It is in North Africa that we must probably place the original hotbed of that Mediterranean race, slight and dark with oval heads and faces, who during the neolithic period colonized the opposite side of the Mediterranean, and threw out a wing along the warm Atlantic coast as far north as Scotland, as well as eastwards to the Upper Danube; whilst by way of south and east they certainly overran Egypt, Arabia, and Somaliland, with probable ramifications still farther in both directions.

At last, however, in the eastern Mediterranean was learnt the lesson of the profits attending the sea-going life, and there began the true Mediterranean phase, which is essentially an era of sea-borne commerce.

Then was the chance for the northern shore with its peninsular configuration.
Carthage on the south shore must be regarded as a bold experiment that did not answer.

The moral, then, would seem to be that the Mediterranean basin proved an ideal nursery for seamen; but only as soon as men were brave and clever enough to take to the sea.

The geographical factor is at least partly consequence as well as cause.
* * * * * Now let us proceed farther north into what was for the earlier Mediterranean folk the breeding-ground of barbarous outlanders, forming the chief menace to their circuit of settled civic life.