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this effect against the resources of a large, prosperous, and united 
country like Italy? Venice, some one will suggest, possessed a 
similar power. But Venice was powerful in the resources of war, 
not only from her possession of money, but also and mainly by her 
possessions on the mainland—the rich plains of Lombardy, and 
the countries to the north of the Adriatic, which were as much 
Italian and Venetian as Venice herself. Nor again, let me remark, 
did Venice alone ever engage in long wars with a powerful and 
warlike empire. Whereas Carthage was seemingly a single city, 
with a territory of no great size, on the edge of a huge desert, yet 
wielding an influence in the history of the world, such as only 
belongs to great states, backed by the resources of an extensive 
and rich country. Surely this is a problem in history requiring 
solution. ! 
Again, in the history of the Punic wars, and especially of the 
second or Hannibalian war, we are astonished at the extensive use 
made by the Carthaginians of e/ephants. Yet north of the Sahara 
no elephants are now found, and though they have been recently 
recommended for the prosecution of African discovery, no elephants 
of that continent are anywhere, or as far as we know have anywhere 
at any time been domesticated. Whence then did the Carthaginians 
obtain these monsters ? 
It is true that the Syrian kings, the successors of Alexander, 
whose empire extended to India, made use of these animals, and 
these were undoubtedly brought overland from regions beyond the 
Indus. It is within the bounds of possibility that those of Carthage 
may have come from the same region to Tyre, and may have been 
transported thence by sea to Africa. As, however, before the 
Greek conquest of Asia, we never hear of their employment either 
in Persia, or Babylonia, or Syria, countries through which they 
must have passed to reach Tyre, nor again in the great Persian 
wars against Greece, it is highly improbable that any reached 
Carthage by this route. Whilst lastly, from the constitution of the 
elephant, and the large amount of food and water which it requires, 
it is unable to cross a desert of very limited extent, much less the 
immense Sahara. 
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