ineral kingdoms, was improved and
manufactured by the skill of an industrious people; and the peculiar
advantages of naval stores contributed to support an extensive and
profitable trade. Many particulars concerning the fertility of Spain may
be found in Huet's _Commerce of the Ancients_, c. 40."[18]

The state of Lybia was equally characteristic of the highest and most
general prosperity, especially in relation to agricultural industry, at
the time when Italy and Greece were thus languishing in the last stage
of decrepitude and decay.

"The long and narrow tract," says Gibbon, "of the African coast was
filled, when the Vandals approached its shores, with frequent monuments
of Roman art and magnificence; and the respective degrees of improvement
might be accurately measured by the distance from Carthage and the
Mediterranean. A simple reflection will impress every thinking mind with
the clearest idea of its fertility and cultivation. The country was
_extremely populous_; the inhabitants reserved a liberal supply for
their own use; _and the annual exportation, particularly of wheat_, was
so regular and plentiful, that Africa _deserved the name of the common
granary of Rome and of mankind_."[19]

Nor was the state of Egypt less prosperous in the last ages of the Roman
empire; nor was its condition a less striking contrast to the miserable
and languishing condition of the Italian and Grecian plains. It is thus
described by Mr Finlay,[20] whose recent work has thrown so much light
on the social condition of the inhabitants of the Roman empire in their
later days:--"If the accounts of ancient historians can be relied on,
the population of Egypt had suffered less from the vicious
administration of the Roman empire, and from the Persian invasion, than
any other part of their dominions; for at the time of its conquest by
the Romans it contained seven millions and a half of inhabitants,
exclusive of Alexandria; and in the last days of the empire it nourished
almost as great a number. The Nile spread its fertilizing waters over
the land; the canals were kept in a state sufficient for irrigation; and
the vested capital of Egypt suffered little diminution, whilst war and
oppression annihilated the accumulation of ages over the rest of the
world. The immense wealth and importance of Alexandria, the only port
which Egypt possessed for communicating with the empire, still made it
_one of the first cities in the universe for riches a