ia or the Eastern islands to Africa, being, like the
negro-like Papuans, descendants of the sable or dark brown Negritos of
the East. In this case agriculture may have originated in Asia and have
been brought by migrants to Africa. All we know historically concerning
it is that the earliest traceable seats of agriculture appear to have
been the fertile valleys of India, Babylonia, and Egypt. But the known
culture of the earth in these regions goes back only a few thousands of
years, while for the first crude stages of agriculture we must probably
measure years by tens of thousands.

The degree of subjection of nature to man's needs, as displayed in
tropical agriculture, was comparatively small, and its effect on the
development of the human intellect, while important, was limited. It had
the highly useful result of a great increase in population, the growth
of village and town life, an advance in social relations, and the
beginning of political relations. New implements were needed, better
houses were erected, the settled condition of the people gave rise to
direct efforts at education, and added the important element of
commerce, in its earliest form, to the industries of mankind. The result
must have been a fresh start in the development of the intellect, though
one that probably soon reached its culminating point in the central
tropics.

The highest results of the development of agriculture in tropical
countries, unaided by secondary influences, seem to have been those
existing in the highly fertile regions of Egypt and Babylonia at the
opening of the historical period. The density of population in those
countries, due to their prolific production of food stuffs, gave rise to
considerably developed political and social institutions, and laid the
foundations for a great subsequent advance under the influence of
warfare, invasion, and the other more potent causes of human progress.
Only for such ulterior influences the agriculturists of these countries
would perhaps to-day remain dormant in the stage of mental progress they
had attained ten thousand years ago.

In considering the existing conditions of the forest nomads and the
African agriculturists, it is not safe to credit them with the
origination of all the arts and implements they possess. The negroes,
for instance, have been for ages in more or less close association with
the Pygmies, and may have taught them many things which they would not
have attained thr