By the Rev. J. L. Ross. 173 
which they now inhabit, they undertook long voyages by sea, and carried 
the merchandize of Egypt and Tyre to many countries, and among 
others, to Argos, a city which surpassed all others at that time in 
Greece. They add, that the Phoenicians being arrived, set about 
selling their goods. Five or six days after their arrival, the wind 
being low, a great many women, and among them the king’s 
daughter, whose name was Io, the daughter of Inachus, a name 
also given to the Greeks, went down to the shore to purchase such 
things as were agreeable to their taste, near the stern of the ships; 
the Pheenicians rushed up and seized them, and forced the princess 
and some others on board the vessels, and having made sail pro- 
ceeded to Egypt.” 
The Pheenicians are supposed by other authors to have emigrated 
from the Persian gulph or from that direction, and Strabo seems 
to have adopted this view: referring to the Sidonians, he says, “it 
is not known whether we should understand by the Sidonians those 
who inhabit the Gulph of Persia, or those of our neighbours, who 
are acolony.” Dionysius the Periegete, is of the same opinion as 
Herodotus; “The Syrians,” he says, “who live near the sea, and 
are called Pheenicians, are descended from the Erythraans: they 
were the first who traversed the seas in ships.” Hence, Sir W. 
Betham concludes that “the Phcenicians were not Canaanites, ex- 
cept by residence, that is, they were not descendants of Canaan: 
and if they came from the Persian Gulph, they were a colony of 
Chaldeans; therefore the similarity of their anguage, religion, and 
customs to the Indians, who borrowed so much from that people, 
is not so very wonderful.” 
In the reign of Pharaoh-Necho, King of Egypt (who reigned 
about 600 years before Christ) we learn from Herodotus," that the 
Phenicians were directed by that monarch to “circumnavigate 
Africa, and return by the Pillars of Hercules, in the northern seas, 
and so to return to Egypt.” Accordingly Herodotus relates that 
“the Phoenicians embarked in the Erythriean (or Red) Sea, sailed into 
the southern ocean, and when autumn was come, they went ashore, 
in that part of the coast of Africa which they had reached, and 
' Melpomene, ch. 42. 
