Cory's Ancient Fragments
Notes

1 The 2nd edition was published in 1832.

2 Didot, Paris, 1841.

3 The native name of Phoenicia, so long an insuperable difficulty to scholars, appears from this Egyptian text to have been KEFT i.e., a palm-tree. See the Hebrew text of Isaiah ix. 13, xix. 15, and Job xv. 32.

4 The most important Egyptian texts, translated by competent scholars, are now accessible to English readers in vols. II., IV., and VI. of Records of the Past. Bagster & Sons, London, 1873-5.

5 Since this was written the Rev. J. M. Rodwell has translated from the cuneiform text the Annals of Asurnasir-pal, king of Assyria, B.C. 883.

6 See the article, Behistun Inscription, in the English Cyclopaedia, Supplement, Arts and Sciences.

7 See the article Chaldee Language, in the English Cyclopaedia, Supplement, Arts and Sciences; also, M. Francois Lenormant's learned work, Etudes Acadiennes, Paris, 1873.

8 See on this point the excellent observations of Dr. Ginsburg, in pp. 22 and 23 of The Moabite Stone, 4to, Reeves & Turner, 2nd edition, 1871.

9 The proprietors of the Daily Telegraph, with great public spirit, have since commissioned Mr. George Smith to go to Assyria. Mr. Smith has subsequently undertaken further researches (in a second journey) at Mosul, for the Trustees of the British Museum.

10 See the article Phoenician Language and Inscriptions, in the English Cyclopaedia (Arts and Sciences Supplement).

11 Byblus, the Gebal of the Hebrew Scriptures, is the present Jebail, situated on the sea coast between Beyrout and Tripoli.

12 On the opposite side the reader may consult with advantage Mover's, Die Unechtheit der in Eusebius erhaltenen Fragmente des Sanchoniathon bewiesen. Jahrbuchfur Kath. Theologie.

13 Eusebius (surnamed Pamphilus), born A.D. 264, was a native of Palestine. Being elevated to the see of Caesarea, he died about 338. He was a voluminous writer, and among his other works he composed the Praeparatio Evangelica, in nine volumes, which he dedicated to Theodotus, Bishop of Laodicea. This famous work, upon which his renown chiefly rests, contains fragments of Sanchoniathon, Berosus, and others whose works have since entirely perished.

14 "From Chaos Erebus and ebon Night:
    From Night the Day sprang forth, and shining air,
    Whom to the love of Erebus she gave."
        Hesiod's Theogony (Elton's Translation), line 170.

15 Gen. i. 2, where ערב ('EREV), denotes mixture, twilight, and hence evening. "The earth was without form, and void." Gen. i. 1.

16 Pothos or Desire. This seems to be the same as Eptos, or Cupid, who was held by the Greek mythologists to be the prime cause of all things. See Hesiod's Theogony, v. 120, and Wolff's note upon it.

17 This union was symbolized among the heathen, and particularly by the Phoenicians, by an egg enfolded by a serpent, which disjunctively represented the Chaos and the Æther; but, when united the hermaphroditic first principle of the universe, i.e. Cupid, or Pothos.

18 THOTH was an Egyptian deity of the second order, whose attributes are not well known. The Graeco-Roman mythology identified him with Hermes, or Mercury. His sign is the Ibis, and he is the most important, according to Bunsen, of all the Cabiri. He was reputed to be the inventor of writing, the patron deity of learning, the scribe of the gods, in which capacity he is represented signing the sentences on the souls of the dead.

19 Hebrew קול פי יה, i.e., the voice of the mouth of Yah, or Jehovah.

20 Orelli, the latest editor of these fragments, thinks we should read BAAUT, and that the r has been omitted by error of the copyists. BAAUT, he thinks, might be the Phoenician word for night, since in Chaldee בות (BOOTH), means to pass the night, as in Dan. vi. 19. (v. 18 Eng. Ver.)

21 Aeon is taken by Orelli for Eve. Heb. חוה (KHAVAH); and Protogonus (first-born) for Adam; while GENOS he supposes to be Cain, and Genea his wife.

22 i.e., Cain, as Orelli supposes. His reading is, "From the race of Aeon," &c.

23 Orelli says he has sought in vain for this mountain in the ancient geographers; but thinks it may have been the name of some mountain in Syria, or Arabia Deserta, where was a city mentioned by Ptolemy under the name of Berathena.

24 These two names Bochart takes to be the designation of one person. Scaliger agrees with him, taking Memroumous to be from ממרום, MIMMEROMIM; whence, says Orelli, "the word Ύψουρανιος, Hypsoranius, is only the Greek rendering of these two Phoenician words."

25 "Who does not recognise," says Orelli in his note on this passage, "in these words the Mosaic tradition about the Nephilim (or giants), begotten from the intercourse of the sons of God with the daughters of men?" See Genesis vi. 1, 2.

26 Scaliger supposed here some reference to the hairy Esau. Orelli, following Bishop Cumberland, thinks that such a reference is quite inadmissible, and that we should rather understand some antediluvian descendant of Cain, named Uz, who gave his name to a part of Syria. See Genesis x. 23.

27 The atmosphere and winds, we are told by Julius Firmicus, received divine honours from the Assyrians and people on the shores of Africa, while fire was equally venerated in all the colonies of the Phoenicians, especially in the temple of the Tyrian Hercules at Cadiz (Gades), to extinguish the perpetual fire in which was punished with death. See Creuzer's Symbolik and Munter, Religion der Karthager, 49, 61. Orelli's note, in loc.

28 i.e., the pillars, as representing the mysterious agency of wind and fire.

29 i.e., 'Elion, or the Most High.

30 On this passage Orelli says: "These are Greek renderings of Syrophcenician names. In Hebrew it would read thus: 'And 'Elion begat Said and Sidon, whence the Sidones and Sidonians are named;' for צוד (TSOOD) means both to hunt and to fish."

31 This, as Cumberland remarks, is the first instance of deification. To Chrysor, says Orelli, "the Phoenicians seem to have attributed all those arts which the Greeks referred to the three gods, Vulcan, Mercury, and Apollo. Chrysor may be, as Cumberland supposed, from the Hebrew חרץ (KHARATS), which has the meaning of sharpening, cutting, etc. In Assyrian it means gold.

32 As Adam may have been designated before by the name of Protogonus, so here, under the name of Geinos Autochthon, Orelli supposes to be meant the first man who settled down and lived in a house constructed of sun-dried bricks, in contrast with the nomades and dwellers in huts built of rushes and reeds.

33 Philo is here quite in error, says Scaliger, for instead of שדה SADEH, a field, he should have read Shaddai, שדי, Almighty. Philo, or rather Sanchoniathon, is speaking of gods like Pan, Pales, or Sylvanus, agricultural and pastoral deities; but he confounds one of them with the greatest god of the people of Byblos, the Shaddai of the Jews.

34 Like the ark of the covenant among the Jews. See 2 Samuel vi. 3, and compare with Amos v. 26 and Acts vii. 43.

35 Misor, no doubt, indicates the establisher of Government in Egypt, for Mitzraim (in which name we recognise the Hebrew dual number for the Upper and Lower country) is the usual word for Egypt in the Hebrew Scriptures; still called MISR in Arabic.

36 Sydyk. Hebrew צדיק (Tsadik), means the righteous one. Wagner thinks by this name is designated not any man, but the institution of law and civil government.

37 El 'Elyon is the title given to the god of Melchizedek, King of Salem, who is called priest of El 'Elyon, which our version renders priest of the Most High God.

38 Perhaps Berith, which in Hebrew signifies a covenant or engagement, whence a Phoenician deity was called Baal-Berith, like the Zeus Orkios of the Greeks, and the Deus Fidius of the Romans. This legend of El 'Elyon and Berith (covenant), seems to me an obscure allusion to what is related in Genesis xiv. 18 24.

39 Kronus answers to the Saturn of the Romans.

40 Or, Thoth, i.e. the thrice great Hermes.

41 Proserpine.

42 i.e., Heaven.

43 Dagon is represented in 1 Samuel v. 4, as an idol of the Philistines, with fish's tail; but in Genesis xxvii. 28, nearly the same word means corn the one being Dagon, the other dagan [דגן].

44 Byblus, the modern Jebail, is here represented as the most ancient city of the Canaanites. It was celebrated for the worship of Tammuz, or Adonis; who, in the same manner as Elioun, is said to have been slain in an encounter with wild beasts. The mysterious rites of this worship even infected the Jews. (See Ezekiel viii. 14.) Byblus was famous for its celebration of the mysteries of Adonis, which even passed to Athens.

45 Elohim is the plural of Eloahzrgod. This plural, (which some regard as a pluralis excellentiae), is the word constantly used in the Hebrew Scriptures for God. Some, on the other hand, have hence inferred the original polytheism of the Jews.

46 Baetulia. Instead of λιθους εμψχους, i.e., animated stones, as Philo has rendered it, we may, I think, with Orelli, believe that Sanchoniathon had written אבנים נשפים (AVANIM NESHAPHIM), anointed stones, from the root שוף (SIIOOPH), used in Syriac (2 Samuel xii. 20, and xiv. 2) in the sense of anointing. Philo, by transposing the letters Q and S, has completely altered the meaning of the author he undertakes to translate, and rendered him ridiculous. By this transposition the stones which Jacob set up at Bethel for a pillow, and which subsequently, when anointed, he consecrated to God (as we read, Genesis xxviii. 18), have become in Philo's translation animated instead of anointed stones. Such stones, called Baitylia, of a spherical form, were consecrated, we are told by Nicolaus of Damascus, to various gods. We are, however, to understand in this passage of Sanchoniathon, according to Orelli, either aerolites, or more probably, as he thinks, stones which, by a superstitious notion of the ancients, were supposed to contain some divine or spiritual essence, such as the Pessinuntian stone sent by Attalus, King of Phrygia, to the Romans, in which Cybele, "the mother of the gods," was believed to lie concealed. See Livy's Roman History, Book xxix. 11 and xiv., and Arnobius, advers. Gentes, Book vii. chap. 46.

47 i.e., deified.

48 Whence in Bashan a city sacred to Astarte was called (Gen. xiv. 5) ASHTEROTH-KARNAIM; i.e., Astarte with the two horns, or, the crescent moon.

49 Tyre was regarded as a holy city. In support of this we have the testimony of Arrian, who says, in his Expedition of Alexander the Great: "There was in that city (Tyre), a temple dedicated to Hercules (Melkarth), the most ancient of all those recorded in history. This is not the Grecian Hercules, for he was the son of Alcmena. But this Hercules, (Baal or Melkarth), was worshipped at Tyre many ages before Cadmus sailed from Phoenicia and seized Thebes (in Boeotia), and long before Semele was born to Cadmus. Nevertheless, the Hercules worshipped by the Iberians (Spaniards), at Tartessus, who gave the name to the pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar), is, in my opinion, the same with the Tyrian. For Tartessus was built by the Phoenicians, and a temple was reared there, and sacrifices performed to Hercules after the Phoenician manner." Again, in Book ii., chap. 24, "They who had fled to the temple of Hercules (being some of the chief nobility of Tyre, besides King Azelmicus, and some Carthaginian priests, who, according to ancient custom, were sent to their mother-city to offer sacrifices to Hercules) had the benefit of a free pardon."

50 What relation Kronus or Saturn may really bear to Abraham it is difficult to say; but there are certain points of resemblance which are quite unmistakable. 1st, Kronus and Abraham both offer up a son in sacrifice, (Isaac being only saved at the last moment by a special intervention); 2nd, both circumcise themselves; 3rd, both compel their dependents to do the same.

51 The god or genius of Death; i.e., Pluto. מות, MUTH, in this sense, occurs in Psalm xlviii. 15. Eng. Vers. 14. See also Ps. xlix. 14.

52 A daughter of Ouranos and Ge, or heaven and earth, and wife of Kronus or Saturn.

53 In Hebrew this would be בעלת (BAALATH), the wife, viz., of Baal. She was hence, according to Hesychius, either Juno or Venus. She was worshipped in Carthage as Queen of Heaven, as also by the idolatrous Jews. See Jeremiah vii. 18 and xliv. 17.

54 Dione is also a daughter of Ouranos and Ge, or heaven and earth. In classical mythology she is represented as beloved by Jupiter, to whom she bore Venus. Homer represents Dione as receiving her wounded daughter with caresses and consolations, and threatening Diomede with a wretched future.

55 Berytus, once a famous seat of law and. learning, now the seaport for Damascus. It is now called Beyroot.

56 The Cabiri, or Great Gods, eight in number, were mysterious deities, who were especially venerated at Lemnos, and at Samothrace. The worship of the Cabiri extended to all the western parts of the ancient world. Hence, we read of Breotian, Egyptian, Macedonian, Etruscan, and Pelasgian Cabin. They were especially invoked by sailors, and eventually confounded with the Dioscuri, i.e., Castor and Pollux.

57 The first instance on record of the consecration of relics. Bp. Cumberland, in loc.

58 By the son of Thabion both Cumberland and Wagner understand Sanchoniathon himself; but Orelli, with more probability, thinks that Jerombaal or Jerubaal, priest of the god IAO, is meant. Whether the same as Gideon, who is also called Jerubaal (Judges vi. 32) cannot be decided.

59 By the name Isiris Cumberland thinks Misor, or Mizraim, the brother of Taut, or Thoth, is meant.

60 i.e., Canaan, the native name for Phoenicia, as we find on the Phoenician coins of Laodicea ad Libanum. See my article "Phoenician Language and Inscriptions," in the Supplement (Arts and Sciences) to the English Cyclo. 1874.

61 Quare, II ?

62 i.e., Conceiving by favour, as interpreted by Bochart. By this name he thinks Sarah, the wife of Abraham, is intended.

63 יחיד YAKHID, only-begotten, or only son. See the Hebrew text of Gen. xxii. 2.

64 Or Melkarth, i.e., King of the City, the Baal of Tyre. To this deity a very ancient and richly adorned temple was erected, which was renowned throughout the world. Annual gifts were sent thither from Carthage and the most distant Phoenician colonies. During my residence at Safed, in Galilee, in 1855, a great treasure of Tyrian coins was discovered, some of the finest of which I purchased. On one side was seen, beautifully executed, the head of the Tyrian Baal; on the other an eagle (the symbol of the Syro-Macedonian dynasty, which at that time governed Tyre), with the inscription in Greek, which being translated reads, "Of Tyre a holy city and asylum."

66 Literally, the broad dance. It designates, no doubt, an open space, as a square or promenade.

67 Jupiter Belus, or Olympius; i.e., the Tyrian Baal. By some writers he is called the Tyrian Hercules. From this deity the two mountains on the Strait of Gibraltar are called the Pillars of Hercules Abyla on the one side and Calpe on the other for, so far the Tyrian Hercules (or Baal) is said to have carried his conquests; in other words, so far did Phoenician commerce, at a very early period, extend.

68 Called LULIA, in the cuneiform inscription of Sennacherib (Taylor cylinder line 35). This interesting historical document has been translated into English, and will be found at p. 35 of vol. 1. of "Records of the Past." Norris, in his Assyrian Dictionary (sub voce LlJLI, p. 670), says the name Luliah occurs also in the Bellino cylinder, i. 18, and at line 13 of the Nebbi-Yunas inscription which records the campaigns of Esarhaddon. I do not find the name in either. In the Bellino no mention of Sidon at all, while in the Nebbi-Yunas the King is called Abdi-Milkutti. Josephus (Antiq. ix. 14) calls him Elulaeus, King of Tyre.

69 Acco, now St. Jean dAcre: the Ptolemais of the New Testament. It occurs in Judges i. 31; Micah i. 10 (Heb. text), and i Maccab. v. 22.

70 i.e., Old Tyre.

71 Ethbaal seems to have been a common Phoenician name. The first Tyrian king of this name gave his daughter Jezebel, (whence our name Isabella), to wife to Ahab, King of Israel. The sovereign here mentioned transferred the seat of government to Tyre on the island, which, in the time of Alexander the Great, was joined to Old Tyre on the mainland.

72 Menander does not say that at the end of the time the city was taken. We learn this, however, from other sources, although some, from the silence of Menander, have inferred that Nebuchadnezzar raised the siege and departed without capturing Tyre.

73 Derived from περι around, and πλους a sailing, a voyage; hence Periplus = a circumnavigation.

74 The mountains Abyla and Calpe, situated on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar, were called by the ancients the Pillars of Hercules.

75 Probably Mogadore.

76 Cape Bojador.

77 Supposed to be identical with the River d'Ouro; or Rio d'Ouro.

78 i.e., Dwellers in caves.

79 Probably, the island of Arguin, under the southern Cape Blanco.

80 Perhaps the river St. John.

81 Perhaps the river Senegal.

82 Probably Cape Palmas.

83 Perhaps Sierra Leone.

84 Probably Cape Three Points.

85 The Assyrian Canon, by George Smith. Bagster, 1875.

86 Mr. George Smith has since announced (Assyrian Discoveries, pp. 167, 179, 182) that he has found a tablet with the name of the hero of the Deluge written phonetically, KHA-SIS-ADRA; so that Xisuthrus is evidently only a Greek corruption.

87 Ur is the name of an ancient Babylonian deity.

88 For the explanation of the Babylonian words saros, neros, and sossus, see p. 53 of the present work, line 8th from the top.

89 This is the Greek rendering of Sippara, called Sepharvaim, or the two Sipparas in our Bible. 2 Kings xvii. 24.

90 This signifies both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Here it must mean the latter.

91 Sippara, or Sepharvaim.

92 The Persian Gulf.

93 Larissa, the modern Senkereh. The name Larsd occurs in a cuneiform inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, now in the British Museum. See also Xenophon's Anab. Bk iii. c. 4.

94 i.e., Khasis-Adra.

95 UR, an ancient Babylonian deity, mentioned in the Cuneiform inscription of Urukh as the eldest son of Bel. See Records of the Past, vol. iii. pp. 9, 10.

96 Perhaps the god ANU, of the Assyrian inscriptions.

97 Sippara, or Sepharvaim.

98 Babylon is the Greek form of the Assyrian name Bab-ilu, i.e., Gate of God. It was regarded as a holy city. The Hebrew word BlLBOOL, resembling Babihi in sound, and signifying confusion, gave rise to the narrative of the confusion of tongues, and led to the Jewish explanation of the name Babel as connected with that event. A story somewhat similar is found in a cuneiform inscription translated by Mr. Boscawen, and published in the Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., vol. iv.

99 The Persian Gulf.

100 Compare with Genesis i. 2.

101 This is a Greek corruption of the Aramaic word, עמיקא, i.e., the deep; the ocean.

102 Thalath, or Thalassa, is evidently ταάλς, i.e., τα for tha the Egyptian feminine article the, and the Greek άλς, salt hence, the sea.

103 The 5th month of the Macedonian year, answering to May and June.

104 The sun was worshipped by the Assyrians as a God, under the name of Shamas, the Hebrew Shemesh.

105 Compare with Genesis viii. 7, 12.

106 See Genesis viii. 20.

107 Compare with this the translation of Enoch, Genesis v. 23, 24.

108 Compare with Genesis viii. 4. Ararat is the Hebrew name of Armenia. See 2 Kings xix. 37.

109 The mountains of Kurdistan.

110 Or mineral pitch. See Genesis vi. 14.

111 i.e., an antidote to poison, and an amulet, or charm, against the evil eye.

112 The Jews.

113 Amytis.

114 i.e. Man or servant of Merodach.

115 Nabonidus.

116 The Macedonian month Loos answers to our July.

117 Nabonidus.

118 Nahar Malcha, or Ar Malcha, i.e., the royal river, or canal.

119 i.e., Sepharvaim.

120 Epiphanius, one of the Fathers, calls this mountain Lubar; the Zend-Avesta styles it Al Bordj.

121 Abimelech, king of Gerar.

122 Hazael, King of Syria.

123 Aaron.

124 Pitch-pine.

125 Mizraim.

126 Amytis.

127 Khasis-Adra.

128 No number is given in the original text.

129 Belibus, in the Annals of Sennacherib, of the Bellino Cylinder. (See Records of the Past, vol. i., p. 26.)

130 Esarhaddon.

131 These remarks, within brackets, are by Eusebius.

132 Nabopollasar, see p. 84.

132a Amytis.

133 The name Sardanapalus being applied to various persons leaves it doubtful whether Saracus or Busalossorus, (i.e., Nabopollassar), be intended.

134 Or, entrusted the palace to Egoritus. Doubtful in the original, according to the Armenian editor.

135 Dionysus is the Greek name for Bacchus. It is of Assyrian origin, being properly דין ניטי, i.e., Judge of Men, or Ruler of Men, a title of the Sun, (Shamas) as a deity.

136 For illustration and explanation of this fragment see The Chaldean Account of Genesis, pp. 64, 66.

137 Samdan in Assyrian.

138 The first king of Argos, B.C. 1910.

139 Clemens Alex. Stromata, p. 332, ed Sylburg.

139a Eusebius, in his Praeparatio Evangelica. Book ix. 17.

140 In his Berosi Chaldceorum Histories qua super sunt, p. 33. Leipsig, 1825.

141 Or Cyropolis, in Syria, a city built by the Jews in honour of, and in gratitude to, Cyrus, as the liberator of their nation from Babylonian servitude.

142 This Epistle is now generally regarded as that of the pseudo-Manetho; not the Manetho who wrote the lists of kings, but one who assumed and abused his name.

143 The researches of Pococke and Hamilton have long since proved this to be the Memnon of the Ancients, while the hieroglyphic labours of Champollion have established the claims of Amenoph to the statues he erected.

144 See 1 Kings xi. 40.

145 Perhaps Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, or some one ruling as a tributary to the Assyrian monarch.

146 Called So, or Seve, in 2 Kings xvii. 4.

147 2 Kings xix. 9.

148 Eusebius omits the last king, and inserts Ammeres at the beginning as the first.

149 Eusebius omits Artabanus, and between Cambyses and Darius places the Magi, with a reign of seven months.

150 Danaus was the first king of the Argives.

151 TYPHON was the Ahriman, or Satan, of the Egyptian theology. "Down to the time of Rameses, B.C. 1300, he was one of the most venerated and powerful gods. After about 970 B.C. he was regarded as the foe of Osiris and all the gods of Egypt." BUNSEN'S Egypt's Place, vol. i., p. 456.

152 Called ON in Genesis xli. 45, 50; AN in Egyptian.

153 By Osarsiph he means Moses, the Jewish lawgiver and deliverer.

154 Tethmosis was a sovereign of the i8th dynasty, according to Eusebius.

155 i.e., a Diospolitan; for Thebes, (called No in our Bibles), was designated by the Greeks as Diospolis; i.e. the city of Jupiter (Ammon.)

156 The temple of Jupiter Ammon was situated in the Oasis of Siwah, as it is now called.

157 From ίερος, a temple, and συλαω, to plunder.

158 Various readings of this word are given, as Syriada, Sirida, Seiria. Voss proposes that we should read, Eirath.

159 See the English translation of this book from the Ethiopia by Abp. Lawrence, (Oxford, 1821), and compare with it the extracts from it in Syncellus, upon the so-called Egregors, alluded to in the Epistle of Jude (verse 6).

160 There are on either side of the Strait two mountains, here called pillars, viz., Gebel Tarifa and Abyla.

161 Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia.

162 i.e., Neptune.

163 Or Euhcmerus of Messana, an atheistic philosopher, friend of Cassander, king of Macedon.

164 Cybele, "the great mother," the Ops of the Roman mythology.

165 Ceres.

166 Juno.

167 Priests of Jupiter in the island of Crete, and of the goddess Cybele.

168 Casius is the name of a mountain on the coast of Egypt, now called Ras Kasaroim. It lies east of Pelusium. Another Mount Casius, (Jebel Okrah), is placed in the north of Syria, on the coast, south of the Orontes. It is uncertain which Mount Casius is intended in the text.

169 The Gaetulians are the Berber tribes, now known by the names of Kabyles, Shelloofs, Beni-Mezab, &c., who are cognate in race and language with the aborigines of the Canary Islands. Their languages constitute the sub-Semitic branch of the Semitic linguistic family. Vide my article Semitic Languages, in the English Cyclopaedia, Supplement (Arts and Sciences).

170 From the Greek νεμειν, to feed, because they were fed, or maintained, by wandering about like grazing cattle.

171 There are two ancient cities on the north coast of Africa which were formerly called Hippo (Phoenician עבו UBBO, a bay). The one was Hippo Regius, once the residence of the Numidian kings, and the episcopal see of St. Augustine, now Bona. It is between the Cap de Fer (Ras Hadeed) and La Calle; the other, formerly called Hippo Zarytus (i.e., Hippo of the Canal) standing on a beautiful land-locked harbour, with a narrow entrance (like a canal) to the Mediterranean, is now called Ben Zert (i.e., son of the canal). The former is in Algeria, and belongs to the French; the latter to Tunis. It is uncertain which of the two is intended by our author.

172 Carthage was founded by Dido, who is also called Elisa, about 100 years before Rome. Upon the murder of her husband, (Sichaeus or Acerbas), by Pygmalion her brother, she fled from Tyre, and founded this famous city. It was for many centuries the rival of Rome, but about 150 B.C. it was destroyed by Scipio, the Roman general. It is said to have continued burning for seventeen days. Extensive ruins and mounds of earth, extending from the sea to the walls of Tunis, along the shore of the lake, with here and there a few broken arches of an aqueduct, are all that remain of this once proud city, whose circumference, it is said, was nearly twenty-four miles.

173 In Arabic, NÎL signifies blue, hence 'the blue Nile,' Bahrat Neel.