E.— GEOGRAPHY. 101 



intensive cultivation could be carried on. That form, as already sug- 

 gested, was a derived and not an original one. He replaced the native 

 tress and shrubs by useful cultivated varieties or species, which had, 

 certainly for the most part, originated elsewhere. He intercalated short- 

 lived annuals like corn crops and beans along the line of weakness 

 indicated by the periodic opening and closing of the natural vegetation. 

 But one of his great ditficulties was always that the absence of 

 much level land and the chmatic conditions rendered the growth of 

 such crops relatively difficult, much more difficult than in the river- 

 valleys. 



If we think of the early settlements as shov,-ing a general 

 resemblance to the Berber villages of the Algerian Atlas to-day, we 

 realise that they were more or less isolated the one from the other, so 

 that the social polity was of a wholly different type from that existing 

 either in Babylonia or in early Egypt. But, and this seems to me 

 important, although the natural conditions — especially the fact that 

 fertility was limited to certain areas — made a measure of isolation 

 inevitable, yet the sea gave a possibility of free movement in all 

 directions which was absent in the river-valleys. Thus oversea, if not 

 overland, spi'eading could take place, and the changes in the geographical 

 conditions as the sea is traversed westward are relatively small, not 

 outside the limits of adaptation. Thus we have the spread of the higher 

 forms of Mediterranean culture from the eastern end of the sea towards 

 the west, with the founding of new settlements of generally similar 

 type to the old. Greece could, and did, send daughter colonies to 

 Sicily, and those colonies broadly repeated in their new homes the 

 conditions which they had left in their old. This possibility of free 

 movement brought with it a wider range of adaptability, a constant 

 willingness to profit by new experiences, which has proved of enormous 

 value to the world at large. 



But with all its advantages the Mediterranean area, as already 

 stated, liad the great disadvantage that bread-stuffs were difficult to 

 produce in quantity. Two methods of getting over that difficulty could 

 be and were practised. For example, the ancient Greeks, having, it 

 would appear, learnt the lesson from the Phcenicians, dared, in course 

 of time, to descend from their hill-spurs toi the sea-coast, in order 

 to supplement the scanty resources of their limited lands by sea-trading. 

 After a long interval the mediseval cities, especially of Italy, did the 

 same thing on a greater scale and with the advantage of a wider, market. 

 Between the two periods Rome tried the other possible method, that 

 of holding in subjection the areas, outside that of the characteristic 

 climate, wliich were corn-producing. Her failure w'as, at least in part, 

 due to geographical causes. The great advantage of the method of 

 sea-trading was the increase in the power of adaptation which it brought, 

 as a result of the continual peaceful contact with other lands and other 

 peoples. The decay of the splendid mediasval cities of Italy came when 

 the Mediterranean ceased to be a great highway of commerce, and 

 the vivifying breezes from the outside world which had swept through 

 it toc'k another course — once again, that is, a civilisation based upon 

 a delicate adjustment to a particular set of conditions fell when those 

 conditions changed. 



