. None of the
other peoples of the East--the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the
Assyrians, nor the barbarian tribes of the West (Spaniards, Gauls,
Italians) had a navy. The Phoenicians alone in this time dared to
navigate. They were the commission merchants of the old world; they
went to every people to buy their merchandise and sold them in
exchange the commodities of other countries. This traffic was by
caravan with the East, by sea with the West.

=Caravans.=--On land the Phoenicians sent caravans in three directions:

1.--Towards Arabia, from which they brought gold, agate, and onyx,
incense and myrrh, and the perfumes of Arabia; pearls, spices,
ivory, ebony, ostrich plumes and apes from India.

2.--Towards Assyria, whence came cotton and linen cloths, asphalt,
precious stones, perfumery, and silk from China.

3.--Towards the Black Sea, where they went to receive horses,
slaves, and copper vases made by the mountaineers of the Caucasus.

=Marine Commerce.=--For their sea commerce they built ships from the
cedars of Lebanon to be propelled by oars and sails. In their sailing
it was not necessary to remain always in sight of the coast, for they
knew how to direct their course by the polar star. Bold mariners, they
pushed in their little boats to the mouth of the Mediterranean; they
ventured even to pass through the strait of Gibraltar or, as the
ancients called it, the Pillars of Hercules, and took the ocean course
to the shores of England, and perhaps to Norway, Phoenicians in the
service of a king of Egypt started in the seventh century B.C. to
circumnavigate Africa, and returned, it is said, at the end of three
years by the Red Sea. An expedition issuing from Carthage skirted the
coast of Africa to the Gulf of Guinea; the commander Hanno wrote an
account of the voyage which is still preserved.

=Commodities.=--To civilized peoples the Phoenicians sold the products
of their industry. In barbarous countries they went to search for what
they could not find in the Orient. On the coast of Greece they
gathered shell-fish from which they extracted a red tint, the purple;
cloths colored with purple were used among all the peoples of ancient
times for garments of kings and great lords.

From Spain and Sardinia they brought the silver which the inhabitants
took from the mines. Tin was necessary to make bronze, an alloy of
copper and tin, but the Orient did not furnish this, and so they
sought it even on the