Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/111

 Boundaries, Climate, and Natural Divisions. 95 suddenly break up into natural divisions, and wide river-beds open towards the sea, whose coast is like a piece wrenched from the European continent, and pieced on to Asia, " like a border of a different material woven on to a garment." ^ The races settled in these regions were equally distinct from each other; their development was not simultaneous, nor on the same lines. Syria and Mesopotamia were flourishing states, in the enjoyment of a cultured life, when Europe was divided into barbarous clans that used stone implements. It was to be expected, therefore, that the uplands, as nearer to Mesopotamia, would receive the germs of civilization long before they could be transplanted on the western and southern coasts, separated by great distances and natural barriers from the radiating focus. The castellated ridges of the Taurus could be crossed through the river courses on to the table-land, where are found the numerous springs of the Halys ; whilst to the south- east the *' Cilician pyles," and other passes, led to the uplands. As soon as civilized tribes were in possession of Cilicia, they held the key to Asia Minor, and were not slow in availing them- selves of it. Their advance was in compact settlements, and the positions they selected on the plateau could be defended by a few against a multitude. They gradually subdued the rural popula- tions around them, pushed yet further their conquests, penetrating to the more accessible parts of the western coast. If the geographical position of the table-land was pre-eminently calculated to receive its first culture from anterior Asia, the sea- coast had been fashioned by far-seeing nature, that the flow of ideas, the interchange of traffic between Asia and Europe should be incessant. As stated before, inland bays, some open and of great depth, others imperceptible at a little distance outside, advance between stony masses, broken up and dislocated on the coasts by the flood into secondary bays, anchorages, and sounds ; where pebbly shores and safe harbours invite the mariner to sail in and out of them. Numbers of these indentations are only found in the charts of the Admiralty. But, like unwritten laws, they are impressed on the native sailor, who knows that from the Helles- lonier vor der lonischen Wanderung. " Nowhere is the contrast more marked than between the interior and the coast ; this is submitted to different laws, and is like another land."
 * Reclus, Geographic Universelle^ torn. ix. p. 464. Consult also Curtius, Die