eraclea, and
Sinope, were situated on peninsulas or headlands, that would afford a
convenient anchor ground; or, like Syracuse and Mitylene, on small
inshore islets, which were soon outgrown, and from which the towns then
spread to the mainland near by. The advantages of such sites lay in
their accessibility to commerce, and in their natural protection against
the attack of strange or hostile mainland tribes. For a nation of
merchants, satisfied with the large returns but also with the ephemeral
power of middlemen, these considerations sufficed. While the Phoenician
trading posts in Africa dotted the outer rim of the coast, the inner
edge of the zone was indicated by Libyan or Ethiopian towns, where the
inhabitants of the interior bartered their ivory and skins for the
products of Tyre.[436] So that commercial expansion of the Arabs down the
east coast of Africa in the first and again in the tenth century seized
upon the offshore islands of Zanzibar, Pemba, and Mafia, the small
inshore islets like Mombasa and Lamu, and the whole outer rim of the
coast from the equator southward to the Rovuma River.[437] The Sultan of
Zanzibar, heir to this coastal strip, had not expanded it a decade ago,
when he had to relinquish the long thread of his continental
possessions.

[Sidenote: Inland advance of colonies.]

But when a people has advanced to a higher conception of colonization as
an outlet for national as well as commercial expansion, and when it sees
that the permanent prosperity of both race and trade in the new locality
depends upon the occupation of larger tracts of territory and the
development of local resources as a basis for exchanges, their
settlements spread from the outer rim of the coasts to its inner edge
and yet beyond, if alluvial plains and river highways are present to
tempt inland expansion. Such was the history of many later colonies of
the Greeks[438] and Carthaginians, and especially of most modern colonial
movements, for these have been dominated by a higher estimate of the
value of land.

After the long Atlantic journey, the outposts of the American coast were
welcome resting-places to the early European voyagers, but, owing to
their restricted area and therefore limited productivity, they were soon
abandoned, or became mere bases for inland expansion. The little island
of Cuttyhunk, off southern Massachusetts, was the site of Gosnold's
abortive attempt at colonization in 1602, like Raleigh's attempt