THE COLONIES. 69 



mists and the inclement seasons of the Black Sea, and 

 took up their abode among a people whose faces were 

 almost concealed in furs, who dwelt at the mouths of 

 great rivers, and cultivated boundless plains of wheat. 

 This wheat the Greeks exported to the mother country, 

 with barrels of the salted tunny fish, and the gold of 

 Ural, and even the rich products of the Oriental trade 

 which were brought across Asia from India or China 

 by the waters of the Oxus to the Aral Sea, from the 

 Aral to the Caspian Sea by land, from the Caspian to 

 the Black Sea by the Volga and the Don. 



But where Italy dipped her arched and lovely foot 

 in the blue waters of an untroubled sea, beneath the 

 blue roof of an unclouded sky ; where the flowers never 

 perished ; where eternal summer smiled ; where mere 

 existence was voluptuous, and life itself a sensual joy: 

 there the Greek cities clustered richly together ; cities 

 shining with marble, and built in fairy forms ; before 

 them the deep tranquil harbour ; behind them violet 

 valleys, myrtle groves, and green lakes of waving corn. 



When a band of emigrants went forth, they took 

 with them fire, kindled on the city hearth. Although 

 each colony was independent, it regarded with rever- 

 ence the mother state, and all considered themselves 

 with pride not foreigners, but Greeks ; for Greece was 

 not a country, but a people : wherever the Greek lan- 

 guage was spoken, that was Greece. They all spoke 

 the same grand and harmonious language — although 

 the dialects might differ ; they had the same bible, for 

 Homer was in all their hearts, and the memory of 

 their youthful glory was associated in their minds with 

 the union of Greek warriors beneath the walls of Troy. 

 The chief colonial states were represented at the meet- 

 ings of the Amphictyonic League, and any Greek from 



