Every place is east of some other place. America is east of China. Europe is east of America. But the only place called “THE East,” with a capital THE, is the land east of Europe. This land east ofEurope is the continent of Asia. It’s the biggest continent of all.

Long years ago in fairy-tale days a god in Asia was in love with a beautiful girl whose name was Europa. Now a god was not supposed to love a human being, so the god turned himself into a snow-whitebull and, persuading Europa to get on his back, he ran away with her. At last the bull came to a strait of water and swam across it with Europa still on his back. On the opposite side of the straitwhere the bull landed with Europa on his back was a great new continent, and to-day we call this continent Europe—after Europa.

People who do not believe in fairy-tales say, however, that Europe is a name that simply means The Land Where the Sun Goes Down, and they say that Asia, the land from which Europa and the bull came,means The Land Where the Sun Gets Up.

The strait across which the bull carried Europa we still call Bull-Carry Strait, for in the Greek language “bull-carry” is Bosporus, and Bosporus is the name on the map.

People built a city where Europa landed, and about a thousand years afterward a Roman Emperor namedConstantine, who was the first Christian emperor, moved his capital from Rome to this city and it was called after him, Constantinople.

After another thousand years Constantinople was captured from the Christians by some people from Asia called Turks, who had a ruler called the Sultan. Most of the people in Europe are Christians, but the Turks are not Christians. They do not believe in Christ. They believe in a god whom they called Allah and a man named Mohammed who they say was Allah’s messenger on earth. So we call the people who believe in Mohammed Mohammedans or Moslems.