When different tribes were desirous of exchanging with each other the commodities their countries respectively produced, their first consideration would naturally be the means of transport; and though we may not be able to fix the period when it commenced, the interchange of goods by barter must have been nearly coexistent with the existence of man himself. In the most ancient times the chief commercial routes were undoubtedly overland; but it may safely be assumed that at a scarcely less early period trading vessels had begun to creep along the shores of the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Mediterranean, and to pass from island to island amid the land-locked waters of the Levant.
Coasting.
There can, indeed, be no doubt that, till a period comparatively recent, the characteristic of all early navigation was that of a coasting trade, the mariners seldom quitting the land except when constrained to do so by some unavoidable necessity, such as the violence of a gale or the force of currents, or when a great saving of distance could be effected by crossing the mouths of deep bays where the headlands were at a moderate distance from each other. But a coasting navigation is really subject to greater difficulties and dangers than any other, and hence has in all times had the property of forming the most expert seamen. Thus it was that the seamen of Tyre found their way to Carthage, and ultimately through the pillars of Hercules to Gades and the tin-bearing islands of the West: and thus, too, the States of Tyre and of her great colony, Carthage, for centuries maintained their power and lofty position in the midst of nations in other respects greatly their superiors. By the prosecution, too, of coasting voyages the Portuguese, in later ages, passed the Cape of Good Hope, and reached the East Indies. Indeed nothing was more likely to advance discovery than voyages of such a character, for which the position of the three continents of the ancient world afforded considerable natural facilities, especially when taken in connection with the two long narrow seas known as the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Again, the Mediterranean, with its subordinate portions, comprising the Adriatic and the Levant, with the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, was peculiarly adapted for the commencement of an over-sea trade with a shipping still rude and with sailors little skilled; while its position in the centre, as it were, of these three continents, surrounded by the most fruitful and civilized regions of the then known world, prepared it, naturally, to be the principal scene of such an intercourse.
It should also be remembered that the Mediterranean possesses the singular advantages of a very considerable number of excellent harbours and roadsteads, with numerous islands, projecting promontories, and deep bays, affording excellent shelter for small undecked craft; and, more than this, that the two nations who were, in remote ages, the most eminent among its merchant navigators, the Tyrians and Carthaginians, were, as a rule, peaceful traders, and slow to take up arms except in self-defence. The Indian Ocean, within prescribed limits, and the Persian and Arabian Gulfs, afforded somewhat similar facilities, from the moderate distance between the opposite shores, and from the periodical winds, which change their direction twice in the year—a fact which could hardly fail to have been early recognised, though the reason of this change may have remained long unsuspected. Bearing, therefore, these physical facts and conditions in mind, it is not unreasonable to believe that long and distant voyages were accomplished with no greater nautical science than has been generally conceded to the most ancient mariners.
Tyre.
We find, too, as might be supposed, that the nations who held in their hands the means of conducting the largest amount of maritime commerce were the most prosperous as well as the most powerful. The small state of Phœnicia, of which, in its most prosperous days, Tyre was the capital, though insignificant in territory and population, as compared with either Syria or Egypt, possessed in some respects far greater power than either. Holding, during many centuries, the command of the sea, she was able, in great measure, to control them as she pleased, and to prohibit their intercourse with any nations that could not be reached by their caravans. Phœnicia, therefore, as the leading maritime state at the earliest period to which any reliable records ascend, is entitled to the first consideration in any work having for its object an historical account of Merchant Shipping. To trace the course of the extensive maritime trade of the Phœnicians is to elucidate the progress of navigation in ancient times.
Argonautic Expedition.
Before, however, we speak of the Phœnicians we must briefly notice two maritime adventures, which, though fabulous in most of their details, were highly estimated by the ancients, and had, doubtless, some foundation in fact. The first of these, the Argonautic Expedition, as it was called, was evidently a commercial enterprise, promoted by reports of abundant deposits of gold along the eastern shores of the Black Sea. It is remarkable that the name of the ship from which the expedition itself derived its appellation is almost certainly taken from the Semitic word arek, “long,”[58] suggesting that it was perhaps the first “long” ship, and indicating a direct connection with the Phœnicians, who spoke the dialect to which this name belongs.
Queen Semiramis.
The second is the celebrated legend of Queen Semiramis, and of the fleet she employed the Phœnicians in building, which is given at great length by Diodorus.[59] That such a fleet was ever built, or that Semiramis invaded India by its means, may well be questioned; but, since the interpretation by Sir Henry Rawlinson of the Assyrian inscriptions, we know that Semiramis is not a mythical personage, but a real queen within historical times. In the Assyrian Hall at the British Museum stand two statues of the god Nebo, each bearing a cuneiform inscription, with the statement that they were made for Queen Semiramis by a sculptor of Nineveh. Semiramis was, in fact, the wife of the Assyrian king who is mentioned in the Bible under the name of Pul.[60]