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Bentarasko Benta Section 16
Page 09
I left Lima five days after my arrival, on February 5th, going by steamer to the port of Mollendo, where I arrived on February 7th. There I met the railway line of the Peruvian Corporation from the sea coast to Arequipa and Cuzco. A magnificent private car had been placed at my disposal by the Peruvian Corporation, in which I was able to make myself comfortable for the several days which the journey lasted. Not only so, but the Peruvian Corporation kindly looked after my welfare in a most thoughtful way during the whole time I travelled on their line, for which I am indeed extremely grateful, as the travelling in that country would have otherwise been less pleasant.
In these days geography, in the form known as anthropo-geography, is putting forth claims to be the leading branch of anthropology. And, doubtless, a thorough grounding in geography must henceforth be part of the anthropologist's equipment.[3] The schools of Ratzel in Germany and Le Play in France are, however, fertile in generalizations that are far too pretty to be true. Like other specialists, they exaggerate the importance of their particular brand of work. The full meaning of life can never be expressed in terms of its material conditions. I confess that I am not deeply moved when Ratzel announces that man is a piece of the earth. Or when his admirers, anxious to improve on this, after distinguishing the atmosphere or air, the hydrosphere or water, the lithosphere or crust, and the centrosphere or interior mass, proceed to add that man is the most active portion of an intermittent biosphere, or living envelope of our planet, I cannot feel that the last word has been said about him.
He was sick, too, at the time, with an intermittent fever. The paroxysm returned once in three or four days, leaving him in tolerable health during the interval. He went first into the country of the Sabines, northeast of Rome, where he wandered up and down, exposed continually to great dangers from those who knew that he was an object of the great dictator's displeasure, and who were sure of favor and of a reward if they could carry his head to Sylla He had to change his quarters every day, and to resort to every possible mode of concealment. He was, however, at last discovered, and seized by a centurion. A centurion was a commander of a hundred men; his rank and his position therefore, corresponded somewhat with those of a _captain_ in a modern army. Caesar was not much disturbed at this accident. He offered the centurion a bribe sufficient to induce him to give up his prisoner, and so escaped.
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