But, besides the European peninsulas and the islands, part of Asia must be looked on as forming part of the immediate Greek world, though not strictly of continuous Greece. The peninsula known as _Asia Minor_ cannot be separated from Europe either in its geography or in its history. With its central mass we have little or nothing to do; but its coasts form a part of the Greek world, and its Ægæan coast was only less thoroughly Greek than Greece itself and the Greek islands. It would seem that the whole western coast of Asia Minor was inhabited by nations which, like the European neighbours of Greece, were more or less nearly akin to the Greeks. And the Ægæan coast of Asia is almost as full of inlets of the sea, of peninsulas and promontories and islands near to the shore, as European Greece itself. All these shores therefore received Greek colonies. The islands and the most tempting spots on the mainland were occupied by Greek settlers, and became the sites of Greek cities. But Greek influence never spread very far inland, and even the coast itself did not become so purely Greek as the islands. When we pass from the Ægæan coast of Asia to the other two sides of the peninsula, to its northern coast washed by the Euxine and its southern coast washed by the Mediterranean, we have passed out of the immediate Greek world. Greek colonies are found on favourable spots here and there; but the land, even the coast as a whole, is barbarian. § 3. _Ethnology of the Eastern Peninsula._ ♦The Greeks and the kindred races.♦