70 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA 
capital, Sidon, founded about B. C. 2200, became preéminently great and 
illustrious for the wonderful energy of its people, but it is presumed that com- 
merce was received by the Phcenicians from the Babylonians, and in turn 
found its way there from Indian countries farther East, along the Asiatic 
shore and Malayan archipelagoes. 
That Persian poem, the book of Job, generally admitted to be the oldest 
book in the Hebrew bible, shows that sciences were then cultivated, ship- 
building, useful and ornamental arts, were in an advanced state, and com- 
merce was vigorously prosecuted. Vessels are spoken of as distinguished for 
their speed, bringing gold from Ophir, and topazes from Ethiopia. 
B. C. 1728, the Arabians conducted an extensive and profitable trade be- 
tween Egypt and India, importing largely of spices, gold and silver; and it is 
recorded, B. C. 1556, that vessels were propelled by fifty oars. This custom 
continued, and in later history we find their size increased, and they were fur- 
nished with three, and at times five, tires of oars. 
The early history of Greece shows their vessels were Pheenician built, 
rowed by oars—long, slender, open boats, lightly constructed, capable of 
being transported upon shoulders, the smallest carrying 50 men, the largest 
120—and although they had masts and square sails, they depended mainly 
upon their oars. Seventy geographical miles was considered a day’s work 
for a vessel with oars, and the sailors were paid four oboli, or about eight 
cents a day. 
Much of the early Greek mythology came originally from India. There is 
scarcely anything the Greeks ever learned from the far Orient, the invention 
of which they have not ascribed to their own countrymen. Many of our best 
scholars, aided by recent discoveries and researches, are now persuaded that 
the use of letters was known to the Greeks before Cadmus came from Phe- 
nicia, B. C. 1556. The earliest letters known in Greece were more probably 
those which Plato calls Hypoborean (i. e. northern), and describes as different 
from letters of his own age. According to Diodorus Siculus, Orpheus used 
Pelasgic letters, which were older than the Greek. 
Strabo says: the invention of rafts, the very first rude essays in navigation, 
was ascribed to Erythras, a king of some part of the coast of the Persian Gulf. 
Theophrastus is, I believe, the oldest author who alludes to cinnamon and 
other spices and aromatics, knowing them to be the produce of India. In- 
tercourse between India and Arabia was easy by availivg of the monsoons, 
whose periodical regularity were observed and taken advantage of, to bring 
cargoes of spices many ages before the time of Hippalus, whom the Egyptian 
Greeks supposed to be their first discoverer. The Southern Arabs traded to 
more remote parts of India than the Persians or Assyrians, and from the 
earliest ages enjoyed most generally the entire monopoly of the trade be- 
tween far India and the western world. It was not until Europeans found 
an ocean route to India via the Cape of Good Hope, that the ancient system 
of their most important commerce was totally overturned. 
This commercial history is quoted as showing how common and easy was 
the migration of colonies by sea in remote ages, and how great an ascendency 
the possession of shipping and maritime power gave to some of the pre-his- 
toric races. In very early times the Phenician merchants were the greatest 
