f this El
Dorado, and the way to it, was a trade secret most carefully kept by
the Phoenician merchants of Cadiz, who alone held the clue. So jealous
were they of it that long afterwards, when the alternative route
through Gaul had already drawn away much of its profitableness, we
read of a Phoenician captain purposely wrecking his ship lest a Roman
vessel in sight should follow to the port, and being indemnified by
the state for his loss.

SECTION D.

Discoveries of Pytheas--Greek tin trade _via_ Marseilles--Trade
routes--Ingots--Coracles--Earliest British coins--Lead-mining.

D. 1.--But contemporary with Aristotle lived the great geographer
Pytheas; whose works, unfortunately, we know only by the fragmentary
references to them in later, and frequently hostile, authors, such
as Strabo, who dwell largely on his mistakes, and charge him with
misrepresentation. In fact, however, he seems to have been both an
accurate and truthful observer, and a discoverer of the very first
order. Starting from his native city Massilia (Marseilles), he passed
through the Straits of Gibraltar and traced the coast-line of Europe
to Denmark (visiting Britain on his way), and perhaps even on into the
Baltic.[16] The shore of Norway (which he called, as the natives still
call it, Norge) he followed till within the Arctic Circle, as his
mention of the midnight sun shows, and then struck across to Scotland;
returning, apparently by the Irish Sea, to Bordeaux and so home
overland. This truly wonderful voyage he made at the public charge,
with a view to opening new trade routes, and it seems to have
thoroughly answered its purpose. Henceforward the Phoenician monopoly
was broken, and a constant stream of traffic in the precious tin
passed between Britain and Marseilles.[17]

D. 2.--The route was kept as secret as possible; Polybius tells
us that the Massiliots, when interrogated by one of the Scipios,
professed entire ignorance of Britain; but Pytheas (as quoted by his
contemporary Timaeus, as well as by later writers) states that the
metal was brought by coasters to a tidal island, _Ictis_, whence it
was shipped for Gaul. This island was six days' sail from the tin
diggings, and can scarcely be any but Thanet. St. Michael's Mount, now
the only tidal island on the south coast, was anciently part of the
mainland; a fact testified to by the forest remains still seen around
it. Nor could it be six days' sail from the tin mines. The Isle of