94 MINES IN 



CHAP. II. 



surface, however it may have been formed, could 

 not be so large but it must be soon exhausted 

 after it became known to people so active 

 and enterprising as the Tyrians, the Sidonians, 

 and the Carthaginians were in that day. The 

 establishment of the colonies already mentioned 

 would naturally follow, and at first would 

 principally be made use of to form garrisons for 

 troops to protect the stores which contained the 

 goods brought to exchange for the precious 

 metal, as well as the metal itself when once ob- 

 tained. The new settlers, by means of their 

 troops and their superior weapons, speedily com- 

 pelled the aborigines to explore the bowels of 

 the earth for silver, and thus inflicted on those 

 .uncivilized people a series of calamities which ex- 

 hausted their strength and thinned their numbers. 



" These people," says Diodorus, "though by 

 their labour they enriched their masters to an 

 almost incredible extent, did it by toiling night 

 and day in their golden prisons. They were 

 compelled by the lash to work so incessantly 

 that they died of the hardships in the caverns 

 themselves had dug. Such as by great vigour of 

 body continued in life were in a state of misery, 

 which made death a preferable fate." 



This oppression and exhaustion of the native 

 labourers led to the trade in human beings, 

 which was carried on by the Carthaginians with 

 the interior of Africa, and supplied to Andalusia 



