The surplus of the industry of Egypt appears to have been at the disposal of the sovereigns to whom all the lands belonged, and for which they exacted a rent in kind, as is the custom among the native powers on both peninsulas of India to this day.  By that means, they were enabled to produce those stupendous works which have been the admiration and wonder of all succeeding generations, and of every nation.  The city of Thebes, with the labyrinth; Memphis, the canals, and the pyramids would all be incredible, had not their singular structure preserved those latter efforts of industry from the ravages of time, and left them nearly entire to the present day.

The Phoenicians were a colony from that great country; for the Egyptians in general had a dislike to the sea.  It is well known, however, that people who live immediately on the coast have a propensity to navigation, and it is probable that those Egyptians who left their own fruitful land to settle on the barren borders of Syria, were from the delta of Lower Egypt, which lies on the sea coast, and is intersected by a number of branches of the river Nile. {25}

It is not surprising that such a colony, following the natural propensity to naval affairs, and carrying with it the arts of dying and weaving, together with whatever else the Egyptians knew, should become under the influence of necessity, and in a favourable situation for arts and commerce, as much celebrated for commercial riches, as their mother country had long been for agriculture and the cultivation of the sciences.

—–­ {25} That the Phoenicians were from Egypt is not doubted, and their becoming a totally different people from being on a different soil and in a different situation, is a strong proof of the influence of physical circumstances on the characters of nations. -=-

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Tyre accordingly is the first example of a city becoming rich and powerful by arts and commerce, and though few details are known, yet those are of a very decided character.

The pride of the Tyrians appears to have been the cause of their fall, and that pride was occasioned by the possession of wealth, far beyond that of any other people then in the world.  While they were great they aimed at monopoly, and were partly the cause of the rapid decay of Jerusalem.  After the death of Solomon, they founded a colony, well situated for the extention of their own trade, which consisted chiefly in bringing the rich produce of Arabia, and India, into the western world.  Carthage was placed on the south coast of the Mediterranean to the west of Egypt, so as never to have any direct intercourse with India itself, while it lay extremely well for distributing the merchandize, brought by the Tyrians, from thence in the interior of Africa, Spain, Sicily, Italy, and the parts that lay distant from the mother city. {26}