BOUNDARIES OF 1SI4A
the west and the East Indies and Australia on the east. "The winds which
prevail over the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal change with the season,
and blow from north-east in winter and south-west in summer, and in
changing affect the direction of the ocean currents. Very early in the
Christian era a Greek navigator noticed the seasonal character of these
winds, called monsoons, and utilized them in voyages between Southern
Arabia and India. In the Middle Ages the Mohammedan Arabs, who
were great traders, establishel many commercial stations along the
African coast, and from that time to the present have constantly imported
slaves and various products thence. Zanzibar is still an Arab sultanate.
though now under British protection.
South of Africa is the sea-route between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans,
which was first traversed by Vasco da Gama on his voyage to India
1497-1498. His ship was the precursor of many others, mainly Portu-
guese, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and later Dutch,
French, and British. .Though the Portuguese obtained possession of
many ports round the Indian Ocean, their conquests are now only repre-
sented by Goa, Daman, and Diu in India, and part of Timor in the East
Indies. The British, Dutch, and French started trading ‚companies,
which gradually acquired land——the Dutch mainly in the East Indies,
the British and French in India and Indo-China, Clive’s vietories in
the eighteenth century reduced the French possessions in India to only
a few towns, and later the authority of the British East India Company
was transferred to the Crown. Both French and British hold lands in
Indo-China ; but the important route via the Strait of Malacca to the
Pacific is controlled by British settlements in the Malay Peninsula, and
by the fortified coaling-station of Singapore.
The Australian Boundary.—There is no historic record of
communication between Australia and Asia till within the last few cen-
turies ; and even to-day it is but slight. Long ages ago there probably
existed a land connection by which mammals entered Australia; but the
curious nature of its fauna points to a long period of isolation. "The
change from Asiatic to Australian fauna apparently takes place between
the Isles of Bali and Lombok, just east of Java; but, for reasons of
physical structure, the division between the continents is best regarded
as lying east of Timor and the Moluccas and west of New Guinea,
3 Ehumdurz The Pacific Ocean.—This ocean was so named by Magellan,
of account of its calmness when he crossed it in 1520-1521, after passing
