Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/65

 wool;" and from "Arabia and all the princes of Kedar," lambs and rams and goats. Lastly, to those "of Persia, and of Lud, and of Phut," she was indebted for her mercenaries, for they "were in thine army, thy men of war: they hanged the shield and helmet in thee; they set forth thy comeliness. The men of Arvad with thine army were upon thy walls round about, and the Gammadims were in thy towers: they hanged their shields upon thy walls round about; they have made thy beauty perfect."

The probability is that most of the Tyrian commerce with the East was carried on by the aid of caravans passing through Arabia Felix to Petra, and thence to the western seaports of Gaza, Askalon, and Ashdod. Many of the more precious articles were obtainable direct from Arabia; spices, of which cinnamon and cassia (the produce of the same plant, Laurus cassia), were of great importance, were best procured thence up to the discovery of Ceylon; while some, like the "bright iron" and the calamus (Calamus aromaticus) point to India itself for their origin. The "bright iron," for which Diodorus states that the Arabians exchanged equal weights of gold, is perhaps the famous Wootz steel. Asshur and Chilmad, who were "thy merchants in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords, and made of cedar," point to articles of commerce for which, from a very early period, Babylon and Nineveh were