A WONDERER UNDER SEA 1/ 



galley slaves along African coasts, six hundred years before 

 Christ, was leading the way for the stately sails of the 

 Challenger, as surely as the first caveman to strike a 

 spark from flint was kindling the fire that was destined 

 to result in electric light, selenium cells, and television. 



Long before the Greeks had advanced beyond barbar- 

 ism, before their earliest records, the Phoenicians were 

 known as a nation of navigators, and had probably ex- 

 plored the Mediterranean coasts with a fair degree of thor- 

 oughness. They were the notably sea-faring folk of those 

 times and voyaged not only for themselves but were often 

 employed to man the vessels of such land-loving people as 

 the Egyptians, and they piloted the fleets of Solomon, 

 which "returned every three years, bringing gold and 

 silver, ivory, apes and peacocks." The Mediterranean was 

 naturally the first field for their exploration, and little 

 by little they pushed on, trading with Egypt, reaching 

 Syrtis, establishing colonies, until at last they passed the 

 Pillars of Hercules and realized the existence of the great 

 External Ocean. They braved its unknown dangers and 

 crept on, along the western coast of Africa, discovering 

 the Canaries, working northward to the Scilly Isles and 

 Cornwall. In an easterly direction they rounded Arabia 

 into the Persian Gulf and touched here and there on East 

 African shores. 



The Periplus of Necho is one of the first great adven- 

 tures of which we have any record, and that but scanty. 

 Herodotus relates that Necho II, Pharaoh about 600 B.C., 



