Page 113 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

1890 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

northern border with river shipping on the Rhine and In South America successive empires also constructed
Danube Rivers and with the Nile in the south. an extensive road system in the mountainous terrain of
Roads in the Chinese empire were less important than the high Andes that was quite as impressive as that of the
those of Rome largely because a network of rivers and Roman empire. Coastal navigation on the Pacific, in
canals assured the Chinese government of capacious which light balsa rafts played a part, also connected Peru
and cheap internal transport. Empire (935–612 BCE) with Mexico in a slender and almost unrecorded fashion;
canals in the Yellow River and Yangtse basins were ini- while canoes traveled widely among the islands of the
tially built for irrigation purposes; but once in place the Caribbean as well.
government could collect taxes in kind from farmers Parts of North Africa shared the caravans and shipping
many hundreds of miles from the capital, carrying every- of western Asia; but further south, where tsetse flies
thing in barges. Sometimes barges simply drifted or made it impossible for horses and cattle to survive,
sailed down stream, and sometimes gangs of porters had human portage remained the primary mode of overland
to haul them upstream, pulling on ropes from the banks. transport until roads and trucks took over in recent
That extended navigation far inland; and since such times. Native Australians also relied on human portage
barges carried large quantities long distances very entirely. Overall, major improvements in transport con-
cheaply, they knitted the most densely inhabited regions tinued to concentrate in Eurasia and along its fringes
of China into a single whole much more tightly than any- where the overwhelming majority of humankind were
where else in the world. China accordingly pioneered the already linked by an ever-intensifying web of transport
construction of a market economy, lubricated by paper and communication.
money, that embraced ordinary peasants and common Within Eurasia, a striking change came to overland
taxpayers, beginning about 1000 CE. transport when domesticated camels became more com-
mon after about 200 CE. These animals were hard to
Continental Variations breed successfully; but when the arts of camel manage-
Elsewhere in the world, the balance between shipping ment spread from South Arabia, and when a somewhat
and overland transport varied with topography, climate, larger, related species, the two-humped Bactrian camel
and the array of domesticated animals available. In the had been domesticated in Central Asia, caravans became
Americas it is possible that some early immigrants from far more efficient than before. First of all, camels carried
Asia came by sea, beginning about 20,000 years ago. At heavier loads than horses and mules.They could also fuel
any rate, Native Americans were familiar with canoes and their muscles by grazing on scattered, thorny vegetation
rafts long before Norsemen got to Newfoundland, and in desert landscapes and go for several days without
canoe navigation along the Amazon, Mississippi and water. Consequently, crossing deserts became possible as
lesser rivers was long established when Europeans never before. All of a sudden, the Sahara in northern
showed up on the scene to record the fact.The Hopewell Africa became passable; so did deserts in Central and
and Mississippian peoples of North America, for exam- western Asia.
ple, used materials and a few specially manufactured The effect was rather like what happened later when
goods that came from hundreds of miles away. Metallic Europeans began sailing across the world’s oceans. New
copper from Lake Superior and tobacco pipes were peoples and separate civilizations within the Old World,
among the objects they carried up and down the rivers of became far more accessible to one another and ex-
North America. Overland transport among Amerindians changes of diseases, skills, and ideas attained new range
depended on human portage, except in the high Andes and rapidity.The most conspicuous result of camel trans-
of South America where llamas and alpacas supple- port was the remarkable speed with which the faith of
mented human muscles. Islam spread from Arabia across western Asia and began