From an historical point of view a description of Europe should commence with the maritime countries of the Me­di­ter­ra­nean. It was Greece which gave birth to our European civilisation, and which at one time occupied the centre of the known world. Her poets first sang the praises of venturesome navigators, and her historians and philosophers collected and classified the information received with respect to foreign countries. In a subsequent age, Italy, in the very centre of the Me­di­ter­ra­nean, took the place of Greece, and for fifteen centuries maintained herself therein: Genoa, Venice, and Florence succeeded Rome as the leaders of the civilised world. During that period the surrounding nations gravitated towards the Me­di­ter­ra­nean and Italy; and it was only when the Italians themselves enlarged the terrestrial sphere by the discovery of a new world beyond the ocean that this preponderance passed away from them, to remain for a short time with the Iberian peninsula. Greece had been the mediator between Europe and the ancient civilisations of Asia and Africa; Spain and Portugal became the representatives of Europe in America and the extreme Orient; historical development in its progress had followed the axis of the Me­di­ter­ra­nean from east to west.

It will be found natural, under these circumstances, when we describe the three Me­di­ter­ra­nean peninsulas in the same volume, particularly as they are peopled almost exclusively by Greco-Latin nations. France, though likewise Latinised, nevertheless occupies a distinct position. It is a Me­di­ter­ra­nean country only as respects Provence and Languedoc, the rest of its territory sloping towards the Atlantic. Its geographical position and history have made France the great {22} European thoroughfare upon which the nations of the Me­di­ter­ra­nean and of the Atlantic meet to exchange their products and to fight their battles. Ideas are imported into France from all parts of Europe, and she is called upon to act the part of an interpreter between the nations of the North and of the South. Next to France we shall describe the Germanic countries of Europe, the British Islands, and Scandinavia; and lastly, the immense empire of Russia.

THE MEDITERRANEAN.

I.—HYDROLOGY.

REECE and its insular satellites prove sufficiently that the unstable floods of the Me­di­ter­ra­nean have exercised a greater influence upon the march of history than did the solid land upon which man trod. Western civilisation would never have seen the light had not the waters of the Me­di­ter­ra­nean washed the shores of Egypt, Phœnicia, Asia Minor, Hellas, Italy, Spain, and Carthage. The western nations would have remained in their primitive barbarism if it had not been for the Me­di­ter­ra­nean, which joined Europe, Asia, and Africa; facilitated the intercourse between Aryans, Semites, and Berbers; and rendered more equable the climate of the surrounding countries, thus facilitating access to them. For ages it appeared almost as if mankind could prosper only in the neighbourhood of this central sea, for beyond its basin only decayed nations were to be met with, or tribes not yet awakened to mental activity. “Like frogs around a swamp, so have we settled down on the shores of this sea,” said Plato; and the sea he refers to is the Me­di­ter­ra­nean. It is therefore deserving of description quite as much as the inhabited countries which surround it. Unfortunately many mysteries still remain hidden beneath its waves.[5]

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