Influences of Geographic Environment Part 25

II, pp. 330-331. London, 1812.

[397] G. Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 9. New York, 1897.

[398] D.M. Wallace, Russia, p. 358. New York, 1904. Walter K. Kelly, History of Russia, Vol. II, pp. 394-395. London, 1881.

[399] D.M. Wallace, Russia, p. 298. New York, 1904.

[400] Alexis Krausse, Russia in Asia, pp. 43, 53. New York, 1899.

[401] Francis H. Nichol, Through Hidden Shensi, pp. 139-140. New York, 1902.

[402] M. Hue, Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844-1846, Vol. I, p. 23. Reprint, Chicago, 1898.

[403] Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, Vol. I, pp. 130-132.

New York, 1895.

[404] John Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, Vol. II, pp. 311, 315-321. Boston, 1897.

[405] Archibald Little, The Far East, p. 249. Oxford, 1905.

[406] Alfred Rambaud, History of Russia, Vol. II, pp. 45, 199-200.

Boston, 1886.

[407] Malcolm Lang, History of Scotland, Vol. I, pp. 42-43. London, 1800. The Scotch Borderland, _Gentleman's Magazine_, Vol. CCLX, p. 191.

1886.

[408] Friedrich Ratel, History of Mankind, Vol. III, p. 175, London, 1896.

[409] A.B. Hart, Foundations of American Foreign Policy, pp. 81-82. New York, 1901.

[410] Alfred Rambaud, History of Russia, Vol. II, pp. 45, 50. Boston, 1886.

[411] Justin Winsor, The Westward Movement, p. 366. Boston, 1899.

CHAPTER VIII

COAST PEOPLES

[Sidenote: The coast a zone of transition.]

Of all geographical boundaries, the most important is that between land and sea. The coast, in its physical nature, is a zone of transition between these two dominant forms of the earth's surface; it bears the mark of their contending forces, varying in its width with every stronger onslaught of the unresting sea, and with every degree of pa.s.sive resistance made by granite or sandy sh.o.r.e. So too in an anthropo-geographical sense, it is a zone of transition. Now the life-supporting forces of the land are weak in it, and it becomes merely the rim of the sea; for its inhabitants the sea means food, clothes, shelter, fuel, commerce, highway, and opportunity. Now the coast is dominated by the exuberant forces of a productive soil, so that the ocean beyond is only a turbulent waste and a long-drawn barrier: the coast is the hem of the land. Neither influence can wholly exclude the other in this amphibian belt, for the coast remains the intermediary between the habitable expanse of the land and the international highway of the sea. The break of the waves and the dash of the spray draw the line beyond which human dwellings cannot spread; for these the sh.o.r.e is the outermost limit, as for ages also in the long infancy of the races, before the invention of boat and sail, it drew the absolute boundary to human expansion. In historical order, its first effect has been that of a barrier, and for the majority of peoples this it has remained; but with the development of navigation and the spread of human activities from the land over sea to other countries, it became the gateway both of land and sea--at once the outlet for exploration, colonization, and trade, and the open door through which a continent or island receives contributions of men or races or ideas from transoceanic sh.o.r.es. Barrier and threshold: these are the _roles_ which coasts have always played in history. To-day we see them side by side. But in spite of the immense proportions a.s.sumed by transmarine intercourse, the fact remains that the greater part of the coasts of the earth are for their inhabitants only a barrier and not an outlet, or at best only a base for timorous ventures seaward that rarely lose sight of the sh.o.r.e.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN NORTH SEA COAST.]

[Sidenote: Width of coastal zones.]

As intermediary belt between land and sea, the coast becomes a peculiar habitat which leaves its mark upon its people. We speak of coast strips, coastal plains, "tidewater country," coast cities; of coast tribes, coast peoples, maritime colonies; and each word brings up a picture of a land or race or settlement permeated by the influences of the sea. The old term of "coastline" has no application to such an intermediary belt, for it is a zone of measurable width; and this width varies with the relief of the land, the articulation of the coast according as it is uniform or complex, with the successive stages of civilization and the development of navigation among the people who inhabit it.

Along highly articulated coasts, showing the interpenetration of sea and land in a broad band of capes and islands separated by tidal channels and inlets, or on sh.o.r.es deeply incised by river estuaries, or on low shelving beaches which screen brackish lagoons and salt marshes behind sand reefs and dune ramparts, and which thus form an indeterminate boundary of alternate land and water, the zone character of the coast in a physical sense becomes conspicuous. In an anthropological sense the zone character is clearly indicated by the different uses of its inner and outer edge made by man in different localities and in different periods of history.

[Sidenote: The inner edge.]

The old German maritime cities of the North Sea and the Baltic were located on rivers from 6 to 60 miles from the open sea, always on the inner edge of the coastal belt. Though primarily trading towns, linked together once in the sovereign confederacy of the Hanseatic League, they fixed their sites on the last spurs of firm ground running out into the soft, yielding alluvium, which was constantly exposed to inundation.

Land high enough to be above the ever threatening flood of river and storm-driven tide on this flat coast, and solid enough to be built upon, could not be found immediately on the sea. The slight elevations of sandy "geest" or detrital spurs were limited in area and in time outgrown. Hence the older part of all these river towns, from Bremen to Konigsberg, rests upon hills, while in every case the newer and lower part is built on piles or artificially raised ground on the alluvium.[412]

So Utrecht, the Ultrajectum of the Romans, selected for its site a long raised spur running out from the solid ground of older and higher land into the water-soaked alluvium of the Netherlands. It was the most important town of all this region before the arts of civilization began the conquest by dike and ditch of the amphibian coastal belt which now comprises one-fourth of the area and holds one-half the population of the Netherlands.[413] So ancient London marked the solid ground at the inner edge of the tidal flats and desolate marshes which lined the Thames estuary, as the Roman Camulodunum and its successor Colchester on its steep rise or _dun_ overlooked the marshes of the Stour inlet.[414]

Farther north about the Wash, which in Roman days extended far inland over an area of fens and tidal channels, Cambridge on the River Cam, Huntingdon and Stamford on the Nen, and Lincoln on the Witham--all river seaports--defined the firm inner edge of this wide low coast. In the same way the landward rim of the tidal waters and salt marshes of the Humber inlet was described by a semicircle of British and Roman towns--Doncaster, Castleford, Todcaster, and York.[415] On the flat or rolling West African coastland, which lines the long sh.o.r.es of the Gulf of Guinea with a band 30 to 100 miles wide, the sandy, swampy tracts immediately on the sea are often left uninhabited; native population is distributed most frequently at the limit of deep water, and here at head of ship-navigation the trading towns are found.[416]

[Sidenote: Inner edge as head of sea navigation.]

While, on low coasts at any rate, the inner edge tends to mark the limit of settlement advancing from the interior, as the head of sea navigation on river and inlet it has also been the goal of immigrant settlers from oversea lands. The history of modern maritime colonization, especially in America, shows that the aim of regular colonists, as opposed to mere traders, has been to penetrate as far as possible into the land while retaining communication with the sea, and thereby with the mother country. The small boats in use till the introduction of steam navigation fixed this line far inland and gave the coastal zone a greater breadth than it has at present, and a more regular contour. In colonial America this inner edge coincided with the "fall-line" of the Atlantic rivers, which was indicated by a series of seaport towns; or with the inland limit of the tides, which on the St. Lawrence fell above Quebec, and on the Hudson just below Albany.

[Sidenote: Shifting of the inner edge.]

With the recent increase in the size of vessels, two contrary effects are noticed. In the vast majority of cases, the inner edge, as marked by ports, moves seaward into deeper water, and the zone narrows. The days when almost every tobacco plantation in tidewater Virginia had its own wharf are long since past, and the leaf is now exported by way of Norfolk and Baltimore. Seville has lost practically all its sea trade to Cadiz, Rouen to Havre, and Dordrecht to Rotterdam. In other cases the zone preserves its original width by the creation of secondary ports on or near the outer edge, reserved only for the largest vessels, while the inner harbor, by dredging its channel, improves its communication with the sea. Thus arises the phenomenon of twin ports like Bremen and Bremerhaven, Dantzig and Neufahrwa.s.ser, Stettin and Swinemunde, Bordeaux and Pauillac, London and Tilbury. Or the original harbor seeks to preserve its advantage by ca.n.a.lizing the shallow approach by river, lagoon, or bay, as St. Petersburg by the Pantiloff ca.n.a.l through the shallow reaches of Kronstadt Bay; or Konigsberg by its ship ca.n.a.l, carried for 25 miles across the Frisches Haff to the Baltic;[417] or Nantes by the Loire ship ca.n.a.l, which in 1892 was built to regain for the old town the West Indian trade recently intercepted by the rising outer port of St. Nazaire, at the mouth of the Loire estuary.[418] In northern lat.i.tudes, however, the outer ports on enclosed sea basins like the Baltic become dominant in the winter, when the inner ports are ice-bound. Otherwise the outer port sinks with every improvement in the channel between the inner port and the sea. Hamburg has so constantly deepened the Elbe pa.s.sage that its outport of Cuxhaven has had little chance to rise, and serves only as an emergency harbor; while on the Weser, maritime leadership has oscillated between Bremen and Bremerhaven.[419] So the whole German coast and the Russian Baltic have seen a more or less irregular shifting backward and forward of maritime importance between the inner and the outer edges.

[Sidenote: Artificial extension of inner edge.]

The width of the coast zone is not only prevented from contracting by dredging and ca.n.a.ling, but it is even increased. By deepening the channel, the chief port of the St. Lawrence River has been removed from Quebec 180 miles upstream to Montreal, and that of the Clyde from Port Glasgow 16 miles to Glasgow itself, so that now the largest ocean steamers come to dock where fifty years ago children waded across the stream at ebb tide. Such artificial modifications, however, are rare, for they are made only where peculiarly rich resources or superior lines of communication with the hinterland justify the expenditures; but they find their logical conclusion in still farther extensions of sea navigation into the interior by means of ship ca.n.a.ls, where previously no waterway existed. Instances are found in the Manchester ship ca.n.a.l and the Welland, which, by means of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, makes Chicago accessible to ocean vessels. Though man distinguishes between sea and inland navigation in his definitions, in his practice he is bound by no formula and recognizes no fundamental difference where rivers, lakes, and ca.n.a.ls are deep enough to admit his sea-going craft.

Such deep landward protrusions of the head of marine navigation at certain favored points, as opposed to its recent coastward trend in most inlets and rivers, increase the irregularity of the inner edge of the coast zone by the marked discrepancy between its maximum and minimum width. They are limited, however, to a few highly civilized countries, and to a few points in those countries. But their presence testifies to the fact that the evolution of the coast zone with the development of civilization shows the persistent importance of this inner edge.

[Sidenote: Outer edge in original settlement.]

The outer edge finds its greatest significance, which is for the most part ephemeral, in the earlier stages of navigation, maritime colonization, and in some cases of original settlement. But this importance persists only on steep coasts furnishing little or no level ground for cultivation and barred from interior hunting or grazing land; on many coral and volcanic islands of the Pacific Ocean whose outer rim has the most fertile soil and furnishes the most abundant growth of coco palms, and whose limited area only half suffices to support the population; and in polar and sub-polar districts, where harsh climatic conditions set a low limit to economic development. In all these regions the sea must provide most of the food of the inhabitants, who can therefore never lose contact with its waters. In mountainous Tierra del Fuego, whose impenetrably forested slopes rise directly from the sea, with only here and there a scanty stretch of stony beach, the natives of the southern and western coasts keep close to the sh.o.r.e. The straits and channels yield them all their food, and are the highways for all their restless, hungry wanderings.[420] The steep slopes and dense forests preclude travel by land, and force the wretched inhabitants to live as much in their canoes as in their huts. The Tlingit and Haida Indians of the mountainous coast of southern Alaska locate their villages on some smooth sheltered beach, with their houses in a single row facing the water, and the ever-ready canoe drawn up on sh.o.r.e in front. They select their sites with a view to food supply, and to protection in case of attack. On the treeless sh.o.r.es of Kadiak Island and of the long narrow Alaska Peninsula near by, the Eskimo choose their village location for an acc.u.mulation of driftwood, for proximity to their food supply, and a landing-place for their kayaks and bidarkas. Hence they prefer a point of land or gravel spit extending out into the sea, or a sand reef separating a salt-water lagoon from the open sea. The Aleutian Islanders regard only accessibility to the sh.e.l.l-fish on the beach and their pelagic hunting and fishing; and this consideration has influenced the Eskimo tribes of the wide Kuskokwin estuary to such an extent, that they place their huts only a few feet above ordinary high tide, where they are constantly exposed to overflow from the sea.[421] Only among the great tidal channels of the Yukon delta are they distributed over the whole wide coastal zone, even to its inner edge.

The coast Chukches of northeastern Siberia locate their tent villages on the sand ramparts between the Arctic Ocean and the freshwater lagoons which line this low tundra sh.o.r.e. Here they are conveniently situated for fishing and hunting marine animals, while protected against the summer inundations of the Arctic rivers.[422] The whole western side of Greenland, from far northern Upernivik south to Cape Farewell, shows both Eskimo and Danish settlements almost without exception on projecting points of peninsulas or islands, where the stronger effect of the warm ocean current, as well as proximity to the food supply, serve to fix their habitations; although the remains of the old Norse settlements in general are found in sheltered valleys with summer vegetation, striking off from the fiords some 20 miles back from the outer coast.[423] Caesar found that the ancient Veneti, an immigrant people of the southern coast of Brittany, built their towns on the points of capes and promontories, sites which gave them ready contact with the sea and protection against attack from the land side, because every rise of the tide submerged the intervening lowlands.[424] Here a sterile plateau hinterland drove them for part of their subsistence to the water, and the continuous intertribal warfare of small primitive states to the sea-girt asylums of the capes.

[Sidenote: Outer edge in early navigation.]

In the early history of navigation and exploration, striking features of this outer coast edge, like headlands and capes, became important sea marks. The promontory of Mount Athos, rising 6,400 feet above the sea between the h.e.l.lespont and the Thessalian coast, and casting its shadow as far as the market-place of Lemnos, was a guiding point for mariners in the whole northern Aegean.[425] For the ancient Greeks Cape Malia was long the boundary stone to the unknown wastes of the western Mediterranean, just as later the Pillars of Hercules marked the portals to the _mare tenebrosum_ of the stormy Atlantic. So the Sacred Promontory (Cape St. Vincent) of the Iberian Peninsula defined for Greeks and Romans the southwestern limit of the habitable world.[426]

Centuries later the Portuguese marked their advance down the west coast of Africa, first by Cape Non, which so long said "No!" to the struggling mariner, then by Cape Bojador, and finally by Cape Verde.

In coastwise navigation, minor headlands and insh.o.r.e islands were points to steer by; and in that early maritime colonization, which had chiefly a commercial aim, they formed the favorite spots for trading stations.

The Phoenicians in their home country fixed their settlements by preference on small capes, like Sidon and Berytus, or on insh.o.r.e islets, like Tyre and Aradus,[427] and for their colonies and trading stations they chose similar sites, whether on the coast of Sicily,[428]

Spain, or Morocco.[429] Carthage was located on a small hill-crowned cape projecting out into the Bay of Carthage. The two promontories embracing this inlet were edged with settlements, especially the northern arm, which held Utica and Hippo,[430] the latter on the site of the modern French naval station of Bizerta.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF ANCIENT PHOENICIAN AND GREEK COLONIES.]

[Sidenote: Outer edge and piracy.]

In this early h.e.l.lenic world, when Greek sea-power was in its infancy, owing to the fear of piracy, cities were placed a few miles back from the coast; but with the partial cessation of this evil, sites on sh.o.r.e and peninsula were preferred as being more accessible to commerce,[431]

and such of the older towns as were in comparatively easy reach of the seaboard established there each its own port. Thus we find the ancient urban pairs of Argos and Nauplia, Troezene and Pogon, Mycenae and Eiones, Corinth commanding its Aegean port of Cenchreae 8 miles away on the Saronic Gulf to catch the Asiatic trade, and connected by a walled thoroughfare a mile and a half long with Lechaeum, a second harbor on the Corinthian Gulf which served the Italian commerce.[432] In the same group belonged Athens and its Piraeus, Megara and Pegae, Pergamus and Elaae in western Asia Minor.[433] These ancient twin cities may be taken to mark the two borders of the coast zone. Like the modern ones which we have considered above, their historical development has shown an advance from the inner toward the outer edge, though owing to different causes.

However, the retired location of the Baltic and North Sea towns of Germany served as a partial protection against the pirates who, in the Middle Ages, scoured these coasts.[434] Lubeck, originally located nearer the sea than at present, and frequently demolished by them, was finally rebuilt farther inland up the Trave River.[435] Later the port of Travemunde grew up at the mouth of the little estuary.

[Sidenote: Outer edge in colonization.]