Page:Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919).djvu/115

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THE LANDSMAN'S POINT OF VIEW
103

Keneh, and then down the Nile; that was the way followed by the British Army when sent from India to Egypt more than a hundred years ago, at the time of the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt and Palestine.

It follows from the foregoing description that the Heartland, Arabia, and the Sahara together constitute a broad, curving belt inaccessible to seafaring people, except by the three Arabian water-ways. This belt extends completely across the great continent from the Arctic to the Atlantic shores. In Arabia it touches the Indian Ocean, and, as a consequence, divides the remainder of the Continent into three separate regions whose rivers flow to the ice-free ocean. These regions are the Pacific and Indian slopes of Asia; the peninsulas and islands of Europe and the Mediterranean; and the great promontory of Africa south of the Sahara. The last-named differs from the other two regions in a very important respect. Its larger rivers, the Niger, Zambesi, and Congo, and also its smaller rivers, such as the Orange and Limpopo, flow across the tableland of the interior, and fall steeply over its edge to relatively short seaward reaches in the narrow coastal lowlands. The long upland courses of these rivers are navigable for several thousand miles, but are for practical