ministers impartial justice to all his subjects, without regard to race or religion; has established regular judicial courts and a good police; has abolished tortures and other barbarous punishments; has encouraged instruction, to a certain extent; has removed most of the ignorant prejudices, which existed among his subjects, against the arts and learning of Europe; and has introduced European manufactures and machinery. He keeps a printing-office and publishes a newspaper; has formed schools and colleges for the arts and sciences, and for military and naval tactics. But the ambition of the Pacha, and the difficulties of his situation, have obliged him to resort to two violent expedients, an enormous taxation and an oppressive conscription. Many of the subordinate agents of the government in the provinces still exercise occasional acts of capricious tyranny, which seldom reach their master's ears; but when these become known, he is not slow in punishing the offenders, and redressing the grievances of the oppressed.

But the moral change which the Pacha has wrought among his subjects, though perhaps not so immediately palpable as those we have been considering, is much more extraordinary in itself, than all his military, political, commercial, agricultural, and other improvements. He has attacked bigotry and fanaticism at their very source, and, by letting in the light of knowledge among his subjects, he has done more to overturn the empire of a religion essentially hostile to human improvement, than all the declared enemies of Mahometanism put together. Whether his political power will survive his death, and his empire be peaceably

transmitted to his son, may be a doubtful question. But whatever may be the consequence of his reforms with regard to the stability of his dynasty, there is good reason to predict, that the impulse which he has given to the native population will not be lost, and that the seeds of improvement, scattered over Egypt, will spread, in course of time, to other portions of the Arab world, of which Egypt forms a central and most important part.

A recent traveller states, that Mehemet Ali was born in 1769, the same year which gave birth to Napoleon and Wellington. We are not disposed to give much faith to this statement; for, as the Pacha never learned to read till after he was forty years old, it is probable that his own recollection of the year of his birth was not very clear; and the wish must have been father to the thought of fixing the date as above. In person he is of middling size, and dresses very simply. He thinks much of his present reputation, and of the name which he will leave to posterity; and has, for some years past, employed his leisure hours in writing his own history. He has the foreign newspapers translated into Turkish for his perusal, and is not insensible to any calumnies which they contain against him. His activity is very great. In studying history, it is hardly necessary to say that the lives of Alexander the Great and Napoleon have given him the greatest satisfaction. He has always shown the utmost degree of toleration in religious matters, and, in spite of the prejudices of the people, has raised Christians to the rank of Bey, a thing before unheard of among Mussulmans.

THE CARTHAGINIANS.

FOR the origin of this people, we must go back to the Phoenicians, whom we find, at a very early age, inhabiting the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Sanchoniathon, of Berytus, in that country, who has been esteemed the most ancient author next to Moses, according to very learned critics, wrote the antiquities of Phonicia about the time of Joshua, and traces his countrymen back to the beginning of the world. Some striking rays of light beam through his fabulous cosmogony, as we see in most others which have been the production of human fancy. He mentions a dark chaos, and a Spirit which set the world in order; but this is almost the only resemblance which his system bears to the Mosaic history. He mentions a first man and a first woman, though very different from Adam and Eve, and ascribes the invention of arts to their descendants; to one, the discovery of fire; to another, the building of houses; to others, hunting, fishing, the mechanic arts, &c.

The Phoenicians are the people known in Scripture history as the Canaanites, and were celebrated from the earliest periods for their commerce and maritime

enterprise. Living in a country comparatively barren, they were compelled to seek resources elsewhere; and the poverty of their soil stimulated their activity, industry, and invention.

The forests of Mount Lebanon, and the convenience of their harbours, were advantages which they were not slow in improving. It is believed that their commerce became extensive a few generations after the period assigned as the epoch of the deluge; this is the more remarkable, when we consider the rude state of the mechanic arts, and the difficulties of navigation in that age. While the Egyptians beheld the sea with a superstitious horror, the Phoenicians had the courage to adventure boldly upon it, and to traverse every part of the Mediterranean with no other guide than the stars.

They planted numerous colonies in the islands of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Malta, in Greece, Sicily, and Sardinia. They visited the southern coast of Spain, passed the Straits of Gibraltar, and penetrated into the Atlantic. Cadiz, which owed its foundation to them, became a flourishing commercial mart, and they drew immense wealth from Spain, which, in those ages, abounded with the precious metals. Silver was so plentiful among them, that the anchors of their ships were said to be made of it. Six hundred years before Christ, they are believed to have circumnavigated Africa, by sailing down the Red Sea and returning through the Straits of Gibraltar; a voyage which was accomplished in three years.

The Phoenicians were celebrated for their skill in manufactures, especially in the article of cloth. The Phoenician or Tyrian dye, used by them, was unrivalled