=Absence of Navigable Rivers and Good Harbors.= Palestine, on the other hand, is shut off from close commercial contact with other peoples. No great waterway invited the trader and warrior to go out and conquer the rest of the world. Instead, in the early periods when men depended chiefly upon communication by river or sea, Palestine shut in its inhabitants and tended to develop an intensive rather than an extensive civilization. Its one large river, the Jordan, flows, not into the ocean, but into a low inland sea, whose only outlet is by evaporation. The coast line of Palestine is also characterized by the lack of a single good harbor. At Joppa, at the northwestern end of Carmel, and at Tyre the otherwise straight shore line curves slightly inland; but at each of these points there is no natural protection from the severe western gales. The Phœnicians, shut in by the eastern mountains, dared the perils of the deep; but to the early peoples of Palestine the Great Sea was, on the whole, a barrier rather than an invitation to commerce and conquest. =Incentives to Industry.= The physical characteristics of Palestine were well fitted to develop active, industrious inhabitants. The constant pressure on their borders by Arabs, who could be held back only by a strong, organized civilization, was a powerful spur. The natural division of the land among independent and usually hostile races made eternal activity and watchfulness the price that must be paid for life and freedom. Popular tradition, based on a fact that pre-eminently impresses every traveller in the land to-day, states that the fabled Titan, who was sent to scatter stones over the face of the earth, distributed them equally over Europe and Africa, but that when he came to Asia and was passing through Syria, his bag broke, depositing its contents on Palestine. Throughout most of its territory the rich soil can be cultivated only as the stones are gathered either in huge heaps or fences. The fertility of the plains can be utilized only as the waters of the mountain brooks are used for irrigation. It is, therefore, a land that bred hardy men, strong of muscle, resourceful, alert, and, active in mind and body.