In the east of Europe, the basins of rivers have exercised the same influence, to a certain extent, that has been hinted at above; and Moscow, Kiev, Cracow, and Warsaw remain the seats of a civilization which, rude as it was, owed its existence to the physical conditions of the great Sarmatian river systems. In western Europe, the less marked features of the country have contributed to the peculiar historical development of the continent. The rich deltas have become the granaries for a large part of the population, allowing industry to flow into other channels besides agriculture. The sea-faring habits of the people along the coast have broken up and done away with what is special and provincial, and have conferred a cosmopolitan manner of living upon the entire population. It was the same with the Phenicians in ancient times, with the Portuguese in the middle ages, as it has been with the English, Spanish, and Dutch in modern days. Fishing, navigation, and trade have become permanent necessities of civilization. In the heart of continental Europe, the rivers have had a great influence on the progress of nations; the North German streams have extended their effect from the abode of the ancient Saxons along the Baltic as far as the home of the Salic Franks on the Scheldt, Seine, and Loire; the Danube, with its complex and important system of terraces and lowlands, has opened communication between South Germany and Hungary, Wallachia, and the East. The Vistula, Oder, Elbe, and Weser have connected the homes of the old Sclavic population with the Scandinavian coasts and the land of the Angles and Saxons at the neck of Denmark, to the equal advantage of both. The great terrace system of the Rhine, embracing the Odenwald, Hardt, Spessart, Taunus, Hundsrück, Eifel, and the Siebengebirg, has thrown into the most active industrial and commercial relations the whole district which it waters. It opened a way to the Romans in their conquering advances before it did to the tribes of Helvetia, Gallia, Germania, or the Lowlands: it sundered those tribes, and kept them from preying upon each other; but, in the advance of civilization, it has become one of the strongest bands to knit together the central countries of Europe.