The Phoenicians introduced Syrian ideas of religion into North Africa, more especially the worship of Baal-hammana (the Lord Ammon) or Milk (Moloch, the “King”), to whom human sacrifices were offered; Tanit, the “Face of Baal,” the virgin goddess of the moon, a variant of the Syrian Astarte; Ashmun, the God of Healing (Æsculapius); Rashūf, the Flame, Fire, or Lightning God (= Apollo); Baal Milkkart, the “King of the City” identified with Hercules; Tammuz or Adonis (a beautiful young man); Pateχ, a hideous dwarf god; Rabbat Amma, the “Lady Mother,” a goddess like the Greek Cybele. These religious ideas became associated in southern Tunis and Tripoli with the worship of the _phallus_ as a symbol of life-giving, creative power, and so powerfully tinged the mentality of the indigenes of this region that down to the present day there are schismatics in Islam (especially in the Island of Jerba) that erect small phallic temples and shrines, or crown with a phallic symbol every minaret. It is here, as well as in the fifth- and sixth-century buildings of south-eastern Syria, dating from the early days of Byzantine architecture, that one may trace the evolution of the _mahrab_ (mihrab) or holy shrine of the Muhammadan mosque from the hollow phallus, into which the country people of Jerba enter to say their prayers. This cult once existed in western Arabia, and it is remarkable to find such distinct traces of it in the ruins of Zimbabwe in south-east Africa. The Phoenicians being used to the tamed “Indian” elephant in Syria—a region in which there were wild Indian elephants down to about the time of the Phoenician settlement of the Syrian coast—brought about the taming of the smaller African elephant in North Africa. Probably they also introduced Syrian breeds of horses, cattle, and pigs, though the sheep and goats of Mauretania seem rather to have been derived from Spain. They brought thither the Syrian greyhound and perhaps some other breeds of dogs; but not the white, wolfish dog of the Berber nomads, which came from Europe. To these beauty-loving Tyrian mariner-merchants is due the early introduction of the peacock into North Africa. It is still a common domestic bird in Tunisia, and figures on old inscribed stones, even far away in the desert, which date, seemingly, back to Carthaginian times. The Phoenicians probably brought with them, likewise from Syria, the cultivated vine, olive, fig, and pomegranate.