greatness, was still the capital of Africa and the seat of the imperial prefect. The power of Phœnicia, almost omnipotent in the maritime world of the ancients, founded upon boundless wealth, upon extensive acquaintance with distant lands and peoples, upon scientific secrets, whose importance was exaggerated by mystery, and upon the undisputed dominion of the seas, had been transmitted to Carthage, her favorite and most important colony. A brief notice of the history of the latter, so intimately connected with the fortunes of every nation of ancient and modern Europe, is not foreign to an account of the Mohammedan conquest of Africa, nor to that of the subsequent occupation of Spain. For, inspired by her example, from her harbor issued the first naval expedition of the Moslems in the West, which ravaged the coasts of Sardinia, threatened the Greek empire, and subdued the Balearic Isles. The invention of the compass, popularly but erroneously attributed to the sailors of Amalfi, it has been conjectured, with some degree of probability, was in reality a legacy of Tyre to Carthage; and it is certain that the peculiar properties of the magnet, designated the Stone of Hercules, were familiar to the mariners of those cities, who employed it in divination and in the secret ceremonies of their temples upon the shores of every sea. The straight sword of the Spanish Arab, so different from the curved blade of the Orient, is the sword of the Carthaginian; a weapon which, subsequently adopted by Rome from Iberia, conquered the world, including the African warriors who invented it. The cap of the Basque is a modification of the old Punic, or Phrygian, head covering, still worn by the Jewesses of Tunis, and which, in our day, has been adopted as one of the emblems of Liberty. The toga of Rome and the burnous of the Arab can be traced to the same origin, being derived by Carthage from Phœnicia, and by the latter from Lydia; and the names, customs, traditions, and ceremonies of modern Spain suggest daily, to the intelligent observer, the enduring impressions produced by the domination of the ancient Queen of the Mediterranean. Even in her ruin did Carthage contribute to the progress of science and the well-being of humanity. The cathedral of Pisa, under whose dome Galileo pursued his experiments and perfected the pendulum-clock, was constructed of the marbles of her palaces; and the unrivalled mosque of Cordova, the centre of mediæval learning, in whose precincts was the finest library of the age, still contains hundreds of columns, around whose shafts once curled the wreaths of incense that rose from the altars of the Tyrian Hercules. But far more important than all else was the influence exerted upon the Arab invaders by the defaced and shattered memorials of her departed grandeur. Despite the effects of Roman hate and vengeance, the destructive energy of Genseric, and the shameless neglect of the Byzantine emperors, Carthage was still a