INHABITANTS. 



33 



considerable burden to penetrate the estuaries of her rivers, almost to the heart of 

 the country. As long as the British Isles were thinly peopled, and produced 

 sufficient to supply the wants of the inhabitants, foreign commerce, as might have 

 been expected, did not attain considerable proportions. Yet London, even before 

 the arrival of the Romans, engaged in maritime commerce, and during the Middle 

 Ages, whenever its citizens had a respite from civil commotions and foreign wars, 

 they resumed their commercial activity. The ancestors of many of the inhabitants 

 of the coast were hardy Northmen, and from them they inherited a love of maritime 

 adventure, and an eager longing to struggle with waves and tempests. Yet it 

 was not they who took the lead in those memorable discoveries which brought the 



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countries of the world nearer to each other, and converted a space without limits 

 into a simple globe, easily encompassed by man. The glory of having discovered 

 the ocean routes to the Indies and the Pacific was fated to be won by the 

 mariners of the more civilised nations of Southern Europe. But the seamen of 

 England quickly learnt to find out new ocean routes for themselves, and soon their 

 audacity and endurance placed them at the head of all their rivals. The expeditions 

 which they sent forth to the arctic regions to discover a north-west passage to 

 China, and which they still continue to equip, no longer for the sake of commerce, 

 but out of a pure love for science, are amongst the most heroic enterprises recorded 

 by history. But where one English vessel ventured into unknown seas, hundreds 



