THE LAND OF RIVERS: CHINA seems perfectly natural that the history which starts with Egypt should have developed just as it has done ; that man, by learning to control such energy as i's possible in Europe, should have developed the type of civilization we call Western.
Let us now turn our attention to the East, and first to the Far East—to China. We shall see that the history of China has been controlled by the geography of China just as much as the history of Europe has been con trolled by its geography. The history is very different because the geography is very different. A comparison of these differences in the history will show how impor tant the geography of each is. We must notice what features of the history and geography are common to both, what phenomena are present in European history and geography that are absent in Chinese history and geography, and what phenomena are present in Chinese history and geography that are absent in Europe.
Maps of the Far East show these facts— (1) That China 1 is on the eastern front of the great continent of Euro-Asia, in latitude is exposed to the monsoon system of winds and rains, and is about the size of Europe without Russia, or of half of the United States.
(2) That on the land side there is a great stretch of high ground, with Tibet, the highest stretch of highland in the world, on the south.
(3) That the sea border is a great curve in the shape of quarter of a circle, with no part of Asia beyond, with no land of any account till the other side of the Pacific is reached,' and in addition that there is no Mediterranean Sea.
(4) That there is only one peninsula, Shantung,.and that projects north-eastward.
(5) That three great rivers flow from the plateau to the sea. The most northerly — the Hwang-Ho — flows from the lower part of the plateau on the north; the other two—the Yangtse-Kiang and the Si-Kiang—flow from the high plateau of Tibet. The Hwang-Ho, when it descends from the highlands, flows over a plain largely deltaic. The Yangtse-Kiang, not only the largest of the three but that with the longest course after leaving the plateau, flows across hilly districts. The Si-Kiang flows in a valley with a high mountain belt on the south.
All these physical facts have had their effect at different times in ways that correspond very closely to the ways in which similar facts have affected European history.
We do not know how, nor even very accurately when, anything like the dawnings of civilization began to appear in China. It is, however, pretty- certain that in China history begins much later than in Egypt, and somewhat later than in Babylonia. It is not difficult to suggest a reason for this. Nowhere is there such an ideally protected position as Egypt enjoyed. No desert in China protects a river valley so completely as the Sahara protects Egypt. Yet the beginnings of Chinese civilization are as like the beginnings of Western civiliza tion as the geographical conditions allow.
We have seen that a great triangular plain occupies a great part of the central portion of the continent of Euro-Asia, and that this low ground is rimmed round by highlands on all sides but the north. This highland area becomes in Eastern Asia more than a belt. Here there is a wide triangle of plateau land facing south-east and north-east. It is in three levels : the highest, Tibet, in the south, is two to three miles high; the second, three-quarters to half a mile high, is set round Lake Baikal. All the rest is just under half a mile. Each level is bordered by mountain ranges. Owing to its height and its consequent cold and drought, Tibet is permanently uninhabitable except in special areas. The lowest level is so rimmed round by mountains that a great portion of the moisture carried inland by infiowing winds is condensed before it reaches the interior ; as a result, its surface, like that of the plain farther west, is partly desert, partly grassland, and has a sufficiency of water only under the curtain of the mountains, where streams emerge on to the lower land. Thus on the southern half of its western frontier China has a great stretch of absolutely impassable land, and on the northern half a semi-desert, not indeed so impassable as to form a sure defence, but yet a great protection. Both southern and northern defences extend far westwards.