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 sufficient for us to know that that portion of the British territory called the Scilly Islands was known to the Carthaginians ages before the Christian era. This is pretty distinctly intimated in the account given to us by Festus Avienus of the voyage of Hamilco, an ancient Carthaginian navigator. In this voyage, we are told, Hamilco reached the islands of the Œstrymnides within less than four months after he had set sail from Carthage, and from the description of Avienus we are compelled to conclude that these Œstrymnides could be no other than our Scilly Islands. They were, he tells us, in the neighbourhood of Albion and of Ireland, and within two days' sail of the latter, which he terms the Sacred Island. He describes those islands as abounding in tin and lead, and inhabited by a bold, active, trafficking people, who, having no timber for the building of ships, made adventurous voyages in boats made of hides. These islands, also, he intimates, were not first discovered by Hamilco, but had previously been visited for traffic by the people of Tartessus and Carthage. They were afterwards explored with such industry, that their tin was at length exhausted, and nothing apparently remains of it except the traces of the ancient mines; but Cornwall was not far off as a field for fresh operations. It was probably this peninsula which afterwards obtained the name of Cassiteros (from the Greek word cassiteron, signifying tin), while the Scilly Isles, described as ten in number, of which only one was uninhabited, were called Cassiterides, or the Tin Islands. Under this name they are mentioned by Herodotus, the father of history, nearly 500 years before the Christian era, although their geographical position he was unable to discover.

The causes of this ignorance in so important a matter it is not difficult to explain. In their knowledge of these Tin Islands the Carthaginians possessed a treasure which they were resolved to monopolize, and hence their particular locality was carefully concealed from all the world, and especially from their formidable and enterprising rivals, the Romans, who were anxious to learn the secret. The latter, therefore, lay on the watch, and were ready to give chase, while the former studied to out-manoeuvre or out-sail them. At length, as we are informed by Strabo, a ship of Carthage having set out on a voyage to the Cassiterides for tin, the captain of a Koman galley, who had been appointed to observe him, followed in close pursuit. The Carthaginian tried every expedient to elude his adversary, but being closely pressed, and finding escape impossible, he ran his vessel aground, and thus sacrificed both ship and cargo. His fidelity in thus concealing the route to the Tin Islands was so highly appreciated by his countrymen, that on returning home he was repaid, to the full value of his loss, out of the public treasury. But cunning although the Carthaginians were, it was impossible that such a profitable route, pursued for centuries, could always remain exclusively their own. The Greek colonists of Marseilles had turned their attention to the subject; and from their superior intelligence and nautical skill, they were at length enabled to discover the whereabouts of this rich erra incognita. Accordingly we are told, that only a century after the time of Herodotus, Pytheas, a Marseillais navigator, was the first of his countrymen who penetrated into the British seas. This enterprise appears to have been so successfully followed, that the secret of the Cassiterides was at length laid open to the Roman colonies on the south coast of Gaul; and thus, even before the arrival of Julius Cæsar, a brisk trade in tin had been carried on between them and the people of the Scilly Islands and Cornwall. The effects of this traffic were exhibited in the superior comfort and civilization of those parts of the British coast which the strangers visited. Diodorus informs us that the Britons inhabiting the Land's End (Bolerium) were much more civilized than the rest of their countrymen, in consequence of their traffic with the foreigners. Such was also the case with the natives of the Cassiterides, although they are pictured of a somewhat strange appearance, not unlike that of figures upon some of the earlier Etruscan vases. According to Strabo, they wore comfortable dresses, and these also of cloth, while most of their inland countrymen had nothing but their own painted skins. He tells us that they wore long black cloaks, which reached to their ankles, and were girded about the waist; that they walked about with staves in their hands, and that their long beards gave them the appearance of goats. He is careful especially to mention the lead and tin mines with which these islands abounded, and their traffic with foreign traders in these metals and skins, in return fur bronze articles, earthenware, and salt.

It might be asked why Rome herself, who had been so solicitous to discover these wealthy mines, was afterwards contented to purchase their treasures at second hand from her own tributaries? But the Romans were no navigators, and cared little for commerce, unless it was brought to their doors; and as for wealth in general, they regarded every country as their storehouse, which they could empty at their own good pleasure. While the sword could procure tin at any time, they would neither condescend to sail in quest of it, nor labour in digging it; and hence, until they conquered Britain, they regarded its people as "toto orbe divisos."

And why, it might also be asked, were the Bri-