Influences of Geographic Environment, Ellen Churchill Semple [classic novels for teens .txt] 📗
- Author: Ellen Churchill Semple
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As the world's roads are used primarily for commerce, pass routes rank in importance according to the amount of trade which they forward; and this in turn is decided by the contrast in the lands which they unite. The passes of the Alps and the Pass of Belfort have been busy thoroughfares from the early Middle Ages, because they facilitate exchanges between the tropical Mediterranean and the temperate regions of Central Europe. Or the contrast may be one of economic and social development. The Mohawk depression forwards the grain of the agricultural Northwest in return for the manufactured wares of the Atlantic seaboard. The passes of the Asiatic ranges connect the industrial and agricultural lowlands of India and China with the highland pastures of Mongolia, Tibet, Afghanistan and Russian Turkestan. Hence they forward the wool, skins, felts, cloth and carpets of the wandering shepherds in exchange for the food stuffs and industrial products of the fertile, crowded lowlands. Where passes open a highway for inland countries to the sea, their sphere of influence is greatly increased. San Francisco, New York, Marseilles, Genoa, Venice, Beirut and Bombay are seaports which owe their importance in no small degree to dominant pass routes into their hinterland.
In plains and lowlands highways may run in any direction expediency suggests, but in mountain regions the pass points the road. In very high ranges there is no appeal from this law; but in lower systems and especially in old mountains which have been rounded and worn down by ages of denudation, economic and social considerations occasionally transcend orographical conditions in fixing the path of highways. Scarcely less important than pass or gap is the avenue of approach to the same. This is furnished by lateral or transverse valleys of erosion. The deeper their reentrant angles cut back into the heart of the highlands, the more they facilitate intercourse and lend historical importance to the pass route. The Alpine passes which are approached by a single valley from each side are those crossed by railroads to-day,—Mont Cenis, Simplon, St. Gotthard and the Brenner. The Alpine chain is trenched on its inner or southern side by a series of transverse erosion valleys, such as the Dora Baltea, Sesia, Tosa, Ticino, Adda, Adige, and Tagliamento, which carry roads up to the chief Alpine passes. The coincidence of the Roman and medieval roads over the Alps with the modern railroads is striking, except in the single point of elevation. Railroads tend to follow lower levels. Modern engineering skill enables them to tunnel the crest, to cut galleries in the perpendicular walls of gorges, and to embank mountain torrents against the spring inundation of the roadbed, where it drops to the valley floor.
Where gaps are low and the approaching waters are navigable, at least for the small craft of early days, they combine to enhance the historical importance of their routes. The Mohawk River, navigable for the canoe of Indian and fur trader, greatly increased travel and traffic through the Mohawk depression. The Pass of Belfort is the greatest historic gateway of western Europe, chiefly because it unites the channels of the Rhone, Saône and Rhine. Lake Lucerne brings the modern tourist by boat to the foot of the railroad ascent to the St. Gotthard Pass, as the long gorge of Lake Maggiore receives him at the southern end. Lake Maggiore is the water outlet also of the Simplon Pass from the upper Rhone, the Lukmanier (6288 feet or 1917 meters) from the Hither Rhine, and the San Bernadino (6766 feet or 2063 meters) from the Hinter Rhine.1235 This geographical fact explains the motive of Swiss expansion in the fifteenth century in embracing the Italian province of Ticino and the upper end of Lake Maggiore. A significance like that of the Swiss and Italian lakes for the Alpine passes appears emphasized in the Sogne Fiord of Norway. This carries a marine highway a hundred miles into the land; from its head, roads ascend to the only two dents in the mountain wall south of the wide snowfield of the Jotun Fjeld, and they lead thence by the valleys of Hallingdal and Valders down to the plains of Christiania.
Genuine mountain passes have only emergency inhabitants—the monks and dogs of the hospice, the road-keepers in their refuge huts or cantonière, or the garrison of a fort guarding these important thoroughfares. The flanking valleys of approach draw to themselves the human life of the mountains. Their upper settlements show a certain common physiognomy, born of their relation to the barren transit region above, except in those few mountain districts of advanced civilization where railroads have introduced through traffic over the barrier. At the foot of the final ascent to the pass, where often the carriage road ends and where mule-path or foot-trail begins, is located a settlement that lives largely by the transmontane travel. It is a place of inns, hostelries, of blacksmith shops, where in the busy season the sound of hammer and anvil is heard all night; of stables and corrals crowded with pack and draft animals; of storehouses where the traveler can provide himself with food for the journey across the barren, uninhabited heights. It is the typical outfitting point such as springs up on the margin of any pure transit region, whether mountain or desert. Such places are Andermatt and Airolo, lying at an altitude of 4000 feet or more on the St. Gotthard road, St. Moritz below the Maloja Pass, Jaca near the Pass de Canfranc over the Pyrenees, Kugiar and Shahidula1236 at an elevation of 10,775 feet or 3285 meters on the road up to the Karakorum Pass (18,548 feet or 5655 meters), which crosses the highest range of the Himalayas between Leh in the upper Indus Valley and Yarkand in Chinese Turkestan.
Farther down the transverse valley the type of settlement changes where side valleys, leading down from other passes, converge and help build up a distributing center for a considerable highland area. Such a point is Chiavenna in northern Italy, located above the head of Lake Como at the junction of the Mera and Liro valleys, which lead respectively to the Splügen and Maloja passes. It lies at an altitude of 1090 feet (332 meters) and has a population of 4000. Such a point is Aosta (1913 feet or 583 meters elevation) in the Dora Baltea Valley, commanding the Italian approaches to the Great St. Bernard Pass, and the less important Col de Fenêtre leading to the upper Rhone, the Little St. Bernard highway to the valley of the Isère, and Col de la Seigne path around the Mont Blanc range to the valley of the Arve. Aosta was an important place in the Roman period and has to-day a population of about 8000. Kokan, in the upper Sir-Daria Valley in Russian Turkestan, commands the approach to the passes of the western Tian Shan and the northern Pamir. Its well-stocked bazaars, containing goods from Russia, Persia and India, testify to its commercial location.
When the highland area is very broad and therefore necessitates long transit journeys, genuine pass cities develop at high altitudes, and become the termini of the transmontane trade. Such is the Leh (11,280 feet or 3439 meters) on the caravan route from Central Asia over the Karakorum Pass down to Kashmir, and such is Srinagar (5252 feet or 1603 meters) in Kashmir. To their markets come caravans from Chinese Turkestan, laden with carpets and brick tea, and Tibetan merchants from Lhassa, bringing wool from their highland pastures to exchange for the rice and sugar of lowland India.1237 Leh is conveniently situated about half way between the markets of India and Central Asia. Therefore it is the terminus for caravans arriving from both regions, and exchange place for products from north and south. Seldom do caravans from either direction go farther than this point. Here the merchants rest for a month or two and barter their goods. Tents of every kind, camels, yaks, mules and horses, coolie transports of various races, men of many languages and many religions, give to this high-laid town a truly cosmopolitan stamp in the summer time when the passes are open.1238 Kabul, which lies at an altitude of nearly 6000 feet near the head of the Kabul River, is the focus of numerous routes over the Hindu Kush, and dominates all routes converging on the northwest frontier of the Punjab.1239 It is therefore the military and commercial key to India. Its narrow winding streets are obstructed by the picturesque kafilas of Oriental merchants, stocked with both Russian goods from the Oxus districts and British goods from India in evidence of its intermediary location.1240
Occasionally a very high market develops for purely local use. The Indian Himalayan province of Kumaon contains the market town of Garbyang, at an elevation of 10,300 feet or about 3000 meters, on the Kali River road leading by the Lipu Lekh Pass (16,780 feet or 5115 meters) over to Tibet. It has grown up as a trade center for the Dokpa Tibetans, who will not descend below 10,000 feet because their yak and sheep die at a lower altitude.1241 Farther east in the Sikkim border, Darjeeling (7150 feet or 2180 meters elevation) is center of the British wool trade with Tibet.
Often the exchange point moves nearer the summit of the pass, dividing the journey more equally between the two areas of production. Here develops the temporary summer market. High up on the route between Leh and Yarkand is Sasar, a place of unroofed enclosures for the deposit of cotton, silk and other goods left there by the caravans plying back and forth between Leh and Sasar, or Sasar and Yarkand.1242 Nearly midway on the much frequented trade route between Leh and Lhassa, at a point 15,100 feet (nearly 500 meters) above sea level, just below the Schako Pass, lies Gartok in western Tibet, in summer a busy market surrounded by a city of tents, and the summer residence of the two Chinese viceroys, who occupy the only two substantial dwellings in the place. Here at the end of August is held a great annual fair, which is attended by traders from India, Kashmir, Mongolia, Chinese Turkestan, China proper, and Lhassa; but by November the place is deserted. The traders disperse, and the few residents of Gartok, together with the viceroys, retire down the Indus Valley to the more sheltered village of Gargunza (14,140 feet or 4311 meters elevation), which represents the limits of permanent settlement in these altitudes.1243 The Sutlej Valley route from the Punjab to Lhassa is capped near its summit at an altitude of about 5000 meters by the summer market, of Gyanema, whose numerous types of tents indicate the various homes of the traders from Lhassa to India.1244
Natural thoroughfares, whether river highways or mountain pass routes, draw to themselves migration, travel, trade and war. They therefore early assume historical importance. Hence we find that peoples controlling transmontane routes have always been able to exert an historical influence out of proportion to their size and strength; and that in consequence they early become an object of conquest to the people of the lowlands, as soon as these desire to control such transit routes. The power of these pass tribes is often due to the trade which they command and which compensates them for the unproductive
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