These wonderful Phoenicians touch our interest to the very quick; for
they were not only the seamen hired by "Solomon in all his glory" but
they were also the founders of Carthage and the first oversea traders
with the Atlantic coasts of France and the British Isles. Their story
thus goes home to all who love the sea, the Bible, and Canada's two
Mother Lands. They had shipping on the Red Sea as well as on the
Mediterranean; and it was their Red Sea merchant vessels that coasted
Arabia and East Africa in the time of Solomon (1016-976 B.C.). They
also went round to Persia and probably to India. About 600 B.C. they
are said to have coasted round the whole of Africa, starting from the
Red Sea and coming back by Gibraltar. This took them more than two
years, as they used to sow wheat and wait on shore till the crop was
ripe. Long before this they had passed Gibraltar and settled the
colony of Tarshish, where they found silver in such abundance that "it
was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon." We do not know
whether it was "the ships of Tarshish and of the Isles" that first felt
the way north to France and England.
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