Martinsburg gazette. [volume] (Martinsburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1833-1855, 1851-06-10

VI tuein Tue highest In the known world
cutting off the rich Southern peuinsulas Of
Hindostan, Siam, and Cochin China by the
Himalayehs; dividing Persia from Tartary.
Ihibet from China, and the Cabul coun:ry
| from Bokhara: while deserts of sand inter
vene between fertile regions and the CASPIAN
and the Persian Gulf The Euxine and in
terror Salt Lakes of vast extent, present
barriers of non intercourse between nations
always hostile, and differing in laws, Ian.
guage, and habitudes.
The North--the great Siberian desert. is
but an appendage to the frozen sea, that
sends its icy breath over its barren steppes to
be waited back from the snowy mountains
of Thibet and Chinese Tartary. "As long
(says Matte Brun) as the present equiliari-
UNI Of the globe lasts, the ice will be collect
ed in the mouths Of the Obi and the Lena:
and the winds blow in the deserts of Shame;
and Thibet will never see the SHOWS of its
Alps disappear before the rays of the sun
which, at no great distance, scorch the trop-
ical regions On this account the Tartar as
naturally pursues the pastoral life as the
Siberian that Of a hunter" And thus the
Chinese, for long years, has kept himself
| within his wall OF separation until his isolated
and grotesque civilization is chiefly known by
its unsocial and bigoted exclusiveness. Thus
the Persian Kuzzibash only knows India by
bis devastating march Of conquest; and the
Tartar, like his ancestor, despises the effemi-
nate East Indian, while he regales himself
with mare s milk, and lives where he finds
the best pasturagc for his horse.
Let us now glance at the map of Europe
"Nations here are every where separated
by natural barriers; defilcs must be crossed,
and CULTS must be passed"
The Py-enees and the sea cut off Spain
from the rest of EUROPE The Alps shut
out Italy from the North; so that nothing
short of the sworn vengeance of Hannibal,
or the impetuous ambition of Napoleon,
can force her snowy barriers.
These same Alps, ranging for 600 miles, do
in fact divide the Turkish peninsula from the
Austrian dominions and, with the Carpa-
thians, hem in Bohemia and Syria. Switz-
erland sits cnthroned in solitary valleys, in
the nucleus of the great radix of the noun
tains, that are ramifed into Italy, Spain,
Germany, lllyria, and Turkey. Narrow and
wide friths and CULTS, divide the countries of
Denmark, Sweden, and Russia; and thus.
from the earliest dawn of historical light,
down to this hour, Europe has been filed
with diverse nations, with various languages,
customs laws, religions, and pursuits. Even
the British Isles have nurtured the Scotch,
the Welsh, the Irish, and the English and
the blood of that distinguished people has
been infused with farther admixture, when
the Sea Kings from Denmark conquered the
half of the Island, and when the Norman
conqaeror, after the battle or Hastings diyi-
ded the very lands of England among his
iron. clad barons.
How has it been with AFRICA?
A still more singular spectacle is here pre-
sented to the geographical enquirer We
End country stretching from the 35th de-
gree of North latitude, to almost the same
degree of South latitude, taking in the trop-
les; and yet from Cancer to Capricorn, we
know, to this day nothing of this vast Cont
nent except from the meagrc accounts of ad
venturous travellers, whose bones, generally,
are destined to add to the Golgotha which
whitehs her sands from the whelmed caravan,
or adds horrors to the wars, and supersti
tions, and merciless system Of slavery, which
are the sum of her dark annals. For three
thousand years, she has been belted by civ
ilization and civilized nations; centuries have
passed since Vasco de Cana sailed around
her coasts but she has been surrounded
also, by vast sandy deserts, or pestential
coasts, more fatal to the white man, than
the rude barbarism Of her negroes, and the
fierce hostility of the Arabs on her sea board.
Up to this day what a picture does she
present, of a vast interior unknown to chris
tendon, No doubt, FERTILE intersected by
vast river, interspersed with noble inland
lakes; yet the very Mississippi of Africa,
the Niger--loses his mighty current and
wastes his vast volume of water, in the sands
and swamps of her coasts, so that the eye Of
the adventurous merchant could not recognize
inthe oozy outlets at the blight of Benin, any
trace Of the great inland river, which sweeps
through Africa, with its tributaries over one
half of her mighty breadth. The Nile alone
creeps on thrugh its narrow belt of fertility;
and the ruins of Thebes, and Memphis, and
the degraded serfs Of the Mahomedau Ruler,
speak her present low rank among nations,
BY the gigantic relics of her former grandeur
and glory.
In fact the first rude step in civilization,
is yet to be taken by the greater number of
nations in Africa. They have not yet learn
ed the art of Tubal Cain--to smelt iron and
weld it in the forge; nor to grow wool, and
weave it in the loom; to tan skius TO pro-
tect them from the hnts of their deserts
There live the Sons of Ham, as they were
in the days of Sesostris of Hannibal, of Ma
homet, and what but her geographical posi-
tion, fenced in by her deserts, and inhospita-
Sle coasts, have kept them as mere nurse
ry for slaves of all nations, from the harem Of
the Turk, to the plantation of the Texan adj
yenturer?
Now let US come to our own NORTH AMERICA
We see here, a country formed geograph-
ically, as no continent Of its dimensions is
formed in the whole world.
The mountains lie in parallel ridges, or
ranges, sweeping for hundreds of miles in
one course, nearly equi- distant every where
from the sea coast, clothed with Vegetation,
to their very tops, accessible by easy slopes,
passed by low gaps or breaks, sometimes to
the level of the waters that pass through the
gorges. Vallies intervene of high fertility
! In one of which we have onr happv home -