The state and the destinies of this great and peculiar new seat of Latin civilisation were conditioned by the physical constitution of North Africa. It is formed by two great mountain-masses, of which the northern falls steeply towards the Mediterranean, while the southern, the Atlas, slopes off slowly in the Sahara-steppe dotted with numerous oases towards the desert proper. A smaller steppe, similar on the whole to the Sahara and dotted with numerous salt-lakes, serves in the middle portion, the modern Algeria, to separate the mountains on the north coast and those on the southern frontier. There are in North Africa no extensive plains capable of culture; the coast of the Mediterranean Sea has a level foreland only in a few districts; the land capable of cultivation, according to the modern expression the Tell, consists essentially of the numerous valleys and slopes within those two broad mountain-masses, and so extends to its greatest width where, as in the modern Morocco and in Tunis, no steppe intervenes between the northern and the southern border. [Sidenote: Tripolis.] The region of Tripolis, politically a part of the province of Africa, stands as respects its natural relations outside of the territory described, and is annexed to it in peninsular fashion. The frontier-range sloping down towards the Mediterranean Sea touches at the bay of Tacapae (Gabes), with its foreland of steppe and salt-lake, immediately on the shore. To the south of Tacapae as far as the Great Syrtis there extends along the coast the narrow Tripolitan island of cultivation, bounded inland towards the steppe by a chain of moderate height. Beyond it begins the steppe-country with numerous oases. The protection of the coast against the inhabitants of the desert is here of special difficulty, because the high margin of mountains is wanting; and traces of this are apparent in the accounts that have come to us of the military expeditions and the military positions in this region. [Sidenote: The wars with the Garamantes.]