“Since such, therefore, are the advantages of water-carriage, it is natural that the first improvements of art and industry should be made where this conveniency opens the whole world for a market to the produce of every sort of labour, and that they should always be much later in extending themselves into the inland parts of the country. … All the inland parts of Africa, and all that part of Asia which lies any considerable way north of the Euxine and Caspian seas, the antient Scythia, the modern Tartary and Siberia, seem in all ages of the world to have been in the same barbarous and uncivilized state in which we find them at present. … There are in Africa none of those great inlets, such as the Baltic and Adriatic seas in Europe, the Mediterranean and Euxine seas in both Europe and Asia, and the gulphs of Arabia, Persia, India, Bengal, and Siam, in Asia, to carry maritime commerce into the interior parts of that great continent: and the great rivers of Africa are at too great a distance from one another to give occasion to any considerable inland navigation.”

WN I.iii.4–8

“因此，既然水路运输的优势如此，那么很自然地，艺术和工业的第一个改进应该在这种便利为整个世界打开各种劳动产品的市场的地方进行，并且他们在将自己扩展到该国的内陆地区时，应该总是晚得多。……非洲的所有内陆部分，以及位于黑海和里海以北相当远的亚洲部分，古代的斯基泰，现代的鞑靼和西伯利亚，似乎在世界的所有时代都处于同一个时代我们目前所处的野蛮和不文明状态。……在非洲没有那些巨大的入口，例如欧洲的波罗的海和亚得里亚海，欧洲和亚洲的地中海和黑海，以及阿拉伯、波斯、印度、孟加拉和暹罗的海湾，

WN I.iii.4–8