East (region)

“ This Unknown Region comprises an area of 2,500,000 square miles; an immense portion of the terrestrial surface to be shut out from the knowledge of Civilized Man. Its further exploration, if practicable, cannot but be rich in valuable results. Not only would it furnish the shortest route from the West to the East, from progressive Europe to conservative Asia, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but it could not fail to add in a very important degree to our stores of scientific information. ”

“ The region east of the range is of varied character. In places richly fertile, picturesque, and romantic almost beyond imagination, with lovely wooded dells, green mountain-sides, and broad plains suited for the production of almost any crops, it has yet on the whole a predominant character of sterility and barrenness, especially towards its more northern and eastern portions. The supply of water is everywhere scanty. Scarcely any of the streams are strong enough to reach the sea. ”

“ The reader is already familiar with the general aspect of this singular region, and I need only remind him that the mainland is that district of Prussia which is known as East Friesland. It is a [See Map B] short, flat-topped peninsula, bounded on the west by the Ems estuary and beyond that by Holland, and on the east by the Jade estuary; a low-lying country, containing great tracts of marsh and heath, and few towns of any size; on the north side none. Seven islands lie off the coast. ”

“ People in the West are apt to form an entirely erroneous impression of Eastern States. The word, "East," to them conveys an impression of dense population, overcrowding, and manufacturing activity. That there are thousands and thousands of acres of scenic grandeur, as well as farm lands, in some of the most crowded States, is not realized, and that this is the case will be news to many. ”

“ To get a fair and satisfactory view of the Plain, our route must be to the west side. The east is steep, broken, and thin in depth of soil; the north is, to a large extent, shingly; the west and centre are decidedly the cream of the country. ”

“ At its worst, however, the eastern region may claim to be serviceable to the lover of scenery as well as to the sheep-farmer. Its thinly-grassed slopes, bare rocks, and fan-shaped shingle-slips furnish, at any rate, a foil to the grandeur of the central range and the luxuriance of the west. It is, indeed, not easy to believe that such glaciers and passes, such lakes and sea-gulfs, lie beyond the stern barrier, and the enjoyment, when wonderland is penetrated, is all the greater. ”

“ If we had the same records for the eastern as for the western river-course, we should find, I expect, that the way the people lived was very much alike in both. We may gather that it was a very pleasant life, on the whole. The climate was delightfully warm; the soil gave them plentiful crops with very {10} little work for it. Probably the eastern people were the more pastoral, that is to say, kept more cattle and sheep, but there were flocks and herds in the Nile region also. ”

“ The impression of the North-west, thus far seen, is that of tremendous energy, material refinement, much open-mindedness, considerable self-appreciation,’ uncommon sagacity in meeting new problems, generous hospitality, the Old Testament notion of possessing this world, rather more recognition of the pecuniary as the only success than exists in the East and South, intense national enthusiasm, and unblushing and most welcome “Americanism.” ”

“ Then the verdant and productive country divides itself into two tracts, running parallel to each other, of which the western presents features, not unlike those that characterize the Nile valley, but on a far larger scale; while the eastern is a lofty mountain region, consisting for the most part of five or six parallel ranges, and mounting in many places far above the level of perpetual snow. ”

“ The eastern division, the extensive plateau of Central Asia, is bordered on the north by the barren plains of Siberia. In the lowlands on the east and south are included the fertile plains of Central China and of Hindustan. ”

“ How are you to have so big a purpose on so small a part of the hemisphere? As it has grown old, unquestionably, the East has grown sectional. There is no suggestion of the prairie in its city streets, or of the embrowned ranchman and farmer in its well-dressed men. Its ports teem with shipping from Europe and the Indies. Its newspapers run upon the themes of an Old World. It hears of the great plains of the continent as of foreign parts, which it may never think to see except246 from a car window. Its life is self-centred and selfish. ”

“ Until recent years there was little knowledge of, and scarcely any direct commerce or intercourse between, the central part and the districts either of the extreme west or the north, and it is only now that the north and east are becoming open to us; for at the back of the narrow circle or cultivated land, the belt about the Lake, there extend immense forests in every direction, through which, till very lately, no practicable way had been cut. ”

“ It has grown amazingly, and is beautified by stately bouses and fine architecture, and would probably still be called the more desirable place of residence. But the south side has two great advantages—easy access to the business centre and to the great southern parks and pleasure-grounds. This latter would decide many to live there. The vast west side, with its lumber-yards and factories, its foreign settlements, and its population outnumbering the two other sections combined, is practically an unknown region socially to the north side and south side. ”

“ As a geographical expression, the west has ever been indeterminate. The east has been treading on the heels of the west, yet never has overtaken it. Latterly, the west has taken ship on the Pacific and through one of the movements of history has overtaken the east. America has put a new girdle around the earth and the west has moved on till it has reached the gateway of the morning over by the Orient. Men of Oregon, of Washington, of California, of Idaho, of Montana, of Utah, of Colorado, responding to the call of the country, have carried the west on over seas. ”

“ If we glance at the map of Eastern Europe, we perceive at once that the great uniformity of this immense region makes it quite impossible to apply to Eastern Europe as a criterion the division of Western or Central Europe. It is not seas and mountains that separate the natural [5] regions and anthropogeographical units of Eastern Europe, but imperceptible morphological transitions, hydrographic and climatic boundaries, petrologic and floral conditions. ”

“ First, the arctic province, with prevailing uniformity. Second, the temperate zone, with at least three distinct zoological provinces—the European temperate zone, west of the Ural Mountains, the Asiatic temperate [Pg 24] zone east of the Ural Mountains, and the American temperate zone, which may be subdivided into two, the eastern and the western—for the animals east and west of the Rocky Mountains differ sufficiently to constitute two distinct zoological provinces. ”

“ While the northern plains are marked off into great divisions, by such rivers as the Lower Rhine, the Weser, and the Oder, running almost in parallel lines, this central region is cut up like a mosaic by the capricious lines of valleys and rivers. Here is the region in which you find those famous roofs from which the rain-water runs toward two different seas, and the mountain-tops from which you may look into eight or ten German states. The abundance of water-power and the presence of extensive coal-mines allow of a very diversified industrial development in Middle Germany. ”

“ Toward the south, too, rather than toward the west, speaking in general terms, the gradual conquests of man advance, and therefore there cannot be in the New World, as in the Old, a striking contrast between the Orient and the Occident. East and west, in the New World, are less dependent on each other; they have more individuality, but with a great preponderance of importance in the east over the west side, by reason of the more favorable situation in relation to the sea, less sharpness and boldness of physical features, and a more scanty population. ”

“ The inhabitants of Western Europe, and more particularly those of the British Isles, have a peculiar interest in the North Polar Regions. Deriving their wealth and importance from their commercial enterprise, and that commercial enterprise leading their ships and seamen into the furthest seas, they have necessarily a vital concern in the discovery of the shortest possible route from that side of the Earth which they inhabit to the other, or eastern side; and this, more particularly, because the East is rich in natural productions which are of high value to the peoples of the West. ”

“ So patriotic and so thoroughly American is the Central West today, that it is also difficult to realize by what a slender thread it hung to the fragile republic east of the mountains, during the two decades succeeding the Revolutionary War. The whole world looked upon the East and West as realms distinct as Italy and France, and for the same geographical reason. ”

“ The broad central valley, distinct from the arid northern section and growing more and more fertile from the capital southward, with ever more frequent streams pouring down from the range on the east to add to its productiveness, stretches almost floor-flat for more than five hundred miles to where the narrow country breaks up into islands. ”

“ To judge the East aright, we must know not only what she is, but also how she has become what she is; know, in short, some of the principal phases of her spiritual history as they are reflected in her ancient literature, especially that of India. To interpret to the West the thought of the East, to bring her best and noblest achievements to bear upon our life,—that is today the problem of Oriental philology. ”

“ With only two alternatives, the Eastern and Western way, it seems necessary that if the West stops being Western, it would have to become Eastern. That is exactly what - the other way round - the West thought the East was supposed to become, namely more Western. ”

“ As far as the eye could reach to the south-south-east and south-west was one vast level expanse of magnificent feeding ground, and at our feet a running stream, which we could trace far out into the distance. ”

“ We understand the word easterly in its usual acceptation to mean to the east generally, in contradistinction to west, north, or south, and is correctly applied to any general direction to the east, as opposed to the west, which would not be better indicated by using the terms northerly or southerly. ”

“ The West is preparing to add its fables to those of the East. The valleys of the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rhine, having yielded their crop, it remains to be seen what the valleys of the Amazon, the Plate, the Orinoco, the St.Lawrence, and the Mississippi will produce. ”

“ Calculations and conjectures—what may the East do without the South, and what may the South do without the East?—sneers, menaces, reproaches, and recriminations—all tend to the same fatal end. What can the East do without the South? What can the South do without the East? They may do much; they may exhibit to the curiosity of political anatomists, and the pity and wonder of the world, the disjecta membra—the sundered, bleeding limbs of a once gigantic body instinct with life, and strength, and vigor. ”

“ A more satisfactory dividing line, however, is the historical line of demarcation between the East and West which moved toward the mountains in the proportion that the western section became connected with the East and indoctrinated by its proslavery propagandists. In none of these parts, however, not even far south, were the eastern people able to bring the frontiersmen altogether around to their way of thinking. ”

“ For the term, as used in modern times, implies a geographical area characterized by society of a certain general type, and according to his opinion of this type, each person, who thinks or writes of the East, expands or contracts its geographical area. ”

“ In the first place the fundamental line of elevation is that almost latitudinal line with which we are so familiar, and which may be specified as a west-south-west—east-north-east line. The lie of the country is determined in the principal degree by the strike of the stratified rocks. Between Bingöl and Palandöken the ridges in the west tend to die out into a single block of elevated land. ”

“ The questions at issue grow mainly out of a contest between the eastern and western sections of the state for supremacy. The west has been gaining upon the east in population very rapidly during the last fifteen or twenty years. ”

“ A westward and southward movement of peoples, caused by some obscure pressure from the north-west and north-east, which had been disturbing eastern and central Asia Minor for more than a century and apparently had brought to an end the supremacy of the Cappadocian Hatti, was quieting down, leaving the western peninsula broken up into small principalities. ”

“ In nearly every case the East occupies the top of the map. Neither parallels nor meridians are indicated, nor is there a scale. Other features frequently met with are the Paradise in the Far East, miniatures of towns, plants, animals, human beings and monsters, and an indication of the twelve winds around the margin. ”