said to
have been freed from all geographical perplexity, China, Mongolia
and eastern Siberia still include enormous areas of which
geographical knowledge is in a primitive stage of nebulous
uncertainty.
Of scientific geographical exploration in Asia (beyond the
limits of actual surveys) the modern period has been so prolific
that it is only possible to refer in barest outline to some of the
principal
Indian expeditions, most of which have been
directed either to
explorers. the great elevated tableland
of Tibet or to the central depression which exists to the north of
it. In southern Tibet the trans-Himalayan explorations of the
native surveyors attached to the Indian survey, notably Pundits
Nain Singh and
Krishna,
added largely to our knowledge of the great plateau. Nain Singh
explored the sources of the Indus and of the Upper Brahmaputra in
the years 1865-1867; and in 1874-1875 he followed a line from the
eastern frontiers of
Kashmir
to the Tengri Nor lake and thence to
Lhasa, in which city he remained for some months.
Krishna's remarkable journey in 1879-1882 extended from Lhasa
northwards through
Tsaidam
to Sachu, or Saitu, in Mongolia. He subsequently passed through
eastern Tibet to the town of Darchendo, or
Tachienlu, on the high road between Lhasa and
Peking, and on the borders of China. Failing to reach India through
Upper Assam he returned to the neighbourhood of Lhasa, and crossed
the Himalayas by a more
westerly route. Both these explorers visited
Lhasa.
In 1871-1873 the great Russian explorer, Nicolai Prjevalsky,
crossed the Gobi desert from the north to Kansu in western
China.
He first defined the geography of Tsaidam, and mapped the
hydrography of that
remarkable region, from which emanate the great rivers of China,
Siam and Burma.
He penetrated southwards to within a month's march of Lhasa. In
1876 he visited the Lop Nor and discovered the Altyn Tagh range. In
1879 he followed up the Urangi river to the Altai Mountains, and
demonstrated to the world the extraordinary physical changes which
have passed over the
heart of
the Asiatic continent since
Jenghiz Khan massed his vast armies in
those provinces. He crossed, and named, the Dzungarian extension of
the Gobi desert, and then traversed the Gobi itself from
Hami to Sachu, which became a point
of junction between his journeys and those of Krishna. He visited
the sources of the Hwang-ho (Yellow river) and the Salween, and
then returned to Russia. His fourth journey in 1883-1885 was to
Sining (the great trade centre of the Chinese borderland), and
thence through northern Tibet (crossing the Altyn Tagh to Lop Nor),
and by the
Cherchen-Keriya
trade route to Khotan. From Khotan he followed the
Tarim to
Aksu.
Following Prjevalsky the Russian explorers, Pevtsov and
Roborovski, in 1889-1890 (and again in 1894), added greatly to our
knowledge of the
topography of western Chinese Turkestan and
the northern borders of Tibet; all these Russian expeditions being
conducted on scientific principles and yielding results of the
highest value. Among other distinguished Russian explorers in Asia,
the names of Lessar, Annentkov (who bridged the Trans-Caspian
deserts by a railway), P. K.
Kozlov and Potanin are conspicuous during the
19th century.
Although the establishment of a lucrative trade between India
and central Asia had been the
dream of many successive Indian viceroys, and
much had been done towards improving the approaches to
Simla from the north, very little
was
in really known of the highlands of the
Pamirs, or of the regions of the
great central depression, before the mission of
central
Asia. Sir
Douglas
Forsyth to Yarkand in 1870. Robert Barkley Shaw and George Hayward
were the European pioneers of geography into the central dominion
of Kashgar, arriving at Yarkand within a few weeks of each other in
1868. Shaw subsequently accompanied Forsyth's mission in 1870, when
Henry Trotter made the first
maps of Chinese Turkestan. The next great accession to our
knowledge of central Asiatic geography was gained with the
Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission of 1884-1886, when
Afghan
Turkestan and the Oxus regions were mapped by Colonel Sir T. H.
Holdich, Colonel St George
Gore
and Sir Adelbert
Talbot; and when Ney
Elias crossed from China through the Pamirs and
Badakshan to the camp of
the commission, identifying the great "
Dragon Lake," Rangkul, on his way. About the
same time a mission, under Captain (afterwards Sir Willaim)
Lockhart, crossed the Hindu Kush into Wakhan, and returned to India
by the Bashgol valley of
Kafiristan. This was Colonel Woodthorpe's
opportunity, and he was then enabled to verify the results of W. W.
M`Nair's previous explorations, and to determine the conformation
of the Hindu Kush. In 1885 Arthur Douglas Carey and Andrew
Dalgleish, following more or less the tracks of Prjevalsky,
contributed much that was new to the
map of Asia; and in 1886 Captain (afterwards Sir
Francis) Younghusband completed a most adventurous journey across
the heart of the continent by crossing the Murtagh, the great
mountain barrier between China and Kashmir.
It was in 1886-1887 that Pierre G. Bonvalot, accompanied by
Prince
Henri
d'Orleans, crossed the Tibetan plateau from north to south, but
failed to enter Lhasa. In 1889-1891 the American traveller, W. W.
Rockhill, commenced his Tibetan journeys, and also attempted to
reach Lhasa, without success. By his writings, as much as by his
explorations, Rockhill has made his name great in the annals of
Asiatic research. In 1891
Hamilton Bower made his famous journey from
Leh to Peking. He, too, failed to
penetrate the jealouslyguarded portals of Lhasa; but he secured
(with the assistance of a native surveyor) a splendid addition to
our previous Tibetan mapping. In 1891-1892-1893 the gallant French
explorer, Dutreuil de Rhins, was in the field of Tibet, where he
finally sacrificed his life to his work; and the same years saw
George N. (afterwards Lord) Curzon in the Pamirs, and St George
Littledale on his first great Tibetan journey, accompanied by his
wife. Littledale's first journey ended at Peking; his second, in
1894-1895, took him almost within sight of the sacred walls of
Lhasa, but he failed to pass inside. Greatest among modern Asiatic
explorers (if we except Prjevalsky) is the brave Swede, Professor
Sven Hedin, whose travels through the deserts of
Takla Makan and Tibet,
and whose investigations in the glacial regions of the Sarikol
mountains, occupied him from 1894 to 1896. His is a truly
monumental record. From 1896 to 1898 we find two British
cavalry officers taking the
front position in the list of Tibetan travellers - Captain M. S.
Wellby of the 18th Hussars and Captain H. Deasy of the 16th
Lancers, each striking out a new line, and rendering most valuable
service to geography. The latter continued the Pamir triangulation,
which had been carried across the Hindu Kush by Colonels Sir T. H.
Holdich and R. A. Wahab during the Pamir Boundary Commission of
1895, into the plains of Kashgar and to the sources of the
Zarafshan.
Since the beginning of the century the work of Deasy in western
Tibet has been well extended by Dr M. A. Stein and Captain C. G.
Rawling, who have increased our knowledge of ancient fields of
industry and commerce in Turkestan and Tibet.
Ellsworth Huntington threw new light on the
Tian-shan plateau and the Alai range by his explorations of 1903;
and Sven Hedin, between 1899 and 1902, was collecting material in
Turkestan and Tibetan fields, and resumed his journeys in
1905-1908, the result being to revolutionize our knowledge of the
region north of the upper Tsanpo (see Tibet). The mission of Sir
Francis Younghusband to Lhasa in 1904 resulted in an extension of
the Indian system of triangulation which finally determined the
geographical position of that city, and in a most valuable
reconnaissance of
the valleys of the Upper Brahmaputra and Indus by Captains C. H. D.
Ryder and C. G. Rawling.
.^ Ahmad Ibrahim (1992), Islamic law in Malaysian since 1972 In: Developments in Malaysian law: essays to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Faculty of Law, University of Malaya.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
Captain William
Gill, of the Indian survey, first made his way across China to
eastern Tibet and Burma, and subsequently delighted the world with
his story of the
River of Golden Sand. Then followed
another charming writer, E. C.
Baber, who, in 1877-1878, unravelled the
geographic mysteries of the western provinces of the Celestial
empire.
Mark Bell crossed the continent in 1887 and illustrated
its ancient trade routes, following the steps of Archibald
Colquhoun, who wandered from Peking to Talifu in 1881. Meanwhile,
the acquisition of Burma and the demarcation of boundaries had
opened the way to the extension of geographical surveys in
directions hitherto untraversed. Woodthorpe was followed into
Burmese fields by many others; and amongst the earliest travellers
to those mysterious mountains which
hide the sources of the Irrawaddy, the Salween and
the Mekong, was Prince Henri d'Orleans Burma was rapidly brought
under survey; Siam was already in the 'mapmaking hands of James
M'Carthy, whilst Curzon and
Warrington Smyth added much to our knowledge
of its picturesque coast districts. No more valuable contribution
to the illustration of western Chinese configuration has been given
to the public than that of C. C. Manifold who explored and mapped
the upper basin of the Yang-tsze river between the years 1900 and
1904, whilst our knowledge of the geography of the Russo-Chinese
borderland on the north-east has been largely advanced by the
operations attending the RussoJapanese war which terminated in
1905.
Turning our attention westwards, no advance in the progress of
scientific geography is more remarkable than that recorded on the
northern and north-western frontiers of India. Here there is little
matter of exploration. It has rather been a wide extension of
scientific geographical mapping. The Afghan war of 1878-80; the
Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission of 1884-1885; the occupation of
Gilgit and
Chitral; the extension of boundaries east and
north of Afghanistan, and again, between Baluchistan and Persia -
these, added to the opportunities afforded by the systematic survey
of Baluchistan which has been steadily progressing since 1880 -
combined to produce a series of geographical maps which extend from
the Oxus to the Indus, and from the Indus to the Euphrates.
In these professional labours the Indian surveyors have been
assisted by such scientific geographers as General Sir A. Houtum
Schindler, Captain H. B. Vaughan and Major
Percy M.
Sykes in Persia, and by Sir
George Robertson and Cockerill
in Kafiristan and the Hindu Kush.
In still more western fields of research much additional light
has been thrown since 1875 on the physiography of the great deserts
and oases of Arabia. The labours of Charles Doughty and
Arabia. Wilfrid S. Blunt in northern Arabia in 1877-1878
were followed by those of G. Schweinfurth and E. Glaser in the
south-west about ten years later. In 1884-1885 Colonel S. B. Miles
made his adventurous journey through
Oman, while
Theodore Bent threw searchlights
backwards into ancient Semitic history by his investigations in the
Bahrein
Islands in 1888 and in
Hadramut in 1894 - 181n northern Asia it is
impossible to follow in detail the results of the organized Russian
surveys. The vast steppes and forest-clad mountain regions of
Siberia have assumed a new geo graphical aspect in the light of
these revelations, and
Asia promise a new world of
economic resources to Russian enterprise in the near future.
.^ Roff, William R (1974), “The institutionalism of Islam in the Malay Peninsula: some problems for the historian,” In: International Conference on Asian History, 6th, Yogyakarta, 1974.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
^ Giagonia, Regino Dodds (1976) The Moro Province -- its relevance to the current problems in Mindanao In: Regional Seminar on History, 4th, Davao City, 1972.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
^ Mednick, Melvin (1957), “Some problem of Moro history and political organization,” Philippine Sociology Review, 5: 39-52 Jan.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
In no other period of the world's history, of equal length of
time, has so much scientific enterprise been directed towards the
field of
General Asiatic inquiry. The first great result
of recent geogra phical research has been to modify pre-existing
ideas of
results vestigate the
orography of the vast central region
represented by
in. i Tbet and Mongolia. The great highland
plateau which
tion stretches from the Himalaya northwards
to Chinese Turkestan, and from the frontier of Kashmir eastwards to
China, has now been defined with comparative geographical
exactness. The position of Sachu (or Saitu) in Mongolia may be
taken as an obligatory point in modern map construction. The
longitude value now adopted is 94° 54' E. of Greenwich, which is
the revised value given by Prjevalsky in the map accompanying the
account of his fourth exploration into central Asia. Other values
are as follows: Prjevalsky, by his second and third explorations
94° 26' Krishna .
Carey and Dalgleish .
Littledale.. .
Kreitner (with Szecheny's expedition) .
The longitude of Darchendo, or Tachienlu, on the extreme east,
may be accepted as another obligatory point. The adopted value by
the Royal Geographical Society is 102° 12". Krishna gives 102° 15",
Kreitner 102° 5", Baber 102° 18".
South and west the bounding territories are well fixed in
geographical position by the Indian survey determinations of the
value of Himalayan peaks. On the north the Chinese Turkestan
explorations are now brought into survey connexion with Kashmir and
India.
No longer do we regard the Kuen-lun mountains, which extend from
the frontiers of Kashmir, north of Leh, almost due east to the
Chinese province of Kansu, as the southern limit of the Gobi or
Turkestan depression.
.^ Smith-Hefner, Nancy J. (1989), “A Social History of Language Change in Highland East Java,” Journal of Asian Studies, 48(2): 257-271 (May).- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
Thus between
Tibet and the low-lying sands of Gobi we have, thrust in, a system
of elevated valleys (Tsaidam), 8000 to 9000 ft. above sea-level,
forming an intermediate steppe between the highest regions and the
lowest, east of Lop Nor. All this is comparatively new geography,
and it goes far to explain why the great trade routes from Peking
to the west were pushed so far to the north.
On the western edge of the Kashgar plains, the political
boundary between Russia and China is defined by the meridional
range of Sarikol. This range (known to the ancients as Taurus and
in medieval times as Bolor) like many others of the Chinese
. most important great natural mountain divisions of the
boundary world, consists of two parallel chains, of which
the western is the water-divide of the Pamirs, and the eastern
(which has been known as the Kashgar or Kandar range) is split at
intervals by lateral gorges to allow of the passage of the main
drainage from the eastern Pamir slopes.
In western Asia we have learned the exact value of the mountain
barrier which lies between Mery and Herat, and have mapped
Indian its connexion with the Elburz of Persia. We can now
Indianrs - fully appreciate the factor in practical
politics which
Afghan- that definite but somewhat
irregular mountain system, represents which connects the
water-divide north of
istan Herat with the southern
abutment of the Hindu Kush,
near
Bamian. Every pass of
importance is known and recorded; every route of significance has
been explored and mapped; Afghanistan has assumed a new political
entity by the demarcation of a boundary; the value of Herat and of
the Pamirs as bases of aggression has been assessed, and the whole
intervening space of mountain and plain thoroughly examined.
.^ In Hussin Mutalib and Taj ul-Islam Hashmi (eds) Islam, Muslims and the Modern State: Case-Studies of Muslims in Thirteen Countries, pp.152-73.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
The steady advance of
scientific inquiry into every corner of Persia, backed by the
unceasing efforts of a new school of geographical explorers, has
left nothing unexamined that can be subjected to superficial
observation. The geographical map of the country is fairly
complete, and with it much detailed information is now accessible
regarding the coast and harbours of the Persian Gulf, the routes
and passes of the interior, and the possibilities of commercial
development by the construction of trade roads uniting the Caspian,
the
Karun, the Persian Gulf, and
India, via
Seistan. Persia
has assumed a comprehensible position as a factor in future Eastern
politics.
In Arabia progress has been slower, although the surveys carried
out by Colonel Wahab in connexion with the boundary determined in
the
Aden hinterland added more exact geographical
Arabia. knowledge within a limited area. Little more is
known of the wide spaces of interior desert than has already been
given to the world in the works of Sir Richard F.
Burton, Wm. Gifford Palgrave and Sir Lewis Pelly
amongst Englishmen, and
Karsten Niebuhr,
John
Lewis Burckhardt, Visconte, Joseph Halevy and others, amongst
foreign travellers. Charles Doughty and Wilfrid S. Blunt have
visited and illustrated the district of
Nejd, and described the waning glories of the
Wahabi empire. But extended geographical knowledge does not point
to any great practical issue. Commercial relations with Arabia
remain much as they were in 1875.
.^ Devon, Tonia K. (1980), “Burma’s Muslim minority: out of the shadows?,” Southeast Asia Chronicle, 75: 27-28.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
The exact information obtained by
Minor, ?1'cc. the researches of English surveyors in
Palestine and beyond
Jordan, or by the efforts of explorers in the regions that lie
between the Mediterranean and the Caspian, have so far led rather
to the elucidation of history than to fresh commercial enterprise
or the possible increase of material wealth.
.^ Far Eastern Quarterly) Hamilton Asia- DS501 .J68 Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
Russ
a n Here there has been a development of the resources
Asia. of the Old World which parallels the best records of
the New.
The great central depression of the continent which reaches from
the foot of the Pamir plateau on the west through the Tarim desert
to Lop Nor and the Gobi has yielded up many interesting
Chinese secrets. The remarkable
phenomenon of the periodic
Turkestan shifting of the Lop Nor system has been revealed
by the
and Oxus researches of Sven Hedin, and the former
existence of
basin. highly civilized centres of Buddhist
art and industry in the now sand-strewn wastes of the Turkestan
desert has been clearly demonstrated by the same great explorer and
by Dr M. A. Stein. The depression westward of the Caspian and Aral
basins, and the original connexion of these seas, have also come
under the close investigation of Russian scientists, with the
result that the theory of an ancient connexion between the Oxus and
the Caspian has been displaced by the more recent
hypothesis of an
extension of the
Caspian
Sea eastwards into Trans-Caspian territory within the
postPleiocene age. The discovery of shells (now living in the
Caspian) at a distance of about 100 m. inland, at an altitude of
140 to 280 ft. above the present level of the Caspian, gives
support to this hypothesis, which is further advanced by the
ascertained nature of the
Kara-kum sands, which appear to be a purely
marine formation exhibiting no traces of fluviatile deposits which
might be considered as delta deposits of the Oxus.
In the discussion of this problem we find the names of Baron A.
Kaulbars, Annentkov, P. M. Lessar, and A. M. Konshin prominent.
Further matter of interest in connexion with the Oxus basin was
elucidated by the researches of L.
Griesbach in connexion with the Russo-Afghan
Boundary Commission. He reported the gradual formation of an
anticlinal or ridge extending longitudinally through the great
Balkh plain of Afghan Turkestan,
which effectually shuts off the northern affluents of that basin
from actual junction with the river. This evidence of a gradual
process of upheaval still in action may throw some light on the
physical (especially the climatic) changes which must have passed
over that part of Asia since Balkh was the " mother of cities," the
great trade centre of Asia, and the plains of Balkh were green with
cultivation. In the restoration of the outlines of ancient and
medieval geography in Asia Sven Hedin's discoveries of the actual
remains of cities which have long been buried under the advancing
waves of sand in the Takla Makan desert, cities which flourished in
the comparatively recent period of Buddhist ascendancy in High
Asia, is of the very highest interest, filling up a
blank in the identification of
sites mentioned by early geographers and illustrating more fully
the course of old
pilgrim
routes.
With the completion of the surveys of Baluchistan and Makran
much light has also been thrown on the ancient connexion between
east and west; and the final settlement of the southern
galuch- boundaries of Afghanistan has led to the reopening
of istan and one at least of the old trade routes between
Seistan Makran. and India.
Farther east no part of Asia has been brought under more careful
investigation than the hydrography of the strange mountain
wilderness that divides
Tibet and Burma from China. Burma In this field the researches of
travellers already menand Chin
a. tioned, combined with
the more exact reconnaissance of native surveyors and of those
exploring parties which have recently been working in the interests
of commercial projects, have left little to future inquiry.
.^ Gowing, Peter G (1973), “Muslim Filipinos between integration and seccession,” South East Asia Journal of Theology, 14(2): 64-77.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
^ Forbes, Andrew D.W. (1988), “The Yunnanese (Ho•) Muslims of north Thailand,” South East Asian Review (Bihar, India) 13, nos.1-2 (Jan) 87-104.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
.^ Smith, Martin (1986), “Burma's Muslim borderland: sold down the river,” Inside Asia (London) 9: 5-7 (Jul-Aug).- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
These
three rivers
flow parallel to each other for some 300 m., deep hidden in narrow
and precipitous troughs, amidst some of the grandest scenery of
Asia; spreading apart where the Yank-tsze takes its course
eastwards, not far north of the parallel of 25°.
The comparatively restricted area which still remains for close
investigation includes the most easterly sources of the
Brahmaputra, the most northerly sources of the Irrawaddy, and some
300 m. of the course of the upper Salween.
Modern Boundary Demarcation
The period from about 1880 has been an era of boundary-making in
Asia, of defining the politicogeographical limits of empire, and of
determining the responsibilities of government. Russia, Persia,
Afghanistan,
Baluchistan, India and China
have all revised their borders, and with the revision the political
relations between these countries have acquired a new and more
assured basis. See also the articles on the different countries. We
are not here concerned with understandings as to "
spheres
of influence," or with arrangements such as the AngloRussian
Convention of 1907 concerning Persia.
The advance of Russia to the Turkoman deserts and the Oxus
demanded a definite boundary between her trans-Caspian conquests
and the kingdom of Afghanistan. This was determined
Southern
boundary on the north-west by the Russo-Afghan Boundary
Coin of Russia m
i
ss
i on of 1884-1886. A boundary was then fixed
Asia. between the Hari Rud (the river of Herat) and the
Oxus,
in which is almost entirely artificial in its
construction.
Zulfikar, where the boundary leaves the Hari Rud, is about 70 m.
south of Sarakhs, and the most southerly point of the boundary
(where it crosses the Kushk) is about 60 m. north of Herat. From
the junction of the boundary with the Oxus at Khamiab about 150 m.
above the crossing-point of the Russian Trans-Caspian railway at
Charjui, the main channel of the Oxus river becomes the northern
boundary of Afghanistan, separating that country from Russia, and
so continues to its source in Victoria Lake of the Great Pamir.
Beyond this point the Anglo-Russian Commission of 1895 demarcated a
line to the snowfields and glaciers which overlook the Chinese
border. Between the Russian Pamirs and Chinese Turkestan the rugged
line of the Sarikol range intervenes, the actual dividing line
being still indefinite. Beyond Kashgar the southern boundary of
Siberia follows an irregular course to the north-east, partly
defined by the Tian-shan and Alatau mountains, till it attains a
northerly point in about 53° N. lat. marked by the Sayan range to
the west of
Irkutsk.
.^ Farouk, Omar (1988), “The Muslims of Thailand: a survey,” South East Asian Review (Bihar, India) 13(1-2): 1-30 (Jan).- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
and 49° 20' N. lat. From here it follows this
affluent to its junction with the Amur river, and the Amur river to
its junction with the Usuri. It follows the Usuri to its head (its
direction now being a little west of south), and finally strikes
the Pacific coast on about 42° 30' N. lat. at the mouth of the
Tumen river loo m. south of the Amur bay, at the head of which lies
the Russian port of
Vladivostok. At two points the Russian
boundary nearly approaches that of provinces which are directly
under British
suzerainty. Where the Oxus river takes its
great bend to the north from Ishkashim, the breadth of the Afghan
territory intervening between that river and the main water-divide
of the Hindu Kush is not more than 10 or 12 m.; and east of the
Pamir extension of Afghanistan, where the Beyik Pass crosses the
Sarikol range and drops into the Taghdumbash Pamir, there is but
the narrow width of the Karachukar valley between the Sarikol and
the Murtagh. Here, however, the boundary is again undefined.
Eastwards of this the great Kashgar depression, which includes the
Tarim desert, separates Russia from the vast sterile highlands of
Tibet; and a continuous series of desert spaces of low elevation,
marking the limits of a primeval inland sea from the Sarikol
meridional watershed to the Khingan mountains on the western
borders of Manchuria, divide her from the northern provinces of
China. From the Khingan ranges to the Pacific, south of the Amur,
stretch the rich districts of Manchuria, a province which connects
Russia with the Korea by a series of valleys formed by the Sungari
and its affluents - a land of hill and plain, forest and swamp,
possessing a delightful climate, and vast undeveloped agricultural
resources. Throughout this land of promise Russian influence was
destroyed by Japan in the war of 1904. The possession of
Port Arthur, and direct
political control over Korea, place Japan in the dominant position
as regards Manchuria.
Coincident with the demarcation of Russian boundaries in
Turkestan was that of northern Afghanistan. From the Hari Rud on
the
Afghan west to the Sarikol mountains on the east her
northern limits were set by the Boundary Commissions of 1884
political 1886 and of 1895 respectively. Her southern and
eastern
bound- boundaries were further defined by a series
of minor
aries.
commissions, working on the basis of the Kabul agreement of 1893,
which lasted for nearly four years, terminating with the
Mohmand settlement at the close
of an expedition in 1897.
The Pamir extension of Afghan territory to the north-east
reaches to a point a little short of 75° E., from whence it follows
the waterdivide to the head of the Taghdumbash Pamir, and is
thenceforward defined by the water-parting of the Hindu Kush. It
leaves the Hindu Kush near the Dorah Pass at the head of one of the
minor Chitral affluents, and passing south-west divides Kafiristan
from Chitral and Bajour,
separates the sections of the Mohmands who are within the
respective spheres of Afghan and British sovereignty, and crosses the Peshawar-Kabul
route at Lundi-Khana. It thus places a broad width of independent
territory between the boundaries of British India (which have
remained practically, though not absolutely, untouched) and
Afghanistan; and this independent belt includes Swat, Bajour and a part of the Nlohmand territory
north of the Kabul
river. The same principle of maintaining an intervening width
of neutral territory between the two countries is definitely
established throughout the eastern borders of Afghanistan, along
the full length of which a definite boundary has been demarcated to
the point where it touches the northern limits of Baluchistan on
the Gomal river. From the Gomal
Baluchistan itself becomes an intervening state between British
India and Afghanistan, and the dividing line between Baluchistan
and Afghanistan is laid down with all the precision employed on the
more northerly sections of the demarcation.
Baluchistan can no longer be regarded as a distinct entity
amongst Asiatic nations, such as Afghanistan undoubtedly is.
Baluchistan independence demands qualification. There is British
Baluch Baluchistan par excellence, and there is the rest of
Baluchistan which exists in various degrees of independence, but is
everywhere subject to British control. British Baluchistan
officially includes the districts of Peshin, Sibi
and of Thal-Chotiali. As these districts had originally been
Afghan, they were transferred to British authority by the treaty of
Gandamak in 1879, although
nominally they had been handed over to Kalat forty years previously. Now they form an
official province of British Baluchistan within the Baluchistan
Agency; and the agency extends from the Gomal to the Arabian Sea
and the Persian frontier. Within this agency there are districts as
independent as any in Afghanistan, but the political status of the
province as a whole is almost precisely that of the native states
of the Indian peninsula. The agent to the governor-general of India, with a
staff of political assistants, practically exercises supreme
control.
The increase of Russian influence on the northern Persian border
and its extension southwards towards Seistan led to the appointment
of a British
consul at Kirman,
the dominating
Kirman. town of southern
Khorasan, directly connected
with
Meshed on the north; and
the acquisition of rights of administration of the
Nushki district secured to Great
Britain the trade between
Seistan and
Quetta by the new
Helmund desert route.
While British India has so far avoided actual geographical
contact with one great European power in Asia on the north and
west, she has touched another on the east. The Mekong river which
limits British interests in Burma limits also those
Boundary of
France in
Tongking. The eastern boundaries of
between F fronti urma
er. are At not a point int fully level dinemarcated latitude on
with the Mogaung,
territorenry ch Burma near the northern
termination of the Burmese railway
and India. system, this
boundary is defined by the eastern watershed of the Nmaikha, the
eastern of the two great northern affluents of the Irrawaddy. Then
it follows an irregular course southwards to a position south-east
of
Bhamo in lat. 24°. It next
defines the northern edge of the
Shan States, and finally strikes the Mekong
river in lat. 21° 45' (approximately). From that point southwards
the river becomes the boundary between the Shan States and Tongking
for some 200 m., the channel of the river defining the limits of
occupation (though not entirely of interest) between French and
British subjects. Approximately on the parallel of 20° N. lat. the
Burmese boundary leaves the Mekong to run westwards towards the
Salween, and thereafter following the eastern watershed of the
Salween basin it divides the Lower Burma provinces from Siam.
|
Territory.
Russian
British
Dutch .
French
U.S.A. .
German
Turkish
Chinese
Japanese. .
Other independent territories .
|
|
Sq. m.
6,495,970
1, 99 8,220
586,980
247,580
114,370
193
681,980
4,299,600
161,110
2,232,270
|
The following table shows the areas of territories in Asia
(continental and insular) dependent on the various extraAsiatic
powers, and of those which are independent or nominally so: - The
total area of Asia, continental and insular, is therefore somewhat
over 16,819,000 sq. m. (but various authorities differ considerably
in their detailed estimates). The population may be set down
roughly as 823,000,000, of which 330,000,000 inhabit Chinese
territory, 302,000,000 British, and 25,000,000 Russian. (T. H. H.*)
Area and political division. E
Arabian Sea Ba Of G A L
e Geological information incomplete Desert Deposits Quaternary Tertiary Mesozoic
Palaeozoic Archaean and Metamorphic Younger Volcanic Rocks English
Miles b iuHi iiiiuiiiiii after llargl,aua
Geology The geology of Asia is so complex and
over wide areas so little known that it is difficult to give a
connected account of either the structure or the development of the
continent, and only the broader features can be dealt with
here.
In the south, in Syria, Arabia and the peninsula of India,
none but the oldest rocks are folded, and the Upper Palaeozoic, the
Mesozoic and the Tertiary beds lie almost horizontally upon them.
It is a region of quiescence or of faulting, but not of folding.
North of this lies a broad belt in which the Mesozoic deposits and
even the lower divisions of the Tertiary system are thrown into
folds which extend in a series of arcs from west to east and now
form the principal mountain ranges of central Asia. 'This belt
includes Asia Minor, Persia, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, the
Himalayas, the Tian-shan, and, although they are very different in
direction, the Burmese ranges. The Kuen-lun, Nan-shan and the
mountain ranges of southern China are, perhaps, of earlier date,
but nevertheless they lie in the same belt. It is not true that
throughout the whole width of this zone the beds are folded. There
are considerable tracts which are but little disturbed, but these
tracts are enclosed within the arcs formed by the folds, and the
zone taken as a whole is distinctly one of crumpling. North of the
folded belt, and including Emery
the greater part of Siberia, Mongolia and northern China, lies
another area which is, in general, free from any important folding
of Mesozoic or Tertiary age. There are, it is true, mountain ranges
which are formed of folded beds; but in many cases the direction of
the chains is different from that of the folds, so that the ranges
must owe their elevation to other causes; and the folds, moreover,
are of ancient date, for the most part Archaean or Palaeozoic. The
configuration of the region is largely due to faulting, trough-like
or tray-like depressions being
formed, and the intervening strips, which have not been depressed,
standing up as mountain ridges. Over a large part of Siberia and in
the north of China, even the Cambrian beds still lie as horizontally
as they were first laid down. In the extreme north, in the
Verkhoyansk range and in the mountains of the Taimyr peninsula,
there are indications of another zone of folding of Mesozoic or
later date, but our information concerning these ranges is very
scanty. Besides the three chief regions into which the mainland is
thus seen to be divided, attention should be drawn to the festoons
of islands which border the eastern side of the continent, and
which are undoubtedly due to causes similar to those which produced
the folds of the folded belt.
Of all the Asiatic ranges the Himalayan is, geologically,
the best known; and the evidence which it affords shows clearly
that the folds to which it owes its elevation were produced by an
overthrust from the north. It is, indeed, as if the high land of
central Asia had been pushed southward against and over the
unyielding mass formed by the old rocks of the Indian peninsula,
and in the process the edges of the over-riding strata had been crumpled and folded.
Overlooking all smaller details, we may consider Asia to consist of
a northern mass and a southern mass, too rigid to crumple, but not
too strong to fracture, and an intermediate belt of softer rock
which was capable of folding. If then by the contraction of the
earth's interior the outer crust were forced to accommodate itself
to a smaller nucleus, the
central softer belt would yield by crumpling; the more rigid masses
to the north and south, if they gave way at all, would yield by
faulting. .^ Gowing, Peter G (1973), “Muslim Filipinos between integration and seccession,” South East Asia Journal of Theology, 14(2): 64-77.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
The belt of
folding does not precisely coincide with this central sea, but the
correspondence is fairly close.
The present outline of the eastern coast and the nearly
enclosed seas which lie between the islands and the mainland, are
attributed by Richthofen chiefly to simple faulting.
.^ Riddell, P. G. (1990), “The use of Arabic commentaries on the Qur’an in the early Islamic period in South and Southeast Asia,” Indonesia Circle, 51: 3-19.- Southeast Asia Collection - SEA Studies Programs in the Asia Pacific 14 January 2010 21:021 UTC www.hawaii.edu [Source type: Academic]
But there is
positive evidence that much of the north and east of Asia has been
land since the
Palaeozoic era, and it has been
conclusively proved that the peninsula of India has never been
beneath the sea since the
Carboniferous period at least.
Between these ancient land masses lies an area in which marine
deposits of Mesozoic age are well developed and which was evidently
beneath the sea during the greater part of the Mesozoic era. The
northern land-mass has been named Angaraland by E. Suess; the
southern, of which the Indian peninsula is but a fragment, is
called Gondwanaland by Neumayr, Suess and others; while the
intervening sea is the central
Mediterranean sea of Neumayr and the
Tethys of Suess. The greater part of western Asia, including the
basin of the Obi, the drainage area of the Aral Sea, together with
Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Persia and Arabia, was covered by the sea
during the later stages of the
Cretaceous period; but a considerable
part 3f this region was probably dry land in Jurassic
times.
The northern land-mass begins in the north with the area
which lies between the Yenisei and the Lena. Here the folded Archean
rocks are overlaid by Cambrian and Ordovician beds, which still lie
for the most part flat and undisturbed. Upon these rest patches of
freshwater deposits
containing numerous remains of plants. They consist chiefly of sandstone and conglomerate, but
include workable seams of coal.
Some of the deposits appear to be of Permian age, but others are probably Jurassic;
and they are all included under the general name of the Angara
series. Excepting in the extreme north, where marine Jurassic and
Cretaceous fossils have been found, there is no evidence that this
part of Siberia has been beneath the sea since the early part of
the Palaeozoic era. Besides the plant beds extensive outflows of
basic lava rest directly upon the
Cambrian and Ordovician strata. The date of these eruptions is
still uncertain, but they probably continued to a very recent
period.
South and east of the Palaeozoic plateau is an extensive
area consisting chiefly of Archean rocks, and including the greater
part of Mongolia north of the Tian-shan. Here again there are no
marine beds of Mesozoic or Tertiary age, while plant-bearing
deposits belonging to the Angara series are known. Structurally,
the folds of this region are of ancient date; but the area is
crossed by a series of depressions formed by faults, and the
intervening strips, which have not been depressed to the same
extent, now stand up as mountain ranges. Farther south, in the
Chinese provinces of Shansi and Shensi, the geological succession
is similar in some respects to that of the Siberian Palaeozoic
plateau, but the sequence is more complete. There is again a floor
of folded Archean rocks overlaid by nearly horizontal strata of
Lower Palaeozoic age; but these are followed by marine beds
belonging to the Carboniferous period. From the Upper Carboniferous
onward, however, no marine deposits are known; and, as in Siberia,
plant-bearing beds are met with. Southern China is very different
in structure, consisting largely of folded mountain chains, but the
geological succession is very similar, and excepting near the
Tibetan and Burmese borders, there are no marine deposits of
Mesozoic or Tertiary age.
Thus it appears that from the Arctic Ocean there stretches a
broad area as far as the south of China, in which no marine
deposits of later date than Carboniferous have yet been found,
except in the extreme north. Freshwater and terrestrial deposits of
Mesozoic age occur in many places, and the conclusion is
irresistible that the greater part of this area has been land since
the close of the Palaeozoic era. The Triassic deposits of the Verkhoyansk
Range show that this land did not extend to the Bering Sea; while
the marine Mesozoic deposits of Japan on the east, the western
Tian-shan on the west and Tibet on the south give us some idea of
its limits in other directions.
In the same way the entire absence of any marine fossils in
the peninsula of India, excepting near its borders, and the
presence of the terrestrial and freshwater deposits of the Gondwana series, representing
the whole of the geological scale from the top of the Carboniferous
to the top of the Jurassic, show that this region also has been
land since the Carboniferous period. It was a portion of a great
land-mass which probably extended across the Indian Ocean and was
at one time united with the south of Africa.
But these two land-masses were not connected. Between India
and China there is a broad belt in which marine deposits of
Mesozoic and Tertiary age are well developed. Marine Tertiary beds
occur in Burma; in the Himalayas and in south Tibet there is a
nearly complete series of marine deposits from the Carboniferous to
the Eocene; in Afghanistan the
Mesozoic beds are in part marine and in part fluviatile. The sea in
which these strata were deposited seems to have attained its
greatest extension in Upper Cretaceous times, when its waters
spread over the whole of western Asia and even encroached slightly
upon the Indian land. The Eocene sea, however, cannot have been
much inferior in extent.
It was after the Eocene period that the main part of the
elevation of the Himalayas took place, as is shown by the
occurrence of nummulitic limestone at a height of 20,000 ft. The
formation of this and of the other great mountain chains of central
Asia resulted in the isolation of portions of the former central
sea; and the same forces finally led to the elevation of the whole
region and the union of the old continents of Angara and Gondwana.
Gondwanaland, however, did not long survive, and the portion which
lay between India and South Africa sank beneath the waves in
Tertiary times.
Leaving out of consideration all evidence of more ancient
volcanic activity, each of the three regions, into which, as we
have seen, the continent may be divided, has been, during or since
the Cretaceous period, the seat of great volcanic eruptions. In the
southern region of unfolded beds are found the lavas of the "
harras " of Arabia, and in India the extensive flows of the Deccan Trap. In the central folded belt lie the great
volcanoes, now mostly extinct, of Asia Minor, Armenia, Persia and
Baluchistan. In Burma also there is at least one extinct volcano. In the northern
unfolded region great flows of basic lava lie directly upon the
Cambrian and Ordovician beds of Siberia, but are certainly in part
of Tertiary age. Similar flows on a smaller scale occur in
Manchuria, Korea and northern China.
In all these cases, however, the eruptions have now almost
ceased; and the great volcanoes of the present day lie in the
islands off the eastern and south-eastern coasts.
References. - E. Suess, Das Antlitz der Erde (see,
especially, vol. iii. part i.); F. V. Richthofen, " Ueber Gestalt
and Gliederung einer Grundlinie in der Morphologie Ost-Asiens,"
Sitz. k. preuss. Akad. Wiss. (Berlin, 1900), pp. 888-925, and "
Geomorphologische Studien aus Ostasien," ibid., 1901, pp. 782-808,
1902, PP. 944-975, 1903, pp. 867-9 1 8. (P. LA.) Climate Among the
places on the globe where the temperature falls lowest are some in
northern Asia, and among those where it rises highest are some in
southern Asia: The mean temperature of the north coast of eastern
Siberia is but a few degrees tore. above the zero of Fahrenheit;
the lowest mean tem perature anywhere observed is about 4° Fahr.,
at Melville Island, north of the American continent. The
isothermals of mean annual temperature lie over northern Asia on
curves tolerably regular in their outline, having their western
branches in a somewhat higher latitude than their eastern; a
reduction of I° of latitude corresponds approximately - and
irrespective of modifications due to elevation - to a rise of 2 °
Fahr., as far say as 30° N., where the mean temperature is about
75° Fahr. Farther south the increase is slower, and the highest
mean temperature anywhere attained in southern Asia is not much
above 82 ° Fahr.
The variations of temperature are very great in Siberia,
amounting near the coast to more than 100° Fahr., between the mean
of the hottest and coldest months, and to still more between the
extreme temperatures of those months. In southern Asia, and
particularly near the sea, the variation between the hottest and
coldest monthly means is very much less, and under the equatorit is
reduced to about 5°. In Siberia the difference between the means of
the hottest and coldest months is hardly anywhere less than 60°
Fahr. On the Sea of Aral it is 80° Fahr.; and at
Astrakhan, on the Caspian,
more than 50°. At Tiflis it is 45°. In northern China, at Peking,
it is 55°, reduced to 30° at Canton, and to 20° at
Manila. In northern India the
greatest difference does not exceed 40°; and it falls off to about
15 ° at
Calcutta, and to
about 10° or 12 °at
Bombay and
Madras. The temperatures at the head of the Persian Gulf
approximate to those of northern India, and those of Aden to
Madras. At
Singapore the
range is less than 5°; and at
Batavia in Java, and
Galle in Ceylon, it is about the same. The
extreme temperatures in Siberia may be considered to lie between
80° and 90° Fahr. for maxima, and between - 40° and - 70° Fahr. for
minima. The extreme of heat near the Caspian and Aral Seas rises to
nearly 100° Fahr., while that of cold falls to - 20° Fahr. or
lower. Compared with these figures, we find in southern Asia 110°
or 112° Fahr. as a maximum hardly ever exceeded. The absolute
minimum in northern India, in lat. 30°, hardly goes below 32°; at
Calcutta it is about 40°, though the thermometer seldom falls to
50°. At Madras it rarely falls as low as 65°, or at Bombay below
60°. At Singapore and Batavia the thermometer very rarely falls
below 70°, or rises above 90°. At Aden the minimum is a few degrees
below 70°, the maximum not much exceeding 90°.
These figures sufficiently indicate the main characteristics of
the air temperatures of Asia. Throughout its northern portion the
winter is long and of extreme severity; and even down to the circle
of 35° N. lat., the minimum temperature is almost as low as zero of
Fahrenheit. The summers are hot, though short in the northern
latitudes, the maximum of summer heat being comparatively little
less than that observed in the tropical countries farther south.
The moderating effect of the proximity of the ocean is felt in an
important degree along the southern and eastern parts of Asia,
where the land is broken up into islands or peninsulas. The great
elevations above the sea-level of the central part of Asia, and of
the table-lands of Afghanistan and Persia, tend to exaggerate the
winter cold; while the sterility of the surface, due to the small
rainfall over the same region, operates powerfully in the opposite
direction in increasing the summer heat. In the summer a great
accumulation of solar
heat takes place on the dry surface soil, from which it cannot be
released upwards by evaporation, as might be the case were the soil
moist or covered with vegetation, nor can it be readily conveyed
away downwards as happens on the ocean. In the winter similar
consequences ensue, in a negative direction, from the prolonged
loss of heat by radiation in the long and clear nights - an effect
which is intensified wherever the surface is covered with snow, or
the air little charged with vapour. In illustration of the very
slow
diffusion of heat
in the solid crust of the earth, and as affording a further
indication of the climate of northern Asia, reference may here be
made to the frozen soil of Siberia, in the vicinity of
Yakutsk. In this region the
earth is frozen permanently to a depth of more than 380 ft. at
which the temperature is still 5° or 6° Fahr. below the freezing
point of water, the summer heat merely thawing the surface to a
depth of about 3 ft. At a depth of 50 ft. the temperature is about
15° Fahr. below the freezing point. Under such conditions of the
soil, the land, nevertheless, produces crops of
wheat and other
grain from fifteen to forty
fold.
The very high summer temperatures of the area north of the
tropic of
Cancer are sufficiently accounted for,
when compared with those observed south of the tropic, by the
increased length of the day in the higher latitude, which more than
compensates for the loss of heat due to the smaller mid-day
altitude of the sun. The difference between the
heating power of the sun's rays at
noon on the 21st of June, in latitude
20° and in latitude 45°, is only about 2%; while the accumulated
heat received during the day, which is lengthened to 152 hours in
the higher latitude, is greater by about i i % than in the lower
latitude, where the day consists only of 134 hours.
Although the foregoing account of the temperatures of Asia
supplies the main outline of the observed phenomena, a very
important modifying cause, of which more will be said hereafter,
comes into operation over the whole of the tropical region, namely,
the periodical summer rains. These tend very greatly to
arrest the increase of the summer
heat over the area where they prevail, and otherwise give it
altogether peculiar characteristics.
The great summer heat, by expanding the air upwards, disturbs
the level of the planes of equal pressure, and causes an outflow of
the upper strata from the heated area. The winter cold produces an
effect of just an opposite nature, and Winds. causes an
accumulation of air over the cold area, The diminution of
barometric pressure which takes place all over Asia during the
summer months, and the increase in the winter, are hence, no doubt,
the results of the alternate heating and cooling of the air over
the continent.
The necessary and immediate results of such periodical changes
of pressure are winds, which, speaking generally, blow from the
area of greatest to that of least pressure - subject, however, to
certain modifications of direction, arising from the absolute
motion of the whole body of the air due to the revolution of the
earth on its axis from west to east. The south-westerly winds which
prevail north of the equator during the hot half of the year, to
which navigators have given the name of the south-west
monsoon (the latter word being
a corruption of the Indian name for season), arise from the great
diminution of atmospheric pressure over Asia, which begins to be
strongly marked with the great rise of temperature in April and
May, and the simultaneous relatively higher pressure over the
equator and the regions south of it. This diminution of pressure,
which continues as the heat increases till it reaches its maximum
in July soon after the
solstice, is followed by the corresponding
development of the south-west monsoon; and as the barometric
pressure is gradually restored, and becomes equalized within the
tropics soon after the
equinox in October, with the general fall of
temperature north of the equator, the south-west winds fall off,
and are succeeded by a north-east monsoon, which is developed
during the winter months by the relatively greater atmospheric
pressure which then occurs over Asia, as compared with the
equatorial region.
Although the succession of the periodical winds follows the
progress of the seasons as just described, the changes in the
wind's direction everywhere take place under the operation of
special local influences which often disguise the more general law,
and make it difficult to trace. Thus the south-west monsoon begins
in the Arabian Sea with west and north-westerly winds,which draw
round as the year advances to south-west and fall back again in the
autumn by northwest to north. In the Bay of Bengal the strength of
the southwest monsoon is rather from the south and south-east,
being succeeded by north-east winds after October, which give place
to northerly and north-westerly winds as the year advances. Among
the islands of the Malay Archipelago the force of the monsoons is
much interrupted, and the position of this region on the equator
otherwise modifies the directions of the prevailing winds. The
southerly summer winds of the Asiatic seas between the equator and
the tropic do not extend to the coasts of Java, and the
southeasterly
trade
winds are there developed in the usual manner. The China Sea is
fully exposed to both monsoons, the normal directions of which
nearly coincide with the centre of the channel between the
continent of Asia and the eastern islands.
The south-west monsoon does not generally extend, in its
character of a south-west wind, over the land. The current of air
flowing in from over the sea is gradually diverted towards the area
of least pressure, and at the same time is dissipated and loses
much of its original force. The winds which pass northward over
India blow as south-easterly and easterly winds over the
north-eastern part of the Gangetic plain, and as south winds up the
Indus. They seem almost entirely to have exhausted their northward
velocity by the time they have reached the northern extremity of
the great Indian plain; they are not felt on the table-lands of
Afghanistan, and hardly penetrate into the Indus basin or the
ranges of the Himalaya, by which mountains, and those which branch
off from them into the Malay peninsula, they are prevented from
continuing their progress in the direction originally imparted to
them.
Among the more remarkable phenomena of the hotter seas of Asia
must be noticed the revolving storms or cyclones, which are of
frequent occurrence in the hot months in the Indian Ocean and China
Sea, in which last they are known under the name of
typhoon. The cyclones of the
Bay of Bengal appear to originate over the Andaman and
Nicobar
islands, and are commonly propagated in a north-westward
direction, striking the east coast of the Indian peninsula at
various points, and then often advancing with an easterly tendency
over the land, and passing with extreme violence across the delta
of the Ganges. They occur in all the hot months, from June to
October, and more rarely in November, and appear to be originated
by adverse currents from the north meeting those of the south-west
monsoon. The cyclones of the China Sea also occur in the hot months
of the year, but they advance from north-east to south-west, though
occasionally from east to west; they originate near the island of
Formosa, and extend to about the 10th degree of N. lat. They are
thus developed in nearly the same latitudes and in the same months
as those of the Indian Sea, though their progress is in a different
direction. In both cases, however, the storms appear to advance
towards the area of greatest heat. In these storms the wind
invariably circulates from north by west through south to east.
The heated body of air carried from the Indian Ocean over
southern Asia by the south-west monsoon comes up highly charged
with watery vapour, and hence in a condition to release a large
body of water as rain upon the land, whenever it is brought into
circumstances which reduce its temperature in a notable degree.
Such a reduction of temperature is brought about along the greater
part of the coasts of India and of the BurmoSiamese peninsula by
the interruption of the wind current by continuous ranges of
mountains, which force the mass of air to rise over them, whereby
the air being rarefied, its specific capacity for heat is increased
and its temperature falls, with a corresponding condensation of the
vapour originally held in suspension.
This explanation of the principal efficient cause of the summer
rains of south Asia is immediately based on an analysis of the
complicated phenomena actually observed, and it serves to account
for man y apparent anomalies. The heaviest falls of rain occur
along lines of mountain of some extent directly facing the
vapour-bearing winds, as on the Western
Ghats of India and the west coast of the Malay
peninsula. The same results are found along the mountains at a
distance from the sea, the heaviest rainfall known to occur
anywhere in the world (not less than 600 in. in the year) being
recorded on the Khasi range about 100 m. north-east of Calcutta,
which presents an abrupt front to the progress of the moist winds
flowing up from the Bay of Bengal. The cessation of the rains on
the southern border of Baluchistan, west of Karachi, obviously
arises from the projection of the south-east coast of Arabia, which
limits the breadth of the south-west monsoon air current and the
length of the coast-line directly exposed to it. The very small and
irregular rainfall in
Sind and
along the Indus is to be accounted for by the want of any obstacle
in the path of the vapour-bearing winds, which, therefore, carry
the uncondensed rain up to the Punjab, where it falls on the outer
ranges of the western Himalaya and of Afghanistan.
The diurnal mountain winds are very strongly marked on the
Himalaya, where they probably are the most active agents in
determining the precipitation of rain along the chain - the monsoon
currents, as before stated, not penetrating among the mountains.
The formation of dense
banks of
cloud in the afternoon, when the
up wind is strongest, along the southern face of the snowy ranges
of the Himalaya, is a regular daily phenomenon during the hotter
months of the year, and heavy rain, accompanied by
electrical discharges, is
the frequent result of such condensation.
Too little is known of the greater part of Asia to admit of any
more being said with reference to this part of the subject, than to
mention a few facts bearing on the rainfall. In northern Asia there
is a generally equal rainfall of 19 to 29 in. between the
Volga and the Lena in Manchuria and
northern China, rather more considerable increase in Korea, Siam
and Japan. At Tiflis the yearly fall is 22 in.; on the Caspian
about 7 or 8 in.; on the Sea of Aral 5 or 6 in. In south-western
Siberia it is 12 or 14 in., diminishing as we proceed eastward to 6
or 7 in. at
Barnaul, and to
5 or 6 in. at
Urga in northern
Mongolia. In eastern Siberia it is about 15 to 20 in. In China we
find about 23 in. to be the fall at Peking; while at Canton, which
lies nearly on the northern tropic and the region of the south-west
monsoon is entered, the quantity is increased to 78 in. At Batavia
in Java the fall is about 78 in.; at Singapore it is nearly 100 in.
The quantity increases considerably on that part of the coast of
the Malay peninsula which is not sheltered from the south-west by
Sumatra. On the
Tenasserim and Burmese coast falls of more
than 200 in. are registered, and the quantity is here nowhere less
than 75 or 80 in., which is about the average of the eastern part
of the delta of the Ganges, Calcutta standing at about 64 in. On
the hills that flank Bengal on the east the fall is very great. On
the
Khasi hills, at an elevation of
about 4500 ft., the average of ten years is more than 550 in. As
much as 150 in. has been measured in one month, and 610 in. in one
year. On the west coast of the Indian peninsula the fall at the
sea-level varies from about 75 to 100 in., and at certain
elevations on the mountains more than 250 in. is commonly
registered, with intermediate quantities at intervening localities.
On the east coast the fall is far less, nowhere rising to 50 in.,
and towards the southern apex of the peninsula being reduced to 25
or 30 in. Ceylon shows from 60 to 80 in. As we recede from the
coast the fall diminishes, till it is reduced to about 25 or 30 in.
at the head of the Gangetic plain. The tract along the Indus to
within 60 or 80 m. of the Himalaya is almost rainless, 6 or 8 in.
being the fall in the southern portion of the Punjab. On the outer
ranges of the Himalaya the yearly fall amounts to about 200 in. on
the east in
Sikkim, and
gradually diminishes on the west, where north of the Punjab it is
about 70 or 80 in. In the interior of the chain the rain is far
less, and the quantity of precipitation is so small in Tibet that
it can be hardly measured. It is to the greatly reduced fall of
snow on the northern faces of the highest ranges of the Himalaya
that is to be attributed the higher level of the
snow-line, a phenomenon
which was long a cause of discussion.
In Afghanistan, Persia, Asia Minor and Syria, winter and spring
appear to be the chief seasons of condensation. In other parts of
Asia the principal part of the rain falls between May and
September, that is, in the hottest half of the year. In the islands
under the equator the heaviest fall is between October and
February. (R. S.) Flora And Fauna The general assemblage of animals
and plants found over northern Asia resembles greatly that found in
the parts of Europe which are adjacent and have a similar climate.
Siberia, north of the 50th parallel, has a climate not much
differing from a similarly situated portion of Europe, though the
winters are more severe and the summers hotter. The rainfall,
though moderate, is still sufficient to maintain the supply of
water in the great rivers that traverse the country to the Arctic
Sea, and to support an abundant vegetation. A similar affinity
exists between the life of the southern parts of Europe and that in
the zone of Asia extending from the Mediterranean across to the
Himalaya and northern China. This belt, which embraces Asia Minor,
northern Persia, Afghanistan, and the southern slopes of the
Himalaya, from its elevation has a temperate climate, and
throughout it the rainfall is sufficient to maintain a vigorous
vegetation, while the summers, though hot, and the winters, though
severe, are not extreme. The plants and animals along it are found
to have a marked similarity of character to those of south Europe,
with which region the zone is virtually continuous.
The extremely dry and hot tracts which constitute an almost
unbroken desert from Arabia, through south Persia and Baluchistan,
to Sind, are characterized by considerable uniformity in the types
of life, which closely approach to those of the neighbouring hot
and dry regions of Africa. The region of the heavy periodical
summer rains and high temperature, which comprises India, the
IndoChinese peninsula, and southern China, as well as the western
part of the Malay Archipelago, is also marked by much similarity in
the plants and animals throughout' its extent. The area between the
southern border of Siberia and the margin of the temperate alpine
zone of the Himalaya and north China, comprising what are commonly
called central Asia, Turkestan, Mongolia and western Manchuria, is
an almost rainless region, having winters of extreme severity and
summers of intense heat. Its animals and plants have a special
character suited to the peculiar climatal conditions, more closely
allied to those of the adjacent northern Siberian tract than of the
other bordering regions. The south-eastern parts of the Malay
Archipelago have much in common with the Australian continent, to
which they adjoin, though their affinities are chiefly Indian.
North China and Japan also have many forms of life in common. Much
still remains to be done in the exploration of China and eastern
Asia; but it is known that many of the special forms of this region
extend to the Himalaya, while others clearly indicate a connexion
with
North
America.
The foregoing brief review of the principal territorial
divisions according to which the forms of life are distributed in
Asia, indicates how close is the dependence of this distribution on
climatic conditions, and this will be made more apparent by a
somewhat fuller account of the main features of the flora and
fauna.
Flora
The flora of the whole of northern Asia is in essentials the
same as that of northern Europe, the differences being due rather
to variations of species than of genera. The absence of the
oak and of all heaths east of the Ural
may be noticed.
Asia. Pines,
larch,
birch
are the principal trees on the moun tains;
willow, alders and poplars on the lower ground.
The northern limit of the pine in Siberia is about 70° N.
Along the warm temperate zone, from the Mediterranean to the
Himalaya, extends a flora essentially European in character. Many
European species reach the central Himalaya, though few are known
in its eastern parts. The genera common to the Himalaya and Europe
are much more abundant, and extend throughout the chain, and to all
elevations. There is also a corresponding diffusion o f Japanese
and Chinese forms along this zone, these being most numer - ous in
the eastern Himalaya, and less frequent in the west.
The truly tropical flora of the hotter and wetter regions of
eastern India is continuous with that of the Malayan peninsula and
islands, and extends along the lower ranges of the Himalaya,
gradually becoming less marked and rising to lower elevations as we
go westward, where the rainfall diminishes and the winter cold
increases.
The vegetation of the higher and therefore cooler and less rainy
ranges of the Himalaya has greater uniformity of character along
the whole chain, and a closer general approach to European forms is
maintained; an increased number of species is actually identical,
among these being found, at the greatest elevations, many alpine
plants believed to be identical with species of the north Arctic
regions. On reaching the Tibetan plateau, with the increased
dryness the flora assumes many features of the Siberian type. Many
true Siberian species are found, and more Siberian genera. Some of
the Siberian forms, thus brought into proximity with the Indian
flora, extend to the rainy parts of the mountains, and even to the
plains of upper India. Assemblages of marine plants form another
remarkable feature of Tibet, these being frequently met with
growing at elevations of 14,000 to 15,000 ft. above the sea, more
especially in the vicinity of the many salt lakes of those
regions.
The vegetation of the hot and dry region of the south-west of
the continent consists largely of plants which are diffused over
Africa, Baluchistan and Sind; many of these extend into the hotter
parts of India, and not a few common Egyptian plants are to be met
with in the Indian peninsula.
The whole number of species of plants indigenous in the region
of south-eastern Asia, which includes India and the Malayan
peninsula and islands, from about the 65th to the 105th meridian,
was estimated by Sir J. D. Hooker at 12,000 to 15,000.
region. The principal orders, arranged according
to their numerical importance, are as follows: -
Leguminosae,Rubiaceae, Orchidaceae,
Compositae, Gramineae,
Euphorbiaceae,
Acanthaceae,
Cyperaceae and
Labiatae. But within this region there is a
very great variation between the vegetation of the more humid and
the more arid regions, while the characteristics of the flora on
the higher mountain ranges differ wholly from those of the plains.
In short, we have a somewhat heterogeneous assemblage of tropical,
temperate and alpine plants, as has been already briefly indicated,
of which, however, the tropical are so far dominant as to give
their character to the flora viewed as a whole. The Indian flora
contains a more general and complete illustration of almost all the
chief natural families of all parts of the world than any other
country. Compositae are comparatively rare; so also Gramineae and
Cyperaceae are in some places deficient, and Labiatae,
Leguminosae and ferns
in others. Euphorbiaceae and
Scrophulariaceae and Orchidaceae are
universally present, the last in specially large proportions.
The perennially humid regions of the Malayan peninsula and
western portion of the archipelago are everywhere covered with
dense forest, rendered difficult to traverse by the thorny
cane, a
palm of the genus
Calamus, which has its
greatest development in this part of Asia. The chief trees belong
to the orders of Terebinthaceae, Sapindaceae, Meliaceae,
Clusiaceae, Dipterocarpaceae, Ternstroemiaceae, Leguminosae,
laurels, oaks and figs, with Dilleniaceae, Sapotaceae and nutmegs.
Bamboos and palms, with
Pandanus and
Dracaena, are also abundant. A
similar forest flora extends along the mountains of eastern India
to the Himalaya, where it ascends to elevations varying from 6000
to 7000 ft. on the east to 3000 or 4000 ft. on the west.
The arboreous forms which least require the humid and
equable heat of the more truly tropical and equatorial climates,
and are best able to resist the high temperatures and excessive
drought of the northern Indian hot months from April to June, are
certain Leguminosae, Bauhinia, Acacia, Butea and Dalbergia, Bombax, Shorea,
Nauclea, Lagerstroemia, and Bignonia, a few bamboos and palms, with
others which extend far beyond the tropic, and give a tropical
aspect to the forest to the extreme northern border of the Indian
plain.
Of the herbaceous vegetation of the more rainy regions may be
noted the Orchidaceae, Orontiaceae, Scitamineae, with ferns and
other II. 24 a Cryptogams, besides Gramineae and Cyperaceae. Among
these some forms, as among the trees, extend much be y ond the
tropic and ascend into the temperate zones on the mountains, of
which may be mentioned
Begonia, Osbeckia, various
Cyrtandraceae, Scitamineae, and a few epiphytical
orchids.
Of the orders most largely developed in south India, and
more sparingly elsewhere, may be named Aurantiaceae,
Dipterocarpaceae, Balsaminaceae, Ebenaceae, Jasmineae, and
Cyrtandraceae; but of these few contain as many as 100 peculiar
Indian species. Nepenthes may be mentioned as a
genus specially developed in the Malayan area, and extending from
New Caledonia to
Madagascar; it is
found as far north as the Khasi hills, and in Ceylon, but does not
appear on the Himalaya or in the peninsula of India. The
Balsaminaceae may be named as being rare in the eastern region and
very abundant in the peninsula. A distinct connexion between the
flora of the peninsula and Ceylon and that of eastern tropical
Africa is observable not only in the great similarity of many of
the more truly tropical forms, and the identity of families and
genera found in both regions, but in a more remarkable manner in
the likeness of the mountain flora of this part of Africa to that
of the peninsula, in which several species occur believed to be
identical with Abyssinian forms. This connexion is further
established by the absence from both areas of oaks, conifers and
cycads, which, as regards the first two families, is a remarkable
feature of the flora of the peninsula and Ceylon, as the mountains
rise to elevations in which both of them are abundant to the north
and east. With these facts it has to be noticed that many of the
principal forms of the eastern flora are absent or comparatively
rare in the peninsula and Ceylon.
The general
physiognomy of the Indian flora is mainly
determined by the conditions of humidity of climate. The
impenetrable shady forests of the Malay peninsula and eastern
Bengal, of the west coast of the Indian peninsula, and of Ceylon,
offer a strong contrast to the more loosely-timbered districts of
the drier regions of
central India and the north-western
Himalaya. The forest areas of India include the dense vegetation
and luxuriant growth of the
Tarai jungles at the foot of the eastern
Himalaya, and wide stretches of loosely-timbered country which are
a prevailing feature in the
Central Provinces and parts
of Madras. Where the lowlands are highly cultivated they are
adorned with planted wood, and where they are cut off from rain
they are nearly completely desert.
The higher mountains rise abruptly from the plains; on their
slopes, clothed below almost exclusively with the more tropical
forms, a vegetation of a warm temperate character, chiefly
evergreen, soon begins to
prevail, comprising Magnoliaceae, Ternstroemiaceae, subtropical
Rosaceae,
rhododendron, oak,
Ilex, Symplocos, Lauraceae,
Pinus longifolia,
with mountain forms of truly tropical orders, palms,
Pandanus,
Musa, Vitis, Vernonia, and many others. On the east the
vegetation of the Himalaya is most abundant and varied. The forest
extends, with great luxuriance, to an elevation of 12,000 ft.,
above which the sub-alpine region may be said to begin, in which
rhododendron scrub often covers the ground up to 13,000 or 14,000
ft. Only one pine is found below 8000 ft., above which several
other Coniferae occur. Plantains, tree-ferns, bamboos, several
Calami, and other palms, and
Pandanus, are
abundant at the lower levels. Between 4000 and 8000 ft. epiphytal
orchids are very frequent, and reach even to 10,000 ft. Vegetation
ascends on the drier and less snowy mountain slopes of Tibet to
above 18,00o ft. On the west, with the drier climate, the forest is
less luxuriant and dense, and the hill-sides and the valleys better
cultivated. The warm mountain slopes are covered with
Pinus
longifolia, or with oaks and rhododendron, and the forest is
not commonly dense below 8000 f t., excepting in some of the more
secluded valleys at a low elevation. From 8000 to 12,000 ft., a
thick forest of
deciduous trees is almost universal, above
which a sub-alpine region is reached, and vegetation as on the east
continues up to 18,000 ft. or more. The more tropical forms of the
east, such as the tree-ferns, do not reach west of Nepal. The
cedar or deodar is hardly
indigenous east of the sources of the Ganges, and at about the same
point the forms of the west begin to be more abundant, increasing
in number as we advance towards Afghanistan.
The cultivated plants of the Indian region include wheat,
barley,
rice and
maize;
various millets,
Sorghum, Penicillaria, Panicum and
Eleusine; many pulses, peas and beans;
mustard and
rape;
ginger
and
turmeric;
pepper and
capsicum; several
Cucurbitaceae;
tobacco,
Sesamum, poppy,
Crotolaria and
Cannabis;
cotton,
indigo and
sugar;
coffee and
tea;
oranges, lemons of many sorts;
pomegranate,
mango, figs, peaches, vines and plantains. The
more common palms are
Cocos, Phoenix and
Borassus, supplying
cocoa-
nut and toddy. Indian agriculture combines the
harvests of the tropical and temperate zones. North of the tropic
the winter cold is sufficient to admit of the cultivation of almost
all the cereals and vegetables of Europe, wheat being sown in
November and reaped early in April. In this same region the summer
heat and rain provide a thoroughly tropical climate, in which rice
and other tropical cereals are freely raised, being as a rule sown
early in July and reaped in September or October. In southern
India, and the other parts of Asia and of the islands having a
similar climate, the difference of the winter and summer half-years
is not sufficient to admit of the proper cultivation of wheat or
barley. The other cereals may be seen occasionally, where
artificial irrigation is practised, in all stages of progress at
all seasons of the year, though the operations of agriculture are,
as a general rule, limited to the rainy months, when alone is the
requisite supply of water commonly forthcoming.
The trees of India producing economically useful
timber are comparatively few,
owing to the want of durability of the wood, in the extremely hot
and moist climate. The
teak,
Tectona grandis, supplies the finest timber. It is found
in greatest perfection in the forests of the west coasts of Burma
and the Indian peninsula, where the rainfall is heaviest, growing
to a height of too or 150 ft., mixed with other trees and bamboos.
The sal,
Shorea robusta, a very durable wood, is most
abundant along the skirts of the Himalaya from Assam to the Punjab,
and is found in central India, to which the teak also extends. The
sal grows to a large size, and is more gregarious than the teak. Of
other useful woods found in the plains may be named the babool,
Acacia; toon,
Cedrela; and sissoo,
Dalbergia. The only timber in ordinary use obtained from
the Himalaya proper is the deodar,
Cedrus deodara. Besides
these are the
sandalwood,
Santalum, of southern
India, and many sorts of
bamboo found in all parts of the country. The
cinchona has recently been
introduced with complete success; and the
mahogany of
America reaches a large size, and gives promise
of being grown for use as timber.
The flora of the rainless region of south-western Asia is
continuous with the desert flora of northern and eastern Africa,
and extends from the coast of
Senegal to the meridian of 75° E., or from
Asia.
along the Indus and the southern parts of the Punjab.
It includes the peninsula of Arabia, the shores of the Persian
Gulf, south Persia, and Afghanistan and Baluchistan. On the west
its limit is in the
Cape Verde Islands, and it is
partially represented in
Abyssinia.
The more common plants in the most characteristic part of this
region in southern Arabia are Capparidaceae, Euphorbiaceae, and a
few Leguminosae, a
Reseda and
Dipterygium; palms,
Polygonaceae,
ferns, and other cryptogams, are rare. The number of families
relative to the area is very small, and the number of genera and
species equally restricted, in very many cases a single species
being the only representative of an order. The aspect of the
vegetation is very peculiar, and is commonly determined by the
predominance of some four or five species, the rest being either
local or sparingly scattered over the area. The absence of the
ordinary bright green colours of vegetation is another peculiarity
of this flora, almost all the plants having
glaucous or whitened stems. Foliage is reduced
to a minimum, the moisture of the plant being stored up in massive
or fleshy stems against the long-continued drought. Aridity has
favoured the production of spines as a defence from external
attack, sharp thorns are frequent, and asperities of various sorts
predominate. Many species produce gums and resins, their stems
being encrusted with the exudations, and pungency and aromatic
odour is an almost universal quality of the plants of desert
regions.
The cultivated plants of Arabia are much the same as those of
northern India - wheat, barley, and the common
Sorghum,
with dates and lemons, cotton and indigo. To these must be added
coffee, which is restricted to the slopes of the western hills.
Among the more mountainous regions of the south-western part of
Arabia, known as Arabia
Felix, the summits of which rise to 6000
or 7000 ft., the rainfall is sufficient to develop a more luxuriant
vegetation, and the valleys have a flora like that of similarly
situated parts of southern Persia, and the less elevated parts of
Afghanistan and Baluchistan, partaking of the characters of that of
the hotter Mediterranean region. In these countries aromatic shrubs
are abundant. Trees are rare, and almost restricted to
Pistacia, Celtis and
Dodonaea, with poplars, and
the
date palm. Prickly
forms of
Statice and
Astragalus cover the dry
hills. In the spring there is an abundant herbaceous vegetation,
including many bulbous plants, with genera, if not species,
identical with those of the Syrian region, some of which extend to
the Himalaya.
The flora of the northern part of Afghanistan approximates to
that of the contiguous western Himalaya.
Quercus Ilex, the
evergreen oak of southern Europe, is found in forests as far east
as the
Sutlej, accompanied
with other European forms. In the higher parts of Afghanistan and
Persia
Boraginaceae and thistles abound; gigantic
Umbelliferae, such
as
Ferula, Galbanum,
Dorema, Bubon, Peucedanum, Prangos, and others, also
characterize the same districts, and some of them extend into
Tibet.
The flora of Asia Minor and northern Persia differs but little
from that of the southern parts of Europe. The mountains are
clothed, where the fall of rain is abundant, with forests of
Quercus, Fagus, Ulmus, Acer, Carpinus and
Corylus, and various Coniferae. Of these the only genus
that is not found on the Himalaya is
Fagus. Fruit trees of the
plum tribe abound. The cultivated plants are those
of southern Europe.
The vegetation of the Malayan Islands is for the most part that
of the wetter and hotter region of India; but the greater
uniformity of the temperature and humidity leads to the predomin
ance of certain tropical forms not so conspicuous in India, while
the proximity of the Australian continent has permitted the partial
diffusion of Australian types which are not seen in India. The
liquidambar and
nutmeg may be noticed among the
former; the first is one of the most conspicuous trees in Java, on
the mountains of the eastern part of which the
casuarina, one of the characteristic forms of
Australia, is also abundant. Rhododendrons occur in Borneo and
Sumatra, descending to the level of the sea. On the mountains of
Java there appears to be no truly alpine flora;
Saxifrage is not
found. In Borneo some of the temperate forms of Australia appear on
the higher mountains. On the other islands similar characteristics
are to be observed, Australian genera extending to the Philippines,
and even to southern China.
The analysis of the Hong Kong flora indicates that about
threefifths of the species are common to the Indian region, and
nearly all the remainder are either Chinese or local forms. The
number of species common to southern China, Japan and northern Asia
is small. The cultivated plants of China are, with a few
exceptions, the same as those of India. South China, therefore,
seems, botanically, hardly distinct from the great Indian region,
into which many Chinese forms penetrate, as before noticed. The
flora of north China, which is akin to that of Japan, shows manifest relation to that of
the neighbouring American continent, from which many temperate
forms extend, reaching to the Himalaya, almost as far as Kashmir.
Very little is known of the plants of the interior of northern
China, but it seems probable that a complete botanical connexion is
established between it and the temperate region of the
Himalaya.
The vegetation of the dry region of central Asia is
remarkable for the great relative number of Chenopodiaceae,
Salicornia and other Central salt plants being common; Polygonaceae
also are abun Asia. dant; leafless forms being of frequent
occurrence, which gives the vegetation a very remarkable aspect.
Peculiar forms of Leguminosae also prevail, and these, with many of
the other plants of the southern and drier regions of Siberia, or
of the colder regions of the desert tracts of Persia and
Afghanistan, extend into Tibet, where the extreme drought and the
hot (nearly vertical) sun combine to produce a summer climate not
greatly differing from that of the plains of central Asia.
Fauna
The zoological provinces of Asia correspond very closely with
the botanical. The northern portion of Asia, as far south as the
Himalaya, is not zoologically distinct from Europe, and these two
areas, with the
strip of Africa
north of the
Atlas, constitute
the Palaearctic region of Dr Sclater, whose zoological primary
divisions of the earth have met with the general approval of
naturalists. The south-eastern portion of Asia, with the adjacent
islands of Sumatra, Java, Borneo and the Philippines, form his
Indian region. The extreme south-west part of the continent
constitutes a separate zoological district, comprising Arabia,
Palestine and southern Persia, and reaching, like the hot desert
botanical tract, to Baluchistan and Sind; it belongs to what Dr
Sclater calls the Ethiopian region, which extends over Africa,
south of the Atlas. Celebes, Papua, and the other islands east of
Java beyond Wallace's line, fall within the Australian region.
Nearly all the mammals of Europe also occur in northern Asia,
where, however, the Palaearctic fauna is enriched by numerous
additional species. The characteristic groups belong
and
birds. mostly to forms which are restricted to cold and
temperate regions. Consequently the Quadrumana, or monkeys, are
nearly unrepresented, a single species occurring in Japan, and one
or two others in northern China and Tibet. Insectivorous bats are
numerous, but the frugivorous division of this order is only
represented by a single species in Japan.
Carnivora are also numerous, particularly the
frequenters of cold climates, such as bears, weasels, wolves and
foxes. Of the
Insectivora numerous forms of moles, shrews
and hedgehogs prevail. The Rodents are also well represented by
various squirrels, mice and hares. Characteristic forms of this
order in northern Asia are the marmots (
Arctomys) and the
pikas, or tailless hares (
Lagomys). The great order of
Ungulata is represented by
various forms of sheep, as many as ten or twelve wild species of
Ovis being met with in the mountain chains of Asia; and
more sparingly by several peculiar forms of
antelope, such as the
saiga (Saiga tatarica), and the
Gazella
gutturosa, or yellow sheep. Coming to the
deer, we also meet with characteristic forms in
northern Asia, especially those belonging to the typical genus
Cervus. The
musk
deer (Moschus) is also
quite restricted to northern Asia, and is one of its most peculiar
types.
The ornithology of northern Asia is even more
closely allied to that of Europe than the mammal fauna. Nearly
three-fourths of the well-known species of Europe extend through
Siberia into the islands of the Japanese empire. Here again we have
an absence of all tropical forms, and a great development of groups
characteristic of cold and temperate regions. One of the most
peculiar of these is the genus Phasianus, of which splendid birds
all the species are restricted in their wild state to northern
Asia. The still more magnificently clad gold pheasants (Thaumalea), and the eared
pheasants (Crossoptilon), are also confined to certain districts in
the mountains of north-eastern Asia. Amongst the Passeres, such
forms as the larks, stone-chats, finches, linnets and grosbeaks are
well developed, and exhibit many species.
The mammal fauna of the Indian region of Asia is much more
highly developed than that of the Palaearctic. The Quadrumana are
represented by several peculiar genera, amongst which are
Semnopithecus, Hylobates and
Simia. Two peculiar
forms of the Lemurine group are also met with. Both the
insectivorous and frugivorous divisions of the bats are well
represented. Amongst the Insectivora very peculiar forms are found,
such as
Gymnura and
Tupaia. The Carnivora are
likewise numerous; and this region may be considered as the true
home of the
tiger, though this
animal has wandered far north into the Palaearctic division of
Asia. Other characteristic Carnivora are civets, various
ichneumons, and the benturong (
Arctictis). Two species of
bears are likewise restricted to the Indian region. In the order of
Rodents squirrels are very numerous, and porcupines of two genera
are met with. The Indian region is the home of the Indian
elephant - one of the two
sole remaining representatives of the order
Proboscidea. Of the Ungulates, four species
of
rhinoceros and one
of
tapir are met with, besides
several peculiar forms of the
swine family. The
Bovidae, or hollow-horned ruminants, are
represented by several genera of antelopes, and by species of true
Bos - such as
B. sondaicus, B. frontalis and B. bubalus.
Deer are likewise numerous, and the peculiar group of chevrotains
(
Tragulus) is characteristic of the Indian region.
Finally, this region affords us representatives of the order
Edentata, in the shape of
several species of
Manis, or scaly
ant-eater.
The assemblage of birds of the Indian region is one of the
richest and most varied in the world, being surpassed only by that
of tropical America. Nearly every order, except that of the
Struthiones or ostriches, is well represented, and there are many
peculiar genera not found elsewhere, such as Buceros,
Harpactes, Lophophorus, Euplocamus, Pavo and
Ceriornis. The Phasianidae (exclusive of true
Phasianus) are highly characteristic of this region, as
are likewise certain genera of barbets (Megalaeraa),
parrots (Palaeornis), and crows (Dendrocitta,
Urocissa and Cissa). The family Eurylaemidae
is entirely confined to this part of Asia.
The Ethiopian fauna plays but a subordinate part in Asia,
intruding only into the south-western corner, and occupying the
desert districts of Arabia and Syria, although some of the
characteristic species reach still farther into Persia and Sind,
and even into western India. The
lion and the
hunting-
leopard, which may be considered as, in this
epoch at least, Ethiopian types, extend thus far, besides various
species of
jerboa and other
desert-loving forms.
In'the birds, the Ethiopian type is shown by the prevalence of
larks and' ",stone-chats, and by the complete absence of the many
peculiar genera of the Indian region.
The occurrence of mammals of the Marsupial order in the Molucca
Islands and Celebes, while none have been found in the adjacent
islands of Java and Borneo, lying on the west of Wallace's line, or
in the Indian region, shows that the margin of the Australian
region has here been reached. The same conclusion is indicated by
the absence from the
Moluccas and Celebes of various other Mammals,
Quadrumana, Carnivora, Insectivora and Ruminants, which abound in
the western part of the Archipelago. Deer do not extend into New
Guinea, in which island the genus
Sus appears to have its eastern limit. A
peculiar form of
baboon,
Cynopithecus, and the singular ruminant,
Anoa, found in Celebes, seem to have no
relation to Asiatic animals, and rather to be allied to those in
Africa.
The birds of these islands present similar peculiarities.
Those of the Indian region abruptly disappear at, and many
Australian forms reach but do not pass, the line above spoken of.
Species of birds akin to those of Africa also occur in
Celebes.
Of the marine orders of Sirenia and Cetacea the Dugong, Halicore, is exclusively found in the
Indian Ocean; and a dolphin,
Platanista, peculiar to the Ganges, ascends that river to a great
distance from the sea.
Of the sea fishes of Asia, among the Acanthopterygii, or
spinyrayed fishes, the Percidae, or perches, are largely
represented; the genus Serranus, which has only one
species in Europe, is Fishes. very numerous in Asia, and
the forms are very large.
Other allied genera are abundant, and extend from the Indian
seas to eastern Africa. The Squamipennes, or scaly-finned fishes,
are principally found in the seas of southern Asia, and especially
near
coral reefs.
The
Mullidae, or red mullets, are largely represented by
genera differing from those of Europe. The
Polynemidae,
which range from the
Atlantic through the Indian Ocean to the
Pacific, supply animals from which
isinglass is prepared; one of them, the
mango-
fish, esteemed a great
delicacy, inhabits the seas from the Bay of Bengal to Siam. The
Sciaenidae extend from the Bay of Bengal to China, but are
not known to the westward. The
Stromateidae, or pomfrets,
resemble the
dory, a Mediterranean
form, and extend to China and the Pacific. The
sword fishes,
Xiphiidae, the
lancet fishes,
Acanthuridae, and the
scabbard fishes,
Trichuridae, are
distributed through the seas of south Asia. Mackerels of various
genera abound, as well as gobies, blennies and mullets.
Among the Anacanthini, the
cod
family so well known in Europe shows but one or two species in the
seas of south Asia, though the soles and allied fishes are numerous
along the coasts. Of the Physostomi, the siluroids are abundant in
the estuaries and muddy waters; the habits of some of these fishes
are remarkable, such as that of the males carrying the ova in their
mouths till the young are hatched. The small family of
Scopelidae affords the gelatinous
Harpodon, or
bumalo. The
gar-fish and
flying-fishes are numerous, extending into the seas of Europe. The
Clupeidae, or herrings, are most abundant; and anchovies,
or sardines, are found in shoals, but at irregular and uncertain
intervals. The marine eels,
Muraenidae, are more numerous
towards the Malay Archipelago than in the Indian seas. Forms of
sea-horses (
Hippocampus),
pipe-fishes (
Syngnathus),
fife-fishes (
Sclerodermus),
and sun-fish,
globe-fish, and other allied forms of
Gymnodontes, are not uncommon.
Of the cartilaginous fishes, Chondropterygii, the true sharks
and
hammer-headed sharks, are
numerous. The
dog-fish
also is found, one species extending from the Indian seas to the
Cape of Good Hope. The saw-fishes,
Pristidae, the
electrical rays,
Torpedinae, and ordinary rays and skates,
are also found in considerable numbers.
The fresh waters of southern Asia are deficient in the typical
forms of the Acanthopterygii, and are chiefly inhabited by
carp, siluroids, simple or spined
eels, and the walking and climbing fishes. The
Siluridae
attain their chief development in tropical regions. Only one
Silurus is found in Europe, and the same species extends
to southern Asia and Africa. The
Salmonidae are entirely
absent from the waters of southern Asia, though they exist in the
rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean and the neighbouring parts
of the northern Pacific, extending perhaps to Formosa; and
trout, though unknown in Indian
rivers, are found beyond the watershed of the Indus, in the streams
flowing into the Caspian. The
Cyprinidae, or carp, are
largely represented in southern Asia, and there grow to a size
unknown in Europe; a
Barbus in the Tigris has been taken
of the weight of 300 Th. The chief development of this family, both
as to size and number of forms, is in the mountain regions with a
temperate climate; the smaller species are found in the hotter
regions and in the low-lying rivers. Of the
Clupeidae, or
herrings, numerous forms occur in Asiatic waters, ascending the
rivers many hundred miles; one of the best-known of Indian fishes,
the hilsa, is of this family. The sturgeons, which abound in the
Black Sea and Caspian, and ascend the rivers that fall into them,
are also found in Asiatic Russia, and an allied form extends to
southern China. The walking or climbing fishes, which are peculiar
to south-eastern Asia and Africa, are organized so as to be able to
breathe when out of the water, and they are thus fitted to exist
under conditions which would be fatal to other fishes, being suited
to live in the regions of periodical drought and rain in which they
are found.
The insects of all southern Asia, including India south of the
Himalaya, China, Siam and the Malayan Islands, belong to one.
group; not only the genera, but even the species are often the same
on the opposite sides of the Bay of Bengal.
The connexion with Africa is marked by the occurrence of many
genera common to Africa and India, and confined to those two
regions, and similarities of form are not uncommon there in cases
in which the genera are not peculiar. Of Coleopterous insects known
to inhabit east Siberia, nearly one-third are found in western
Europe. The European forms seem to extend to about 30° N., south of
which the Indo-Malayan types are met with, Japan being of the
Europeo-Asiatic group. The northern forms extend generally along
the south coast of the Mediterranean up to the border of the great
desert, and from the Levant to the Caspian.
Of the domesticated animals of Asia may first be mentioned the
elephant. It does not breed in captivity, and is not found wild
west of the
Jumna river in
northern India. The
horse is
produced, in the highest perfection in Arabia and the hot and dry
countries of western Asia. Ponies are most esteemed from the wetter
regions of the east, and the hilly tracts. Asses are abundant in
most places, and two wild species occur. The horned cattle include
the humped oxen and buffaloes of India, and the
yak of Tibet. A hybrid between the yak and Indian
cattle, called zo, is commonly reared in Tibet and the Himalaya.
Sheep abound in the more temperate regions, and goats are
universally met with; both of these animals are used as beasts of
burden in the mountains of
Tibet. The
reindeer of
northern Siberia call also for special notice; they are used for
the
saddle as well as for
draught. (R. S.)
Ethnology Asia, including
its outlying islands, has become the dwelling-place of all the
great families into which the races of men have been divided. By
far the largest area is occupied by the Mongolian group. These have
yellow-brown skins, black eyes and hair, flat noses and oblique
eyes. They are short in stature, with little hair on the body and
face. In general terms they extend, with modifications of character
probably due to admixture with other types and to varying
conditions of life, over the whole of northern Asia as far south as
the plains bordering the Caspian Sea, including Tibet and China,
and also over the IndoMalayan peninsula and Archipelago, excepting
Papua and some of the more eastern islands.
Next in numerical importance to the Mongolians are the races
which have been called by Professor Huxley Melanochroic
and Xanthochroic. The former includes the dark-haired
people of southern Europe, and extends over North Africa, Asia
Minor, Syria to south-western Asia, and through Arabia and Persia
to India. The latter race includes the fair-haired people of
northern Europe, and extends over nearly the same area as the
Melanochroi, with which race it is greatly intermixed. The
Xanthochroi have fair skins, blue eyes and light hair; and others
have dark skins, eyes and hair, and are of a slighter frame.
Together they constitute what were once called the Caucasian races.
The Melanochroi are not considered by Huxley to be one of the
primitive modifications of mankind, but rather to be the result of
the admixture of the Xanthochroi with the Australoid type, next to
be mentioned.
The third group is that of the Australoid type. Their hair is
dark, generally soft, never woolly. The eyes and skin are dark, the
beard often well developed, the
nose broad and flat, the lips
coarse, and jaws heavy. This race is believed to form the basis of
the people of the Indian peninsula, and of some of the hill tribes
of central India, to whom the name
Dravidian has been given, and by its
admixture with the Melanochroic group to have given rise to the
ordinary population of the Indian provinces. It is also probable
that the Australoid family extends into south Arabia and
Egypt.
The last group, the Negroid, is represented by the races to
which has been given the name of
Negrito, from the small
size of some of them. They are closely akin to the negroes of South
Africa, and possess the characteristic dark skins, woolly but
scanty beard and body hair, broad flat noses, and projecting lips
of the African; and are diffused over the Andaman Islands, a part
of the Malay peninsula, the Philippines, Papua, and some of the
neighbouring islands. The
Negritos appear to be derived from a mixture
of the true Negro with the Australoid type.
The distribution of the Mongolian group in Asia offers no
particular difficulty. There is complete present, and probably
previous long-existing, geographical continuity in the area over
- which they are found. There is also considerable simi-
golians. larity of climate and other conditions
throughout the northern half of Asia which they occupy. The
extension of modified forms of the Mongolian type over the whole
American continent may be mentioned as a remarkable circumstance
connected with this branch of the human race.
The Mongolians of the northern half of Asia are almost entirely
nomadic, hunters and shepherds or herdsmen. The least advanced of
these, but far the most peaceful, are those that occupy Siberia.
Farther south the best-known tribes are the Manchus, the Mongols
proper, the Moguls and the Turks, all known under the name of
Tatars, and to the ancients as
Scythians, occupying from east to west the zone of Asia comprised
between the 40th and 50th circles of N. lat. The Turks are
Mahommedans; their tribes extend up the Oxus to the borders of
Afghanistan and Persia, and to the Caspian, and under the name of
Kirghiz into Russia, and their language is spoken over a large part
of western Asia. Their letters are those of Persia. The Manchus and
Mongols are chiefly Buddhist, with letters derived from the ancient
Syriac. The Manchus are now
said to be gradually falling under the influence of Chinese
civilization, and to be losing their old nomadic habits, and even
their peculiar language. The predatory habits of the Turkish,
Mongolian and Manchu population of northern Asia, and their
irruptions into other parts of the continent and into Europe, have
produced very remarkable results in the history of the world.
The Chinese branch of the Mongolian family are a thoroughly
settled people of agriculturists and traders. They are partially
Buddhist, and have a peculiar monosyllabic, uninflected language,
with writing consisting of symbols, which represent words, not
letters.
The countries lying between India and the Mongolian are occupied
by populations chiefly of the Mongolian and Chinese type, having
languages fundamentally monosyllabic, but using letters derived
from India, and adopting their religion, which is almost everywhere
Buddhist, from the Indians. Of these may be named the Tibetans, the
Burmese and the Siamese. Cochin-China is more nearly Chinese in all
respects. It is known that to the TibetoChinese modifications of
the pure Mongolian type all the eastern Burmese tribes - Chins,
Kachins,
Shans, &c. - belong
(as indeed do the Burmese themselves), and that a cognate race
occupies the Himalaya to the eastern limits of Kashmir.
Some light has been thrown on the connexion between the Tibetan
race and certain tribes of central India, the
Bhils and
Kols;
and it seems more probable that these tribes are the remnants of a
Mongolian race which first displaced a yet earlier Negroid
population, and was then itself shouldered out by a Caucasian
irruption, than that they entered India by any of the northern
passages within historic times. Mongolian settlements have lately
been found very much farther extended into the border countries of
north-
west India than has been
hitherto recognized. The Mingals, who, conjointly with the Brahuis,
occupy the hills south of Kalat to the limits of the
Rajput province of
Las Bela, claim
Mongolian descent, and traces of a Mongolian
colony have been found in Makran.
The
Malays, who occupy the
peninsula and most of the islands of the Archipelago called after
them, are Mongols apparently modified by their very different
climate, and by the maritime life
Malays. forced upon them
by the physical conditions of the region they inhabit. As they are
now known to us, they have undergone a process of partial
civilization, first at the hands of the Brahminical Indians, from
whom they borrowed a religion, and to some extent literature and an
alphabet, and subsequently
from intercourse with the
Arabs,
which has led to the adoption of Mahommedanism by most of them.
The name of
Aryan has been
given to the races speaking languages derived from, or akin to, the
ancient form of
Sanskrit,
who now occupy the temperate zone extending from the Mediterranean,
across the highlands of Asia Minor, Persia and Afghanistan, to
India. The races speaking the languages akin to the ancient
Assyrian, which are now mainly represented by Arabic, have been
called Semitic, and occupy the countries south-west of
Aryans. Persia, including Syria and Arabia, besides
extending into North Africa. Though the languages of these races
are very different they cannot be regarded as physically distinct,
and they are both without doubt branches of the Melanochroi,
modified by admixture with the neighbouring races, the Mongols, the
Australoids and the Xanthochroi.
The Aryans of India are probably the most settled and civilized
of all Asiatic races. This type is found in its purest form in the
north and north-west, while the mixed races and the population
referred to the Australoid type predominate in the peninsula and
southern India. The spoken languages of northern India are very
various, differing one from another in the sort of degree that
English differs from German, though all are thoroughly Sanskritic
in their vocables, but with an absence of Sanskrit grammar that has
given rise to considerable discussion. The languages of the south
are Dravidian, not Sanskritic. The letters of both classes of
languages, which also vary considerably, are all modifications of
the ancient
Pali, and probably
derived from the Dravidians, not from the Aryans. They are written
from left to right, exception being made of Urdu or
Hindostani, the mixed
language of the Mahommedan conquerors of northern India, the
character used for writing which is the Persian. From the river
Sutlej and the borders of the Sind desert, as far as Burma and to
Ceylon, the religion of the great bulk of the people of India is
Hindu or Brahminical, though the Mahommedans are often numerous,
and in some places even in a majority. West of the Sutlej the
population of Asia may be said to be wholly Mahommedan with the
exception of certain relatively small areas in Asia Minor and
Syria, where Christians predominate. The language of the Punjab
does not differ very materially from that of Upper India. West of
the Indus the dialects approach more to Persian, which language
meets Arabic and Turki west of the Tigris, and along the Turkoman
desert and the Caspian. Through the whole of this tract the letters
are used which are common to Persian, Arabic and Turkish, written
from right to left.
Considerable progress has been made in the classification of the
various races which occupy the continent to the west of the great
Mongolian region. The ancient Sacae, or Scyths, are recognized in
the Aryan population, who may be found in great numbers and in
their purest form in the more inaccessible mountains and glens of
the central highlands. These Tajiks (as they are usually called)
form the underlying population of Persia, Baluchistan, Afghanistan
and Badakshan, and their language (in the central districts of
Asia) is found to contain words of Aryan or Sanskrit derivation
which are not known in Persian. They have been for the most part
dispossessed of their country by Turkish
immigration and conquests, but they still
retain their original intellectual superiority over the Turkish and
other mixed tribes by which they are surrounded. Uzbegs and Kirghiz
have but small affinity with the Mongol element of Asia. They are
the representatives of those countless Turkish irruptions which
have taken place through all history. Of the two divisions (Kara
Kirghiz and Kassak Kirghiz) into which the Kirghiz tribes are
divided by Russian authorities, the Kassak Kirghiz is the more
closely allied to the Mongol type; the Kara Kirghiz, who are found
principally in the valleys of the Tian-shan and Altai mountains,
being unmistakably Turkish. The Kipchaks are only a Kirghiz
clan. The language of the Kirghiz is
Turki and their religion that of
Mahomet. As a nomadic people they have great
contempt for the Sarts, who represent the town dwellers of the
tribe. The Kalmucks are a Buddhist and Mongolian people who
originated in a confederacy of tribes dwelling in Dzungaria,
migrated to Siberia, and settled on the Lower Volga. From thence
they returned late in the 18th century to the reoccupation of their
old ground in
Kulja under the
Chinese. The Turkoman is the purest form of the Turk element, and
his language is the purest form of the Turkish tongue, which is
represented at
Constantinople by a comparatively
mongrel, or mixed,
dialect. Ethnographers have
traced a connexion between the Turkoman of central Asia and the
Teutonic races of Europe, based on a similarity of national customs
and immemorial usage. Evidence of an original affinity between
Turkoman and Rajput has also been found in the mutual possession by
these races of a ruddy skin, so that as ethnographical inquiry
advances the Turk appears to recede from his Mongolian affinities
and to approach the Caucasian. Turks and Mongols alike were
doubtless included under the term Scyth by the ancients, and as
Tatars by more modern writers, insomuch that the Turkish dynasty at
Delhi, founded by Baber, is
usually termed the
Mogul
dynasty, although there can be no distinction traced between the
terms Mogul and Mongol. The general results of recent inquiry into
the ethnography of Afghanistan is to support the general
correctness of Bellew's theories of the origin of the Afghan races.
The claim of the
Durani Afghan
to be a true Ben-i-
Israel is
certainly in no way weakened by any recent investigation. The
influence of Greek culture in northern India is fully recognized,
and the distribution of Greek colonies previous to Alexander's time
is attested by practical knowledge of the districts they were said
to occupy. The
habitat of the Nysaeana, and the
identity of certain tribes of Kafiristan with the descendants of
these pre-Alexandrian colonists from the west, are also well
established. To this day
hymns
are unwittingly sung to Bacchus in the dales and glens of
Kafiristan. The ethnographical status of the mixed tribes of the
mountains that lie between Chitral and the Peshawar plains has been
fairly well fixed by John Biddulph, and much patient inquiry in the
vast fields of Baluchistan by Major Mockler, G. P. Tate and others
has resulted in quite a new appreciation of the tribal origin of
the great conglomeration of Baluch peoples.
The result of trans-border surveys to the north and west of
India has been to establish the important geographical fact that it
is by two gateways only, one on the north-west and one on the west
of India, that the central Asiatic tides of immigration have flowed
into the peninsula. The Kabul valley indicates the north-western
entrance, and Makran indicates that on the west. By the Kabul
valley route, which includes at its head the group of passes across
the Hindu Kush which extend from the Khawak to the Kaoshan, all
those central Asian hordes, be they Sacae, Yue-chi, Jats,
Goths or Huns, who were driven towards the rich plains of
the south, entered the Punjab. Some of them migrated from districts
which belong to eastern Asia, but none of them penetrated into
India by eastern passes. Such tides as set towards the Himalaya
broke against their farther buttresses, leaving an interesting
ethnographical flotsam in the northern valleys; but they never
overflowed the Himalayan barrier. Later most of the historic
invasions of India from central Asia followed the route which leads
directly from Kabul to Peshawar and Delhi.
By the western gates of Makran prehistoric irruptions from
Mesopotamia broke into the plains of Lower Sind, and either passed
on towards the central provinces of India or were absorbed in the
highlands south of Kalat. In later centuries the Arabs from the
west reached the valley of the Indus by their western route, and
there established a dynasty which lasted for 300 years. The
identification of existing peoples with the various Scythic,
Persian and Arab races who have passed from High Asia into the
Indian borderland, has opened up a vast field of ethnographical
inquiry which has hardly yet found adequate workers for its
investigation. To such fields may be added the yet more complicated
problems of those reflex waves which flowed backwards from India
into the border highlands. (T. H. H.*) History i. The borders assigned to Asia on the
west are somewhat arbitrary. The Urals indicate no real division of
races, and in both Greek and Turkish times Asia Minor has been
connected with the opposite shores of Europe rather than with the
lands lying to the east. A juster view of early history is probably
obtained by thinking of the countries round the Mediterranean as
interacting on one another than by separating Palestine and Asia
Minor as Asiatic.
2. The words " Asiatic " and " Oriental " are often used as
if they denoted a definite and homogeneous type, but Russians
resemble Asiatics in many ways, and Turks, Hindus, Chinese,
&c., differ in so many important points that the common
substratum is small. It amounts to this, that Asiatics stand on a
higher level than the natives of Africa or America, but do not
possess the special material civilization of western Europe. As far
as any common mental characteristic can be assigned it is also
somewhat negative, namely, that Asiatics have not the same
sentiment of independence and freedom as Europeans. Individuals are
thought of as members of a family, state or religion, rather than
as entities with a destiny and rights of their own. This leads to
autocracy in politics,
fatalism in religion and
conservatism in both. Hence, too, Asiatic history has large and
simple outlines. Though longer chronologically than the annals of
Europe, it is less eventful, less diversified and offers fewer
personalities of interest. But the same conditions which render
individual eminence
difficult procure for it when once attained a more ready
recognition, and the conquerors and prophets of Asia have had more
power and authority than their parallels in Europe. Jenghiz Khan and Timur covered more ground
than Napoleon, and no
European has had such an effect on the world as Mahomet.
3. Attention has often been called to the religious
character of Asia. Not only the great religions of the world - Buddhism, Christianity, Islam - but those of secondary
importance, such as Judaism, Parseeism, Taoism, are all Asiatic. No European race left
to itself has developed anything more than an unsystematic
paganism. It is true that Greek philosophy advanced far beyond this stage,
but it produced nothing sufficiently popular to be called a
religion.
On the other hand Christianity, though Asiatic in its origin
and essential ideas, has to a large extent taken its present form
on European soil, and some of its most important manifestations -
notably the Roman Church - are European
reconstructions in which little of the Asiatic element remains.
Christianity has made little way farther east then Asia Minor.
Modern missions have made no great conquests there, and in earlier
times the Nestorians
and Jacobites who
penetrated to central Asia, China and India, received respectful hearing, but never had anything
like the success which attended Buddhism and Islam. Yet Buddhism
has never made much impression west of India, and Islam is clearly
repugnant to Europeans, for even when under Moslem rule (as in
Turkey) they refuse to accept it in a far larger proportion than
did the Hindus in similar circumstances. Hence there is clearly a
deep-seated difference between the religious feelings of the two
continents.
Since Asiatic records go back much farther than those of
Europe, it is natural the Asia should be thought the birthplace of
civilization. But this originality cannot be absolute, for,
whatever may have been the relations of Babylonia and the Aryans, the
latter brought civilization to India from the west, and it is not
always clear whether similarity of government and institutions is
the result of borrowing or of parallel development. Both in Europe
and in Asia small feudal or aristocratic states tended to
consolidate themselves into monarchies, but whereas in Europe from
the early days of Rome onwards royalty has often been driven
out and replaced temporarily or permanently by popular government,
this change seems not to occur in Asia, where revolution means only
a change of dynasty. The few cases where the government is not
monarchical, as Arabia, seem to represent the persistence of every
ancient conditions.
The contemplation of Asia suggests that progress is most
rapid when accompanied by the migration of races or the transplantation of
ideas and institutions. Thus Greece excelled the Eastern countries from whom
she may have derived her civilization, and Buddhism had a far more
brilliant career outside India than in it.
4. In many parts of southern Asia are found semi-barbarous
races representing the earliest known stratum of population, such
as the Veddahs of Ceylon,
and various tribes in China General a nd the Malay Archipelago.
Some of them offer historical y outlines. analogies to the
Australians. This connexion, if true, must be very ancient, since
it apparently goes back to a time when the distribution of land and
water was other than at present. In northern Asia are found other
aborigines, such as
the Ainus of Japan and the so-called hyperborean races (Chukchis,
&c.), but no materials are at present forthcoming for their
history. There is some record of the migrations of the later races
superimposed on these aborigines. The Chinese came from the west,
though how far west is unknown: the Hindus and Persians from the
north-west: the Burmese and Siamese from the north. We do not know
if the Mongols, Turks, &c., had any earlier home than central
Asia, but their extensive movements from that region are
historical.
The antiquity of Asiatic history is often exaggerated. With the
exception of Babylonia and
Assyria, we can hardly even conjecture what was
the condition of this continent much before i 50o B.C. At that
period the Chinese were advancing along the Hwang-ho, and the
Aryans were entering India from the northwest. Both were in
conflict with earlier races. The influence of Babylonian
civilization was probably widespread. Some connexion between
Babylonia and China is generally admitted, and all Indian alphabets
seem traceable to a Semitic original borrowed in the course of
commerce from the Persian Gulf.
Apart from European conquests, the internal history of Asia in
the last 2000 years is the result of the interaction of four main
influences: (a) Chinese, (b) Indian, (c)
Mahommedan, (d) Central Asian. Of these the first three
represent different types of civilization: the fourth has little
originality, but has been of great importance in affecting the
distribution of races and political power.
(a) China has moulded the civilization of the eastern mainland
and Japan, without much affecting the Malay Archipelago. In the
sphere of direct influence fall Korea, Japan and
Annam; in the outer sphere are Mongolia, Tibet,
Siam, Cambodia and Burma, where Indian and Chinese influence are
combined, the. Indian being often the stronger. These countries,
except Japan, have all been at some time at least nominal
tributaries of China. Where Chinese influence had full play it
introduced Confucianism, a special
style in art and the Chinese system of writing.
After the Christian era it was accompanied by Chinese Buddhism. The
cumbrous Chinese script maintains itself in the Far East, but has
not advanced west of China proper and Annam.
(b) Indian influence may be defined as Buddhism, if it is
understood that Buddhism is not at all periods clearly
distinguishable from
Hinduism. Its sphere includes
Indo-China,
much of the Malay Archipelago, Tibet and Mongolia. Moreover, China.
and Japan themselves may be said to fall within this sphere, in
view of the part which Buddhism has played in their development.
The Buddhist influence is not merely religious, for it is always
accompanied by Indian art and literature, and often by an Indian
alphabet. Much of this art is Greek in origin, being derived from
the Perso-Greek states on the north-west frontiers. of India.
Indian alphabets have spread to Tibet, Cambodia, Java and Korea.
The history of Indian civilization in Indo-China and the
Archipelago is still obscure, in spite of the existence of gigantic
ruins, but it would appear that in some parts at least twa periods
must be distinguished, first the introduction of Hinduism (or mixed
Hinduism and Buddhism), perhaps under Indian princes, and secondly
a later and more purely ecclesiastical. introduction of Sinhalese
Buddhism, with its literature and art.
(c) Mahommedanism or Islam is perhaps the greatest transforming
force which the world has seen. It has profoundly affected and to a
large extent subjugated all western Asia including India, all
eastern and northern Africa as well as
Spain, and all eastern Europe. Its open advocacy
of force attracts warlike races, and the intensity of its influence
is increased by the
fusion of
secular and religious power, so that the Moslem Church is a Moslem
state characterized by
slavery,
polygamy, and, subject to the autocracy of the
ruler, by the theoretical. equality of Moslems, who in political
status are superior to nonMoslems. Thus, whenever the population of
a Moslem country is of mixed belief, a ruling
caste of Moslems is formed, as in Turkey at the
present day and India under the Moguls. Islam is
paramount in Turkey,
Persia, Arabia and Afghanistan. India. is the dividing line: Islam
is strong in northern and central India, weaker in the south. But
only one-fifth of the whole population is Moslem. Beyond India it
has spread to
Malacca and
the Malay Archipelago, where it overwhelmed Hindu civilization, and
reached the southern Philippines. But it made no progress in
Indo-China or Japan; and though there is a large Moslem population
in China the Chinese influence has been stronger, for alone of all
Asiatics the Chinese have succeeded in forcing Islam to accept the
ordinary limitations of a religion and to take its place as a creed
parallel to Buddhism or any other.
Even more than Buddhism Islam has carried with it a special
style of art and civilization. It is usually accompanied by the use
of the Arabic alphabet, and in the languages of Moslem nations
(notably Turkish, Persian, Hindustani and Malay) a large proportion
of the vocabulary is borrowed from Arabic.
Hindi and Hindustani, two forms of the same
language as spoken by Hindus and Mahommedans respectively, are a
curious example of how deeply religion may affect culture.
(d) The great part which central Asian tribes have played in
history is obscured by the absence of any common name for them.
Linguistically they can be divided into several groups such as
Turks, Mongols and Huns, but they were from time to time united
into states representing more than one group, and their armies were
recruited, like the
Janissaries, from all the military races in
the neighbourhood. Soon after the Christian era central Asia began
to
boil over, and at least seven
great. invasions and more or less complete conquests can be
ascribed to these tribes without counting minor movements. (i.) The
early invasions of Europe by the
Avars, Huns and Bulgarians.
(ii.) The invasion and temporary subjection of Russia by the
Mongols, who penetrated as far west as
Silesia. (iii.) The conquests of Timur. (iv.)
The conquest of Asia Minor and eastern Europe by the Turks. (v.)
The conquest of India by the Moguls. (vi.) The conquest of China by
the Mongols under Kublai. (vii.) The later conquest of China by the
Manchus. To these may be added numerous lesser invasions of India,
China and Persia.
These tribes have a genius for warfare rather than for
government, art or literature, and with few exceptions (e.g. the
Moguls in India) have proved poor
administrators. Apart from
conquest their most important function has been to keep up
communications in central Asia, and to transport religions and
civilizations from one region to another. Thus they are mainly
responsible for the introduction of Islam with its Arabic or
Persian civilization into India and Europe, and in earlier times
their movements facilitated the infiltration of Graeco-Bactrian
civilization into India, besides maintaining communication between
China and the West.
5. Babylonia and Assyria
The movements mentioned above have been the chief factors of
relatively modern Asiatic history, but in early times the centre of
activity and culture lay farther west, in Babylonia and Assyria.
These ancient states began to decline in the 7th century B.e., and
on their ruins
rose the Persian
empire, which with various political metamorphoses continued to be
an important power till the 7th century A.D., after which all
western Asia was overwhelmed by the Moslem
wave, and old landmarks and kingdoms were
obliterated.
The materials for the study of their institutions and population
are abundant, but lend themselves to discussion rather than to a
summary of admitted facts. In the early history of southwestern
Asia the Semites form the most important ethnic group, which is
primarily linguistic but also shares other remarkable
characteristics. Two of the greatest religions of the world,
Christianity and Islam, are Semitic in origin, as well as Judaism.
In politics these races have been less successful in modern times,
but the Semitic states of Babylonia and Assyria were once the
principal centres for the development and distribution of
civilization. It is generally agreed that this civilization can be
traced back to an earlier race, the Sumero-Akkadians, whose
language seems allied to the agglutinative idioms of central Asia.
If this ancient civilized race was really allied to the ancestors
of the Turks and Huns, it is a remarkable instance of how
civilization thrives best by being transplanted at a certain period
of growth. Still less is known of the early non-Aryan races of Asia
Minor such as the
Hittites
and Alorodians. One hypothesis supposes that the shores of the
Mediterranean were originally inhabited by a homogeneous race
neither Aryan nor Semitic.
The earliest Sumerian records seem to be anterior to 4000 B.C.
Shortly after that period Babylonia was invaded by Semites, who
became the ruling race. The city of
Babylon came to the fore as
metropolis about 2285
B.C. under Khammurabi. Assyria was an offshoot of Babylonia lying
to the north-west, and apparently -colonized before the second
millennium. While using
the same language as the Babylonians, the Assyrians had an
individuality which showed itself in art and religion. In the 9th
and 8th centuries B.C. they became the chief power within their
sphere and the suzerain of their parent Babylon. But they succumbed
before the advance of the Medo-Persian power in 606 B.C., whereas
it was not till 555 that
Cyrus
took Babylon. Assyria, being essentially a military power,
disappeared with the destruction of
Nineveh, but Babylon continued to exercise an
influence on culture and religion for many centuries after the
Persian conquest.
6. China
This is
the oldest of existing states, though its authentic history does not
go back much beyond 1000 B.C. It is generally admitted that there
was some connexion between the ancient civilizations of China and
Babylonia, but its precise nature is still uncertain. It is clear,
however, that the Chinese came from the west, and entered their
present territory along the course of the Hwang-ho at an unknown
period, possibly about 3000
B.C. In early historical times
China consisted of a shifting confederacy of feudal states, but
about 220 B.C. the state of Tsin or Chin (whence the name China)
came into prominence, and succeeded in forming a homogeneous
empire, which advanced considerably towards the south. The
subsequent history of China is mainly a record of struggles with
various tribes, commonly, but not very correctly, called Tatars.
The empire was frequently broken up by successful incursions, or
divided between rival dynasties, but at least twice became a great
Asiatic power: under the Han dynasty (about 200 B.C.-A.D. 220), and
the T'ang (A.D. 618-906). The dominions of the latter extended
across central Asia to northern India, but were dismembered by the
attacks of the Kitans, whence the name Cathay. China proper, minus these external
provinces, was again united under the Sung dynasty (960-1127), but
split into the northern (Tatar) and southern (Chinese) kingdoms. In
the 13th century arose the Mongol power, and Kublai Khan conquered China. The Mongol
dynasty lasted less than a century, but the Ming, the native
Chinese dynasty which succeeded it, reigned for nearly 300 years
and despatched expeditions which reached India, Ceylon and East
Africa. In 1644 the Ming succumbed to the attacks of the Manchus, a
northern tribe who captured Peking and founded the present imperial
house.Until the
advent of
Europeans, the Chinese were always in contact with inferior races.
Whether they expanded at the expense of weak aboriginal tribes or
were conquered by more robust invaders, Chinese civilization
prevailed and assimilated alike the conquered and the conquerors.
It is largely to this that we must ascribe the national
conservatism and contempt for foreigners. The spirit of the Chinese
polity is self-contained, anti-military and anti-sacerdotal. Rank
is nominally determined by merit, as tested by competitive
examinations. Society
is conceived as regulated by, mutual obligations, of which the
duties of parents and children are the most important. The
emperor is head of the state
and the high
priest, who
sacrifices to
Heaven on behalf
of his people, but he can be deposed, and no divine right is
inherent in certain families as in Japan and Turkey. On the
contrary there have been 20 dynasties since the Christian era.
The most conspicuous figure in Chinese literature is
Confucius (55 1 -475 B.C.).
Though he laid no claim to originality and merely sought to collect
and systematize the traditions of antiquity, his influence in the
Far East has been unbounded, and he must be pronounced one of the
most powerful advocates of peace and humanity that have ever
existed. Confucianism is an ethical rather than a religious system,
and hence was able to co-exist, though not on very friendly terms,
with Buddhism, which reached China about the 1st century A.D. and
was the chief source of Chinese religious ideas, except the older
ancestor
worship. But they are not a religious people, and like many
Europeans regard the church as a department of the state.
7. Japan appears to have been formerly inhabited by the
Ainus, who have traditions of an older but unknown population, but
was invaded in prehistoric times by a race akin to the Koreans,
which was possibly mingled with Malay elements after occupying the
southern part of the islands. Authentic history does not begin till
about the 6th century A.D., when Chinese civilization and Buddhism
were introduced. The government was originally autocratic, but as
early as the 7th century the most characteristic feature of
Japanese politics - the power of great families who overshadowed
the throne - makes its appearance. We hear first of the Fujiwara
family, and then of the rivalry between the houses of Taira and
Minamoto. The latter prevailed, and in 1192 established the dual
system of government under which the emperor or
Mikado ruled only in name, and the real power
was in the hands of a hereditary military chief called
Shogun. Japan has never been
invaded in historical times, but an attempt made by Kublai Khan to
conquer it was successfully repulsed. The chief power then passed
to the Ashikaga dynasty of Shoguns, who retained it for about 200
years and were distinguished for their patronage of the arts. The
second half of the 16th century was a period of ferment and
anarchy, marked by the arrival of the Portuguese and the rise of
some remarkable adventurers, one of whom, Hideyoshi, conquered
Korea and apparently meditated the invasion of China. His plans
were interrupted by his death, and his successor, Ieyasu, who
shaped the social and political life of Japan for nearly 300 years
(1603-1868), definitely decided on a policy of seclusion and
isolation. All ideas of external conquest were abandoned,
Christianity was forbidden, and Japan closed to foreigners, only
the Dutch being allowed a strictly limited commerce. In 1854-1859
the Christian powers, beginning with
the United States, successfully
asserted their right to trade with Japan. The influx of new ideas
provoked civil war, in which the already decadent Shogunate was
abolished and the authority of the Mikado restored. Recognizing
that their only
chance of
competing with Europeans was to fight them with their own weapons,
the Japanese set themselves deliberately to assimilate the material
civilization and to some extent the institutions of Europe, such as
constitutional government. Their progress and success are without
parallel. In 1895 they defeated the Chinese and ten years later the
Russians. Their exceptional status among Asiatic nations has been
recognized by
treaties
which, contrary to the general practice in nonChristian countries,
place all foreigners in Japan under Japanese law.
This sudden development of the Japanese is perhaps the most
important event of the second half of the 19th century, since it
marks the rise of an Asiatic power capable of competing with Europe
on equal terms. Their history is so different from that of the rest
of Asia that it is not surprising if the result is different. The
nation hardly came into existence till China and India had passed
their prime, and remained secluded and free from the continual
struggle against
barbarian invaders, which drained the
energies of its neighbours. It was left untouched by Mahommedanism,
and for an unprecedentedly long period kept Europeans at bay
without wasting its strength in hostilities. The military spirit
was evolved, not in raids and massacres of the usual Asiatic type
which create little but intense racial hatred, but in feuds between
families and factions of the same race, which restrained ferocity
and tended to create a
temper
like that of the feudal
chivalry of Europe. On the other hand it is
noticeable that the Japanese have little which is original in the
way of religion, literature or philosophy. Unlike the Chinese and
Indians, they have hitherto not had the smallest influence on the
intellectual development of Asia, and though they have in the past
sometimes shown themselves intensely nationalist and conservative,
they have, compared with India and China, so little which is really
their own that their assimilation of foreign ideas is
explicable.
8. Korea received its civilization and religion from
China, but differs in language, and to some extent in customs. An
alphabet derived from Indian sources is in use as well as Chinese
writing. The country was at most periods independent though
nominally tributary to China. In the 16th century the Japanese
occupied it for a short period, and in 1894 they went to war with
China on account of her claims to suzerainty. In 1895 Korea was
declared independent.
9. India
The population of India comprises at least three strata:
firstly, uncivilized aborigines, such as the Kols and Santhals, and
secondly, the Dravidians (Tamils,
Kanarese, &c.), who perhaps represent the
earliest northern invaders, and appear to have attained some degree
of culture on their own account. The most recent authorities are of
opinion that the Kolarians and Dravidians represent a single
physical type; but, whatever the historical explanation may be,
they certainly have different languages and show different stages
of civilization. In prehistoric times they were spread over the
whole of India, but were driven to the centre and south of the
peninsula by the third stratum of Aryans, and perhaps also by
invasions of so-called Mongolian races from the north-west. No
historical record has been preserved of these latter, but they
appear to have profoundly affected the population of Bengal, which
is believed to be MongoloDravidian in composition. The Aryans
appear to have been settled to the north of the Hindu Kush, and to
have migrated south-eastwards about 150o B.C. Their original home
has been a subject of much discussion, but the view now prevalent
is that they arose in southern Russia or Asia Minor, whence a
section spread eastwards and divided into two closely related
branches - the Hindus and Iranians. There were probably two
successive Aryan immigrations, and the tradition of a struggle
between them may be preserved in the
Mahabharata. The life
of the ancient Aryans, as portrayed in their sacred songs, the
Rig Veda, was quasi-nomadic and in many ways democratic,
but by the 6th century B.C. settled states had been formed in the
Ganges valley. They were absolute monarchies, but the power of the
king was tempered by the extraordinary influence possessed by the
hereditary sacerdotal class or Brahmans. The position of this
class, which has remained till the present day, is connected with
the institution of caste, a division of the population into groups
founded partly on racial distinctions. The peaceful progress of
Brahmanism was hindered
by the doctrine of the Indian prince Gotama, called the
Buddha, which grew into one of
the greatest religions of the world. For many centuries the culture
and development of the Hindus depended mainly on the interaction of
the old Brahmanical religion and Buddhism. The latter was finally
absorbed, and disappeared in India itself, but has spread Indian
influence over the whole of eastern Asia, where it still
flourishes.
In 326 B.C. Alexander invaded the Punjab. The immediate result
was small, but the establishment of Perso-Greek kingdoms in central
Asia had a powerful influence on Indian art and culture. It may
also have helped to familiarize the Hindu mind with the idea of an
empire, which appeared among them later than in other Asiatic
countries. The first empire, called Maurya,reached its greatest
extent in the time of
Asoka
(264-227 B.C.), who ruled from Afghanistan to Madras. He was a
zealous Buddhist and gave the first example of a missionary
religion, for by his exertions the faith was spread over all India
and Ceylon. No Hindu empires have lasted long, and the Maurya
dominions broke up fifty years after his death.
In the next period (
c. 150 B.C.-A.D. 300) India was
invaded from the north by tribes partly of Parthian and partly of
Turki (Yue-chi, &c.) origin. Owing to the absence of dated
records, the
chronology of these invasions has not yet
been set beyond dispute, but the most important was that of the
Kushans, whose king
Kanishka founded a state which comprised
northern India and Kashmir. They were Buddhists, and it is probable
that the
Mahayana or
northern form of Buddhism was due to an amalgamation of Gotama's
doctrines with the ideas (largely Greek and Persian) which they
brought with them. Much of Sivaism has probably the same origin.
Another native empire, known as
Gupta, rose on the ruins of the Kushan kingdom,
and embraced nearly the whole peninsula, but it broke up in the 5th
century, partly owing to the attacks of new northern invaders, the
Huns. The Mala y a dynasty maintained Hindu civilization in the 6th
century, and from 606 to 646
Harsha established a brief but brilliant empire
in the north with its capital at
Kanauj. This epoch is marked by
the renaissance
of Sanskrit literature and the gradual revival of Hinduism at the
expense of Buddhism. But after Harsha Hindu history is lost in a
maze of small and transitory states,
incapable of resisting the ever advancing Mahommedan peril. As
early as 712 the Arabs conquered Sind, and by the end of the 11th
century the whole of northern India was in Moslem hands. Two
periods may be distinguished, namely the Turki (120o-1526) and the
Mogul empire. The former comprised several dynasties of mixed Turki
and Iranian race, but was wanting in coherency. In the
neighbourhood of the Moslem capitals, Islam spread rapidly, but in
such districts as
Rajputana and specially
Vijayanagar (Mysore)
Hindu civilization and religion maintained themselves.
In 1526 the Moguls descended on India from Transoxiana and
seized the throne of Delhi. They never subjugated the south, but
the empire which they founded in the north was for about two
centuries, under such rulers as
Akbar and
Shah
Jehan, one of the most brilliant which Asia has seen. After 1707 it
began to decline: the governors became independent: a powerful
Mahratta confederacy arose in central India;
Nadir Shah of Persia sacked Delhi; and Ahmed Shah
made repeated invasions.
A still more formidable danger, the power of the French and
English, continued to increase. Amidst such confusion the authority
of the Mogul empire rapidly disappeared, but it lasted as a name
till the
Mutiny (1857).
Indian history until Mahommedan times is marked by the unusual
prominence of religious ideas, and is a record of intellectual
development rather than of political events. Whatever national
unity the Hindu peoples possessed came from the persistent and
penetrating influence of the
Brahman caste. Kings held a secondary position,
and were generally regarded as
adventitious tyrants, rather than as the
heads and representatives of the nation. Even the great dynasties
have left few traces, and it is with difficulty that the patient
historian disinters the minor kingdoms from obscurity, but Indian
religion, literature and art have influenced all Asia from Persia
to Japan.
10.
Persia. - The Persians, with whom are often coupled
the Medes, appear to be pure Aryans in origin, and the earliest
form of their language and religion offers remarkable analogies to
the Vedas. It is reasonable to suppose that their ancestors and
those of the Hindus at one time formed a single tribe somewhere in
central Asia. The religion was remodelled by
Zoroaster, who seems to be a historical
character and to have lived about the 7th century B.C. About the
same time they shook off the domination of Assyria. From the 6th
century onwards their empire, then known as Median, began to expand
at the expense of the surrounding states. They destroyed Nineveh in
alliance with the
Babylonians, and half a century later Cyrus took Babylon and
founded the great dynasty of the Achaemenidae. The substitution of
the Persian for the Median power, which took place with the advent
of Cyrus, seems to indicate merely the pre-eminence of a particular
tribe and not conquest by another race. The power of the
Achaemenidae, when at its maximum, extended from the Oxus and Indus
in the east to
Thrace in the
west and Egypt in the south, but fell before Greece, after lasting
for rather more than 200 years.
Darius and
Xerxes were repulsed in their efforts to
subjugate the Greek Peninsula, and
Alexander the Great conquered their
successor Darius III. in 329. But the greater part of the empire
continued to exist under new masters, the Seleucids, as a
Hellenistic power which was of great importance for the
dissemination of Greek culture in the East.
Bactria soon became independent under an
IndoGreek dynasty, and the blending of Greek, Persian, central
Asiatic and Hindu influences had an important effect on the art and
religion of India, and through India on all eastern Asia. About the
same period (250 B.C.-A.D. 227) the Parthian empire arose under the
Arsacids in Khorasan and the adjacent districts. The Parthians
appear to have been a Turanian tribe who had adopted many Persian
customs. They successfully withstood the
Romans, and at one time their power extended
from India to Syria. They succumbed to the Persian dynasty of the
Sassanids, who ruled successfully for about four centuries,
established the Zoroastrian faith as their state religion, and
maintained a creditable conflict with the East Roman empire. But in
the 7th century they were defeated by
Heraclius, and shortly afterwards were
annihilated before the first impetus of the Mahommedan conquest,
which established Islam in Persia and the neighbouring lands,
sweeping away old civilizations and boundaries. During the greater
part of the Mahommedan period Persia has been ruled by troubled and
short-lived dynasties. It attained a certain dignity and unity
under
Abbas Shah (1585-1628),
but in later times was distracted and disorganized by Afghan
invasions. The present dynasty, which is of Turkoman origin, dates
from 1789.
The achievements of the Persians in art, literature and religion
are by no means contemptible, but somewhat mixed and
cosmopolitan. Owing
to its position, the Persian state, when it from time to time
became a conquering empire, overlapped Asia Minor, Babylon and
India, and hence acted as an intermediary for transmitting art and
ideas, sending for instance Greek
sculpture to India and the cult of Mithra to
western Europe. It is perhaps on account of this intermediate
flavour that the literature of Persia - for instance the
adaptations of
Omar
Khayyam - is more appreciated in Europe than that of other
Oriental nations. On the other hand, the wars between Persia and
Greece were recognized both at the time and afterwards as a
struggle between Europe and Asia; the fact that both combatants
were Aryans was not felt, and has no importance compared to the
difference of continent.
1
r. Jews. - The
Israelites appear to have been originally a nomadic tribe akin to
the Arabs, whom they resemble in their want of political
instinct and in their
extraordinary religious genius. Among many remarkable qualities
they have been distinguished from the earliest times by a species
of commensalism, or power of living among other nations without
becoming either socially merged or politically distinct. Their
traditional history represents them as migrating to the borders of
Egypt and living there for some centuries. After
the exodus, which perhaps
took place about 1300 B.C., they moved northwards again and founded
a state of modest dimensions, which attained a short-lived unity
under
Solomon, but succumbed
to internal dissensions and to the attacks of Assyria and Babylon.
Shalmanezer destroyed the northern kingdom or Israel in 720, and
following the practice of the times deported the majority of the
population, whose traces became lost to history. There is no reason
why their descendants should not be found to-day in various tribes,
but the physical type commonly called Jewish is characteristic not
so much of Israel as of western Asia generally. In 588
Nebuchadrezzar
carried off the Jews in captivity, but after the Persian conquest
of Babylonia they were allowed to return to Palestine in 538. Their
institutions and ideas were probably considerably modified during
this period. Babylon long continued to be a Jewish centre whence
the Jews radiated to other countries. The restored state of
Jerusalem lived for about
six centuries in partial independence under Persian, Egyptian,
Syrian and Roman rule, often showing an aggressively heroic
attachment to its
national customs, which brought it into collision with its
suzerains, until the temple was destroyed by
Titus in A.D. 70, and the country laid waste in
the succeeding years. But long before this period the Jews of the
Dispersion had become
as important as the inhabitants of Palestine. From choice or
compulsion large numbers settled in Egypt in the time of the
Ptolemies, and added an
appreciable element to Alexandrine culture, while gradual voluntary
emigration established
Jewish communities in Syria, Asia Minor, Greece and
Italy, who facilitated the first
spread of Christianity. In spite of chronic unpopularity and
recurring persecutions they have spread over nearly all Europe. At
the end of the 15th century they were expelled from Spain and many
of the exiles moved eastwards. At present the largest numbers are
to be found in the eastern parts of Europe. It is remarkable that
though the Jews live in relative peace with Asiatics, the great
majority of them prefer Europe as a residence.
12. Arabs. - The Arabs have hardly any history before
the rise of Islam, although their name is mentioned by surrounding
nations from the 9th century B.C. onwards. They appear to have had
few states or kings, but rather tribes and chiefs. Their
relationship to the Babylonians and Jews is indicated by linguistic
and ethnological data. The language and writing of the Semites who,
at an unknown period, settled in what is now Abyssinia, show
affinities with those of South Arabia, and these Semites may have
been immigrants into Africa from that region. It is plain from
early Moslem literature that Persian, Christian and especially
Jewish ideas had penetrated into Arabia.
With the rise of Mahommedanism occurred a sudden effervescence
of the Arabs, who during some centuries threatened to impose not
only their political authority but their civilization and new
religion on the whole known world. They successfully invaded India
and central Asia in the east, Spain and
Morocco in the west. The
Caliphate under the Omayyads of
Damascus, and then the
Abbasids of
Bagdad, became the principal power in the nearer
East. It had not, however, a sufficiently coherent organization for
permanence; parts of it became independent, others were first
protected and then absorbed by the Turks. The Arab rule in Spain,
which once threatened to overwhelm Europe and was turned back near
Tours by
Charles Martel,
was distinguished by its tolerance and civilization, and lingered
on till the 15th century.
The collapse of the political power of the Arabs was singularly
complete. The Caliphate, though Arabian, was always geographically
outside Arabia, and on its fall Arabia remained as it was before
Islam, isolated and inaccessible. It is still one of the least
known parts of the globe, and has hardly any political link with
the outside, for the Arabs of northern Africa form separate states.
But in spite of this total political collapse, Arabic religion and
literature are still one of the greatest forces working in the
western half of Asia, in northern Africa and to some extent in
eastern Europe.
13. Ceylon, though geographically an annex of India,
has not followed its fortunes historically. According to tradition
it was invaded by an Aryan-speaking colony from the valley of the
Ganges in the 6th century B.C. It received Buddhism from north
India in the time of Asoka, and has had considerable importance as
a centre of religious culture which has influenced Burma and Siam.
Its medieval history consists of struggles between the native
sovereigns and Tamil invaders. A powerful native dynasty reigned in
the 12th century, but in 1408 the island was attacked by Chinese,
and from 1505 onwards it was distracted by the attacks and
squabbles of Europeans. It was partially subjugated, first by the.
Portuguese and then by the Dutch. In 1796 the Dutch were expelled
by the English.
14. Indo-China
This is an appropriate name for Burma, Siam, Cambodia, Annam,
&c., for both in position and in civilization they lie between
India and China. Indian influence is predominant as far as Cambodia
(though with a Chinese tinge), Indian alphabets being employed and
the Buddhism being of the Sinhalese type, but in Annam and Tongking
the Chinese script and many Chinese institutions are in use. The
population belongs to various races, and also comprises
little-known wild tribes. (i.) Languages of the group known as
Mon-Annam are spoken in Annam and in
Pegu, an ancient kingdom originally distinct from
Burma though now confounded with it. This distribution seems to
indicate that they once spread over the whole region, and were
divided by the later advance of the Siamese and others. Until Annam
was taken by the French, its history consisted of a struggle with
the Chinese, who alternately asserted and lost their sovereignty.
The Annamese are, however, a distinct race. Cochin China was once
the seat of a kingdom called Champa, which appears to have had a
hinduized Malay civilization and to have been subsequently absorbed
by Annam. (ii.) The Burmese are linguistically allied to the
Tibetans, and probably entered Burma from the north-west. The early
history consists largely of conflicts between the Burmese and
Talaings. The kingdom which was annexed by Britain in 1885 was
founded about 1750 by Alompra, who united his countrymen and broke
the power of the Talaings. He also invaded Siam. (iii.) The Khmers
or Cambodians, whose languages appear to belong to the Man-Annam
group, form a relatively ancient kingdom, much reduced in the last
few centuries by the advance of the Siamese and now a French
protectorate.
Remarkable ruins dating from perhaps A.D. Boo to
loon attest the former prevalence of strong Hindu
influence. (iv.) The Siamese or Thai, who speak a monosyllabic
language of the Chinese type, but written in an Indian alphabet,
represent a late invasion from southern China, whence they
descended about the 13th century.
15. Malays
This widely-scattered race has no political union and its
distribution is a
puzzle for
ethnography. At present it occupies the extremity of the Malay
Peninsula, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, the Philippines and other islands
of the Malay Archipelago as well as Madagascar, while the
inhabitants of most islands in the South Seas, including
New Zealand and
Hawaii, speak languages which if
not Malay have at least undergone a strong Malay influence. It
would seem from this distribution that the Malays are not
continental, but a seafaring race with exceptional powers of
dispersal, who have spread over the ocean from some island centre -
perhaps Java. The latest theory, however, is that there is a great
linguistic group (which may or may not prove to correspond to an
ethnic unity) comprising the Munda, Monkhmer, Malay, Polynesian and
Micronesian languages, and that the stream of immigration which
distributed them started from the extreme west. Three periods can
be traced in the history of the Asiatic Malays. In the first (in
which such tribes as the
Dyaks
have remained) they were semi-barbarous. In the second, Hindu
civilization reached the Malay Peninsula, Java, Sumatra and other
islands. The presence of Hindu ruins, as well as of numerous Indian
words and customs, testifies to the strength of this influence. It
was, however, superseded by Islam, which spread to the Malay
Archipelago and Peninsula before the 16th century. At the present
time the Arabic alphabet is used on the mainland, but Indian
alphabets in Java, Sumatra, &c.
16. Tibet
This remote and mountainous country has a peculiar civilization.
It has entirely escaped Islam, and though it is a nominal
vassal of China, direct Chinese
influence has not been strong. The most striking feature is the
religion, a corrupt form of late Indian Buddhism, known as Lamaism,
which, largely in consequence of the favour shown by Jenghiz Khan
and his successors, has attained temporal power and developed into
an ecclesiastical state curiously like the
papacy.
17. Mongols
Such civilization as the Mongols possess is a mixture of Chinese
and Indian, the latter derived chiefly through Tibet, but their
alphabet is a curious instance of transplantation. It is an
adaptation of the Syriac writing introduced by the early Nestorian
missionaries.
18. Almost all Asiatic countries have a literature, but it is
often not indigenous and consists of foreign works, chiefly
religious, read either in translations or the original. Thus with
the exception of a little
folklore the literature of Indo-China, Tibet,
Mongolia, Korea and Manchuria is mainly Indian or Chinese. The
chief original literatures are Chinese, Sanskrit, Pali, Arabic and
Persian. The Japanese have produced few books of importance, and
their compositions are chiefly remarkable as being lighter and more
secular than is usual in Asia, but the older Chinese works take
high rank both for their merits and the effect they have had. The
extensive Sanskrit literature, which has reached in translations
China, Japan and Java, is chiefly theological and poetical, history
being conspicuously absent. India has also a considerable
medieval and
modern literature in various languages. Pali, though only a
form of Hindu literature, has a separate history, for it died in
India and was preserved in Ceylon, whence it was imported to Burma
and Siam as the language of religion. The Pali versions of Buddha's
discourses are among the most remarkable products of Asia. The
literatures of all Moslem peoples are largely inspired by Arabic,
which has produced a voluminous collection of works in
prose and
poetry. Persian, after being itself transformed
by Arabic, has in its turn largely influenced all west Asiatic
Moslem literature from Hindustani to Turkish. If one excepts the
Old Testament, which is a product of the extreme west of Asia, it
is remarkable how small has been the influence of Asiatic
literature on Europe. Though Greek and Slavonic almost ceased to be
written languages under Turkish rule, Europeans showed no
disposition to replace them by
Ottoman or Arabic literature.
Without counting subdivisions, there would seem to be three main
schools of art in Asia at present - Chinese, Indian and Moslem. The
first contains many original elements. It is feeblest in
architecture and
strongest in the branches demanding skill and care in a limited
compass, such as
painting,
porcelain and
enamel. It is the main
inspiration of Japanese art, which, however, shows great
originality in its treatment of borrowed themes. Both China and
Japan have felt through Buddhism the influence of Indian art, which
contains at least two elements - one indigenous and the other
Greco-Persian. Unlike Chinese art it has a genius for architecture
and sculpture rather than painting. Mahommedan art is also largely
architectural and has affected
Literature, art, science.
nearly all Moslem countries. Except that the use of Arabic
inscriptions is one of its principal methods of decoration, it owes
little to Arabia and much to
Byzantium. The Persian variety of this art is
more ornate, and less averse to representations of living beings.
Both Moslem and Chinese art are closely connected with calligraphy,
but Hindus rarely use writing for
ornament.
In both art and literature modern Asia is inferior to the past
more conspicuously than Europe.
As for science,
astronomy was cultivated by the Babylonians
at an
early period, and it is probably
from them that a knowledge of the heavenly bodies and their
movements spread over Asia. Grammar and
prosody were studied in India with a marvellous
accuracy and minuteness several centuries before
Christ.
Mathematics were cultivated by the Chinese,
Indians and Arabs, but nearly all the sciences based on the
observation of nature, including
medicine, have remained in a very backward
condition. Much the same, however, might have been said of Europe
until two centuries ago, and the scientific knowledge of the Arabs
under the earlier Caliphates was equal or superior to that of any
of their contemporaries. Histories and accounts of travels have
been composed both in Arabic and Chinese.
19. It is only natural that Europe should have chiefly felt the
influence of western Asia. Though Europeans may be indebted to
China for some mechanical inventions, she was too distant to
produce much direct effect, and the influence of India has been
mainly directed towards the East. The resemblances between
primitive Christianity and Buddhism appear to be coincidences, and
though both early Greek philosophy and later Alexandrine ideas
suggest Indian affinities, there is no clear connexion such as
there is between certain aspects of Chinese thought and India.
Any general statement as to the debt owed by early European
civilizations to western Asia would at present be premature, for
though important discoveries have been made in
Crete and Babylonia the best authorities are
chary of positive conclusions as to the relations of Cretan
civilization to Egypt and Babylonia. Egyptian influence within the
Aegean area seems certain, and the theory that Greek writing and
systems for reckoning time are Babylonian in origin has not been
disproved, though the history of the alphabet is more complex than
was supposed.
In historic times Asia has attempted to assert her influence
over Europe by a series of invasions, most of which have been
repulsed. Such were the Persian wars of Greece, and perhaps one may
add Hannibal's invasion of Italy, if the Carthaginians were
Phoenicians transplanted to Africa. The Roman empire kept back the
Persians and Parthians, but could not prevent a series of
incursions by Avars, Huns, Bulgarians, and later by Mongols and
Turks. Islam has twice obtained a footing in Europe, under the
Arabs in Spain and under the Turks at Constantinople. The earlier
Asiatic invasions were conducted by armies operating at a distance
from their bases, and had little result, for the soldiery retired
after a time (like Alexander from India), or more rarely (e.g. the
Bulgarians) settled down without keeping up any connexion with
Asia. The Turks, and to some extent the Arabs in Spain, were
successful because they first conquered the parts of Asia and
Africa adjoining Europe, so that the final invaders were in touch
with Asiatic settlements. Though the Turks have profoundly affected
the whole of eastern Europe, the result of their conquests has been
not so much to plant Asiatic culture in Europe as to arrest
development entirely, the countries under their rule remaining in
much the same condition as under the moribund Byzantine empire.
In general, Europe has in historic times shown itself decidedly
hostile to Asiatic institutions and modes of thought. It is only of
recent years that the writings of Schopenhauer and the researches
of many distinguished orientalists have awakened some interest in
Asiatic philosophy.
The influence of Asia on Africa has been considerable, and until
the middle of the 10th century greater than that of Europe. Some
authorities hold that Egyptian civilization came from Babylonia,
and that the so-called
Hamitic languages are older
and less specialized members of the Semitic family. The con flexion
between
Carthage and
Phoenicia is more certain,
and the ancient Abyssinian kingdom was founded by Semites from
south Arabia. The traditions of the Somalis derive them from the
same region. The theory that the ruins in Mashonaland were built by
immigrants from south Arabia is now discredited, but there was
certainly a continuous stream of Arab migration to East Africa
which probably began in pre-Moslem times and founded a series of
cities on the coast. The whole of the north of Africa from Egypt to
Morocco has been mahommedanized, and Mahommedan influence is
general and fairly strong from
Timbuktu to Lake Chad and
Wadai. South of the equator, Arab slave-dealers
penetrated from
Zanzibar
to
the great lakes and
the
Congo during the second and
third quarters of the 19th century, but their power, though
formidable, has disappeared without leaving any permanent
traces.
The relation to Asia of the pre-European civilizations of
America is another of those questions which admit of no definite
answer at present, though many facts support the theory that the
semi-civilized inhabitants of
Mexico and
Central America crossed from Asia by
Bering Straits and descended the west coast. Some authorities hold
that Peruvian civilization had no connexion with the north and was
an entirely indigenous product, but Kechua is in structure not
unlike the agglutinative languages of central and northern
Asia.
20. European influence on Asia has been specially strong at two
epochs, firstly after the conquests of Alexander the Great, and
secondly from the r6th century onwards. Alexander's conquests
resulted in the foundation of a Perso-Greek kingdoms in Asia, which
not only hellenized their own area but influenced the art and
religion of India and to some extent of China. Then follows a long
period in which eastern Europe was mainly occupied in combating
Asiatic invasions, and had little opportunity of Europeanizing the
East. Somewhat later the
Crusades kept up communication with the
Levant, and established there the power of the Roman Church,
somewhat to the detriment of oriental Christianity, but intercourse
with farther Asia was limited to the voyages of a few travellers.
Looking at eastern Europe and western Asia only, one must say that
Asiatic influences have on the whole prevailed hitherto (though
perhaps the tide is turning), for Islam is paramount in this region
and European culture at a low ebb. But the case is quite different
if one looks at the two continents as a whole, for improvement in
means of communication has brought about strange vicissitudes, and
western Europe has asserted her power in middle and eastern
Asia.
In the 16th century a new era began with the discovery by the
Portuguese of the route to India round the Cape, and the naval
powers of Europe started one after another on careers of oriental
conquest. The movement was maritime and affected the nations in the
extreme west of Europe rather than those nearer Asia, who were
under the Turkish yoke. Also the parts of Asia affected were
chiefly India and the extreme East. The countries west of India,
being less exposed to naval invasion, remained comparatively
untouched. It will thus be seen that European (excluding Russian)
power in Asia is based almost entirely on improved navigation.
There was no attempt to overwhelm whole empires by pouring into
them masses of troops, but commerce was combined with territorial
acquisition, and a continuity of European interest secured by the
presence of merchants and settlers. The course of oriental conquest
followed the events of European politics, and the possessions of
European powers in the East generally changed hands according to
the fortunes of their masters at home.
Portugal was first on the scene, and in the
r6th century established a considerable littoral empire on the
coasts of East Africa, India and China, fragments of which still
remain, especially
Goa, where
Portuguese influence on the natives was considerable. Before the
century was out the Dutch appeared as the successful rivals of the
Portuguese, but the real struggle for supremacy in southern Asia
took place between France and
England about 1740-1783. Both entered India as
commercial companies, but the disorganized condition of the Mogul
empire necessitated the use of military force to protect their
interests, and allured them to conquest. The companies gradually
undertook the financial control of the districts where they traded
and were recognized by the natives as political powers. The
ultimate victory of England seems due less to any particular
aptitude for dealing with oriental problems than to a better
command of the seas and to considerations of European politics. At
the end of the Napoleonic wars Portugal had
Macao and Goa,
Holland Java, Sumatra and other islands, France
some odds and ends in India, while England emerged with Hong Kong,
Singapore, Ceylon and a free hand in India. Guided by such
administrators as
Warren Hastings, the
East India
Company had assumed more and more definitely the functions of
government for a great part of India. In 1809 its exclusive trading
rights were taken away by Parliament, but its administrative status
was thus made clearer, and when after the mutiny of 1857 it was
desirable to define British authority in India there seemed nothing
unnatural in declaring it to be a possession of the
crown.
Another
category of
European possessions in Asia comprises those acquired towards the
end of the 19th century, such as Indo-China (France), Burma and
Wei-Hai-Wei (Britain),
and Kiao-Chow (Germany). Whereas the earlier conquests were mostly
the results of large half-conscious national movements working out
their destinies in the East, these later ones were annexations
deliberately planned by European cabinets. It seemed to be assumed
that Asia was to be divided among the powers of Europe, and each
was anxious to get its share or more.
The advance of Russia in Asia is entirely different from that of
the other powers, since it has taken place by land and not by sea.
Though the geographical extent of Russian territory and influence
is enormous, she has always moved along the line of least
resistance. She is a moderately strong empire lying to the north of
the great Moslem states, and having for neighbours a series of very
weak principalities or semi-civilized tribes. The conquest of
Siberia and central Asia presented no real difficulties: Persia and
Constantinople were left on one side, and Russia was defeated as
soon as she was opposed by a vigorous power in the Far East. As the
Russian possessions in Asia are continuous with European Russia, it
is only natural that they should have been russified far more
thoroughly than the British possessions have been anglicized.
There has been great difference of opinion as to the extent to
which Alexander's conquests influenced Asia, and it is equally hard
to say what is the effect now being produced by Europe. Clearly
such alterations as the construction of railways in nearly all
parts of the continent, and the establishment of peace over
formerly disturbed areas like India, are of enormous importance,
and must change the life of the people. But the mental constitution
of Asiatics is less easily modified than their institutions, and
even Japan has assimilated European methods rather than European
ideas. (C. EL.)/n==Authorities== - The modern bibliography of Asia,
including the works of travellers and explorers since 1880, is
voluminous. It is impossible to refer to all that has been written
in the Survey Reports and Gazetteers of the government of India, or
in the records of the Royal Asiatic Society, or the Asiatic
Society, Bengal; but amongst the more important popular works are
the following: - Richthofen, " China, Japan, and Korea," vol. iv.
Jour. R.G.S., China (Berlin, 1877); Regel, " Upper Oxus,"
vol. i.
Proc. R.G.S., 1879; Dr Bellew,
Afghanistan and
the Afghans (London, 1879); Nicolas Prjevalski, " Explorations
in Asia," see vols. i., ii.,v., ix. and xi. of the
Proc.
R.G.S., 1879-1889; W. Blunt, " A Visit to
Jebel Shammar," vol. ii.
Proc. R.G.S.,
1880; Captain W. Gill,
The River of Golden Sand (London,
1880); Sir Temple, " Central Plateau of Asia," vol. iv.
Proc.
R.G.S., 1882; Baker, " A Journey of Exploration in Western
Ssu-Chuan," vol. i.
Supplementary Papers R.G.S.,
1882-1885; Sir C. Wilson, " Notes on Physical and Historical
Geography of Asia Minor," vol. vi.
Proc. R.G.S., 1884;
General J. T. Walker, " Asiatic Explorers of the Indian Survey,"
vol. viii.
Proc. R.G.S., 1885;
Samuel Beal,
Buddhist Records of the Western
World (Boston, 1885); Charles Doughty,
Travels in Northern
Arabia (Cambridge, 1886);
Travels in Arabia Deserta
(Cambridge, 1888); Venukoff, " Explorations," vol. viii.
Proc.
G.R.S., 1886; Ney Elias, " Explorations in Central Asia," see
vols. viii. and ix.
Proc. R.G.S., 1886-1887; Arthur Carey,
" Explorations in Turkestan," see vol. ix.
Proc. R.G.S., 1887; Henry Lansdell,
Through Central
Asia (London, 1887); Archibald Colquhoun,
Report on
Railway Connexion between Burma and China (London, 1887);
Major C. Yate,
Northern Afghanistan (Edinburgh, 1888);
Captain F. Younghusband,
The Heart of a Continent (London,
1893);
A Journey through Manchuria, &c. (Lahore,
1888); also see vol. x.
Proc. R.G.S., and vol. v.
Jour. R.G.S.; Dutreuil de Rhins,
L'Asie Centrale
(Paris, 1889); Pierre Bonvalot,
Through the Heart of Asia,
trans. Pitman (London, 1889);
From Paris to Tonkin, trans. Pitman (London,
1891); Roborovski, translation from Russian
Invalide,
October 1889, vol. xii.
Proc. R.G.S.; " Central Asia,"
vol. viii.
Jour. R.G.S., 1896; Colonel Mark Bell, " Trade
Routes of Asia," vol. xii.
Proc. R.G.S., 1890; W. W.
Rockhill, " An American in Tibet,"
Century Magazine,
November 1890;
The Land of the Lamas (London, 1891);
Theodore Bent, " Hadramut," vol. iv.
Jour. R.G.S., 1894; "
Southern Arabia," vol. vi.
Jour. R.G.S., 1896; " Bahrein
Islands," vol. xii.
Proc. R.G.S., 1890; Grombcherski, "
Explorations in Kuen Lun," vol. xii.
Proc. R.G.S., 1890;
Lydekker, " The Geology of the Kashmir Valley and
Chamba Territories," vols. xiii. and xiv.
Geological Survey of India; Max Muller,
The Sacred
Books of the East (Oxford, 1890-1894); Elisee Reclus,
The
Earth and its Inhabitants (series, 1890); G. W. Leitner,
Dardistan; H. F.
Blanford,
Elementary Geography of India, Burma, and Ceylon
(London, 1890);
Guide to the Climate and Weather of India
(London, 1889); Lord
Dunmore,
The Pamirs (London, 1892); A.
Tissandier,
Voyage au tour du monde (Paris, 1892); Lord
Curzon,
Persia and the Persian Question (London, 1892);
Russia and the Anglo-Russian Question (London, 1889);
Problems of the Far East (London, 1894); Captain Hamilton
Bower,
Diary of a
Journey across Tibet (Calcutta, 1893); Szechenyi,
Die
wissenschaftlichen Ergebnisse der Reise des Grafen Bela Szechenyi in Ostasien (Wien, 1893); R.
D.
Oldham, "
Evolution of Indian
Geology," vol. iii.
Jour. R.G.S., 1894; Baron Toll, "
Siberia," vol. iii.
Jour. R.G.S., 1894; Delmar Morgan, "
The Mountain Systems of Central Asia,"
Scottish Geological
Magazine, No. 10, of 1894; Sir Frederick
Goldsmid, " Persian Geography," vol. vi.
Jour. R.G.S., 1895; Warrington Smyth, " Siam," vol. vi.
Jour. R.G.S., 1895; " Siamese East Coast," vol xi.
Jour. 1898; Prince Kropotkin, " Siberian Railway," vol. v.
R.G.S. Jour., 1895; W. R.
Lawrence,
The Vale of Kashmir
(Oxford, 1895); Captain Vaughan, " Persia," vol. viii.
Jour.
R.G.S., 1896; Prince H. d'Orleans, " Yunan to India," vol.
vii.
Jour. R.G.S., 1896; " Tonkin to Talifu," vol. viii.
Jour. R.G.S., 1896; Sir T. Holdich, " Ancient and Medieval
Makran," vol. vii.
Jour. R.G.S., 1896;
The Indian
Borderland (London, 1901);
India (Oxford, 1904);
Colonel Woodthorpe, " Shan States," vol. vii.
Jour.
R.G.S., 1896;
Report of the Pamir Boundary Commission
(Calcutta, 1896); St George Littledale, " Journey Across the Pamirs
from North to South," vol. iii.
Jour. R.G.S., 1894, and
vol. vii.
Jour. R.G.S., 1896; Sir G. Robertson,
The
Kafirs of the Hindu Kush (London, 1896); Captain Stiffe, "
Persian Gulf Trading Centres," vols. viii., ix. and x.
Jour.
R.G.S., 1897; Ney Elias and Ross,
A History of the Moghuls
of Central Asia, from the Tarskh-i-Rastisdi of Mirza Haidar
(London, 1898); Grenard,
Mission scientifique sur la Haute
Asie (Paris, 1898); Dr Sven Hedin,
Through Asia
(London, 1898);
Central Asia and Tibet (1903);
Geographie des Hochlandes von Pamir (Berlin, 1894);
Captain M. S. Wellby, " Through Tibet,"
R.G.S. Jour.,
September 1898; Captain P. M. Sykes, " Persian Explorations," vol.
x.
Jour. R.G.S., 1898;
Ten Thousand Miles in
Persia (1902); Kronshin, " Old Beds of the Oxus,"
Jour.
R.G.S., September 1898; Sir W. Hunter,
History of British
India, vol. i. (London, 1898); Captain H. Deasy, " Western
Tibet," vol. ix.
Jour. R.G.S.; In Tibet and Chinese
Turkestan (London, 1901); A. Little,
The Far East
(Oxford, 1905); Captain Rawling,
The Great Plateau
(London, 1905);
Journal of the Royal Geogl. Society, vols.
xv. to xxv. (1900-1905); Colonel A.
Durand,
The Making of a Frontier
(London, 1899); R. Cobbold,
Innermost Asia (London, 1900).
(T. H. H.*)
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