_The Phoenicians Became the Great Navigators_.--While the Phoenicians are given credit for establishing the first great sea power, they were not the first navigators. Long before they developed, boats plied up and down the Euphrates River, and in the island of Crete and elsewhere the ancient Aegeans carried on their trade in ships with Egypt and the eastern {162} Mediterranean. The Aegean civilization preceded the Greeks and existed at a time when Egypt and Babylon were young. The principal city of Cnossus exhibited also a high state of civilization, as shown in the ruins discovered by recent explorers in the island of Crete. It is known that they had trade with early Egypt, but whether their city was destroyed by an earthquake or by the savage Greek pirates of a later day is undetermined. The Phoenicians, however, developed a strip of territory along the east shore of the Mediterranean, and built the great cities of Tyre and Sidon. From these parent cities they extended their trade down through the Mediterranean and out through the Pillars of Hercules, and founded their colonies in Africa, Greece, Italy, and Spain. Long after Tyre and Sidon, the parent states, had declined, Carthage developed one of the most powerful cities and governments of ancient times. No doubt, the Phoenicians deserve great credit for advancing shipbuilding, trade, and commerce, and in extending their explorations over a wide range of the known earth. To them, also, we give credit for the perfection of the alphabet and the manufacture of glass, precious stones, and dyes; but their prominence in history appears in the long struggle between the Carthaginians and the Romans. _A Comparison of the Egyptian and Babylonian Civilizations_.--Taken as a whole, there is a similarity in some respects between the Egyptian and the Babylonian civilizations. Coming from different racial groups, from different centres, there must necessarily be contrasts in many of the arts of life. Egypt was an isolated country with a long river flowing through its entire length, which brought from the mountains the detritus which kept its valleys fertile. Communication was established through the whole length by boats, which had a tendency to promote social intercourse and establish national life. With the Mediterranean on the north, the Red Sea on the east, and the Libyan Desert to the west, it was tolerably well protected even though not shut in by high mountain ranges. Yet it was open at all times for the hardy invaders who sought food for {163} flocks and herds and people. There was always "corn in Egypt" to those people suffering from drought in the semi-arid districts of Africa and Arabia.