But with this enormous multiplication of the bacilli, other events followed. Carried north and east by winds, these huge quantities of the germs found their way into the headwaters of the Amazon and its tributaries, and were thus carried eastward into the very heart of the tropical forests, where they continued to breed with almost inconceivable rapidity. Soon the whole of the vegetation in this region was in a decline; and the Amazon valley degenerated into a swamp choked with dead and dying plants. Humanity was driven out long before the end came. Animal life could not persist in the midst of this noisome wilderness.
The same phenomena appeared, though in a different form, over the southern part of South America. Here also the great rivers formed the main distributing agencies for the bacilli; and the whole cattle-raising district was devastated. The stock was slaughtered on a huge scale as soon as it became clear that vegetation had perished; but owing to mismanagement and transport difficulties the preservatives necessary to make the best of the meat thus obtained were not procurable in sufficient quantities. Nevertheless, by converting as much as possible into biltong, more than sufficient was preserved to keep a very large part of the population alive during the Famine; and in later days, by trading their surplus dried meat for cereals and nitrogenous compounds, they succeeded in rescuing a greater proportion of lives than might have been anticipated.
To complete this survey of the world at that period, the effect of B. diazotans upon North America still remains to be told. I have already given some information with regard to the spread of the Blight across the Middle West; but I must mention that it was in this part of the world especially that these curious isolated immune areas were observed, wherein the bacillus seemed to make no headway. Thousands of acres in all were found to be untouched by the denitrifying organisms.
At the time of the Famine the civilisation of North America was in a curious condition, mainly owing to the influx of a foreign element which had taken place to a greater and greater extent after the War. The immigrants had come in such numbers that assimilation of them was impossible, and in this way the stability of the central Government was weakened. To a great extent the Southern States had fallen into the hands of the negroes, but similar segregations were to be found in other parts of the country. Germans accumulated in one State, Italians in another, East Europeans and Slavs in yet other areas. Thus Congress became subject to the group system of government, with all the weaknesses which such a system brings in its train.
When B. diazotans first made its appearance in the Continent the Government in power was composed of feeble men, without character and unfitted for bold decisions. The prohibition of cereal exports was a measure arising from panic rather than foresight; and once this had been put in operation, the Government rested on its oars and awaited the turn of events.
Thus at this period the United States presented the spectacle of a series of unsympathetic communities united by the slender bonds of a weak central Government, and divided amongst themselves by the very deepest cleavages. The grain-growing districts regarded the cities as parasites upon the food-supply which had been raised; while the city population, having only secured a certain amount of the available foodstuffs, looked upon the Middle Westerners as an antisocial group of hoarders. But even within these two large groups, minor cleavages had come to light. The poorer classes, appalled at the rise in prices, had begun to cry out against the rich. Hasty and ill-considered legislation was passed which, instead of curing the troubles, merely served to augment them; and soon the whole country was seething with undercurrents of hatred for government of any kind.
With so much inflammable material, an outbreak was only a question of time; and soon something almost akin to anarchy prevailed. Food at any price became the cry. Those who controlled great stores of grain had to defend them; those who lacked sustenance had no reason to wait in patience. Civil war of the most bitter type broke out almost simultaneously throughout the country.
Hostilities took a form which had never been imagined in any previous fighting. In the old days one of the main objectives in the siege of an area was the shutting out of supplies from the besieged garrison. In this American war, however, the exact opposite held good. A starving population encircled the areas in which food was stored and endeavoured to force its way in; while the defenders were well supplied with rations. Nor was this all. It was well recognised among the besiegers that the supplies within the besieged area were insufficient to meet the demands which would be made upon them if the attacking force as a whole broke through the line of the defence; and therefore each individual attacker felt that his comrades were also his competitors, whom he had no great desire to see survive. Again, in the previous history of warfare, any loss
