hose ships had just captured the large Phoenician brigantine
_Argo_, from Sidon, laden with a valuable freight, otto of roses, and
bound for Carthage--_apropos_ of which I will remark, there is a
military Rome and a mercantile Carthage in modern times. Take care we
be not the Carthage; let us remember that it was from a stranded Punic
vessel the Romans learnt the maritime art, in which, at last, they
excelled their enemies. Hannibal appears to me always the greatest man
of any age, ancient or modern--Napoleon not excepted--and perhaps the
most unfortunate. His character comes to us, as his exploits, from
foreign and hostile sources; for I believe there exist no Phoenician
records; so that there remains a great deal of discount to take off in
the way of disparagement, depreciation, &c. &c. It is as if the future
Australian, standing on the ruins of a city mightier than Carthage,
could obtain no account of Napoleon, but through partial and
depreciatory fragments from the pages of Sir Walter Scott's life of
that extraordinary meteor. Napoleon, it is true, crossed the Alps, but
Hannibal traversed the Alps and Pyrenees too, and I fancy the last are
the more impassable of the two. It is true I have not copied Albert
Smith, or our other heroic youths, but I have climbed the Malodetta,
which well becomes its appellation. Then, Napoleon had a friendly
population at any rate behind him, to bring supplies, &c. Hannibal was
everywhere surrounded by hostile tribes, besides having had the
disadvantage of a march through enemies' countries of several hundred,
if not thousand miles. I hope the living in Spain, for his sake, did
not then consist of _olla podrida_, with a variation of garlic and
acid wine.

Perhaps there existed in these days some machine, or some marvellous
powder, by which real mountains might be removed (as spiritual ones by
faith) at pleasure, and replaced in their original position; but as
history makes no mention thereof, it is but fair to conclude not. No,
the only machine used, the only mine, was the invincible and iron will
of the Carthaginian hero. He, too, if I mistake not, lived under
parliamentary _regime_, in the shape of a senate, a great hamper on
military manoeuvres, where all should be done quickly, secretly, and
unanimously. Napoleon was his own master, with a devoted people. I
wonder if parliamentary debates, in Punic days, were as long and
insipid as in modern; that is, I have not been to them, but j