THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST; 
sooie persons |1» 
naturalist may &?in- ^ title of Mediterranean 
to a pr blitjfetio^ .ad strange, not to say unsuited 
language. T’ a, especially one in the English 
ffiay be mat such an indea is greatly hazarded 
curso*' confidently proved from the foregoing 
pr y remarks, and it is to be hoped that in the 
jar future the readers may realize that innume- 
rable subjects of the deepest interest fall directly 
within its sphere of action, and that they may be 
led to pay greater attention to the study of natu- 
ral objects and phenomena, many of which have 
probably passed before them, perhaps without d ue 
observation, and consequently without having 
afforded them either pleasure or profit. To the 
Naturalist the noblest study is certainly that of 
man himself, and in opening up this periodical, to 
him let us dedicate a few rapid reflections. 
The very name of Mediterranean Sea, of which 
we propose to make a retrospective periplus, or 
circumnavigation, is enshrouded with a conti- 
nuous throng of unparalleled histoi leal asso- 
ciations, which go far back into the hazy past, 
blending on the one hand with the mytholo- 
gical lore of Eastern civilization, as handed 
down to us through the elegant verses of the 
Greek and Roman poets, and on the other 
the still remoter horizon of the inspired history or 
the Semitic race, which settled on its eastern 
shores shortly after the deluge and "hose 
characteristics, habits, occupations, aspirations, 
religious faiths are so vividly portrayed in the 
bible, that the more we learn of that ancient 
people the more we are struck with the pho- 
tographic accuracy of the description, and the 
more we sympathise with them in all their 
troubled history, for to them we owe an un- 
paralleled debt of gratitude. 
At present the Mediterranean sea forms the 
boundary between civilization and barbarism, 
and, sad to say, Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria Morocco 
play a very insignificant part in the history of 
the world. 
Ai Alas/ how often have ruthless scimitars 
» Flashed through the lattice , and a swarthy crew 
Dragged forth, ere long to number them for sale , 
Lire long to part them in their agony. 
Parent and child ... ... ... 
But when, ah when, do they that can forbear 
To crush the unresisting l /Strange that men. 
Creatures so frail „ so soon, alas! to die, 
Should have the power, the will to make this world 
A dismal prison house , and life itself, 
Life in its prime, a burden and a curse 
To him who never wronged them? Who that breathes 
Would not , when first he heard it, turn away 
As from a tale monstrous, incredible ?” 
Rogers. 
J 
Yet Carthage once ruled with powerful sway; 
and we have seen how, still befcre that time, over 
the trackless wastes of the Sahara rolled the waves 
of the sea. Our century of boasted progress must 
needs make up earnestly for loss of time if she 
will aspire to the glory of bringing the swarthy 
sons of the still Dark Continent within the pale 
of civilised nations, to enjoy like liberty and good 
government with ourselves. 
Sailing eastwards we come to the land of 
the Nile, ever symbolized by the sphynx and the 
hieroglyphs; the land of mystery and paradox, 
whose everlasting monuments are ot unrivalled 
massiveness, whose sons have smarted under the 
merciless oppression of others, as they unmerci- 
fully oppressed, and who of yore mummified with 
equal religious care the corpses of their sovereigns, 
of their priests, and of their cats! Here lordly 
Thebes once stood, but now vanished from the 
face of the globe; here stretched the laud of 
Goschen, and behind it the ancient bed of the 
sea. Further behind is the scene of the miraculous 
passage of the Red Sea by the children of Israel, 
600,000 men, besides women and children, in all 
some two millions of souls; while under those waves 
lie buried the mouldering skeletons of the whole 
Egyptian host. 
But what a change the magic wand of Lesseps 
and his engineers has brought about here! He 
has almost restored Africa to the condition of an 
island, which it held in very recent geological 
times. Civilization, commerce, goodwill between 
man and man, now smoothly flow through those 
straits, and help to build up apace the golden 
empire of Greater Britain at the antipodes. 
Thousands of years ago full many a walled city 
might have been espied from the eastern shores of 
the Mediterranean, for there lived the stalwart 
Philistine, of more than ordinary stature, a tur- 
bulant predatory nation, the terror of the children 
