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122 NUMISMATIC CHRONICLE.and not for general profit.The merchant, on the otherhand, was essentially a middleman, and hisof his class.profits thoseBesides this, it must be noted that the travelling ofsome Egyptian citizen upon the waters of the " VeryGreen," 10 or Mediterranean, would in no wayaffect thecondition of the landward community. The travellerwould, for the time being, enter into the commercialcommunity of the Sea, and would have to obey its lawsand customs. If he could hold his own amongst themerchants, and return home with a cargo of goods, hewould re-enter his country with other possessions thanhe had taken away with him That was all. His newlyacquired goods would automatically come under thescale of values which existed at the time, and couldbe exchanged by equal barter with other forms ofcommodity.Again, the necessity of travel in order to gain a profiton exchangeis forced into view, and must always bekept before us,in the consideration of the earliestdevelopments of finance.In countries, however, which were not self-supporting,foreign trade would of necessity become part and parcelof their civilization. But civilization in such countrieswould be of a fostered growth, and would spread fromthe " factories " of the traders, situated near the source10Maspero, The Dawn of Civilization, p. 17. The name Uaz-oiritGreen was first recognized by Birch (The Annals(Uaz-ur), the Veryof Thothmes III, in Archaeologia, vol. xxxv. p. 162, and p. 46 of thereprint) E. de; Roug< (Notice de quelques textes hitroglyphiques recemmentpubliespar M. Greene dans VAthenaeum frangais, 1855, pp. 12-14of the reprint) and; especially Brugsch (Geog. Insch., vol. i.pp. 37-40),completed the demonstration. The Red Sea is called Qim-Oirit, theVery Black. Petrie, " Great Green Water."