386 DIVISION I. VERTEBRAL ANIMALS. — CLASS I. MAMMALIA. 



Carried on a considerable trade with the lands and nations beyond the gates 

 of the Red Sea. Their trade in the direction of the Persian Gulf was no 

 less extensive. Through the Syrian Desert, where Palmyra, their chief 

 station or emporium proudly rose above the surrounding sands, their cara- 

 vans slowly wandered to the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, to provide 

 Nineveh and Babylon with the costly merchandise of Sidon and Tyre. Fol- 

 lowing the course of the great Mesopotamian streams, they reached the 

 shores of the Persian Gulf, where they owned the ports of Tylos and 

 Aradus, and the rich pearl islands of Bahrein, and, having loaded their 

 empty camels with the produce of Iran and Arabia, returned by the same 

 way to the shores of the Mediterranean. How far their ships may have 

 ventured beyond the mouth of the Persian Gulf is unknown; but the re- 

 searches of the learned Orientalists, Gescnius, Benfey, and Lassen, render it 

 extremely probable that, taking advantage of the regularly changing mon- 

 soons, they sailed through the Straits of Orinus to the coast of Malabar. 



The progress of the Phoenician race in the technical arts, as well as in the 

 astronomical and mathematical sciences, so highly important for the improve- 

 ment of their navigation, was no less remarkable for (he age in which they 

 live?], than the vast extension of a commercial intercourse which reached from 

 Britain to the Indus, and from the Black Sea to the Senegal. They wove 

 the finest linen, and knew how to dye it with the most splendid purple. 

 They were unsurpassed in the workmanship of metals, and possessed the 

 secret of manufacturing white and colored glass , which their caravans and 

 ships exchanged for the produce of the north and of the south. By the 

 invention of the alphabet, which, with many other useful sciences and arts, 

 they communicated to the Greeks and other nations with whom they traded, 

 they no less contributed to the progress of mankind than by the humanizing 

 influence of commerce. 



Thus, when wc consider the services which these merchant-princes of an- 

 tiquity rendered to their Contemporaries, wherever their flag was seen or 

 their caravans appeared, the annihilation of the maritime power of Tyre by 

 Alexander (o.">2 P>. C. ) , and the destruction of Carthage by the Romans 

 (141) B. ('.), must strike us as events calamitous to the whole human race. 

 Had the Carthaginians, so distinguished by their commercial spirit and ardor 

 for discovery, triumphed over the semi-barbarous Romans, who, then at 

 least, bad not yet learned to imitate the arts of plundered Greece, there is 

 every probability that some Punic Columbus would have discovered America 

 at least a thousand years sooner, and the world at this day be in possession 

 of many secrets still unknown, and destined to contribute to the comforts or 

 enjoyments of our descendants. 



In the times of Homer, when the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic had long 



