50 Before Chrift 524. 



polTibly fee ; and they are equal to be the beft produdions of the Greek 

 and Roman mints, when they had attained the higheft degree of perfec- 

 tion in fculpture and pidlurefque reprefentation. 



The women of that part of the Carthaginian territory, which was 

 near the lake Tritonis, wore goat-llvins ftained red. Perhaps the beau- 

 tiful leather, which we call Morocco, is a continuation of the fame ma- 

 nufaclure *. The Zygantes, another African nation, beiides having 

 plenty of the honey prepared by bees, had a much greater quantity made 

 by the hands of men, which mufl have been fugar (perhaps not brought 

 to a grain) prepared from the liquor of the fugar-cane ; [Herod. L. iv, 

 cc. 189, 194] and this is, I believe, the very firft notice of fugar to be 

 found in hiftory f . 



We know few particulars of the fhips of the Carthaginians, which, we 

 may, however, be affiired, could be nothing inferior to the very beft then 

 in the Mediterranean fea ; as they were acknowleged by Polybius [L. i, 

 cc. 7, 16, 20] to be poflell'ed of hereditary pre-eminence in nautical 

 fcience, and the undifputed dominion of the fea. Their ftiips carried 

 carved figures on their heads or their fterns, as fliips do now, and as pro- 

 bably the {hips of other nations did then. According to Ariftotle, they 

 were the firft who raifed their fhips of war from three to four rows of oars. 



They appointed two commanders to every fhip, the fecond being to 

 fucceed the principal in cafe of death. This fecond officer feems an- 

 fwerable to the mates in our merchant fliips, or the fecond captains of 

 the French. The appointment being noted as a fingularity of the Car- 

 thaginians by ^lian, {Va?: hijl. L. ix, c. 40] it may be prefumed, that 

 other nations had no fuch eftablifhment for fecuring afucceflion of com- 

 mand, and, indeed, there is no fuch fecond officer mentioned in that 

 part of the Rhodian law (even when aflumed in later times into the Ro- 

 man code) which affigns the fliare, or pay, of each man onboard a fhip, 

 the pilot being therein rated next after the commander. 



The Carthaginians were well acquainted with the advantages of con- 

 ftrudling harbours, or wet docks, completely flickered from the violence 

 and ravages of the fea, by digging them entirely out of the main land, 



* The maiuifai^iire of Morocco leather in tliofe was no other than fugar, is pretty ccitaiii from the 



parts of Africa was noticed in the early part of the uniform ptaftice of the Greek and Roman writers, 



fourteenth century by Abulfeda, and in the com- who had no other word than honey to exprefs 



menccrrcnt of the lixteejith by Leo Africanus ; fugar, till they got the gcmiine name of faccbar 



and alfo in modern times in the Proceedings of the from the lialt. The learned Cafaiibon, in his note 



/Ifrican ajjbcialion, and in PnrPs Travels. on the padagc of Strabo, [Z. xv, p. 10163 where 



■\ This information, being undoubtedly derived Neaichus iji quoted, has collected a variety of in- 

 to Herodotus from the Carthaginians, may be fair- ilances of the name of honey being applied to fugar, 

 ly prefumed to carry the fadl to at leaft 500 years when it is exprefsly faid to be made from canes: and 

 before the Chrillian a.ra, and is therefor above the canes thenifelves were called honey canes (' can- 

 200 years older than the mention of fugar by na; mellis') by the writers of the middle ages, when 

 Ncaichus, or that by Theophralliis, which is fome- they were beginning tobc cultivated in Euiope. See 

 times adduced as the catlieil notice of it. Falcandi liijl. SictiL col. 2jS, up. Muratori Script. 



That the fubftance, mentioned by Herodotus, /' vii. 



