Our present business is with the Historical Geography of Europe, and with that of other parts of the world only so far as they concern the geography of Europe. But we shall have to speak of all the three divisions of the Old World, Europe, Asia, and Africa, in those parts of the three which come nearest to one another, and in which the real history of the world begins. ♦The Mediterranean Lands.♦ These are those parts of all three which lie round the Mediterranean sea, the lands which gradually came to form the Empire of Rome. In these lands the boundaries between the three great divisions are very easily marked. Modern maps do not all place the boundary between Europe and Asia at the same point; some make the river Don the boundary and some the Volga. But this question is of little importance for history. In the earliest historical times, when we have to do only with the countries round the Mediterranean sea, there can be no doubt how much is Europe and how much is Asia and Africa. Europe is the land to the north of the Mediterranean sea and of the great gulfs which run out of it. If an exact boundary is needed in the barbarous lands north of the Euxine, the Tanais or Don is clearly the boundary which should be taken. In all these lands the Mediterranean and its gulfs divide Europe from Asia. But the northern parts of the two continents really form one geographical whole, the boundary between them being one merely of convenience. A vast central mass of land, stretching right across the inland parts of the two continents, sends forth a system of peninsulas and islands, to the north and south. And it is in the peninsular lands of Europe that European history begins.