Carthaginian harbors, although that African nation never really
colonized the country, does not appear to have made war on the
inhabitants in order to occupy it, except in a few instances, when
thwarted, probably, in their commercial enterprises; but they always
lived on peaceful terms with the aborigines, whom they benefited by
their trade, and, doubtless, enlightened by the narrative of their
expeditions in distant lands.

Is it not a strikingly strange fact that, under such circumstances,
the Celts should never have thought of possessing vessels of their
own, if not to push the enterprises of an extensive commerce, for
which they never showed the slightest inclination, at least for
the purpose of shipping their colonies abroad, and crossing directly
to Greece from Celtiberia, for instance, or from their Italian colony
of the Veneti, replaced in modern times by maritime Venice? Yet
so it was; and the great classic scholar, Heeren, in his learned
researches on the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, remarks it with
surprise. The chief reason which he assigns for the success of
those southern navigators from Carthage in establishing their colonies
everywhere, is the fact of no people in Spain, Gaul, or the British
Isles, possessing at the time a navy of their own; and, finding it so
surprising, he does not attempt to explain it, as indeed it really
remains without any possible explanation, save the lack of inclination
springing from the natural promptings of the race.

What renders it more surprising still is, that individually they
had no aversion to a seafaring life; not only many of them
subsisted by fishing, but their _curraghs_ covered the sea all
along their extensive coasts. They could pass from island to
island in their small craft. Thus the Celts of Erin frequently