of Southern Scythia--without risking the collisions that might have
followed the establishment of settlements.

As with the Black Sea, so with the Adriatic, the commercial advantages
were not sufficient to tempt the Phoenicians to colonise. From Crete
and Cythera they sent their gaze afar, and fixed it midway in the
Mediterranean, at the western extremity of the eastern basin, on the
shores of Sicily, and the vast projection from the coast of North Africa
which goes forth to meet them. They knew the harbourless character
of the African coast west of Egypt, and the dangers of the Lesser and
Greater Syrtes. They knew the fertility of the Tunisian projection, the
excellence of its harbours, and the prolificness of the large island
that lay directly opposite. Here were the tracts where they might expand
freely, and which would richly repay their occupation of them. It
was before the beginning of the eleventh century B.C.--perhaps
some centuries before--that the colonisation of North Africa by the
Phoenicians was taken in hand:[581] and about the same time, in all
probability, the capes and isles about Sicily were occupied,[582] and
Phoenician influence in a little time extended over the entire island.

In North Africa the first colony planted is said to have been Utica.
Utica was situated a little to the west of Carthage, at the mouth of the
Mejerda or Bagradas river.[583] It stood on a rocky promontory which ran
out into the sea eastward, and partially protected its harbour. At the
opposite extremity, towards the north, ran out another promontory, the
modern Ras Sidi Ali-el-Mekki, while the mouth of the harbour, which
faced to the south-east, was protected by some islands. At present the
deposits of the Mejerda have blocked up almost the whole of this ancient
port, and the rocky eminence upon which the city stood looks down on
three sides upon a broad alluvial plain, through which the Mejerda