The most satisfactory picture of Italian desire to annex Dalmatia appears on maps of the Adriatic, which show the contrast between the opposite coasts. On the Italian side, the coastline runs with monotonous uniformity. It is devoid of the headlands, gulfs or islands which impart economic, strategic and scenic value to Dalmatia. Barring short stretches in Puglia the entire Italian coast is shallow and sandy. Its well-known ports hardly deserve the name. Mariners are well aware of the obstacles to navigation along the whole western Adriatic shore. At the head of this sea, especially, the situation for Italian shipping is most unfavorable, owing to the large number of rivers which discharge material collected from practically the entire eastern watershed of the Alps and that of the northern Apennines. From west to east some among the most important of these rivers are the Po, Adige, Piave and Isonzo. This piling of material, added to the process of land emergence going on at the head of the Adriatic, impairs the value of the Gulf of Venice to modern navigation. The Dalmatian coast, however, with its numerous bays and gulfs setting far into the land and broken by many headlands, is fringed by a garland of outlying islands. These natural features of the region provide the advantages denied to Italy. Almost every mile of shore in Dalmatia contains a commodious harbor for merchantmen or a well-sheltered base for war vessels. Most of the rivers originating in the mountain chains overlooking blue water flow eastward toward the Danube. Very little silt and sediment therefore finds its way to the Dalmatian coast. Linguistically, the eastern shore of the Adriatic is Serbian or Albanian. But the history of this coastal land is Italian in spite of the showing of census returns as to the decided numerical inferiority of Italians within its limits. Rome had reached Dalmatia and the Near East by way of the Adriatic. A whole chain of imposing ruins extending to the wild Albanian shores bear the unmistakable impress of Roman splendor. In the partition of the Roman Empire in 295 A.D. Dalmatia was assigned to the western and not to the eastern half. The period of its subjection to Venetian rule is one of the most brilliant in its history. All the civilization it received came from the west. The fact is that the Italian element has always been predominant. After 1866 its influence was viewed with disfavor by the Austrian government. Serbians and Croats were encouraged to settle in the Italian communities of the coast and officials of the Dual Monarchy were instructed to assist the Slavs in every possible manner with a view to counterbalancing Italian primacy in the province. In recent years the task of the Austrian government became doubly difficult, for its representatives could not avoid playing alternately into the hands of Serbians and Italians.