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THK NATURE AND CAUSES OF

two cities, however, at present carry on a very considerablecommerce with each other, and by mutually affording a market,give a good deal of encouragement to each other’s industry.

Since such, therefore, are the advantages of water-car-riage, it is natural that the first improvements of art and in-dustry should be made where this conveniency opens thewhole world for a market to the produce of every sort of la-bour, and that they should always be much later in extend-ing themselves into the inland parts of the country. Theinland parts of the country can for a long time have no othermarket for the greater part of their goods but the countrywhich lies round about them, and separates them from thesea-coast, and the great navigable rivers. The extent oftheir market, therefore, must for a long time be in propor-tion to the riches and populousness of that country, andconsequently their improvement must always be posterior tothe improvement of that country. In our North Americancolonies the plantations have constantly followed either thesea-coast or the banks of the navigable rivers, and havescarce any where extended themselves to any considerabledistance from both.

The nations that, according to the best authenticated his-tory, appear to have been first civilized, were those thatdwelt round the coast of the Mediterranean sea. That sea,by far the greatest inlet that is known in the world, havingno tides, nor consequently any waves except such as arecaused by the wind only, was, by the smoothness of its sur-face, as well as by the multitude of its islands, and the prox-imity of its neighbouring shores, extremely favourable to theinfant navigation of the world; when, from their ignoranceof the compass, men were afraid to quit the view of the coast,and from the imperfection of the art of ship building, toabandon themselves to the boisterous waves of the ocean.To pass beyond the pillars of Hercules, that is, to sail out ofthe Straits of Gibraltar , was, in the ancient world, long con-sidered as a most wonderful and dangerous exploit of navi-gation. It was late before even the Phoenicians and Car-thaginians, the most skilful navigators and shipbuilders ofthose old times, attempted it, and they were for a long timethe only nations that did attempt it.

Of all the countries on the coast of the Mediterranean sea,Egypt seems to have been the first in which either agricul-ture or manufactures were cultivated and improved to any