nd its
coast is colonized from Tyre and Greece, dividing it into the two
districts of Carthage and Cyrene. Egypt, the country of the River, and
Arabia, the country of _no_ River, are to be thought of as the two
great southern powers of separate Religion.

14. You have thus, easily and clearly memorable, twelve countries,
distinct evermore by natural laws, and forming three zones from north
to south, all healthily habitable--but the races of the northernmost,
disciplined in endurance of cold; those of the central zone, perfected
by the enjoyable suns alike of summer and winter; those of the
southern zone, trained to endurance of heat. Writing them now in
tabular view,

Britain Gaul Germany Dacia
Spain Italy Greece Lydia
Morocco Libya Egypt Arabia,

you have the ground of all useful profane history mapped out in the
simplest terms; and then, as the fount of inspiration, for all these
countries, with the strength which every soul that has possessed, has
held sacred and supernatural, you have last to conceive perfectly the
small hill district of the Holy Land, with Philistia and Syria on its
flanks, both of them chastising forces; but Syria, in the beginning,
herself the origin of the chosen race--"A Syrian ready to perish was
my father"--and the Syrian Rachel being thought of always as the true
mother of Israel.

15. And remember, in all future study of the relations of these
countries, you must never allow your mind to be disturbed by the
accidental changes of political limit. No matter who rules a country,
no matter what it is officially called, or how it is formally divided,
eternal bars and doors are set to it by the mountains and seas,
eternal laws enforced over it by the clouds and stars. The people that
are born on it are its people, be they a thousand times again and
again conquered, exiled, or captive. The stranger cannot be its king,
the invader cannot be its possessor; and, although just laws,
maintained whether by the people or their conquerors, have always the
appointed good and strength of justice, nothing is permanently helpful
to any race or condition of men but the spirit that is in their own
hearts, kindled by the love of their native land.

16. Of course, in saying that the invader cannot be the possessor of
any country, I speak only of invasion such as that by the Vandals of
Libya, or by ourselves of India; where the conqueri