The old idea that the ancient merchants could make a course from Ushant to, say, Falmouth or Penzance need no longer be entertained; the crossing from Africa to Gibraltar and from Cape Grisnez to Sandwich were both to visible land, _i.e._ coastwise. The cliffs on the opposite land are easily seen on a clear day. Hence it would have been easier before the days of astronomical knowledge and compasses to have reached England, and therefore Ireland and the Orkneys, than to get to some of the islands in the Mediterranean itself.[93] It is seen then that it is possible that Semites might have built our stone monuments between 2000 and 1200 B.C., while it is quite certain that the Aryans did not build them, if the archæologists are not widely wrong in their dates. Let us, then, begin our inquiries by considering the information available with regard to the Semites. Let us see in the first instance whether they had stone monuments, and sacred trees and sacred wells; a system of worship; and whether this worship was connected with the sun and stars. It is fortunate for us in this matter that one of the most fully equipped scholars which the last century produced, Robertson Smith, devoted his studies for many years to _The Religion of the Semites_, and information on the points raised is to our hand; all I need do is to give as shortly as possible a statement of the various conclusions he had reached on the points to which our attention may in the first instance be confined. I quote from his book _The Religion of the Semites_. The Semites include the Babylonians, who spoke a Semitic dialect, for there were Sumerian speaking peoples among them, Assyrians, Phœnicians, Hebrews, Arabs and Aramæans, who in ancient times occupied the fertile lands of Syria, Mesopotamia and Irak from the Mediterranean coast to the base of the mountains of Iran and Armenia. They also embrace the inhabitants of the great Arabian peninsula, which is believed to have been the centre of dispersion. The ordinary artificial mark of a Semitic sanctuary was the sacrificial pillar, cairn, or rude altar (p. 183): it was a fixed point where, according to primitive rule, the blood of the offering was applied to the sacred stones; or where a sacred tree, as we shall see presently, was hung with gifts; the stones and tree being symbols of the God (p. 151). Further, it is certain that the original altar among the northern Semites was a great unhewn[94] stone, or a cairn, at which the blood of the victim was shed (p. 185). Monolithic pillars or cairns of stones are frequently mentioned in the more ancient parts of the Old Testament as marking sanctuaries; Shechem, Bethel, Gilead, Gilgal, Mizpah, Gibeon, and En-Rogel are referred to (p. 186).