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BUFFALO BILL'S WILD WEST

THE FAR EAST AND ITS PEOPLE

The designation of the "Far East" is one that covers not only a vast extent of territory, but a multiplicity of different peoples; a melange of humanity differing in many physical, mental and social traits as well as in religions, beliefs, traditions and superstitions, to add to the puzzle of whether mankind was

{A BAND OF GENUINE BEDOUIN ARABS}

descended from one original source--the "Garden of Eden" --or whether the human animal has evoluted from different origins of a lower species.

Opinion as to the genesis of man is divided between the theory of the two great schools of biology--that of creation and that of evolution. The classification of mankind into a number of permanent varieties or nations rests on grounds that are within limits, not only obvious, but definite. From a popular or scientific point of view, if would be admitted that a negro, a Chinese, and an Australian belong to three such permanent varieties of men, all plainly distinguishable from one another and distinctly differing from any Europeans. Such a division would take for granted that the word race evolved the idea that each of these varieties is due to special ancestry, each race thus representing an ancient breed or stock, however these breeds or stock may have their origin.

The centuries of permanence of complexion, texture of skin and hair, the distinction of color, white, yellow, brown and black, that have existed for a hundred generations, assist to make the puzzle so extensive and of such a character as to be impossible of explanation here.

The "Far East" extends from, you might say, the Dardenelles and the borders of Egypt over the great groupes and divisions of people embraced in Asia, including India, further India, Malaysia and Oceania, around the world to the Behring Straits. Tradition and research have assigned Asia as "the cradle of the human race," and all great religious movements--Pantheism and Buddhism of the Hindoos, Hebrew monotheism and Persian dualism, Mohammedanism and Christianity.

Here flourished for ages the ancient dynasties of the Chinese Empire. The Aryan civilization produced Zoreaster and the Vendas and reared the gigantic monuments of Hindoostan. This, too, was the seat of those powerful monarchies which, long before the Christian era, had transmitted their influence to the western world through great migrations and extensive colonization.

In the larger view of historic evolution,

{HAWAIIAN DANCING GIRLS AND MUSICIANS}

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