CHAPTER II
EARLY MARINERS
The law of the universe is progress and expansion, and this little old world was soon discovered to be larger than men thought.
Now in Syria—the highway between Babylonia and Egypt—dwelt a tribe of dusky people known as Phoenicians. Some have thought that they were related to our old friends in Somaliland, and that long years ago they had migrated north to the seacoast of that part of Syria known as Canaan.
Living on the seashore, washed by the tideless Mediterranean, they soon became skilful sailors. They built ships and ventured forth on the deep; they made their way to the islands of Cyprus and Crete and thence to the islands of Greece, bringing back goods from other countries to barter with their less daring neighbours. They reached Greece itself and cruised along the northern coast of the Great Sea to Italy, along the coast of Spain to the Rock of Gibraltar, and out into the open Atlantic.
How their little sailing boats lived through the storms of that great ocean none may know, for Phoenician records are lost, but we have every reason to believe that they reached the northern coast of France and brought back tin from the islands known to them as the Tin Islands. In their home markets were found all manner of strange things from foreign unknown lands, discovered by these master mariners—the admiration of the ancient world.
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A PHOENICIAN SHIP, ABOUT 700 B.C. From a bas-relief at Nineveh. |