214 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



civilizations which had become effete and utterly vile, 

 and substituting for the emasculated Roman rule their 

 own savage virility. 



But still the sea called them, and leaving the 

 luxurious life of the land behind them, they pressed 

 on to the eastward, overrunning the waters of the 

 Mediterranean until they had visited all those 

 countries where the navigation of the Middle Sea had 

 its origin. It cannot be supposed that in so doing 

 they did not occasionally find traces of the nautical 

 prowess of their predecessors, and even some of their 

 degenerate descendants feebly endeavouring to main- 

 tain an intermittent traffic. Such trembling mariners 

 met with the usual fate at their hands. All strangers 

 were enemies, and the only mercy that any enemies 

 could hope for at the hands of those fierce corsairs 

 was speedy death. The granting of life was always 

 on such terms as made death a boon to be craved for 

 with intensest desire, but it was seldom granted unless 

 the supplicant were useless either for toil or sport. 



So the uncounted years rolled on until, inoculated 

 with the sea-roving instinct by those hardy, ruthless 

 sea-warriors, the coast-dwellers on the shores they had 

 visited began almost simultaneously to seek their 

 fortunes on the seas. Unhappily, the day of peaceful 

 trading had gone with the Phoenicians, and was not 

 to return until quite modern times ; no man dare 

 hope to go unmolested upon his lawful occasions at 

 sea ; every sail sighted was a possible and most pro- 

 bable enemy, and only the ship that was well manned 

 and well armed might hope to escape, not unmolested, 

 but uncaptured or undestroyed. Yet the trading in- 

 stinct, once having been aroused, and the reports of 



