The Sea and Its Living Wonders / A Popular Account of the Marvels of the Deep and of the Progress of Martime Discovery from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time

by G. Hartwig

But the spirit of commercial enterprise triumphs over every difficulty. Stimulated by the love of gain, and the hope of discovering new sources of wealth, the Phœnicians, the first great maritime nation mentioned in history, were continually enlarging the limits of the known earth, until the fatal moment when the sword of the conqueror destroyed their cities, and extinguished their power for ever.

The first periods of Phœnician greatness are veiled in the mysterious darkness of an unknown past, yet so much is certain, that their date must have been very remote; as, according to the accounts which Herodotus received from the priests, the foundation of Tyre took place thirty centuries before the Christian era.

Long before the expedition of the Argonauts, the Phœnicians had already founded colonies on the Bithynian coast of the Black Sea (Pronectus, Bithynium); and that at a very early time they must have steered through the Straits of Grades into the Atlantic is proved by the fact, that, as far back as the eleventh century before Christ, they founded the towns of Grades and Tartessus on the western coast of Southern Spain. Penetrating farther and farther to the north, they discovered Britain, where they established their chief station on the Scilly Isles, at present so insignificant and obscure, and even visited the barbarous shores of the Baltic in quest of the costly amber. They planted their colonies along the north-west coast of Africa, even beyond the tropic; and, 2000 years before Vasco de Gama, Phœnician mariners are said to have circumnavigated that continent, for Herodotus relates that a Tyrian fleet, fitted out by Necho II., Pharaoh of Egypt (611-595 B.C.), sailed from a port in the Red Sea, doubled the southern promontory of Africa, and, after a voyage of three years, returned through the Straits of Grades to the mouth of the Nile.

Less wonderful, but resting on better historical proof, is the celebrated voyage of discovery to the south which Hanno performed by command of the senate of Carthage, the greatest of all Phœnician colonies, eclipsing even the fame of Tyre itself. Sailing from Cerne, the principal Phœnician settlement on the western coast of Africa, and which was probably situated on the present island of Arguin, he reached, after a navigation of seventeen days, a promontory which he called the West Horn (probably Cape Palmas), and then advanced to another cape, to which he gave the name of South Horn, and which is manifestly Cape de Tres Puntas, only 5° north of the line. During daytime the deepest silence reigned along the newly discovered coast, but after sunset countless fires were seen burning along the banks of the rivers, and the air resounded with music and song, the black natives spending, as they still do now, the hours of the cool night in festive joy. Most likely the Canary Islands were also known to the Phœnicians, as the summit of the Peak of Teneriffe is visible from the heights of Cape Bojador.

The progress of the great mariners of old in the Indian Ocean was no less remarkable than the extension of their Atlantic discoveries. Far beyond Bab-el-Mandeb their fleets sailed to Ophir or Supara, and returned with rich cargoes of gold, silver, sandal-wood, jewels, ivory, apes, and peacocks, to the ports of Elath and Ezion-Geber at the head of the Red Sea. These costly productions of the south were then transported across the Isthmus of Suez to Rhinocolura, the nearest port on the Mediterranean, and thence to Tyre, which ultimately distributed them over the whole of the known world.

The true position of Ophir is an enigma which no learned Œdipus will ever solve. While some authorities place it on the east coast of Africa, others fix its situation somewhere on the west coast of the Indian peninsula; and Humboldt is even of opinion that the name had only a general signification, and that a voyage to Ophir meant nothing more than a commercial expedition to any part of the Indian Ocean, just as at present we speak of a voyage to the Levant or the West Indies.

But whatever Ophir may have been, it is certain that the Phœnicians carried on a considerable trade with the lands and nations beyond the Gates of the Red Sea. Their trade in the direction of the Persian Gulf was no less extensive. Through the Syrian desert, where Palmyra, their chief station or emporium, proudly rose above the surrounding sands, their caravans slowly wandered to the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, to provide Nineveh and Babylon with the costly merchandise of Sidon and Tyre. Following the course of the great Mesopotamian streams, they reached the shores of the Persian Gulf, where they owned the ports of Tylos and Aradus and the rich pearl islands of Bahrein, and, having loaded their empty camels with the produce of Iran and Arabia, returned by the same way to the shores of the Mediterranean. How far their ships may have ventured beyond the mouth of the Persian Gulf is unknown, but the researches of the learned orientalists, Gesenius, Benfey, and Lassen, render it extremely probable, that, taking advantage of the regularly changing monsoons, they sailed through the Straits of Ormus to the coast of Malabar.

The progress of the Phœnician race in the technical arts, as well as in the astronomical and mathematical sciences so highly important for the improvement of their navigation, was no less remarkable for the age in which they lived, than the vast extension of a commercial intercourse which reached from Britain to the Indus, and from the Black Sea to the Senegal. They wove the finest linen, and knew how to dye it with the most splendid purple. They were unsurpassed in the workmanship of metals, and possessed the secret of manufacturing white and coloured glass, which their caravans and ships exchanged for the produce of the north and of the south. By the invention of the alphabet, which with many other useful sciences and arts, they communicated to the Greeks and other nations with whom they traded, they no less contributed to the progress of mankind than by the humanising influence of commerce.

Thus when we consider the services which these merchant-princes of antiquity rendered to their contemporaries, wherever their flag was seen or their caravans appeared, the annihilation of the maritime power of Tyre by Alexander (332 B.C.), and the destruction of Carthage by the Romans (146 B.C.), must strike us as events calamitous to the whole human race. Had the Carthaginians, so distinguished by their commercial spirit and ardour for discovery, triumphed over the semi-barbarous Romans, who, then at least, had not yet learned to imitate the arts of plundered Greece, there is every probability that some Punic Columbus would have discovered America at least a thousand years sooner, and the world at this day be in possession of many secrets still unknown, and destined to contribute to the comforts or enjoyments of our descendants.