Steamers travelling along prescribed routes are now gradually taking the place of sailing vessels, and where they cross at frequent intervals they may be {35} likened to ferry-boats crossing a river. The regularity and speed of these steam ferries; the facilities which they afford for the conveyance of merchandise; the increasing number of railways which convey the produce of the interior to the seaports; and lastly, the submarine telegraphs, which have established instantaneous means of communication between the principal ports, all contribute towards the growth of Mediterranean commerce. This commerce, including imports and exports, and the transit through the Suez Canal, actually amounts to about £353,000,000, a year.[12] This may not be much for a maritime population of a hundred millions, but a perceptible increase is taking place from year to year. We should also bear in mind that, face to face with the busy peninsulas of Europe, there lies torrid Africa, an inert mass, avoided by the sailors of our own age as much as it was by those of ancient Greece. Its coasts are hardly ever visited, with the exception of those portions which extend from Oran to Tunis, and from Alexandria to Port Said. It is matter of surprise, too, that certain localities which formerly attracted crowds of vessels, such as Cyrenaica, Cyprus, and beautiful Crete, at the very entrance to the Archipelago, should still remain outside the ordinary track of our steamers. [Illustration] {36} GREECE. I.—GENERAL ASPECTS. Greece, within its confined political boundaries, to the south of the Gulfs of Arta and Volo, is a country of about nineteen thousand square miles, or at most equal to the ten-millionth part of the earth’s surface. Within the vast empire of Russia there are many districts more extensive than the whole of Greece, but there is nothing which distinguishes these from other districts which surround them, and their names call forth no idea in our mind. The little country of the Hellenes, however, so insignificant upon our maps—how many memories does it not awaken ! In no other part of the world had man attained a degree of civilisation equally harmonious in all respects, or more favourable to individual development. Even now, though carried along within an historical cycle far more vast than that of the Greeks, we should do well to look back frequently in order to contemplate those small nations, who are still our masters in the arts, and first initiated us into science. The city which was the “school of Greece” still remains the school of the entire world; and after twenty centuries of decay, like some of those extinct stars whose luminous rays yet reach the earth, still continues to enlighten us.