ON THE SERVITUDE OF RIVERS.  
If the servitude of rivers be the noblest and most important victory which man has obtained over the licentiousness of nature,55 then assuredly ancient civilizations bear away the palm in this respect from the modern, and Britain must be permitted to occupy perhaps the lowest place in the scale of those empires and nations who, by their industry and knowledge, overcame the difficulties which the right management of river courses presents to civilized man.
More than forty centuries ago the Nile was completely at the service of the ancient Egyptians, and the prosperity of Babylon and Nineveh leaves no doubt as to the subjugation of the Tigris and the mighty Euphrates. To come to later times, the Rhine itself, even in the days of the early Roman emperors, must have been subjugated by the labours of the primitive Batavians, and the revolt of Civilis, with his Batavian legions, testifies as to the energy and intelligence of the race. And now by the patient industry of their descendants, that land, seemingly doomed by nature to be wasted on one side by the turbulent ocean, on the other by the great rivers which traverse it, presents a spectacle unequalled in the world. Even the despised Oriental race of China, that unsolved problem in the history of mankind, whose capital the combined forces of England and France now threaten, seems never to have had a difficulty in mastering the great problems which the necessity for the subjugation of rivers forces on civilized man; the Chinese waters have been turned to the most profitable account; their deltas seem healthy, and abound with life, with Chinese life, at least. The great rivers of the Celestial empire give no trouble to its inhabitants; agriculture is said to be perfect; no one seems to have proposed to throw the refuse of Pekin into the nearest stream, that stream too, as it might happen to be, the source from which the inhabitants of the capital obtain the water required for their manufactures and for the arts of life.56
Civilization on the banks of the Thames is no doubt very different and very superior to what it possibly can be on the banks of the Yellow River, but as, non omnia possumus, as different races and nations, like individuals, have each their peculiar excellences and forms of civilization, excelling in some, deficient in other qualities of mind and body, it may undoubtedly happen that even the English of the present day, the most perfectly civilized nation on the earth, or that ever lived, might take a hint from some other nations on points respecting which their otherwise inimitable genius seems to show some slight deficiencies. As regards art, for example, we owe some hints to the pitiful States of ancient Athens and Corinth; the despicable Copt had connected the Mediterranean and Red Sea by a canal—the art of re-opening which seems now to be lost; even the miserable native Peruvian and Mexican had carried the arts of mining, of irrigation, and the use of artificial manures, to an extent which surprises the men of modern times, who, in Britain at least, think that civilization really only appeared in the world during the reign of Queen Anne, as in France the era of the Grand Monarque is universally admitted to be the period when the French nation first threw off its primitive barbarous and Celtic form of civilization, assuming the character and social habits of that race to whom they owe their name, though not their descent. If we cast our eyes over the surface of the earth, aided by the lights, somewhat obscure, no doubt, of history, certain facts rising above the ocean of detail appear as landmarks. The philosophic historian points to, as peculiarly within his province, the transfer of the seat of power from nation to nation, from race to race; how before Alexander appeared there seemed to have been a Sesostris; after the son of Philip came Julius the Dictator; then Napoleon; and drawing conclusions as to the future from the past, historians see no improbability, at least no impossibility, in New Zealand, after the lapse of many centuries, producing the Hume of the southern hemisphere; whilst a future capital arising in the desert regions of Siberia or Northern America, may one day dictate to the world.57 Ever at variance as to the rise and fall of empires, they are yet agreed as to certain facts and circumstances, many of which are still verifiable by the geographical distribution of the existing rivers and mountain regions of the globe; and even if man, in the plenitude of his scepticism, were disposed to doubt, monuments exist, the undeniable work of human hands, under circumstances implying the existence of a social system which cannot well be misunderstood. “In the boundless annals of time, man’s life and labours must equally be measured as a fleeting moment;” but the Pyramids, and ruins of Karnac survive the Kaliffs and C?sars, the Ptolemies and Pharaohs, and countless monarchs and dynasties prior even to them. Thus, whatever learned disputants may imagine as to the primitive occupation of the valley of the Nile, the date of its occupancy, and the race by whom it was first cultivated, we have in the Pyramids incontestable proofs of a vast antiquity. Whatever historians may say of the antiquity of ancient Rome, the Cloaca Maxima of Servius alone refutes the beautiful romance of Virgil—how Lavinius and Turnus received ?neas ere Rome was; how Romulus and Remus founded Rome, and were succeeded by seven kings, none of whom ever in reality existed. But the existence of the Cloaca Maxima and the researches of the illustrious Niebuhr tell another tale more consonant with what we know of man’s social and physical nature. In the most remote times, man early adopted those measures of self-preservation which nature or simple observation teaches him. History gives but little information as to the measures adopted by ancient nations to secure public health; and were it not for the remains of the Cloaca Maxima, so called, of Servius Tullius, we should be as ignorant as Virgil assuredly was of the ancient condition of Rome prior to the reign of the seven fabulous kings.58 Unquestionably the ancient race which preceded those grand Romans who fill the page of history for nearly twenty centuries, had discovered such means, and adopted measures for the safety of the people. Authentic history, it is true, commenced with the Greeks and Romans, and the history of Germany dates from C?sar and Tacitus; but the subjugation of the double-horned Rhine59 must have commenced long before “the building of the city.”60 But the world as known to the Romans, even during the reign of Trajan, was a contracted world compared to what it is now. The tropical regions of the East, and their vast populations, were wholly unknown to them; of Africa they knew but little, of Asia still less, whilst the New World was as if it existed not. Thus certain great problems in the history of mankind were never presented to them, problems having a basis in facts which men, for obvious reasons, are so unwilling to admit. The periplus of the Mediterranean might almost be said to form the Roman world; beyond the Rhine they made no conquests; the Danube formed their north-eastern boundary; the eastern shores of the Black Sea were but rarely visited by them; beyond the Euphrates and Tigris they, the Romans, never gained a footing, whilst from tropical Africa they were entirely excluded. Thus at no time were they called on to solve the problem as to the possibility of European life maintaining its ground in tropical regions; at no period were they called upon to give an opinion on the momentous question which now agitates the world, the admission, namely, of the primitive coloured races of men into the bosom of civilized society.61 “Wheresoever the Roman conquered, he inhabits;” a just observation we owe to Seneca, confirmed by the history of that wonderful people. As their conquests were confined to countries in which the natives of Italy could at that time live and thrive, the rapid extension of their empire, language, and forms of civilization, need not be wondered at. Thus Rome successively became mistress of many nations and races, but these were races with whom the Romans could freely amalgamate; at no period of her history were they called on to contend with the two great questions, the one social the other physical, involved in the attempt to occupy by a white race a tropical country, and a land inhabited by a purely savage race of coloured men; the problems............