OCEAN, THE UNIVERSAL HIGHWAY 



II 



WHAT we may call the modern era of seafaring began 

 in the Mediterranean, when the highly organized 

 Arabian powers, flushed with their success in warfare 

 against every nation they had met in Asia and Africa, 

 turned their attention to Europe. As already noted 

 in the last article, they had become the first sea-power 

 in the world, and now, in the tenth century A.D., they 

 began to establish a naval domination of the Middle 

 Sea as a preliminary to the conquest of Europe. Quite 

 rapidly for those days, Saracenic vessels began to 

 ravage the European coasts, and compelled a con- 

 solidation of the newly risen civilizations of Italy and 

 the survivors of the ancient Greeks, who had become, 

 at least, nominally Christian, to bestir themselves in 

 order to avoid being annihilated by the fierce Eastern 

 corsairs. Some sort of intermittent traffic was carried 

 on, whereby the rich products of the East found their 

 way into Europe, and the Italians and Greeks, ready 

 learners, managed to gain from their fierce visitors 

 some of their seafaring lore. The Greeks and Romans 

 had, of course, long been carrying on their semi-piratical 

 seafaring, but it had been conducted in primitive 

 fashion as regards navigation. Their mariners were 



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