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 fruitful and civilized regions of the then known world, prepared it, naturally, to be the principal scene of such an intercourse.

It should also be remembered that the Mediterranean possesses the singular advantages of a very considerable number of excellent harbours and roadsteads, with numerous islands, projecting promontories, and deep bays, affording excellent shelter for small undecked craft; and, more than this, that the two nations who were, in remote ages, the most eminent among its merchant navigators, the Tyrians and Carthaginians, were, as a rule, peaceful traders, and slow to take up arms except in self-defence. The Indian Ocean, within prescribed limits, and the Persian and Arabian Gulfs, afforded somewhat similar facilities, from the moderate distance between the opposite shores, and from the periodical winds, which change their direction twice in the year—a fact which could hardly fail to have been early recognised, though the reason of this change may have remained long unsuspected. Bearing, therefore, these physical facts and conditions in mind, it is not unreasonable to believe that long and distant voyages were accomplished with no greater nautical science than has been generally conceded to the most ancient mariners.

We find, too, as might be supposed, that the nations who held in their hands the means of conducting the largest amount of maritime commerce were the most prosperous as well as the most powerful. The small state of Phœnicia, of which, in its most prosperous days, Tyre was the capital, though insignificant in territory and population,