Page:George McCall Theal, Ethnography and condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505 (2nd ed, 1919).djvu/170

146 collected, and timber—an article of necessity to the Arabians, which their own country did not furnish—to be cut, and possibly gold to be gathered in the territory that now bears the name Rhodesia. There is no record of any kind in existence, however, from which information can be obtained concerning the inhabitants of Eastern Africa in those far-off times, and mere conjecture is valueless.

About the year 992 before Christ an event of importance took place. Solomon, ruler of Israel, had extended his kingdom southward, was in possession of Idumea and the isthmus of Suez, and had established a naval station at Ezion-geber on the gulf of Akaba at the head of the Red sea. He must have known of the existence of an extensive traffic on the shores of what we term the Indian ocean, and have resolved to secure a share of it, or he would not have done this. But his subjects were unused to the sea, and so he had recourse to his ally, Hiram, king of the great commercial city of Tyre, then the wealthiest community in the known world, whose riches were gained by water traffic with many distant peoples.

The Phœnicians may have kept up an uninterrupted trade on the Indian ocean from the time when their ancestors removed from its shore to that of the Mediterranean, though it would appear that in the tenth century before Christ they purchased most, if not all, of the eastern produce that they needed from Sabean merchants, conveyed it in vessels up the Red sea, and then transported it on camels to Tyre. But in whatever manner they acquired their knowledge, some of the subjects of Hiram certainly were acquainted with the sea to the south, and they went as officers just as they would have done in a fleet entirely their own, while sailors were engaged wherever fishermen could be found or recruits could be hired or purchased. This was the manner in which the commerce of Tyre was carried on, just as in modern times the army of the Netherlands East India Company consisted of Dutch officers and foreign soldiers.

So with the aid of Hiram, who had a large share of the profit and who was unable to carry on the trade alone on account of Solomon's possession of Idumea, fleets were built at Ezion-geber,