GROWTH IN RELIGION 269 



of carriages and automobiles have made riding so 

 easy and agreeable. 



Now with tame animals to carry the goods, roads 

 to travel upon, and a desire for the articles made by 

 neighboring peoples, commerce was assured. After 

 this, civilization progressed more rapidly, because 

 men began to learn from each other and were not 

 obhged to find out everything for themselves. And 

 the different tribes or nations — for people had 

 banded themselves into nations by this time — set 

 to work earnestly to make as well as possible those 

 articles they used in trade. For there was something 

 that the people of each nation had learned to make 

 better than the peoples of other nations did. 



Some had learned to make their clay dishes and 

 utensils much better than their neighbors. They 

 learned to decorate them with painted and with 

 raised figures. Other peoples found how to use the 

 flecks of gold they had noticed in the sands of the 

 river beds, and they learned to make such beautiful 

 ornaments that they carried on a regular trade in 

 them. Still others had learned how to use the wool 

 of the sheep and goats that they had domesticated; 

 how to spin it into yarn and how to weave it into 

 firm, warm cloth. 



As commerce increased it came to be carried on 

 largely by water. As a result, those peoples who lived 

 along the margin of a sea like the Mediterranean 

 advanced more rapidly than those who could only 

 trade across the land. Dangerous as it was to trust 

 to a water journey in those small rude boats of theirs, 

 it still was not so hard as a journey by land. 



