The Saracenic power did not long retain its unity or importance; and as we discern this territory in the dawn of modern history, when the countries of Europe are appearing in their new nationalities, we recognize five different communities or states, Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Barca, the last of little moment and often included in Tripoli, the whole constituting what was then, and is still, called the Barbary States. This name has sometimes been referred to the Berbers, or Berebbers, constituting part of the inhabitants; but I delight to follow the classic authority of Gibbon, who thinks that the term, first applied by Greek pride to all strangers, and finally reserved for those only who were savage or hostile, justly settled, as a local denomination, along the northern coast of Africa.[2] The Barbary States, then, bear their past character in their name. They occupy an important space on the earth's surface: on the north washed by the Mediterranean Sea, furnishing such opportunities for prompt intercourse with Southern Europe that Cato was able to exhibit in the Roman Senate figs freshly plucked in the gardens of Carthage; bounded on the east by Egypt, on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the south by the vast, mysterious, sandy, flinty waste of Sahara, separating them from Soudan or Negroland. In advantage of position they surpass every other part of Africa,--unless we except Egypt,--communicating easily with the Christian nations, and thus, as it were, touching the very hem and border of civilization. [2] Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chap. LI. Vol. IX. p. 465. Climate adds attractions to this region, which is removed from the cold of the north and the burning heat of the tropics, while it is enriched with oranges, citrons, olives, figs, pomegranates, and luxuriant flowers. Its position and character invite a singular and suggestive comparison. It is placed between the twenty-fifth and thirty-seventh degrees of north latitude, occupying nearly the same parallels with the Slave States of our Union. It extends over nearly the same number of degrees of longitude with our Slave States, which seem now, alas! to stretch from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rio Grande. It is supposed to embrace about 700,000 square miles, which cannot be far from the space comprehended by what may be called the _Barbary States of America_.[3] Nor does the comparison end here. Algiers, for a long time the most obnoxious place in the Barbary States of Africa, the chief seat of Christian slavery, and once branded by an indignant chronicler as "the wall of the barbarian world," is situated near the parallel of 36° 30' north latitude, being the line of what is termed the Missouri Compromise, marking the "wall" of Christian slavery in our country, west of the Mississippi.