[Footnote 1: The classical student will be gratified and surprised by the remains of antiquity described by Dr. Shaw, English chaplain at Algiers in the reign of George the First, in his _Travels and Observertions relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant_, published in 1738.] The Saracenic power did not long retain its unity or importance; and, as we view this territory, in the dawn of modern history, when the countries of Europe are appearing in their new nationalities, we discern five different communities or states,--Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Barca,--the latter 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 a part of the inhabitants; but I delight to follow the classic authority of Gibbon, who thinks[2] that the term, first applied by Greek pride to all strangers, and finally reserved for those only who were savage or hostile, has justly settled, as a local denomination, along the northern coast of Africa. The Barbary States, then, bear their past character in their name. [Footnote 2: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ix. chap. lvi. p. 465.] They occupy an important space on the earth's surface; on the north, washed by the Mediterranean Sea, furnishing such opportunities of 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, indefinite, sandy, flinty wastes of Sahara, separating them from Soudan or Negroland. In the advantages 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.