of stream and portage, it carries now the Erie Canal and New York
Central Railroad.[2] Similarly the narrow level belt of land extending
from the mouth of the Hudson to the eastern elbow of the lower Delaware,
defining the outer margin of the rough hill country of northern New
Jersey and the inner margin of the smooth coastal plain, has been from
savage days such a natural thoroughfare. Here ran the trail of the
Lenni-Lenapi Indians; a little later, the old Dutch road between New
Amsterdam and the Delaware trading-posts; yet later the King's Highway
from New York to Philadelphia. In 1838 it became the route of the
Delaware and Raritan Canal, and more recently of the Pennsylvania
Railroad between New York and Philadelphia.[3]

The early Aryans, in their gradual dispersion over northwestern India,
reached the Arabian Sea chiefly by a route running southward from the
Indus-Ganges divide, between the eastern border of the Rajputana Desert
and the western foot of the Aravalli Hills. The streams flowing down
from this range across the thirsty plains unite to form the Luni River,
which draws a dead-line to the advance of the desert. Here a smooth and
well-watered path brought the early Aryans of India to a fertile coast
along the Gulf of Cambay.[4] In the palmy days of the Mongol Empire
during the seventeenth century, and doubtless much earlier, it became an
established trade route between the sea and the rich cities of the upper
Ganges.[5] Recently it determined the line of the Rajputana Railroad
from the Gulf of Cambay to Delhi.[6] Barygaza, the ancient seaboard
terminus of this route, appears in Pliny's time as the most famous
emporium of western India, the resort of Greek and Arab merchants.[7] It
reappears later in history with its name metamorphosed to Baroche or
Broach, where in 1616 the British established a factory for trade,[8]
but is finally superseded, under Portuguese and English rule, by nearby
Surat. Thus natural conditions fix the channels in which the stream of