201 
THE GREAT LAKE, LAGOON, OR BAY OF TRITON. 
By Be Ae TRING, Moon, 
(Read at Ambleside. ) 
At the very dawn of history we find the continental shores of 
that sea which surrounds Cyprus, viz. Phoenicia and Cilicia, filled 
with a race of mariners, who for full one thousand years managed 
the carrying trade of the then known world. 
With a sea-board by no means remarkable for good harbours, 
or sheltered roadsteads, the dwellers in Tyre and Sidon had the 
largest merchant navy in the Mediterranean. They under- 
took the most distant voyages. They indisputably frequented 
the stormy seas of our own Cornwall to the west, whilst in the 
east they were known in Indian seas as far as Ceylon. It is 
probable that they penetrated into the Baltic in the north, whilst it 
-is certain that in the persons of some of their colonists they circum- 
navigated Africa. 
Their colonies were found scattered over the whole Mediter- 
ranean, in positions chosen with a most far-sighted judgment. 
Almost invariably they selected peninsulas, or small islands 
adjacent to the mainland—inaccessible to an enemy by land, 
easily defended by sea. 
Of these by far the greatest and most remarkable was Carthage. 
Situated near the modern Tunis, exactly opposite Sicily, she so 
rapidly grew in power and prosperity, as totally to eclipse, in the 
west at any rate, the glory of the mother country. 
She in her turn sent out colonies still further west, and 
founded cities, whose sites are even now occupied by important 
