ether commercial or political, setting out from the adjacent coasts.
Such islands are swept by successive waves of conquest or colonization,
and they carry in their people and language evidences of the wrack left
behind on their shores. This has been the history of Aegina, Cyprus,
Rhodes, Crete, Malta, Corfu, Sicily and Sardinia. That of Cyprus is
typical. It was the first island base for the ancient Tyrian fleets, and
had its Phoenician settlements in 1045 B. C. From that time it was one
of the many prizes in the Mediterranean grab-bag for the surrounding
nations. After the decline of Tyre, it was occupied by Greeks, then
passed in turn to Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Romans, Saracens,
Byzantines, and in 1191 was seized by the Crusaders. Later it fell to
Egypt again; but in 1373 was taken by Genoa, in 1463 by Venice, in 1571
by the Turks, and finally in 1878 was consigned to England.[869] All
these successive occupants have left their mark upon its people, speech,
culture and architecture. In the same way Sicily, located at the waist
of the Mediterranean, has received the imprint of Greeks, Carthagenians,
Romans, Saracens, Normans, Spaniards and Italians.[870] Its architectural
remains bear the stamp of these successive occupants in every degree of
purity and blending. The Sicilians of to-day are a mixture of all these
intrusive stocks and speak a form of Italian corrupted by the infusion
of Arabic words.[871] In 1071 when the Normans laid siege to Palermo,
five languages were spoken on the island,--Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic
and vulgar Sicilian, evidence enough that it was the meeting ground of
the nations of Europe, Asia and North Africa.[872] Polyglot Malta to-day
tells the same story of successive conquests, the same shuttlecock
history.[873] Almost every language of Europe is spoken here; but the
native Maltese speech is a corrupt form of Arabic mixed with modern
Italian and ancient Phoenician words.[874] The whole island is
ethnographically a border hybrid of Europe and North Africa. The Channel
Isles are to-day the only spot in Europe where French and English survive
side by side as official and commercial languages. French and Italian
meet on equal terms in Corsica. Chinese, Japanese and Malays have
traded and warred and treated on the debatable land of Formosa. The Aru,
Ke, and other small archipelagoes of the Banda Sea link together the
pure Malay and the pure Papuan districts, between which they lie.

Fr