that a stranger kept them company, or followed them in their track, they were sure to get rid of him, or deceive him if they could; and in this they went so far as to venture the loss of their ships, and even of their lives, so that they could but destroy or disappoint him; so jealous were they of foreigners, and so bent on keeping all to themselves. And to add to the dangers of the sea, and discourage other nations from trading, they practiced piracy, or pretended to be at war with such as they met when they thought themselves strongest.' This policy succeeded so far, that hardly a merchant ship was to be seen in the Mediterranean not manned by Ph[oe]nicians. From this extension of the Ph[oe]nician commerce throughout the Mediterranean resulted, by necessity, an extensive system of colonization. The distance, for instance, of Spain from Ph[oe]nicia, rendered all the greater by the ancient custom of always sailing close by the coast, made it necessary for the Ph[oe]nician traders to have intermediate ports, settlement, or factories, to which their vessels might resort, not to say that such settlements were required for the collection of the produce which was to be taken back to Ph[oe]nicia. Accordingly, in process of time, Ph[oe]nician colonies were established at all available points of the Mediterranean—on the coasts of Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain, and in the Balearic Islands; the rising maritime spirit of the Greeks excluding the Ph[oe]nicians from the Ægean and the coasts of Asia Minor. Among the most ancient of the colonies from Tyre were Carthage and Utica on the African coast, and Gades (Cadiz) in Spain; all of which were founded before the first of the Greek Olympiads (B. C. 884). From these afterwards arose smaller settlements, which diffused the Ph[oe]nician agency still more extensively among the uncivilized nations of Africa and western Europe. Gades in Spain, situated, according to the ancient mode of navigation, at a distance of seventy-five days' sail from Tyre and Sidon—a distance larger than that which now divides Liverpool from Bombay—was a colony of special importance; first, as commanding the inland Spanish trade, particularly valuable at that time, inasmuch as the gold and silver mines of Spain caused it to be regarded as the Mexico or Peru of the ancient world; and secondly, as forming a point from which the Ph[oe]nician commerce could be still farther extended along the extra-Mediterranean shores. From this point, we are told, the Ph[oe]nician ships extended their voyages southward for thirty days' sail along the coast of Africa, and northwards as far as Britain, where they took in tin from Cornwall, and even as far as the Baltic, where they collected amber. Upon what a scale of profit must these expeditions have been conducted, when, from Tyre to Cornwall, not a merchant ship besides those of the Ph[oe]nicians was to be seen! And who can tell what influence these Ph[oe]nician visits may have had on the then rude nations bordering the Atlantic?—or how far these ante-historic Ph[oe]nician impulses may have stimulated the subsequent career of these nations? Like the visit of an English merchantman now to a South Sea Island, so must have been the visit of a Ph[oe]nician trading vessel 3000 years ago to the Britons of Cornwall.
As might be expected, this great merchant people were among the most cultured of antiquity, and especially skilled in all the arts of luxurious living. The 27th chapter of the book of Ezekiel presents a most striking picture of the pride and magnificence of the Tyrians, and embodies many minute particulars relative to Ph[oe]nician customs and mode of life. Indeed it has
