Asia

“ Seven times seven civilizations are buried under the soil of Asia. Wait till you get as crowded as we are over here, till the very oceans are disputed—then behold the earth running with blood, and the seas on fire. You of the West struggle to expurgate from the East its human passions. You strive to teach it to inhabit your high altruistic plateau. ”

“ Everywhere are evidences of past refinement, splendor and greatness. And over all the prostrate columns and broken entablatures, the domed mosques and black-green cypresses, the fertile valleys and the great desert, the dark-visaged men and the silent, veiled women lingers the spell, undefinable but wondrously fascinating, of Asia; the cradle of the human race, the land of luxurious magnificence, the abode of mighty empires that rose and crumbled long before the western world had emerged from darkness ”

“ In Asia itself, the Asia which our fathers regarded as fixed and immovable, there is a stirring which looks as if even in that ancient continent the people in mass were awakening to a sense of their rights. ”

“ The vast empires into which the enormous population of Asia has always been cast, give a further sublimity to the feelings associated with all Oriental names and images. In China, over and above what it has in common with the rest of Southern Asia, I am terrified by the modes of life, by the manners, and the barrier of utter abhorrence and want of sympathy, placed between us by feelings deeper than I can analyse. ”

“ Africa, with here and there an exception, has never produced men to compare with the men of Asia. For six thousand years, save the unintelligible stones of Egypt, she has had no history. Asia has had her great men and her name. But Europe has ever shown, and now, her nobler men and higher destiny. Japheth has now come to North America, to give us his past greatness and his transcendent glory. (Applause.) And, sir, I thank God our mountains stand where they stand; and that our rivers run where they run. Thank God they run not across longitudes, but across latitudes, from north to south. ”

“ Even if it could be made to appear probable that, in the first ages of the world, Asia—and in Asia, Persia, was the centre of civilisation, yet it must be granted, that, so far as authentic history reaches, the picture of the Asiatic nations is uniform in its character and colouring. Asia has indeed produced some races distinguished by a fierce energy, by romantic courage, by loftiness and richness of imagination. ”

“ Now I can assure my young friends in England that Asia is worth seeing and studying. There are many, many features in the character and the social life of the Asiatic which deserve our admiration, although there are also others which will rouse our compassion and instigate us more greatly to love our own country and to cling the more closely to our own religion and institutions. What will strike us most is the difference of opinion and of view we meet at every step in the interior life of the Asiatic. ”

“ Asia, the greatest of the continents and the seat of the earliest civilizations, yields us the most remarkable phenomenon in the history of mankind. In remote ages, while Europe lay plunged in the deepest barbarism, certain sections of Asia were marked by surprising activity in thought and progress. In three far-separated regions—China, India, and Babylonia—and in a fourth on the borders of Asia—Egypt—civilization rose and flourished for ages, while the savage and the barbarian roamed over all other regions of the earth. ”

“ Laughable indeed is the exhibition which erudite 61European historians, ethnologists, and others have made of themselves in deducing from Asia, as the mother-swarm, the colonies that have peopled the world; when in truth Asia was only the half-way house, the luncheon-place of our trampers, on their march into their foggy countries and chronicles. ”

“ Yet, in addition to believing this or that about Asia, you unquestionably do recognize, however vaguely, even at the moment, that Asia is but a part of the universe whose reality you also acknowledge. Now this universe in its wholeness is real for you, at the moment, over and above Asia, because, as we have insisted, your idea of Asia is by itself unsatisfying, and so is inevitably viewed as something that cannot be expressed alone. It is felt to be essentially a fragment ”

“ I not regret the obstacles arising from religion and prejudices, which must ever prevent the amalgamation of Western and Eastern nations!—that our superabundant population should be compelled to go in search of settlements to distant islands and continents, instead of recovering from their neglected state these once flourishing regions! Asia Minor is the field for emigrant labour; a country where the bounties of Nature are so happily distributed, in a climate so genial and so favourable to pleasurable life. ”

“ And remember, Europa, remember, Asia, that foreign culture is as necessary to the spirit of a nation as is foreign commerce to its industries. Elsewise, thy materialism, Europa, or thy spiritualism, Asia, no matter how trenchant and impregnable, no matter how deep the foundation, how broad the superstructure thereof, is vulgar, narrow, mean––is nothing, in a word, but parochialism. ”

“ DIVISION I. ORIENTAL HISTORY. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.—Europe and Asia together form one vast continent, yet have a partial boundary between them in the Ural Mountains and River, and in the deep bed of the Caspian and Black seas. Asia, which extends from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific, and from the Arctic Sea to the Indian Ocean, embraces an immense plateau, stretching from the Black Sea to Corea. This plateau spreads like a fan as it advances eastward. It is traversed by chains of mountains, and bordered also by lofty mountains, of which the Himalayas is the principal range. ”

“ From the north and all down over the eastern part, even to the south, is called Asia. In that region of the world is all fairness and pride, and the fruits of the earth's increase, gold and jewels. There also is the centre of the earth; and even as the land there is lovelier and better in every way than in other places, so also were the sons of men there most favored with all goodly gifts: wisdom, and strength of the body, beauty, and all manner of knowledge. ”

“ With the exception of Japan, no nation of Asia can show a dynastic line extending through a millennium. The empires founded by Asiatic conquerors are short-lived. The countries and the people remain, but the rulers constantly change, and the building up, flourishing, decay, and dissolution suggest the seasons rather than the centuries. No enduring political fabrics, like those of Rome or Britain, are known in Asia. ”

“ To Englishmen travels in Asia have another kind of attraction. To one, that continent is the cradle of our holy religion, the ancient seat of civilization; to another, it is a region for adventure, or the far country where he may satisfy his curiosity by witnessing habits and customs so different from his own. To the vast majority of Englishmen Asia is a field for commercial and industrial enterprise, where a noble and grateful task awaits the European, and where a holy duty may be fulfilled. ”

“ As Asia, lying within all the zones, colossal in size, and most plentifully enriched with the gifts of nature, was fitted to be the nursery of supply for all other parts of the world without impoverishing itself; so Europe, limited in size and confined to the temperate zone, but most complex in its subdivision, having a great diversity in its ocean [201] inlets, as well as in its hills, valleys, plateaus, and mountains, yet, without great extremes, has been especially fitted for the reception of stranger races, and for the development of their energies and the advance of their culture. ”

“ Nevertheless, the leading scientists of the day believe that Asia was the early home of the human race and that whatever light may be thrown upon the origin of man will come from the great central Asian plateau north of the Himalaya Mountains.
Thus his antiquity will doubtless interest man to his dying day. Slogans epitomizing the spirit of races fan the flames of human conflict. Conflict wears down the differences between them, or shatters them and scatters them to the whirling winds. ”

“ Consequently we expect to make the Asiatic exhibit the special point; we want to exhibit all the products of Asia and the Indian Archipelago, the Philippines, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Australia, New Zealand, and Formosa, and so we will have the first Asiatic expression of commerce on so large a scale, showing unity of language, racial features, religion and customs, for we can collect from all those peoples and realize a unifying of the Oriental Nations, and enlighten the world as to the Oriental essence, thought, ideals,—past and future. ”

“ Within this generation, a new Asiatic power has suddenly appeared in a part of Asia far removed from the region in which the wise men of old lived and studied, and the might of that nation is even now checking the progress of huge and haughty Russia. But brilliant as has been the meteoric career of Japan, there is another race in Asia, which, though now moving more sluggishly, has possibilities of development that may in time make it a dominant factor in the future of the world. ”

“ In the midst of much that is discouraging in the present state of the world, there is one symptom of vital promise. Asia is awakening. This great event, if it be but directed along the right lines, is full of hope, not only for Asia herself, but for the whole world. ”

“ Asia was the original seat of human societies, and long before any trace can be found of the inhabitants of the rest of the world having emerged from the rudest barbarism, we can perceive that mighty and brilliant empires flourished in the Asiatic continent. ”

“ As an instance we may point to the elevated table-lands of Central Asia, which now separate the countries and peninsulas surrounding them, but which, when they shall have become the seats of human industry, will convert Asia into a real geographical unit, which at present it is only in appearance. Massy and ponderous Africa, monotonous Australia, and Southern America with its forests and waterfalls, will be put on something like an equality with Europe, whenever roads of commerce shall cross them in all directions, bridging their rivers, and traversing their deserts and mountain ranges. ”

“ To treat of all would be a long story, but I will tell you how I think it is with regard to the greatest and most marked differences. I say, then, that Asia differs very much from Europe as to the nature of all things, both with regard to the productions of the earth and the inhabitants, for everything is produced much more beautiful and large in Asia; the country is milder, and the dispositions of the inhabitants also are more gentle and affectionate. ”

“ Something in a voyage westward across the Pacific gives one the sense of a great reunion; it is not a personal experience, but an historic sensation. One may have few incidents to relate, there may be only an occasional squall. But in place of events is an abstraction from world strife, a heading for the beginning of a cycle of existence—for Asia, the birthplace of the human race. The feeling is that of one making a tour of the universe which has lasted ten thousand centuries and is but at the moment nearing completion. ”

“ 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 north-western and Africa the south-western region. ”

“ ASIA MINOR, the general geographical name for the peninsula, forming part of the empire of Turkey, on the extreme west of the continent of Asia, bounded on the N. by the Black Sea, on the W. by the Aegean, and on the S. by the Mediterranean, and at its N.W. extremity only parted from Europe by the narrow straits of the Bosporus and Dardanelles. ”

“ Even the present generation will see vast changes in East Asia, and it was with my mind full of such thoughts as are suggested by considerations of this kind that I started on a journey which was to take me into the very heart of China, up the swelling bosom of the mighty Yang-tsze, into the recesses of the wide-stretching and wealthy province of Ssŭch'uan, across the bleak highlands of Yün-nan, and out, finally, on the far side, through the tropical swamps and jungles of British Burma. ”

“ You know, of course, that Asia is the largest division of land in the world, and that Europe is little more than a peninsula jutting out westwards from the trunk of Asia. Indeed, Asia is not much smaller than Europe, Africa, and Australia put together. Of the 1550 millions of men who inhabit the world, 830 millions, or more than half, live in Asia. ”

“ A glance at the map of Asia will show you a long trend of mountains from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf. This vast plateau lies like a great backbone across Asia; the Caucasus, the Armenian mountains, the Zagros mountains, the Iranian mountains; on the eastern slope of these the Hindoo Cush, and the great Divide. ”

“ Time was, as history informs me, when Asia Minor, which has long been presented in many parts by pictures of utter barrenness and desolation, was one of the most fertile and productive and flourishing in the world. ”