Page:George McCall Theal, Ethnography and condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505 (2nd ed, 1919).djvu/171

Rh of which every particle of the material must have been conveyed overland from the Mediterranean shore, and then they sailed southward to carry on commerce on a very large scale. Of this enterprise the following account is given in the ninth and tenth chapters of the first book of Kings:

“And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to king Solomon.”

“And the navy also of Hiram, that brought gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir great plenty of almug trees, and precious stones.”

“Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred three score and six talents of gold, (equal to £3,646,350), beside that he had of the merchantmen, and of the traffic of the spice merchants, and of all the kings of Arabia, and of the governors of the country.”

“For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.”

Those Phœnicians must have known a great deal about Eastern Africa and its people, but they left absolutely nothing on record, and it is only from their brief connection with the kingdom of Israel that the information given in the sacred writings is obtained. They kept all their geographical knowledge carefully to themselves, for they did not wish to bring commercial rivalry into existence. And so the ships of Tharshish, which may be taken to mean the largest and best equipped vessels for long voyages then known, went up and down the coast ploughing the waters of the Indian sea, perhaps keeping the shore always in sight, or perhaps, like the South Arabian vessels, making direct courses from point to point with the sun and the stars for their guide, while the wisest men in Europe were ignorant of