DISCOVERIES OF THE PH(NICIANS. 445 
The progress of the great mariners of old in the Indian Ocean 
was no less remarkable than the extension of their Atlantic 
discoveries. Far beyond Bab-el-Mandeb their fleets sailed to 
Ophir or Supara, and returned with rich cargoes of gold, silver, 
sandal-wood, jewels, ivory, apes, and peacocks, to the ports of 
Elath and Ezion-Geber at the head of the Red Sea. These 
costly productions of the south were then transported across the 
Isthmus of Suez to Rhinocolura, the nearest port on the Medi- 
terranean, and thence to Tyre, which ultimately distributed 
them over the whole of the known world. 
The true position of Ophir is an enigma which no learned 
(Edipus will ever solve. While some authorities place it on the 
east coast of Africa, others fix its situation somewhere on the 
west coast of the Indian peninsula; and Humboldt is even of 
opinion that the name had only a general signification, and that 
a voyage to Ophir meant nothing more than a commercial ex- 
pedition to any part of the Indian Ocean, just as at present we 
speak of a voyage to the Levant or the West Indies. 
But whatever Ophir may have been, it is certain that the 
Pheenicians carried on a considerable trade with the lands and 
nations beyond the Gates of the Red Sea. Their trade in the 
direction of the Persian Gulf was no less extensive. Through 
the Syrian desert, where Palmyra, their chief station or em- 
porium, proudly rose above the surrounding sands, their caravans 
slowly wandered to the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, to 
provide Nineveh and Babylon with the costly merchandise of 
Sidon and Tyre. Following the course of the great Mesopo- 
tamian streams, they reached the shores of the Persian Gulf, 
where they owned the ports of Tylos and Aradus and the rich 
pearl islands of Bahrein, and, having loaded their empty camels 
with the produce of Iran and Arabia, returned by the same way to 
the shores of the Mediterranean. How far their ships may have 
ventured beyond the mouth of the Persian Gulf is unknown, 
but the researches of the learned orientalists, Gesenius, Benfey, 
and Lassen, render it extremely probable, that, taking advantage 
of the regularly changing monsoons, they sailed through the 
Straits of Ormus to the coast of Malabar. 
The progress of the Phcenician race in the technical arts, as 
well as in the astronomical and mathematical sciences so highly 
important for the improvement of their navigation, was no less 
remarkable for the age in which they lived, than the vast 
