"What awful lies!" said Chamai to me, aside, "didn't you tell them that the Midianites are a devout race? And didn't you say that the children of Ishmael live three hundred years? And did I hear aright that you should say there are gods in Egypt?"
I only smiled at this outburst of indignation; but Himilco laughed aloud and said:
"Never mind, Chamai; there may be worse lies than these; they will answer their purpose if they make these folks good buyers."
The chief had offered to sell me some pilegech, or young female slaves that he had captured in a recent raid upon the mainland; but I declined to make any purchase of the kind, knowing that there was no market for women-slaves either in our Libyan colonies or in Tarshish. Our word "pilegech" he pronounced pellex. The Dorians manifestly have considerable difficulty in articulating our language; for example, they say "kiton," for kitonet; "kephos," for koph, and "kassiteros," for kastira. Sometimes, like other savage nations, they fail to understand the true meaning of a word, and pervert it altogether; for instance, when speaking of the great sea beyond Gades, instead of calling it the Sea of Og, they describe it as a river named "Oceanos," and believe it to be a god.
The men that had been sent back by the chief soon returned with a very fair supply of good copper, ox-hides, and goats' horns, some of which were large enough to make good bows. They likewise brought some very excellent woollen cloth which they had themselves imported from the mainland. For all their goods the prices they demanded were singularly moderate.
It was now necessary, in order to find space and leisure for repairing our ships, that the throng of buyers, which seemed continually increasing, should be drawn away from the neighbourhood of the beach. To effect this, I placed a quantity of the merchandise under the charge of Hadlai, one of the most trustworthy of the sailors, and sent him into the interior of the island to dispose of what he could, instructing him to be sure and return to us in eight-and-forty hours, by which time I expected to complete the repairs. Bichri volunteered to act as an escort; and Jonah, with whose trumpet the Dorians seemed immensely amused, was sent to summon the natives to the sale.
In the course of the day I sent eight of my men to cut down an oak from the forest on the valley side, to make a new yard for the Dagon. The Dorians permitted us to take whatever wood we wanted without any charge, deeming it a sufficient compensation to themselves to watch our carpentering, and to listen to the wonderful tales of such of our sailors as could speak anything of their language. They were most attentive in bringing us firewood, water, and what else we wanted; and whatever they may be in their bearing to other nations, I can testify that to us Phœnicians they were most courteous and considerate.
The Dorians plied Chryseis with countless questions about the Pheakes, and made all kinds of inquiries about their country, their cities and their king; and she, pleased with the sound of a dialect kindred to her own, conversed with them willingly, and made them stare with surprise, as she recounted the glories of our temples, and the magnificence of our palaces. They had no clear idea of what Phœnicia really was, but imagined it to be an island, evidently confounding it with our colony of Chittim, or with our settlement at Chalcis, which was considerably nearer to them. They almost seem to think Phœnicians ubiquitous, for they give the name of Phœnicia to the coast of Caria, where our merchants have established some marts. This is really the country of the Carian Leleges, who, together with the Phrygians, were the Dorians' predecessors in the isle of Crete, and the first to drive the Cydonians to the highlands. The Dorians assert that the Leleges and Pelasgians preceded them on the mainland, and that many of them still remain. I can readily understand that the Carians, Æolians, and others, whom we drove from their own coasts, succeeded in reaching Crete; for the Carians were not ignorant of navigation, and at that part of the Archipelago, where the sea is thickly studded with islands, the voyage from the coast of Asia hither, even in small boats, would be by no means difficult. It is a fact, too, that the principal mountain in Crete is known by the Pelasgo-Ionian name of Ida, the same as that borne by the mountain in Æolia, opposite the island of Mitylene; the evidence, therefore, is very strong that the Pelasgians and Leleges, who were of the same race as the Carians, Æolians, Lycians, and Dardanians, must have occupied not only the entire coast from the Straits of Thrace down to the regions opposite Rhodes, but likewise all the mainland and islands between Thrace and Cape Malea. The Cydonians must be a remnant of some still earlier inhabitants of quite another race, driven back, first by the Pelasgians and Leleges, and afterwards by the Dorians, Ionians, and those others who are now advancing to establish themselves alike upon the coast and in the islands. The accuracy of this conclusion is borne out by the fact that our ancestors were acquainted with the Pelasgians long before they knew anything of Dorians and Ionians, and it is well known that there are still in existence cities large and populous, though badly built and weakly fortified, such as Plakir and Sculake in the Propontis, some distance north of Dardania and the isle of Tenedos.
I enter into all these details because I consider it part of the duty of a Phœnician mariner to make himself acquainted not only with the configuration of both land and sea, the movements of the heavenly bodies, and the laws of navigation and of commerce, but also with the origin, language, religion, and habits of every nation with whom he may be brought in contact; and my experience in my naval life has taught me that although the knowledge thus acquired is to be very cautiously revealed to strangers and foreigners, yet it cannot be too freely disseminated amongst one's own countrymen.
The Dorians acknowledge themselves to be a people akin to the Ionians, and are, like them, a branch of the great family known by the name of Hellenes, Ræci, or Græci. These Hellenes, like the children of Israel, are comprised of twelve peoples or tribes; the Thessalians, the Bœotians, the Dorians, the Ionians, the Perrhebians, the Magnetes, the Locrians, the Eteans, the Achæans, the Phocians, the Dolopes, and the Malians. Their own account of themselves is, that on reaching the south of Thracia they settled in the district known as Hellopia, of which they were still in possession, and whence they spread themselves over the peninsula and the islands. Hellopia is the country traversed by the River Achelous, which empties itself into the channel that divides the island of Cephallenia from the mainland. The two oldest cities in Hellopia are Dodona and Delphi, which are both the abodes of the chief gods. It is from the name of their city that the Hellenes are sometimes called Dodonians, although they are far more frequently referred to by us as the Ionians, or sons of Ion or Javan. Amongst themselves, however, they are invariably designated Hellenes, Graii, or Græci.