nations, whose presence has converted the countries of the Danube into a sort of ethnological chaos. And as the débris carried along by the current is deposited in the eddy of a river, so were these fragments of nearly every nation of the East accumulated in motley disorder in this corner of the Continent. To the south of this great mountain barrier the migrations between Europe and Asia could take place only by sea—a high-road open to those nations alone who were sufficiently advanced in civilisation to have acquired the art of building ships. Whether pirates, merchants, or warriors, they had raised themselves long ago above a state of primitive barbarism, and even their voyages of conquest added something to the stock of human knowledge. Moreover, owing to the difficulties of navigation, they migrated only in small bodies. At whatever point they settled they came into contact with populations of a different race from their own, and this intercourse gave birth to a number of local civilisations, each bearing its own stamp, and nowhere did their influence preponderate. Every island of the Archipelago, and every valley of ancient Hellas, differed from its neighbours as regards social condition, dialect, and customs, but they all remained Greek, in spite of the Phœnician and other influences to which they had been subjected. It is thus owing to the {12} configuration of the mountain chains and coast-lines that the civilisation which developed itself gradually in the Mediterranean countries to the south of the Alps was, upon the whole, more spontaneous in its nature, and offered more variety and greater contrasts, than the civilisation of the far less advanced nations of the north, who were moving from place to place on vast plains.