when we consider that not more than one-third of the ground within the walls is covered with dwellings, and that these dwellings are not more than one story high, the population of the fortified part cannot be great. But the suburbs are exceedingly extensive and populous, and the river which washes its walls is covered with boats, for four or five miles, in which reside multitudes of families, who have no habitations on shore. On the wharf of the river, which is commodious and pleasant, stand the factories of the different European nations. In these reside the supercargoes belonging to the respective companies, who are appointed to dispose of the cargoes brought to market, to supply the ships with others for Europe in return, and, during their absence, to contract with the merchants for such articles as may be judged necessary for the next fleet. Including the inhabitants of the suburbs, and of the boats on the river, the population of Canton may be estimated at a million and a half--an immense assemblage of human beings, exceeding even that of London, watches and tin. The trade between Canton and the rest of the world is regulated by a council called Hong, consisting of twelve or fourteen men of rank and wealth: this council superintends the disposal of all foreign cargoes, and provides those to be exported. The Chinese are, in general, extremely fraudulent and deceitful in their dealings, thinking it no disgrace to overreach their customers, if possible; yet there are some men of probity among their merchants. To the honour of England, the confidence reposed in our East India Company is so great, that bales of goods, with their mark, frequently pass unopened from hand to hand, through a great many owners. The pride of the Chinese is so great, that while they receive for their commodities a great number of articles of the first necessity to them, and a large sum in silver annually, they consider other nations as highly favoured to be permitted to traffic with them; and frequently threaten, on any slight offence, to withhold this permission altogether. It is probable that, if they were so to do, they themselves would be the greatest sufferers. As Canton is seldom entered by Europeans-and when permission is granted, curiosity is under restraint lest jealousy should be excited-we know little of its interior. A dreadful calamity happened to this vast trading city The streets of the suburbs are long and narrow, and filled November 1, 1822, which threatened destruction to the with shops on each side, and the burning rays of the sun are persons and property of thousands; and actually destroyed excluded by an awning stretched over them. At the end of the latter to an immense amount. A fire broke out in the each street is a barrier, which is shut every evening. No suburbs on the evening of that day, which, in consequence carriages of any kind are used in Canton, all burdens being of the violence of the wind and the superstitious apathy of carried by porters across their shoulders on bamboos. the inhabitants, baffled all the attempts of the European The principal exports from Canton are, nearly thirty mil-residents to extinguish it. Nothing was spared on their part lions of pounds of tea annually, of which the far greater part is taken by the English; nankin, so called because first made at the city of Nankin, from cotton, whose natural colour is that of the stuff; silks, mother of pearl, tortoiseshell, tutenagree-a kind of white metal, porcelain, &c. Great Britain and her eastern settlements send to the port of Canton-woollen cloths, cotton, opium, betel nut, furs, to arrest the progress of the devouring element, and great quantities of goods were removed to a place of safety: but all their exertions could not prevent the destruction of from fourteen to sixteen thousand houses, and all the foreign factories, with property to the amount of five millions sterling. The loss of the East India Company was estimated at 500,0007. EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE. THE necessity of the erection of lighthouses on dangerous coasts was very early impressed upon maritime nations; and so well has their value been understood by all countries, that the fiercest conquerors, who unhesitatingly inflicted the most savage injuries upon the people they conquered, have, we believe, without a single exception, held these edifices sacred; a natural, though perhaps partly unconscious, piety preventing them from injuring edifices so important, not to this or that nation, but to mankind. Although both in parliament and through the medium of the press, exceptions have been from time to time taken to the system by which our lighthouses are kept up, it cannot be denied, even by the warmest opponents of that system, that these important edifices are highly creditable at once to our spirit, liberality, and science. Among the most remarkable of those excellent structures is that which is erected on one of a knot of rocks which are situated in the English Channel, at about fourteen miles S. S. W. from Plymouth. This rock and its fellows are called the Eddystones, probably from the eddy or whirlpool formed by the waves as they break upon them; and as they are completely invisible at high water, they were for ages very fatal to vessels sailing to and from England at that part of the The frequency of these accidents made the erection of a lighthouse to warn the mariner of his approach to the coast. Eddystones at once a very desirable and very difficult achievement. Propositions were frequently made for this useful work, but nothing was done towards actually commencing it until the year 1696, when Mr. Winstanley, a private gentleman, but exceedingly well skilled in mechanics, undertook the work, and completed it in the comparatively short space of four years. There is some considerable diversity in the descriptions which exist of this structure; but the best authenticated accounts state it to have been a stone building, one hundred feet high, and in shape a polygon. Great as the height of the building was, the sea in very tempestuous weather frequently dashed completely over it, and many practical engineers gave it as their opinion that sooner or later some violent storm would sweep away the building altogether. Mr. Winstanley held a very different opinion; for so confident was he of the surpassing strength of his work, that he more than once expressed his desire to be in "during the most violent storm that ever came from the heavens." In this wish, if it were sincere, and not a mere unreflecting boast, he was but too fatally gratified. On the 26th of November, in the year 1703, there arose the most terrible storm that had ever raged in England; and during the night the Eddystone lighthouse was completely swept away. Singularly enough it happened that Mr. Winstanley was at the time residing in the lighthouse for the purpose of superintending some repairs; and he, as well as the light-keepers, perished by this calamitous occurrence. gigantic task in 1756, and in 1759 had it completed and lighted: it is of stone, circular in shape, and gradually For a time the fatal destruction of this edifice deterred decreases in circumference from the base to the summit-a even the boldest and ablest engineers from attempting the shape which was suggested to the able architect by the erection of a new one; but the Winchelsea, a valuable trunk of an oak. If we may judge from the violent temvessel homeward bound from North America, being wrecked pests which this noble building has successfully and without by striking upon the Eddystone, parliament interfered, and a the slightest injury withstood, there is every probability new lighthouse was erected by Captain Lovell. The new that it will continue as safe for many centuries to come. In building was circular, and built of wood instead of stone. 1762 there was a remarkably violent storm; so violent, It was commenced in 1706, and completed in 1709. From indeed, that the people of Plymouth and the adjoining parts the latter year till 1755, it remained perfectly safe; though were terribly alarmed throughout the night for the fate of during that period it had to encounter several storms scarcely the lighthouse, and one individual who was especially qualess violent than that which had destroyed its predecessor.lified to judge was heard to say, that if it could stand that On the second of December, in the year 1755, this structure storm it might bid defiance to any weather. It did stand it, was set on fire by accident, and totally destroyed. so well, indeed, that not even a pane of the glass of its lanthorn was injured. The proprietors now applied to Mr. Smeaton, a very eminent civil engineer, and that gentleman commenced his DEMOCRACY ILLUSTRATED, OR THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ANCIENT REPUBLICS. CARTHAGE, subsequently so powerful and detested a foe to haughty Rome, took its rise from a colony of Tyrians, who settled there when driven from their own country by distress; and for a considerable time paid an annual tribute or rent for the land which they were permitted to occupy. Though, when they founded their city, they were poor as to actual commodities, they had two grand possessions-industry and commercial ability; and these soon made them so prosperous, as to excite the jealousy of their neighbours. These latter, envying the wealth of their tributaries, endea No. 226. voured to extort some portion of it in the shape of increased tribute; the Carthaginians, on their part, determined to put an end to the tribute altogether. Firmly united among themselves, and possessing great commercial connexions as well as great wealth, the Carthaginians were more advantageously situated in this struggle than would at first sight appear to be the case. They had the command of the sea, while their opponents were for the most part situated inland; and those opponents having many separate objects, were easily bribed to fight against each other. The result of a contest under such circumstances may easily be imagined. | efficient check to the licentiousness and violence of trained By playing off their enemies against each other, the Carthaginians not only made themselves free from tribute, but actually extended their authority, and made tributaries, for nearly two thousand miles upon that continent on which they had so recently resided as distressed and despised adventurers. For a long time the Carthaginians devoted themselves to extending their commerce, and increasing their wealth; their wars, whether offensive or defensive, being left to foreign mercenaries, of whom they subsidized vast numbers. Unfortunately, as their wealth became more vast, their ambition became both more grasping and more unprincipled, and they spent vast sums of money in maintaining armies for the reduction of Spain and Sicily; though their most obvious policy was to have devoted those sums to increasing their fleets. Their error on this point is, in truth, wonderful. Their whole consequence arose from their extensive commerce; they were essentially a maritime power, and yet they expended upon the support of foreign mercenaries sums of money which would have enabled them to protect their commerce and colonies, and to render it all but impossible that they should ever be injured or insulted by Rome, whose whole coast lay open to reprisal, and who was so utterly without a navy, that the first Roman ship of war was actually built on t model of a Carthaginian galley, which was accidentally cast upon the coast of Italy. Even in this single point of view there is much to blame in the policy which led the Carthaginians to neglect their navy, and to compose even their armies exclusively of foreign mercenaries. It is very evident, from the whole history of Rome, that that ambitious nation required little or no provocation to induce it to make war upon a people whose prosperity excited at once their cupidity and their jealousy; but had such proVocation been requisite, the conduct of the Carthaginians, or rather of their hired cut-throats, Greek as well as African, was excellently calculated to furnish it. Partly from the provocation thus given, and partly from the insatiable lust of both gold and dominion, which was so prominent a characteristic of the Romans, arose that terrible and obstinate war which is known in history by the name of the first Punic. For the details of this war, we must refer our readers to history; our limits compelling us to confine our sketches to those great particulars which had a leading and potent effect in causing the downfall of the republic. Even during the first Punic war the Carthaginians would have derived infinite advantage from paying greater attention to their navy, and less to hiring and maintaining mercenary troops; for, imperfect as their naval forces were, they were so serviceable, that the Romans from that time forth, acting upon the wise maxim, "Fas est et ab hoste doceri," never rested till they had organised a powerful navy. But it was at the conclusion of the first Punic that the Carthaginians were the most painfully made aware of the state of that nation, which depends not upon "native swords and native ranks," but upon mercenaries, who, as they sell their friendship for gold, may very readily be induced to become enemies when that gold is no longer forthcoming. One of the conditions of the treaty by which the first Punic was terminated was, that the Carthaginians should evacuate the island of Sicily. Gesco, the Carthaginian commander there, saw at a glance the great mischief which was likely to arise from his sending, en masse, the multitude of disorderly fellows whom he commanded into a country like Carthage, where every citizen was trained wholly to the arts of peace; and there was, consequently, nothing like an soldiers, familiar with all the horrors of war, and exceedingly desirous of riot and rapine. In order to guard against the danger which he thus clearly foresaw, Gesco, instead of sending the whole of the mercenary troops to Carthage at once, sent them over in comparatively weak subdivisions, in order that they might be separately paid, and sent to their respective countries. Unfortunately the Carthaginians wanted either the will, or, which is more likely, the means to take advantage of this obviously sound policy of Gesco; and instead of paying off each division separately, and sending each home as soon as paid, allowed division after division to arrive, until the whole body was reassembled; and then, with a want of common sense, which would be incredible if not proved by the most indisputable authority, humbly solicited from this great and powerful body an abatement of arrears, which no one of the smaller bodies could have refused to their peremptory demand. As might have been expected, the mercenary troops laughed to scorn all entreaties for an abatement of their demands, and insolently threatened forcibly to pay themselves. Gesco, whose policy had been so unwisely disregarded by the Carthaginians, now used his great influence with the troops, and had well nigh persuaded them to accommodate the matters in dispute, when Spendius and Mathos, two daring and avaricious incendiaries, interposed their mischievous talents, and so effectually appealed to the worst passions of the soldiery, that they broke off all negotiations, and kindled a war, which lasted for four years, during which the Carthaginian territory was such a scene of devastation and slaughter, as cannot, even at this remote distance of time, be read of without sentiments of horror. The two most powerful families in Carthage at this time were the Hannonian and the Barcan; and, as is usually the case with parties who are thus rivals for the chief power, between these two families there subsisted a bitter hatred. Hanno, the head of the one family, and Hamilcar Barcan, the head of the other, were naturally looked to when the mercenary troops had commenced their threatened violence within the Carthaginian territory; and Hanno, either from being at that time more popular than his rival, or from having been more active in intriguing, was entrusted with the command of such hirelings and native volunteers as could be raised on the spur of the occasion. Hanno, however, of whom Polybius makes most contemptuous mention, suffered himself to be surprised and out-manoeuvred by the enemy. His originally numerous army was dreadfully reduced; and even his camp, with all his military stores and implements, was captured by the enemy. These disasters convinced the Carthaginians that their safety would be best consulted by intrusting the command to Hamilcar, who had greatly signalised himself in the war with the Romans. He was accordingly made chief commander, but of an army of only about ten thousand men, while the forces to which he was opposed amounted to not fewer than seventy thousand. Nor was the scanty number of his troops the sole or even the worst evil against which Hamilcar had to contend; for Hanno, his jealous rival, though deprived of the chief command, was still intrusted with the command of a separate body. The consequence was, that each of the rivals thwarted the other; and the Carthaginians at length became so well convinced of the impossibility of the war being brought to either a speedy or an honourable conclusion while the rivals were thus brought into collision, ordered Hanno to vacate his command. From this time Hamilcar pushed the enemy from post to post, and obtained advantage after advantage, until he had completely defeated one division, forty thousand strong, under Spendius, and blocked up the other division, which was commanded by Mathos, in the city of Tunis. Here the new lieutenant of Hamilcar most disgracefully allowed himself to be surprised; and besides many of his troops being slain, no fewer than thirty of the principal men of Carthage were taken prisoners by Mathos, and savagely put to death by crucifixion. The lieutenant being himself among the number of those who were taken prisoners, Hanno was once more entrusted with the joint command, and a decisive action soon after took place, which the military genius of Hamilcar made a complete triumph to the Carthaginian arms. In the foregoing sketch, brief as it is, our readers have seen that much injuryarose to Carthage from her neglect of her marine, and from her excessive propensity to carrying on foreign wars ;-a propensity doubly dangerous, from her excessive reliance on mercenaries. They have seen, too, that in the enmity of the two leaders, the Carthaginian army had a source of great loss and difficulty. Of the ill-consequence of dissension between the leading men of a state, we shall presently have to furnish a still more striking instance. Hamilcar, after gloriously putting an end to the war between the Carthaginians and their rebellious mercenaries, assumed the chief command of the Carthaginian force in Spain; and after obtaining many advantages, was there slain. His son-in-law, Asdrubal, succeeded him in the command; and, very naturally, desired to train young Hannibal, Hamilcar's son, in the same course in which his father had so signally achieved honour to himself and advantage to his country. When his proposal to this effect was made at Carthage, Hanno, with a most base and detestable vindictiveness, made a long and laboured speech against it. Not content with having on the most important occasions thwarted Hamilcar, even at the risk of utterly ruining the republic in so doing, he now boldly charged the whole of the Barcan family with undue and mischievous ambition; and, as if envious of the fame which Hamilcar had acquired, made the most virulently strenuous endeavours to prevent his son Hannibal from even taking the first step towards a like usefulness and a like renown. It is, happily for mankind, one of the properties of envious malignity that its violence is even greater than its hypocrisy; and Hanno so openly showed that his opposition to the proposed employment of young Hannibal arose not from public spirit, but from private hate, that his opposition was wholly ineffectual, and young Hannibal was allowed to join his brother-in-law in Spain, and there to commence that career by which he achieved an everlasting fame. On joining the army, Hannibal, as we learn from Plutarch, was distinguished, not by the luxuriousness of his accommodations as is but too usually the case with the wealthy youth of all nations-but by the excellence of his arms and horses, and by his indefatigable industry in learning and practising every thing requisite to form at once the brave and efficient soldier and the able and victorious commander. Young and robust, his industry soon procured him the excellence at which he aimed; and when, a short time after, he had joined the army, his commander and brother-in-law, Asdrubal, was assassinated by a Gaul, to whom he had given some real or imaginary cause of offence, Hannibal was by the army made its commander pro tempore. The senate of Carthage unanimously confirmed his appointment; and Hannibal, into whose mind, from his earliest years, his father had instilled a bitter and unquenchable hatred to Rome, now exerted himself to terminate the conquest of that part of Spain which lay between New Carthage and the river Iberus. In this part of Spain lay a city called Saguntum, which was in alliance with Rome, and which, on that very account, Hannibal seems to have regarded as a more important object of conquest. The Romans, who had good intelligence of all his movements, saw with mingled rage and astonishment that, after conquering the adjacent territory, he was rapidly preparing to lay siege to Saguntum. By this time, however, having learned that he was a foe not to be lightly provoked, they sent an embassy to him, warning him that they were in alliance with the Saguntines. To this embassage, Hannibal scarcely deigned a reply ;-merely and briefly stating that the Saguntines had committed innumerable depredations upon Carthaginian subjects, for which depredations his duty and the honour of his nation demanded that he should inflict due chastisement. He accordingly completed his preparations, laid siege to Saguntum, and almost literally destroyed it. The Romans now sent a new embassy to Carthage to demand that Hannibal should be delivered into their power, in satisfaction of the destruction of their allies the Saguntines; and, to the deep dishonour of our common nature, the envy and hatred of Hanno transported him so far beyond all bounds of decency or prudence, that he actually rose in the Senate, declaimed bitterly against the whole Barcan family, and seriously and strongly urged the policy and propriety of giving up the illustrious Hannibal to his enraged enemies, the Romans, though he was perfectly well aware that to do so would be tantamount to putting him to death by the most detestable and cruel torments. Once more, the exceeding wickedness of Hanno overshot the mark. He was sternly reproached by his fellow-senators for his implacable hate to the Barcan family, and for his obvious want of patriotism; and the Roman embassy was dismissed with assurances of the sincere desire of the Carthaginians for honourable peace with their ancient allies the Romans, but, at the same time, their fixed determination to support Hannibal in the course which the infamous conduct of the Saguntines had provoked, and which repeated instructions from Carthage had duly authorized. In this state of things, the very genius of the Roman government compelled them to commence hostilities; and thus began the terrible second Punic war. Undeterred by the exposure and rebuke which had resulted from his former ungenerous opposition to Hannibal, Hanno took every opportunity to prevent him from receiving the supplies of men and money, which were so necessary to his arduous enterprise. A singular instance of this equally malicious and unpatriotic conduct occurred after the battle of Canna; that terrible battle in which Hannibal's exquisite generalship inflicted a defeat upon his opponents, which literally put all Rome in mourning. Immediately after the battle, Hannibal sent his brother Mago to Carthage with news of his great and important victory, and also with most pressing and eloquent entreaties for a large and instant supply of men and money. While all the rest of the Carthaginians, elate with the wonderful triumph of their accomplished general, were not merely willing, but actually eager to grant his utmost demands, the envious Hanno, in whose bosom every new triumph of Hannibal seems to haver ankled like a barbed and envenomed dagger, inveighed bitterly against him, and opposed the motion for granting his demand. And though his opposition was unsuccessful, he subsequently contrived, by his base private intrigues, to get the supply of men very greatly diminished, and even to retard the time of their departure, and to cause them to be sent by the most difficult and circuitous route, and charged with other services previous to joining Hannibal. So terrified were the Romans after the battle of Cannæ, and so weakened was their army,-two hundred and fifty thousand of their best troops having been destroyed during the first two years of the second Punic war,-that if Hannibal had promptly received the supply voted to him by the senate of Carthage, and, thus reinforced, marched straight upon Rome, there is little room to doubt that he would have transferred the empire of the world to Carthage, and reduced the seven hilled mistress of the nations to ruins; for in spite of the tardy and scanty supplies which actually reached him, he maintained himself for fourteen years in despite of the absolutely gigantic efforts of the Romans to overwhelm him. And when Scipio, taking the surest of all means to rid Italy of the seemingly unconquerable Hannibal, marched a mighty army against Carthage itself, and the trembling senate sent hasty and urgent orders to Hannibal to quit Italy, and march with all speed to the rescue of Carthage, the great and most shamefully ill-treated general bitterly, and truly as bitterly, observed that he left Italy, driven thence not by the force or warlike skill of the Romans, but by the base and malignant villany of the Hannorian faction at Carthage. Long, he exclaimed, had his enemies envied his success in Italy, and laboriously had they exerted themselves to withdraw him from that country. Having tried all other means in vain, they had at length wickedly resolved to accomplish it at the expense of their country's utter ruin; esteeming, as it seemed, the downfall of Carthage an evil of comparatively small consequence, when counterbalanced by the luxury of ruining the detested, because brave, honest, and successful Barcan family. From the recal of Hannibal, the history of Carthage is properly included in the history of Rome, which we shall commence in our next number. To this brief sketch, therefore, we need only add that in it, and still more in an elaborate history of Carthage, there is a most impressive lesson against inordinate ambition on the part of states, and against jealousy and factions among its principal citizens. THE Alps, whose sides and summits are continually covered with snow, present perils to the traveller of a magnitude which few other mountainous districts offer: these dangers chiefly result from avalanches. Every rocky or other protuberance on the sides of each mountain forms a ledge, whereon large masses of snow called glaciers become collected; and whenever the heat of the sun produces a thaw, the water, while running down the declivity, destroys the adhesion between the snow and the earth upon which it rests, and fresh snow afterwards falling upon the old and tottering masses, determines their fall. The sudden precipitation of these enormous glaciers are styled avalanches. Avalanches are of three kinds. 1st, The wind or dust avalanche, occasioned by the wind violently distributing fresh fallen snow into minute and innumerable particles, which are scattered far and wide with inconceivable density and rapidity. 2d, The thunder avalanche, which, falling by its own accumulated weight, brings with it all the ground on which it rests, besides trees, rocks, and whatever lies in its track hill and valley tremble with the noise of its descent. 3d, The earth or land-slip avalanche, which is caused by the weakening of the soil from long-continued and deep penetrating rains. When the weight of accumulated snow is too great for the loosened earth to bear, the whole slips into the valleys beneath, carrying houses, trees, and even entire forests, and occasioning the most horrible destruction. It frequently happens that huge glaciers, detached by the impulse of the wind, hang as it were by a thread. So slight is their tenure on their resting-place, that the vibration produced by sound, be it ever so slight, will often cause them to tumble. Hence the inhabitants, while travelling over the Alps, remove the bells which are usually attached to their mules, lest the music should be echoed by the unwelcome and fatal sounds of a thunder avalanche; and in certain places, where avalanches fall periodically, the inhabitants accelerate their descent by the use of fire-arms discharged in the air, which seldom fails to have the desired effect. Of the great catastrophes caused by these enormous bodies |