nevertheless they all have the same fundamental
characteristics of physique, language and culture from Guam to Easter
Isle, reflecting in their unity the oneness of the encompassing ocean
over which they circulate.[553]

[Sidenote: Mediterranean versus Atlantic seamanship.]

Midway between these semi-aquatic Polynesians and those Arctic tribes
who are forced out upon the deep, to struggle with it rather than
associate with it, we find the inhabitants of the Mediterranean islands
and peninsulas, who are favored by the mild climate and the tideless,
fogless, stormless character of their sea. While such a body of water
invites intimacy, it does not breed a hardy or bold race of navigators;
it is a nursery, scarcely a training school. Therefore, except for the
far-famed Dalmatian sailors, who for centuries have faced the storms
sweeping down from the Dinaric Alps over the turbulent surface of the
Adriatic, Mediterranean seamanship does not command general confidence
on the high seas. Therefore it is the German, English and Dutch
steamship lines that are to-day the chief ocean carriers from Italian
ports to East Africa, Asia, Australia, North and South America, despite
the presence of native lines running from Genoa to Buenos Ayres.
Montevideo and New York; just as it was the Atlantic states of Europe,
and only these and all of these, except Germany, who, trained to venture
out into the fogs and storms and unmarked paths of the _mare
tenebrosum_, participated in the early voyages to the Americas. One
after the other they came--Norwegians, Spaniards, Portuguese, English,
French, Dutch, Swedes and Danes. The anthropo-geographical principle is
not invalidated by the fact that Spain and England were guided in their
initial trans-Atlantic voyages by Italian navigators, like Columbus,
Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci. The long maritime experience of Italy and
its commercial relations with the Orient, reaching back into ancient
times, furnished abundant material for the researches and speculations
of such practical theorists; but Italy's location fixed the shores of
the Mediterranean as her natural horizon, narrowed her vision to its
shorter radius. Her obvious interest in the preservation of the old
routes to the Orient made her turn a deaf ear to plans aiming to divert
European commerce to trans-Atlantic routes. Italy's entrance upon the
high seas was, therefore, reluctant and late, retarded by the necessity
of outgrowing the old circ