=Phœnician Carthage= also developed an extensive literature. The records of the city were kept by native historians; and we know that Ma’go’s great work on agriculture, in twenty-eight parts, was highly appreciated at Rome, and there rendered into Latin. When the city of Hannibal fell before her more powerful rival, her vast library was scattered among the African allies of the Romans, and lost to history. An interesting relic of Carthaginian literature is the Circumnavigation of Hanno, the history of a voyage undertaken in the sixth century B.C. to the coasts of Libya—the oldest history of a voyage existing. This work of Hanno, which used to hang in a temple at Carthage, describes a savage people called _Gorillas_, whose bodies were covered with hair and who defended themselves with stones. The narrator says: “Three women were taken, but they attacked their conductors with their teeth and hands, and could not be prevailed on to accompany us. Having killed them, we flayed them, and brought their skins with us to Carthage.” NOTES ON ASSYRIO-BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. Oldest Semitic cuneiform text written before 3000 B.C. The golden age, 2000-1850 B.C.; oral traditions collected and committed to writing; tile-libraries in all the principal Chaldean cities. Decline begins about 1550 B.C. The term _Chaldean_ long synonymous with _man of learning_. Rise of Assyrian literature, 1500 B.C.; confined to archives and records for a number of centuries. Renaissance under Sardanapalus I. and his son Shalmane´ser II. (885-824 B.C.). Enlargement of the national library in the reign of Tig´lath-Pile´ser II. (745-727 B.C.) and of Sargon (722-705 B.C.), followed by a revival of the study of ancient literature. Copies made of the masterpieces of antiquity. Reign of Sardanapalus II. (668-626 B.C.), the golden age of Assyrian letters. Fall of Nineveh, 625 B.C. Babylon succeeds as the seat of power and the centre of literature in western Asia; attains the height of its glory under Nebuchadnezzar (604-561 B.C.). Great revival of ancient learning: “the Lady of Kingdoms” soon boasts of a library emulating in extent and variety that of her former rival Nineveh. Little of this later Babylonian literature recovered: its restoration left for future laborers in the field of philology. During these centuries, a wild poetry probably flourished on the highland wastes of Arabia, and Phœnician cities attained literary greatness.—Coins made of British tin, the money of Phœnician commerce. CHAPTER VI. _EGYPTIAN LITERATURE._ =The Egyptian Language.=—There yet remains one field of Oriental literature for us to visit, and it is specially interesting on account of the valuable treasures it long concealed. These have recently been brought to light in the writings of that people who settled the fertile valley of the Nile in prehistoric times, and adorned the land of Egypt with monuments inscribed with their mysterious characters.