1 C 2Q TRANSFER OF THE 



CHAP. III. 



must have been well executed, and in such circum- 

 stances much more of corn, wine, and oil must 

 have been produced than the inhabitants could 

 consume. Though in their progress from Egypt, 

 and at their first setljement in Palestine, they 

 had been a warlike and even an exterminating 

 people, yet they had become at the accession of 

 Solomon a settled nation, and formed those 

 social ties with the surrounding kingdoms which 

 led both to commercial intercourse and conjugal 

 unions. The king himself married a daughter 

 of an Egyptian monarch, and formed alliances 

 of a commercial nature with Tyre and the other 

 neighbouring states of Phoenicia. 



The states of Phoenicia were then at their 

 highest point of prosperity. They were the 

 great manufacturers, navigators, and traders of 

 the ancient world. The luxuries they fabricated 

 of every kind were disseminated by their own 

 vessels to every part of the known world, and 

 brought back to their storehouses the metallic 

 and other productions of the several nations with 

 whom they traded. Their colonies in Spain, in 

 Africa, and in the islands of the Mediterranean 

 made returns of much silver, some gold, and 

 considerable numbers of slaves. Their trade with 

 Egypt, Arabia, and India brought to them much 

 gold, together with precious stones, spices, in- 

 cense, ivory, and other valuable products. In 

 that period the situation of Tyre which is cle- 



