Geographical reading books, ed. by F.W. Rudler, Book 7 |
Common terms and phrases
Afghan Afghanistan animals Arabia Arabs Arctic Ocean ASIA continued Asiatic Bantus belt borders British canals Cape Caspian central century character chief town chiefly China proper Chinese civilisation climate coast-line colonies continent Daria desert districts eastern Egypt Egyptians empire equator Europe European extend feet fertile flow Gulf Gulf of Guinea height highlands important India Indo-China influence inhabitants interior Iranian Iranian plateau islands Kalahari Desert known lakes land lowlands Mediterranean Mediterranean Sea miles Mohammedans moisture mouth nations native navigable Negroes neighbours Nile nomads northern numerous oases Ocean pass peninsula Persian plains plants plateau population possessions races rainfall rains regions religion remarkable rise rivers Russian Russian Turkestan Sahara Sahara desert Sea of Okhotsk Siberia slave Soudan South Africa southern Straits streams table-lands temperature Thian Shan Tibet tides tion trade tree tribes tropical Turkestan Turkish valleys varied vast vegetation western whole winds
Popular passages
Page 175 - Africa is bounded on the north by the Mediterranean Sea ; on the west, by the Atlantic Ocean ; on the east, by the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean ; and on the south, by the Southern Ocean, a name which is' given to the southwardly belt of water in which the Atlantic and Indian Oceans mingle.
Page 119 - We are content with discord, we are content with alarms, we are content with blood, but we will never be content with a master."!
Page 143 - ... Wan and Duke Chau, and their millions of followers, have all upheld these sentiments, and those teachings and examples are still as powerful as ever. In every household, a shrine, a tablet, an oratory, or a domestic temple, according to the position of the family, contains the simple legend of the two ancestral names written on a slip of paper or carved on a board. Incense is burned before it, daily or on the new and full moons ; and in April the people everywhere gather at the family graves...
Page 116 - If even a fowl strays from its owner into the grounds of another, it is sure to receive a bullet from the adversary's tower. So constant are their feuds that it is a well-known fact that the village children are taught never to walk in the center of the road, but always from force of early habit walk stealthily along under cover of the wall nearest to any tower.
Page 274 - Amongst these nations we find a fully organised administration, a court and government with all its accompanying dignities and offices, a military system, which for Central Africa may be considered fairly well worked out ; in a word, a people of industrious habits, tillers of the land, and skilled in many of the arts of life — a people that can in no sense be regarded as ' savage ' although still addicted to many practices looked on by us as barbarous.
Page 209 - Standing on the edge of a ravine a hundred and fifty feet deep these giants of the sylvan world were seen springing from its depths; and looking upwards their trunks were lost amongst their dense foliage at an equal height above our heads. Magnificent creepers festooned the trees, and every here and there some dead monarch of the wood was prevented from falling by the clinging embraces of these parasites which linked him to some of his surviving brothers. The ground was damp and cool, and mosses...
Page 143 - ... before that bearing the names of another family. As the children grow up, the worship of the ancestors, whom they never saw, is exchanged for that of nearer ones who bore and nurtured, clothed, taught, and cheered them in helpless childhood and hopeful youth, and the whole is thus rendered more personal, vivid, and endearing.
Page 116 - Afghan tribes, so forcibly illustrates the demoralization ensuing from feuds as to justify its quotation at length : " Indeed," he says, " the quarrelsome character of this people and the constant strife that they lead are declared by a mere glance at their villages and fields, which bristle in all directions with round towers. These are constantly occupied by men at enmity with their...
Page 50 - ... reservoir. The scoop is a large wooden shovel with a long handle, suspended by a rope to a pole leaning over the canal, and is worked by hand, the leverage of the swing being sufficient to throw the water up five or six feet. It is exactly similar to the scoop used in Russia for baling out barges. There are three methods of applying the water in tillage. For such plants as cotton and tobacco it is brought through the fields in small ditches and allowed to filter through the soil ; for rice, the...
Page 22 - Within this belt rises a series of table-lands, undulating in long slopes, and intersected with deep valleys; the former rich in pasturage, the latter in field and garden produce.