One mast and one sail seem to have been commonly used. The biremes and triremes were so-called because of their two or three banks of oars. The oarsmen sat in the hold, their oars passing through the vessel's side.
Phœnician traffic was always most extensive by sea. Products of Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Carthage, Spain, Britain, besides those of countless islands, were transported constantly by water.
The Approach of a Caravan.
"When spring-time flushes the desert grass,
Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.
Lean are the camels, but fat the frails,
Light are the purses but heavy the bales,
As the snow-bound trade of the North comes down
To the market-square of Peshawur town.
In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,
A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.
Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,
And tent-peg answered to hammer-nose.
And the picketed ponies shag and wild,
Strained at their ropes as the feed was piled;
And the bubbling camels beside the load
Sprawled for a furlong adown the road;
And Persian pussy-cats, brought for sale,
Spat at the dogs from the camel-bale;
And the tribesmen bellowed to hasten the food;
And the camp-fires twinkled by Fort Junrood;
And there fled on the wings of the gathering dusk
A savour of camels and carpets and musk,
A murmur of voices, a reek of smoke,
To tell us the trade of the Khyber woke."
—Kipling: Ballad of the King's Jest.
[1] Rawlinson: Phoenicia, 71.
[2] Graham: Roman Africa, preface.
[3] Ezekiel, 27.