Asia; a geography reader

Preface

The purpose of this volume is to describe some of the ways in which the cHmate, topography, and other characteristics of Asia have influenced the distribution of man over that vast continent, and have caused the inhabitants of different regions to acquire highly varied habits and customs. To include, however, only those aspects of life in which the influence of physical environment is clearly apparent would be to present only a part of the story and to omit many interesting and important details which children ought to know about the people of Asia. Since the volume, in its character of a supplement to an ordinary textbook of general geography, is intended primarily to give children a picture of the life of the inhabitants of Asia, the author has deliberately included many details in which the causal relation between life and its geographic surroundings cannot easily be shown. The chief emphasis, however, has been given to habits and customs which show the causal relation, for the purpose of the book is to instruct as well as interest. It is hoped that the nature of the subject may stimulate many pupils to a further and more complete study of certain areas, at least, and that the scientific presentation of the matter may help them to realize that an understanding of certain of the fundamental geographic relationships enables one to organize mere scattered items of interesting information into systematic, usable knowledge.

The emphasis given to different regions of Asia is not always in proportion to the political or commercial importance of these regions to the rest of the world;

vi PREFACE

for the author's purpose has been not merely to describe certain areas, but rather to go into details in reference to a few regions so as to show clearly the causal relations between life and its surroundings which may there be illustrated. Each of these areas permits the study of certain large geographic principles and is a basis for comparison with similar or dissimilar areas in other parts of the world. Hence certain regions, such as Seistan in eastern Persia, have been described more in detail than would be warranted if the point of view were simply to show their importance to the world as a whole.

Another guiding principle has been that, other things being equal, emphasis should be given to the geographic conditions unfamiliar to the children of America, for it is unfortunate for pupils to gain the impression that all that is unfamiliar is unnatural, or merely curious and without meaning. For instance, the nomadic life of the Arabs, from this standpoint, deserves fuller description than the agricultural life of the peasants of Japan.

Another principle has been to avoid repetition, except to enforce a point. Thus Tibet is treated very brieflybecause similar conditions of nomadism induced by high, cold plateaus have been previously discussed in reference to the Tian Shan Plateau. In a similar way the treatment of Japan and India is fairly brief, because many of the principles which can be applied to those countries have already been developed in the preceding chapters on Chosen (Korea) and Indo-China.

The most important of all the principles which have played a part in determining the manner of the writing of this book is the conviction that ideas are the greatest of all human products. Therefore, the historic lands

PREFACE vu

of the Turkish Empire have been treated quite fully. The origin of Christianity and Judaism in Palestine and of Mohammedanism in the Turkish portion of. Arabia, the rise of culture on the Ionic seaboard, the spread of letters from Phoenicia, and the existence of the earliest of the world's great kingdoms in Mesopotamia are facts of such import that every child ought to know the geography of these famous regions.

It has sometimes been said that geography is the handmaid of commerce. This is doubtless true, but the statement often creates a false impression. Geography is the handmaid of economics, history, politics, and other sciences as well as commerce. In this volume, accordingly, no attempt is made to follow the prevailing tendency and to lay special emphasis upon commercial geography. The attempt has been rather to proceed from a basis of physical geography and climatology and to build a well-balanced whole which centers around human activities. It includes something from each of the great branches — economic, commercial, political, and historical geography — ^but specializes in none of them. Doubtless the balance is imperfect, for no matter how nicely the scales may be adjusted the personal equation adds its weight, and the resultant presentation seems ill-balanced to all save the author. Fortunately, even though a book is not balanced to the entire satisfaction of all the world, it may still be useful. If this volume shall interest and stimulate the scholars who read it and broaden the vision of the teachers who teach it, its mission will be accomplished.

More than half the illustrations of the book are taken from the author's own photographs. Most of the others were furnished by the Secretaries of the American Board viii PREFACE

of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, in Boston, to whom most cordial thanks are due. A few were furnished by the Oriental Society of America, to whom also hearty thanks are tendered.

Ellsworth HuntingtoNo Yale University^ New Haven, Connecticut

I

Introduction

Many attempts have been made in the past to prepare supplementary geography readers that would enable teachers to increase the emphasis that can be given to the picturesque side of geography — that is, to add good strong side lights to the necessarily brief and sometimes formal presentation of the more comprehensive textbooks. Such reading matter obviously ought to be as accurate, authoritative, and systematic as the material of a textbook, and must be presented in an appealing and readable form. Children of the age to get profit from such supplementary work are attracted by a volume that tells a story in an absorbing and enlightening way, just as they are by a story full of action. In either case, the book that causes the child to curl up in a corner and lose himself in his reading is the valuable book, provided its contents are sound, inspiring, and educative in the best sense. Children want to have faith in the realness and the value of what they read and to be able to relate the newly acquired material to the more familiar matter gained in formal study.

The editor and publishers have attempted to meet these demands in the series of supplementary volumes of which this is the first to appear. Each author who is contributing to this series is a geographer of high repute, an authority on the country described, whose accounts are accepted as standard by the scientific world. Each one writes from a fullness of knowledge of the facts depicted and with a keen appreciation of the way the people in each country reflect the influence

(ix)

X * INTRODUCTION

of the geographic surroundings in their habits and customs. The editor has secured the services of the several authors, has planned the larger features of treatment, and has edited the manuscripts from a common viewpoint so as to secure a certain uniformity of plan of presentation, but he has in no way sacrificed the individuality of the authors' w^ork.

Thus the series will be a collection of expert treatises, written for a special purpose and from a common viewpoint. It will not be compilation of the work of others or a series of travelers* notes especially prepared to amuse. It will be a standard treatment of the world by regions, from the modern standpoint that geography is a study of the earth in its relation to man and life and that the most interesting topics in geography deal with the lives of peoples and the reasons for their habits, customs, industries, and distribution.

Richard Elwood Dodge.

Teachers College,

Coltimbia University, New York City.

THE CONTENTS

PAGE

The Preface . v

The httroduction ix

A List of the Maps xii

CHAPTER

I. The Country and its People i

II. The Four Great Divisions of Asia ... 25

III. The Religion of Southwestern Asia ... 38

IV. Arabia: The Land of Plunderers .... 44 V. Palestine 53

VI. Syria and Mesopotamia 67

VII. Anatolia: The Land of the Sunrise ... 73

VIII. The Armenian Plateau 84

IX. The Oil Fields of Caucasia 90

X. The Waterless Land of Persia .... 97

XI. Afghanistan: The "Buffer State" .112

XII. Transcaspia and Russian Turkistan .121

XIII. Siberia: The Most American Country in Asia 135

XIV. The Plateaus of Inner Asia 152

XV. A Sea of Sand and Salt 163

XVI. Manchuria: The Land of Beans 171

XVII. Chosen (Korea): The Land of the Morning

Calm 182

XVIII. Japan: The Land of the Rising Sun . . .192

XIX. China: The Oldest of Nations 221

XX. Peking and the Hwang-ho 235

XXI. Shantung and the Provinces of the Yangtse-

KIANG 253

XXII. Southern China 269

XXIII. Indo-China AND the Malay Peninsula . 284

XXIV. India 304

The Index - . . . xv

(xi)

A LIST OF THE MAPS

PAGE

Mean annual rainfall facing 8

Asia between 8 and 9

Seasonal distribution of rainfall facing 9

Mean temperature for January facing 26

Asia (physical) between 26 and 27

Mean temperature for July facing 27

Southwestern Asia facing 38

Religions facing 39

Syria and Palestine facing 58

Principal plants facing 59

Mean annual range of temperature facing 134

Areas of natural vegetation between 134 and 135

Northern Asia facing 135

Eastern Asia facing 1 52

Density of population facing 1 53

Races of man facing 308

Southern Asia facing 309

(xii)

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood

Schoolboys and their teacher near the Irdwadi River, Burma

Chapter I

At a Khan in Asia Minor. As the first pink light of morning appeared in the east, the courtyard of the great inn at_Eregli in central^sia Minor began to be filled with bustle and stir. On one side, under the veranda which ran around the entire square on a level with the second story, a wagoner in brown trousers, skin-tight below and baggy around the hips, was grooming his horses. Close beside him a small door was pushed open by another wag oner, leading two gray horses whose hoofs clattered loudly as they crossed the rough pavement to the well in the center of the courtyard. A third man was greasing the wheels of a rough freight wagon and singing in the high falsetto voice which the Turks seem to enjoy. The wagon was a springless vehicle, shaped like the old immigrant wagons of America. Its long, round top was made of white canvas gayly decorated with strips of red cloth sewed on the outside in patterns of flowers and leaves. Soon the "khanjee," that is, the keeper of the khan or inn, came down the stone stairs from the flagged veranda. Like most of his guests, he had been sleeping out of doors on the floor, with a thick quilt under him and a thinner one on top. It had taken him only a minute to dress, for he had not really undressed at all. He merely straightened the red fez or cap which he had worn all night, wound a pale blue handkerchief around it in the form of a turban, put on his outer gown of dark brown cotton material reaching below the knees, and bound a

A Turkish araha or wagon yellow girdle around his waist. Then he was ready for the first work of the day, which was to collect the money due from his guests.

The khanjee removed a large wooden bar and swung open the great doors leading to the street. Eight wagons were ready to start. The first was a passenger wagon, shaped like the freight wagons but fitted with springs and having a shiny black top. The curtains on the sides were tightly drawn, and the tones of the stifled voices proved that this was because some of the passengers were Mohammedan women, whose faces must not be seen by strange men. One by one the wagoners stopped to pay their bills, and then drove away in one direction or another. When the fifth wagon came up a quarrel broke out. The khanjee wanted eighty cents; the wagoner claimed that the straw given him for his horses to eat was poor, and he owed only seventy cents. Both men began to shout in loud voices and seemed angry enough to murder each other. Finally the wagoner threw down his seventy cents and whipped his horses in an attempt to drive away, but the khanjeewas too quick for him. Running to the door, the khanjee slammed it shut and locked it. The wagoner swore, but the innkeeper merely went off up stairs. The people in the other wagons protested, some trying to persuade the innkeeper that he had charged too much, and others telling the wagoner that he had made a mistake. After about fifteen minutes the two men allowed themselves to be persuaded. The wagoner paid five cents more, the khanjee opened the door, and the wagons began to drive out again. The odd thing about it was that, in spite of their swearing and cursing, the two who had quarreled said good-by to each other as if they were old friends.

Within half an hour after sunrise all but two or three wagons had departed. Every traveler wants to start early in Asia Minor, because in summer the days are extremely hot and sunny, while in winter they are too short to allow any time to be wasted. Some of the wagoners expected to drive steadily day after day for two weeks before reaching their destination. In Turkey railroads are still scarce, and in many parts of the country freight and passengers have to be carried in wagons.

A few hours later, in the middle of the morning, the dusty courtyard lay silent and deserted in the scorching heat of an unclouded July sun. The only people in sight were four men in the shade beneath the veranda. They were not sitting or standing, as we would do, but were squatting on their heels in a posture suggesting frogs. A hubble-bubble pipe was being passed from mouth to mouth, so that each man in turn might draw two or three whiffs. It was like a large vase with two tubes projecting from it. On the top of one tube was a little hollow wherein to bum the tobacco. The other tube curved outward and served as a mouthpiece. In a hubble-bubble the smoke goes down through the water with which the vase is filled, and thus loses some of its nicotine poison before it reaches the smoker.

One of the squatting men took five or six short, quick puffs at the pipe, and then walked slowly across the courtyard toward a small door. His shoes were like slippers with the back turned down as one turns the back of a rubber in putting it on. As he walked they flapped so much that it seemed as if he must lose them. The man stopped at the door to fix his girdle of figured red cloth, extending from his waist nearly to his armpits. As he took it off, an American traveler, who was watching from the veranda, wondered how any man could wind such a piece of cloth around himself so smoothly, for it was more than ten feet long. The Turk, however, was not troubled. He was dressed in the common style of wagoners, and he knew how to put on his girdle. He simply fastened one end to the latch of the door, stood off far enough to extend the girdle to its full length, and then turned round and round. He wound himself into the girdle, instead of winding it around himself.

Meanwhile the "odabashi," or "chief of the rooms," emerged from the steamy atmosphere of the coffeeseller's shop beside the wide street door, and climbed the stone stairway to the flagged porch above. On his uplifted hand he bore a chiseled brass tray laden with dishes. Stopping before a carved wooden door, he carefully pushed off his low shoes and left them standing neatly side by side, while in stockinged feet he stepped upon the rugs of the room. He did not think of knocking or of taking off his fez. These things are not considered necessary irf the remoter parts of Turkey. But he would have thought it most rude to wear his shoes in the house.

Within the room a portly man in a long gown of pale blue broadcloth sat cross-legged on a divan, or couch, covered with rich rugs. The fez on his head was almost concealed by an enormous white turban. He held a crumpled paper upon which he was busily writing with a scratching pen. As the odabashi entered, he stopped writing and took from his green girdle a little brass case about eight inches long, opened one end, and selected one of several pieces of reed stems. This he carefully sharpened with a penknife. Then he tested it on his finger nail, and finally dipped it into a little inkwell. It was a pen of the kind commonly used in Turkey. The man wrote busily for two or three minutes, not using a table or moving the pen from left to right as we do, but holding the paper in his hand and writing in graceful strokes from right to left, just opposite to our method. He was a mullah, or Turkish priest, and was considered very learned because he could write so well.

While he wrote, the odabashi spread an embroidered cloth on the rugs in the middle of the floor, and set upon it a round table about three feet in diameter and eight inches high. Then he placed upon the table some sheets of bread about the thickness and shape of griddle cakes, but two or three times as large and somewhat stiffer. On these he laid some strong-smelling garlic, like green onions with thick stems. Next he set on one side a blue bowl full of curdled sour milk, and on the other a plate of white, insipid mulberries, while he reserved the middle for a covered pewter dish full of ''pilaf," which is merely rice cooked with bits of mutton in such a way that each grain of rice is distinct and yet soft. When all was ready the odabashi took a pewter basin in his left hand and a pitcher of the same material in his right, and stood before the mullah. The learned man stuffed his paper and pen into his girdle, pushed back his sleeves, and held out his hands. He did not wash his hands in the basin, for to him that would not have seemed clean. He merely let the odabashi pour the water over his hands so that only clean water might touch them and all the dirty water might be caught in the basin underneath. The odabashi had forgotten to bring a towel, so he offered the mullah the end of his girdle, which served quite as well.

When his hands were dry, the mullah sat down cross-legged on the floor, drew over his knees the part of the tablecloth that was not under the table, and began eating. He had no knife or fork or spoon. The people of Turkey have such things, but this man was old-fashioned. He had a habit of saying, "Our great prophet, Mohammed, ate with his fingers, and that way is good enough for me." So he carefully picked up some rice, rolled it deftly into a ball, and snapped it into his mouth. It was astonishing to see how very neatly he did it, without spilling or without soiling more than the ends of his fingers. When he wanted to eat the sour milk, he merely broke off a piece of the thin bread, bent it into a scoop, and used it instead of a spoon.

A Land Too Dry in Summer. The American traveler had been watching the mullah through the open door, but now the wagoner called to him that all was ready for the day's journey, so he went down and took his place in a spring wagon. As he did so an old gray-

-

Wm

M

^^HHHi i

H^^l n

A village of mud and stone in Asia Minor bearded soldier left the group with the hubble-bubble, picked up his gun from against the wall, and mounted a fine black horse. He had been sent by the government to escort the traveler as he drove out into the remote parts of the country.

Leaving the smiling host, the wagon and the horseman passed out through the great door and entered the bazaar, or the street where the shops are located. There peasants in dirty white drawers were haggling for half an hour over a difference of two or three cents in the price of tea or soap. Merchants in baggy blue trousers sat contentedly in little shops, selling cloth, raisins, peas, rice, and strange brown, spicy substances with lingering, indescribable odors. Turks, Greeks, Armenians, and other races mingled in the crowd, but among them all no one seemed in a hurry or to care whether he accomplished anything or not.

At first the wagon rattled over the rough limestone pavement of the city, between monotonous rows of houses with mud walls broken by scarcely a window. Then the "gardens," as the Turks call them, began, but the dust rose from the unpaved roadway in such clouds that it was almost impossible to see them. Each side of the street was bordered by high mud walls which held in the dust.

As the wagon approached one of the many little doors in the walls, the soldier called out, "Let's stop here and have some fruit. This is my son's garden." Jumping from his horse, he pulled out a huge key about six inches long and opened the door. The air seemed cool and fresh inside, for there was plenty of shade and little streams of water ran in ditches beside long straight paths bordered with rows of stiff poplars.

The soldier and his son led the way past an orchard of peach, apple, apricot, and plum trees to a pretty arbor covered with grape vines. In front of it a square pool furnished water, which the host sprinkled on the ground so that the evaporation might cool the air. A small boy ran off to an open field to search for an early melon. He came back with two. One was a yellow muskmelon and the other a watermelon with the green rind of the common kind, but with yellow flesh and brown seeds. The garden was full of vegetables and fruits, and the traveler was so pleased that he said if all Turkey were like this he should like to live there always.

When he rose to leave there was a great scurrying back of the arbor. The women of the household, with white sheets enveloping them from head to foot, had been peeking through the leaves to see the strange sight of a real foreigner in a hat and European clothes. Now they ran away for fear that he might see them, which would be 'quite improper, since this was a Mohammedan family.

Leaving the pleasant garden, the traveler and the soldier rode on through other gardens and rich wheat fields for a while. After a few miles a great change occurred. They were riding away from the mountains in which the brooks have their source, and now they came to a place where the water of the brooks was all used up. Where so much water is used for irrigation the streams cannot flow far from their sources. So by and by the beds of the brooks are dry, there is no water for irrigation, and the land is left to depend entirely on rainfall. Unfortunately, no rain falls from May to September or October, and all the land becomes parched. This is one of the chief reasons why Turkey is so poor. For mile after mile the two men rode across a dreary plain, so dry and brown that most of it was uninhabited.

As they crossed the plain the soldier began to grumble about his wrongs. "What is the use of this constitutional government that we have now? I see no good in it. They tell us the country is growing better now that we have freedom. Perhaps it is for some people, but I don't like it at all. Yes, I get my pay a little more regularly than I used to, but I don't get any more, and besides that, the government wants everybody to know how to read and write and I can't see any use in that. Why should a young boy only eighteen years old get a good place just because he can read and has been to school? Such a boy does not know the roads and the people the way I do. And I don't see why they don't let us get our living in the old way. When I was younger we soldiers did not get our pay half the time, but when that happened we just went out to the villages to collect taxes, and we made the villagers give us more than our pay. Now they try to prevent us from doing that, and they say it is for the good of the country, but lo ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER

I say that the old way was best, because then a soldier led an interesting life."

For three hours the traveler and the soldier talked about the old days of misgovernment in Turkey and the new days with the rulers trying to rule more justly, but continually hindered by those who want to return to the old ways. Mile by mile the plain grew drier and more barren, until the traveler wondered how any one could get a living from so poor a land. At last, about three o'clock, they came to some fields where the villagers were reaping wheat by bending over and grasping the stalks with the left hand while the right hand wielded the sickle. The weary harvesters kept standing up to straighten their backs, because the continual bending made them so tired. The village of one-story houses with flat roofs and thick mud walls lay half a mile away. Close to it, many people were busy threshing the grain on patches of bare earth, circular in shape and about thirt}^ feet in diameter. These threshing floors had been made by picking out all the stones, smoothing off the earth, moistening it, and beating it hard and flat. Here the farmers spread the wheat as it came from the fields in sheaves, and threshed it. This was done by driving over it oxen drawing sledges of thick wood, like toboggans, with pieces of flint stuck into the boards on the lower side. The oxen were driven round and round in a little circle by boys or girls who sat in the sun on the sledges hour after hour. The flints, aided by the feet of the oxen and the weight of the sledges, broke up the stalks and husks of the wheat and set free the grain. Many poor men had no sledges. They simply drove the oxen round and round until their hoofs had broken up the straw.

When the process of threshing is finished the farmers

THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE ii

wait for a windy day, and then pick up the mingled chaff and grain on shovels and throw it into the air. The grain, being heavy, falls quickly, but the chaff is blown into a heap to leeward. On the great farms of our prairies the whole process of reaping, threshing, and winnowing is accomplished by a single machine. Thus the product of one man's labor in America is as great as that of twenty in Asia. The Turks have almost no machines, partly because their country is poor and partly because the people have never learned how to make inventions.

In the village itself not a soul could be seen. -The soldier, however, knew the location of the guest room where strangers are regularly entertained, so thither the two men went. As it was only three o'clock in the afternoon, and as the temperature had risen to a hundred degrees, they both lay down for the "siesta, ' ' or afternoon sleep, which people commonly take soon after noon in hot countries. After about half an hour the drowsy thoughts of the American were interrupted by a plaintive little voice which seemed to be addressing some one who would not answer. "Won't you have some coffee?" it kept saying. After it had spoken two or three times, the traveler perceived a little boy about . four years old, a rosy, begrimed youngster who stood timidly in the middle of the room, wondering how he dared waken the strangers. His mother had prepared coffee of the usual Turkish variety, full of grounds and as thick as pea soup. She could not properly bring it herself, yet the rules of hospitality made her feel uncomfortable unless it were brought. So she stood outside, peeking in, while the little boy talked. He would not be satisfied until he had watched the traveler drink one of the little cups down to the halfway line where the beverage becomes solid grounds and had heard him promise to give the coffee to his companion as soon as he awoke. He was learning the pleasant rules of Turkish hospitality very young. He was also learning the lesson of poverty. For the whole village was in great trouble. That year the rain was so scanty that the price of grain had increased threefold, and all men feared deep want and possibly actual famine.