92 On the Comparative Population of the World, 



than any spot of equal extent on the surface of the earth. 

 Without paying much attention to the 20,000 cities of Hero- 

 dotus, or to the prodigious accounts which have come down to 

 us of Memphis, Hehopohs, Thebes, Alexandria, &c. we have 

 enough of credible testimony to satisfy us that Egypt, under 

 the Ptolemies, contained at least five times the number of its 

 present inhabitants. From the nature of the soil, and its 

 peculiar facility of cultivation, we may be assured that this 

 must necessarily have happened under any government of 

 tolerable eihciency. 



Even the countries at a distance from the coast, if we are to 

 believe the account of Herodotus, were populous and flourish- 

 ing. The vast territory of Ethiopia, which is now little better 

 than a collection of hordes, appears, from several scattered notices 

 in ancient authors, to have formerly reached a considerable 

 advancement in Avealth and civilization. This, however, cannot 

 be much insisted upon ; but we are certain that the whole nor- 

 thern coast of Africa, from the Isthmus of Suez to the Straits 

 of Gibraltar, constituted an important part of the ancient civi- 

 lized world. Egypt and Carthage were rivals in commerce ; 

 and the dominions of the latter power supplied the materials of 

 a trade which has seldom been exceeded in any age or nation. 

 We may be satisfied of this from the size and opulence of the 

 port which was its principal emporium. The city of Carthage, 

 at the time of the third Punic war, contained 700,000 inhabi- 

 tants, and must, therefore, have been nearly equal to London, 

 at the beginning of the late reign. A large capital is almost an 

 invariable indication of a flourishing country, for an overgrown 

 metropolis is incessantly fed from the abundance of the provin- 

 cial population. Such a city as Carthage must have been reared 

 by a long-continued and extensive commerce. The territory 

 which comprised the Carthaginian dominion contained, accord- 

 ing to Strabo, three hundred cities. That its power was of gra- 

 dual growth and long duration is proved by the fact, that so 

 early as the time of Xerxes' expedition, the Carthaginians in- 

 vaded Sicily with an army of 300,000 men — a prodigious effort 

 for any nation in its early prosperity. 



The rest of the northern coast of Africa, including Mauritania, 

 which skirted the Atlantic ; Numidia, Libya, &c. comprised a 



